Theatre Review: "Motherhood Out Loud" -- by Laura Houston

In my role as a mother, there are at once overwhelming waves of joy mixed with paralyzing fear. Then it’s all topped off with an ambiguous sense of loss. I am besieged with emotions, chores, and, yes, even loneliness if I allow myself to be still long enough. And as with all things in life that move me in this way, I seek meaning in the cracks.

So on a cold, rainy October night in New York City, I headed out to see “Motherhood Out Loud” with my friend Sara who is of “advanced maternal age” and is also enduring her own maternal rollercoaster ride.

The one thing I must first say about the play is that the acting was excellent. Only four actors (Mary Bacon, Saidah Arrika Ekulona, Randy Graff, and James Lecesne) appeared on stage during the 90-minute show, but more than 20 characters paraded in front of us, telling their stories of triumph and defeat while pledging their solidarity to the state of motherhood. In front of our eyes, they aged and regressed. I laughed out loud often, and I made a tearful sniff twice.
 Some of the stories stand out more than others. All of them touched on a truth at some level. The most humorous and most relatable sketch for me was one of a mother (played delightfully by Bacon) on the playground with her son, trying to smoke a cigarette and get a grip on how much her life has changed — how much she misses her old life; how she would never in a million years go back to it. She is joined by two other up-tight mothers who plan a playdate in front of her. She tries to participate in the conversation. She fails. She feels awkward and out of place. The acting was so good it made me feel uncomfortable because I have been in that very same spot on the park bench in between those two ladies who I don’t want to be friends with any more than she does, but I often find my need to be a part of something stronger than my introverted sense of disgust with mothers like that.

 Bacon's character continues the pursuit of saving grace when she acknowledges she would sacrifice any and all for her child, so she doesn’t light the cigarette, she throws her ugly diaper bag over her shoulder, and heads home to “bake some fucking cookies.”

Another speech that blew me away was delivered by the middle-aged mother (played passionately by Ekulona) of a soldier who explains the horror she endures now that her son has gone off to war. She eloquently relates the frantic drone in her ears that comes from constantly listening for a knock on the door, which will be followed by the news no mother can bear to hear. This buzz prevents her from ever being fully present at work, in conversations, in movies, and when she sleeps. Parts of her monologue left me stunned as she described the pain and the fear that comes with the possibility of losing her son, and the sacrifices she was willing to make to ensure he lived. It makes you rethink who the real soldier is.

If you enjoy watching actor's transform before your eyes with nothing more than a hooded sweatshirt, an oversized scarf, or a pair of glasses, you won't be dissapointed. Randy Graff goes from young to old and young again as she passes through her characters. She doesn't miss a nuance, and she is unforgettable as a wise, sassy, great grandmother. James Lecesne plays a gay father, and he educates the audience on how to get pregnant, how to maintain a relationship with a surrogate while pregnant, and how family becomes family in an easy, natural, unexpected manner. In a later sketch, he transforms into a divorcee who moves in with his mother and is now taking care of her instead of the other way around. He'll break your heart.

The play takes us from the first steps of motherhood all the way to letting go. Some of the jokes were a little predictable, and some of the material hit too close to home to rise above the minutia of motherhood. And both Sara and I found there was one thing missing: The impact of motherhood on the marriage. I don’t know a woman who has not become crazy in one way or another after becoming a mother. I don’t know a woman who did not become unreasonably irritated with her partner on a daily basis while she adjusted. I don’t know of a relationship that didn’t drag on the ground and become a little more frayed by the addition of a child. Sara and I agreed that the greatest change motherhood placed upon us wasn’t just physical and mental. All of our relationships changed. Some for the better. Some for the worst. We would have enjoyed seeing how other marriages and relationships survive motherhood, but that could very well be another play in itself.

After the show, Sara and I went for a late dinner, and we discussed the issues the play brought up for us. How hard it is to be a mother, and yet how naturally it comes to us. How it’s the most painful thing anyone could ever do, yet so many of us choose to do it on a daily basis. We sat in a café talking for hours, which is the sign that the play hit its mark. And when the rain finally let up, we walked out onto the streets and practically ran home to where our husbands and sons lay breathing softly in their beds. Waiting just for us. And we were happier women for it.

"Motherhood Out Loud" covers 90 years of mothering in 90 minutes. It happens fast. The play. And motherhood. Gather some other moms. Get a sitter. Go. See. It.

Directed by Lisa Peterson. Conceived by Susan R. Rose and Joan Stein, and written by Leslie Ayvazian, David Cale, Jessica Goldberg, Beth Henley, Lameece Issaq, Claire LaZebnik, Lisa Loomer, Michele Lowe, Marco Pennette, Theresa Rebeck, Luanne Rice, Annie Weisman and Cheryl L. West.

The show runs from October 4^th through October 29^th with eight shows a week at the 59E59 Theatres. Tickets are available at primarystages.org or call 212-840-9705. For a special Motherhood Later Than Sooner discount, use the code MOM9161.  Visit MotherhoodOutLoud.com, for more about the show, and submit your AHA Motherhood Moment to be featured on their site...and see what other moms are sharing.

Mother Pants -- by Laura Houston

Motherhood didn’t always fit me. It often felt too tight. Too restrictive. Awkward. Impossible to zip up.

But this week my pants fit. After moving 3,000 miles away from the home I loved, adjusting to a big, new city, making new friends, missing old ones, and trying to find a place where I sort of fit in, I am finally hitting my stride as a mom.

I had a great week.

Here are a few random thoughts and things that happened:

I learned that my sons are not being rude at the dinner table when they say, “F@#k peas.” They’re actually being polite, asking for a “fork please.”

Most Saturday evenings we meet other parents at the playground across from a luxury high rise. This Saturday I said to one of the dads, “Whenever I see those people all dressed up and getting into a taxi to go see some show or eat at a fabulous restaurant, I sometimes wish I could do that instead.”

And he said, “Every time I stepped out of that building all dressed up and headed somewhere fabulous, and I saw parents playing with their children in this playground, I wished I could do this instead.”

Touché.

I have a pair of mimics. Wyatt and Lyle regularly play with another pair of twins who hail from London. Now they no longer call me Momma. Instead I am now “Mummy” complete with the accent.

I still can’t get Lyle to sleep through the night, but I can calmly get him into bed at 8:00pm. He won’t necessarily go to sleep right away. No. In fact, he cries and whines for the first half hour, but when he finally agrees to sleep, he stays that way for almost six hours. A record!

The boys can count to 12. We live on the 12^th floor, and we always count going up. And going down. Now they do it without me.

They can dance and actually hit the beats.

Instead of throwing the blocks, we are finally starting to build stuff with them.

I gave Lyle a timeout and a lecture along with it, and it actually changed his behavior.

Most nights when Dave comes home I ask him if he wants a glass of wine or a beer, but I didn’t realize how much of a habit it was until Wyatt greeted the babysitter with the line: “Do you want a glass of wine?”

It has been fun.

What changed? Well, sure, the boys are getting older. But I can also credit changes I made. I started exercising again. I had to. I threw out two discs in my back, and I am finally out of pain for the first time in two years. Also, I am working part-time, and that makes my brain work a little better. And there are things to look forward to: swim classes, father's day, vacation, summer in Central Park, not cooking every night because it's too hot, and reading a really good novel.

It feels like I am finally returning to me. And even if my pants don’t fit me like they used to…in that they are way too loose in some places and too tight in others….well….that’s OK. They still pull on easily, and they’re comfortable. Finally. My mother pants are comfortable.

Quitting being a Quitter by Laura Houston

When it comes to being a mother, your first and natural source of inspiration, wisdom, and technique comes from your own mother. For me, this is a terrifying realization. My mother, who wanted to be a good mother more than anything else in the world, doesn’t measure up to what most mental health professionals would define as a good mother. She’s has the emotional maturity of an eight-year old. This is not an exaggeration, and it is not said to be mean spirited. This is the age my mother lost her mother. And so her maternal learning stopped. So did her emotional growth.

I get this. And I have great compassion for my mother in this regard. I feel sorry for her. She still talks about the pain to this day. Seventy years later. I cannot imagine how hard it was for her, and I wish it could have been different for her. And I wish she would have sought counseling in order to grow and move forward from this tragedy.

But as an adult, I have to set those emotions aside and take a look at what hand I was dealt, and then make a decision on how to best play it. My mother accidentally taught her children to embrace mediocrity. Although she wanted us to make straight As in school and be top athletes so she had bragging rights to the neighbors, she was more than willing to let us quit, fail, stop, halt, or regress whenever we wanted.

Why?

Because she wanted us to love her so badly that she would not enforce anything on us that might later cause resentment or alienation.

And you can guess what happened. I resent her. Yes. I do. And I moved 2,000 miles away to achieve the safety of estrangement from her.

I learned from my mother’s parenting style that follow through was unimportant. Therefore, I am a quitter. I have very little will power, almost no discipline, and it takes all of my effort to conger up motivation to do things that lean towards excellence.

I brought this conduct with me from childhood, and I take full responsibility for my inability to un-do the behavior. Yet. I am working on it.

So this week I hit a wall. I hit a wall in parenting. And I fell into the old, comfortable patterns of quitterhood. I find myself letting the boys watch TV way more than they should. Even worse, I am not getting on the floor with them like I used to. Once I heard them count to ten and sing their ABCs, I quit working with them every day. I stopped the reinforcement. The attention. The fun.

It’s like I hit a moniker and call it good. I did this with my dog when I trained him. Together we went through six months of obedience and then some agility. He was a fine, well behaved, attentive dog anyone could be proud of. And then I quit working with him because I figured we were done. And, yes, he started slipping. And, no, I didn’t get it or move to stop it.

I did this with my fitness and health, too. I ran a half marathon. Two of them. Never have I felt so good…so high for so many days. And then I quit running.

Sometimes it seems as if in my life I get out my checklist and start checking away. I gather the freshest, finest, smartest ingredients and then never bother to make the meal. In the back of my head I say to myself that this is good enough. Mediocre is just fine. Average is OK.

But this sort of philosophy and behavior do NOT belong in parenting. Take a look at my dog. He knows what to do and how to behave, and he chooses not to because he knows I have no follow through. He knows I am lazy. He knows my intent does not manifest itself into action.

This is the part in my maternal epiphany where I go screaming out of the apartment in search of a girlfriend. Another parent. Someone to talk to. Or if I am really, really, really lucky my friend Melissa perchance comes over and breathes new light into the darkness of my tired, mothering heart. She makes my boys laugh the way I used to. Yeah. Um. That kind of hurts.

But I need a good, swift kick in the ass sometimes. And I am happy to do it myself.

So parenting takes me on and gives me another round of humility. I know what the lesson is. Now it is time for me to quit being a quitter. So I am going to close my laptop, get out the color books and number books and alphabet toys and get on the floor with my boys. I am going to tickle them. I will read them the story about Nigel the sheep for the 100^th time, and I will do it with vim and vigor.

Tomorrow, I’ll get up and do it again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Until they are 18-years old. Yes. No. I won’t quit on them. I won’t. I can’t. I won’t.

Potty Training: Part II - by Cara Potapshyn Meyers

I should have known better. I should have listened more attentively. I am the kind of mother who pays attention to her child’s burgeoning milestones. But somehow, I missed the cues on this one.

When my son was 11 months old, he wanted to “walk” down the stairs face forward. I let him. I held on to his hands as he dragged one foot after the other down the flight of stairs. And then he would crawl to the top and we would start all over again. Everyone fought me, allowing my 11 month old, who wasn’t even walking yet, walk down the stairs face forward. “Teach him to crawl down backwards,” I heard. “You’re making a big mistake letting him do that,” was another comment (I defer to our Blogger, Laura Houston’s blog from last week here). Still, I held my head up high and said plainly, “He sees all of us walking down the stairs face forward, he is going to learn to do it eventually anyway, so why not teach him the proper way now and allow him to practice while supervised?” Still, I got horrified looks and comments.

At age 2, my son wanted to learn to cut using real, adult scissors. Not the blunt tip, children’s type. Real, sharp, adult scissors. He was relentless. We had them locked in a top drawer in our kitchen and my son would hang on the drawer, cry and tantrum, aching to use those scissors himself. One day, I couldn’t take it any more. I thought, “You want to learn to cut using real scissors, go ahead, let’s cut.” We sat on the floor for almost an hour with my son perfecting the cutting  of tape off a spool. Once all of the tape was used up, I explained that there was no more, but when I was able to get more, we would practice again. My son has never had a scissor injury, and every nursery school teacher had commented that they never saw a child my son’s age cut paper for crafts so well.

By age 3, my son was done with the toddler climbing apparatus at the park. He was ready to master the apparatus for ages 5 and up. I let him go. Again, I had horrified looks from parents. One mother could see my son’s Pull-Up sticking out above his pants and actually said, “Children who still wear diapers should not be playing on this equipment!” I asked her to show me where that “rule” was written anywhere in the park facility. She turned her back on me. My son mastered the “older children” apparatus. And when he was unsure of himself, he always knew to ask me to help him off. But in general, I let him test his wings to his heart’s content. And to this day, other than bruises, he has never injured himself doing any of the things he knew he was capable of doing. He even jumped off our local pool diving board at age 3 with my husband assisting him to the side of the pool. Today, at age 7, he does aerial flips off that same diving board and swims to the side himself. The lifeguards cringe. I stand next to them and reassure them that my son knows exactly what he is doing.

Finally, when it came to potty training between 2 - 3 years old, my son resisted with a vengeance. After getting into so many exhausting battles, I gave up and thought, “Fine.You want to take Pull-Ups in your backpack to Kindergarten and change them yourself, be my guest.” I literally gave up. My son was not ready to make this monumental change yet. I backed off and went my merry way.

One day, my son’s nursery school teacher pulled me aside on a Friday afternoon, when I went to pick my son up from nursery school. She said that he told her that he wanted to wear the Spider man underwear like the other boys. He was a little more than 3  and 1/2 at the time. So his teacher and I devised a plan that I would take him to buy Spider man underwear over the weekend, make a huge deal about wearing the underwear to school on Monday instead of Pull-Ups, and I would pack several changes of clothes and shoes should he have accidents during the day.

My son had one accident that first day, and never had another after that. He knew he was ready. He knew it was time to “graduate” to “big boy underwear.” By letting him take the lead, he was hugely successful! And it was all because I let him determine when he thought the time was right!

So, I was rather taken aback when my son, who has been wearing Huggies Goodnights to bed since he was 4, all of a sudden said to me that he didn’t want to wear them anymore. They were always fully saturated every morning. And my son is a very sound sleeper. There is no waking him in the middle of the night to take him to the bathroom. But I wanted to respect my son’s request even though the “evidence” proved otherwise.

I put a water absorbing liner on top of his sheet and explained that we would use it “just in case” of an accident. We also restricted his fluid intake 2 hours before he went to sleep. He also had to empty his bladder when we saw he was getting sleepy. And we sent him off to bed that first night with me thinking, “This is not going to work. He’s too sound a sleeper.”

My son did have an “accident” that first night. However he went 2 weeks straight after that night not wetting his bed at all!! He knew he could do it! He knew he was capable! Yet, to my surprise, after all of these years, I failed to see the cues and be more in touch with my son and his own understanding of meeting his own needs and milestones!

This past weekend marked 2 straight weeks of no accidents! I gave my son a “Medal” of accomplishment and I asked him to help me take the liner off the top of his bed! He was ecstatic! He graduated to “Big Boy” status!! Yet, unlike the times I knew he could accomplish certain risky things, this time I wasn’t so certain that my son would be as successful in this situation. But I did honor his request to try. And now I am as unsure as to who is more proud, my son or me!

I’ve always been highly in tune with my son. But I think that, of late, my own life events and personal issues have overridden being more in touch with my son and his emerging needs and fulfillments as he grows. I never want to lose that innate understanding of my son. And I always want us to have strong bonds through communication and nonverbal actions.

This was a huge wake-up call for me. One that I am taking quite seriously.

We started putting a Lego set together over the weekend but never finished it. I think tonight, it will be successfully completed!

No Sex In The City -- Laura Houston

Babies are their own form of birth control. They ruin sex. They don’t kill the desire. Just the act. Sure. Thanks to shifting hormones, shock, awe, and exhaustion, the sex drive is gone for a few months after birth, but fortunately it comes right back at the most unexpected times – usually in the middle of the day when the babies are playing quietly or napping and my husband is at work entrenched in a meeting. The floods of desire rarely come at a convenient time and place for me. And I am the sort of woman who pays close attention to sex, the frequency, the quality, and the small little nuances in between. It’s an important element to me in my marriage.

Following the advice of a friend who does not have twins but who does have a full-time nanny, I dedicated Tuesday night as “romance night.” I announced this to my husband who stopped reading his Facebook newsfeed and said, “Why? What did you do?” I explained to him that we really needed to set aside some time for intimacy. He looked around at the mess of toys in the living room, the dishes in the sink, and the pile of laundry under the waiting diligently by the washing machine and said “OK,” which every woman knows really means, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

So Tuesday rolled around and I got ready. I did yoga for an hour so I’d feel lithe and sexy, and I threw in 50 sit-ups, which I read is supposed to help orgasms. I put the boys down for an extra long nap and tackled the daunting task of hair removal, gave myself a pedicure, styled my hair, and put on makeup all the way down to mascara. I spent the afternoon cleaning the house, doing laundry, and preparing a nice meal. I chilled wine, sprayed the sheets with rose scented linen spray, and took the boys to the park for a good romp on their favorite jungle gym to make sure they were worn out. Dave came home at 6:30, and by then my makeup had worn off, my hair was in a ponytail, and my legs were covered in red bumps. And you guessed it – the only one ready for an early bedtime was me.

I needed to rethink my plan.

I did a google search. I read the mommy boards. I bought an issue of “Oprah” – the one where Dr. Phil discussed sex and intimacy in marriage. I came back to Dave with a new plan. “We need to be spontaneous,” I told him. He stopped editing his PowerPoint presentation and said, “OK.” So I set about to make our household good and ready for spontaneity, and if I had not been a sleep deprived mother, I would have seen the futility in this act. I spent a month trying to open up our lives to “spur-of-the-moment” romance, but what I found was that in those times I really needed to get something done or take a break myself.

Finally my good and patient husband said, “Honey, why don’t you just take it easy? We’ll let it happen when it happens. The fact that it’s important to you is enough for me.” I stopped reading an article about making organic baby food.

“Really?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I just said that to make you feel better.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, thanks for lying to me.”

He picked up my hand and squeezed it.

“I’m not giving up on it yet,” I told him.

“I think you’ll do better if you just relax,” he said.

“When have you ever known me to relax?” I said.

He shrugged.

So I tried meditating to help me find my calm and happy place. This was even a bigger joke than planning spontaneity. I changed from my yoga pants into a pair of ratty jeans and sat down with a glass of wine and had a good think.

There are a few mood kills for mothers, the obvious one being a crying baby, and I had tried in the past to make sure the boys were freshly diapered, fed, comfortable, and occupied with a nap or with their favorite toys. However, they could always sense some thing was going on and they would cry or scream at the top of their lungs until I went into check on them. Then they would plop back down for a nap until I went back to our bedroom and tried to get busy again.

It occurred to me that I could not consistently prevent my boys from disrupting sex in spite of my best efforts. But I could control how I reacted. And as every happy mother knows, the best way not to react is not to know.

So this Tuesday night when the husband comes home the house will be somewhat clean, dinner will be take out, the boys will be fed and possibly bathed, and I am going to have an aphrodisiac more powerful than the lingerie I’ll be wearing under my dress: noise canceling head phones.

Confessional -- by Laura Houston

We enter into parenthood with a skewed presumption: we are going to be perfect parents. We read the books. We take the classes. We troll the Internet looking for information that guarantees the joy and success of parenthood will not be lost on us. The picture perfect is thus: we’ll be rolling on the clean floor laughing with our babbling, adorable, freshly powdered baby, and we won’t get Cheerios stuck in our hair or sour milk on our pants because by golly we have it together.

What were we thinking?

So here it has been one year, two months, one week and a couple of days, and I’ve learned a thing or two about parental reality. It’s time to do the motherhood confessional, but only on one condition: no judgment from you. Because chances are, you did some of these things, too. Or your mother did. Or the model-perfect mom you envy on the playground did, and she’s just too stuck-up to confess. And keep in mind we’re all still supermoms no matter our faults.

Here it goes — my failings as a parent over the last year:

1. The ten-second rule is alive and well at my house during mealtime. In fact, if the floor is reasonably clean, I stretch it to the 120-second rule.
2. I lie to other parents who are expecting twins. I tell them you just do everything at the same time. Knock it out all at once. And it’s fun. Oh yes – it’s fun. Why not let them be blissfully, ignorantly happy for a few more months?
3. We waste a lot of food in this house. I calculate how full they are by how much is in the floor. A big pile means they’re done.
4. I once went three days without brushing my teeth, so now I leave the tube of toothpaste on the counter to remind me to brush.
5. I can wear my yoga pants way too many days in a row.
6. If I don’t change my vocabulary, my boys’ first word is going to be the one that rhymes with fire truck. And they already know when I say, “God Damn it!” they need to stop whatever their doing and back away.
7. I thought reading would be one of my greatest pleasures, but it bores me silly because we read the same books over and over again. Sometimes I make up different words for the books. Sometimes those barnyard animals are doing and saying some very naughty things. And then I laugh at my dark humor. And then the boys laugh with me. It’s as if they know. Then I feel guilty and story time is abruptly over.
8. I vowed to keep sugar out of their diet, but now I will walk four blocks out of my way to get them the deep fried, doughy, sugary bombolinis they love in hopes they eat enough to sleep through the night.
9. And, no, they still don’t sleep through the night. And, yes, I have read every fire-trucking sleep manual there is. Nothing works. Even the nannies gave up. So don’t email me any of your tips. We’ve tried them all, and we’re at peace with it. Almost.
10. When weather is prohibitive for venturing out, I don’t hesitate to give them three baths a day so I can sit on the can and read a book while they play happily for 20 freakin’ minutes. It’s the only thing I can do to keep from going insane.
11. When asked if they are twins, I have learned to say no, so I don’t have to have conversations with people I don’t know about their sister’s brother-in-law who had twins 22 years ago. People are fascinated by twins. Spend a day taking care of a pair, and you won’t be.
12. When I have not had time to go grocery shopping, I will feed the boys the triple cream Brie cheese on vegetable flavored crackers and tell myself that the veggie flakes count as a salad and the Brie is just extending their palate even if it does give them horrible, room-clearing gas.
13. Happy hour has a whole new meaning to me now.
14. I don’t put clothes on them when it’s more than 75 degrees outside so I don’t have to do as much laundry.
15. If I can’t sleep I pluck Wyatt from the comfy quiet of his crib and take him to bed with me because his short, soft breaths lull me back to sleep every time.
16. For someone who is a big fan of schedules, I gave up trying to get the boys in bed by 7pm way too easily. Some nights, like when “Lost” is on, we let them crawl around in the blue light of the TV until we go to bed.
17. I let them chew on Victoria’s Secret catalogs while I make dinner. It occupies them and gives me some sort of satisfaction to see them drooling on the models but not in the way it was intended. The mess is horrible. I find bras and panties all over the floor.
18. I make up songs for everything we do around the house. There’s a “Who-Wants Their-Diaper-Changed?” song, a “Way-Too-Many-Babies” song, and a “Shake, Shake, Shake Your Martini” song. My personal favorite is the “Your Whining Makes Me Wine” song sung to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell.” I sing these songs absent-mindedly in public, and now my husband, friends and nanny do, too.
19. Yes. I smear Nutella on broccoli, zucchini, green beans and anything else I deem their diet needs.
20. Some days I put Ovaltine in my coffee because that’s all the breakfast I have time for. If I am not careful, I choke on the lumps.

So there you have it. That’s my purge. And I want to be clear on one thing: I would not trade a second of motherhood for anything. I love it. I do. I am crazy about my sons, and they are crazy about me. Even when I think I can’t change another diaper or chase another cheerio under the fridge, I sometimes stop and look at them and think, “Man, these guys are great.” Because they are. They rarely cry. They’re intelligent and curious. They laugh every day. They think I am hilarious, so they’re my best audience ever. Most of all, they trust me implicitly to help make things better. And I always do.

Sit, Dogma, Stay -- by Laura

This week an old acquaintance “friended” my husband on Facebook, and I found myself upset about it. We had stopped associating with “Rob” about four years ago when we realized he was a bigot, and he had raised his children to think as he does. Unfortunately for them, they can be just as vocal with their hatred as their father. Rob is, in my opinion, the worst kind of bigot. He is a religious extremist, and he shares his views openly and freely in a poisonous manner with his children. From ages 12 to four, all of his sons know in great detail what an abortion is, and they are not shy about discussing it with anyone. I personally don’t think any child needs to know what an abortion is. It’s horrific to teach a child these things, and these children are adversely affected by it.

My husband and I have heard these words come from his children’s mouths: “John Kerry kills babies,” and “Democrats are baby killers.” Around the table one night Rob’s oldest son who was only 11 at the time announced that they no longer play with a boy who used to be a friend because his father (and their little friend) believe in the theory of evolution. The look on his face showed mortification that anyone could believe such a thing. When I was trying to get pregnant, I privately shared with his mother that our latest procedure had not worked. Six months later the oldest son asked me if I couldn’t have children because God was punishing me because I am a Democrat and therefore my “womb was barren.” Those were the words he used.

Rob and his wife have seven children. All boys. All home schooled. Two are young enough to be playmates with our sons. Dave and I agreed we did not want our boys introduced to that line of thinking, so we extracted ourselves from the friendship as politely as we could since Dave and Rob work together. I felt a sense of relief once they stopped talking because my husband is a very forgiving man who can find the best in someone time and time again. Personally, I find the behavior of Rob and his children to be creepy. Time and time again in the news media we see religious extremists flip out and do something hypocritical because somewhere in that heart of theirs there’s some sort of dark urge bottled deep inside, and it’s just waiting to come out in one form or another, so they suppress it with a big thump of the Bible. I would like to suggest therapy instead. For everyone’s sake.

I am terrified of religious extremism. I grew up in the Midwest where the seeds if it take sprout at a young age, and it spreads through elementary schools as persistently as dandelions on the playground. When I was in fourth grade one of my classmates named Donna, whose father was a Baptist minister, announced that she could no longer hang around Sarah Brauer because she was Jewish. She said it out loud. In class. And our teacher turned around and said, “That’s not a nice thing to say.” And Donna said back, “Well, the Jews killed Jesus.” Later at recess I huddled with the popular girls, most of who were Catholic, and one of them said: “Everyone knows that Baptists hate Jews.” So I asked my mom who had been fostered by Baptist parents why Baptists hate Jews and she answered: “Because Jews are smarter and richer and more successful than most people. The Baptists are just jealous. That’s all.”

I remember conversations like this from my childhood, and they affected me profoundly. As a fourth grader, I wondered what could I believe that will keep me safe. What could I say about God and Jesus that wouldn’t make me an outcast? I decided to start going to Catholic Church with the girls down the street who went to a private school. I figured it was a good option since there were many Catholics in my neighborhood, and there’s safety in numbers. But the church wouldn’t let me take communion, so I felt left out and embarrassed as I sat there in the pew waiting. My parents were not religious, so I didn’t get much guidance from them on the subject. We went to a Unitarian Church for a while, and I loved that. I learned about different religions, and we sang songs for both Hanukkah and Christmas, but someone on the playground called me a dirty, free-loving hippie and accused my parents as being swingers when I proudly displayed the “U” for Unitarian on my mail ordered dog tags.

I don’t want my boys to endure this sort of thing. I don’t even want them exposed to it, but I know there’s little chance of that. My husband and I believe in many things. We love to study Buddhism and Eastern philosophy. Once upon a time we did Native American sweat lodges regularly to keep our bodies and our minds clean. We have gone to church and temple and to the mountain. We believe it all works. Sometimes we are drawn to one thing more than another. That’s how it goes in life. We explore. We find tools that work for us at the time.

Unfortunately, hatred is also a tool for survival. Bigotry is a way of protecting the soul from doubt. From openness. From questioning. From anything that may be perceived as weakness. Hatred cements the heart and provides a stable base for ignorance. And ignorance is bliss. Yes. It’s ironic, but on a different sort of path, hatred can lead to happiness.

This is the very sort of misguided journey I do not want my children going on. So I want to protect them from the Robs of the world who bury themselves in self-righteousness. I want my children to find what is right and good for them, and I can only hope they do it with an open mind and open heart. And if they can achieve that, then I hope they go one step further and take that light out into the world and shine it so brightly across their path that dogmatism becomes a shadow of its former self left whimpering in the corner. I pray my sons, nor anyone else on the planet, ever bother throw it a bone.

Love Bites -- By Laura

Yesterday my 13-month old son Wyatt bit me. Hard. It left an angry, purple, blood mark on my shoulder. He bit me because he was frustrated. He was frustrated because I wouldn’t let him chew on the wheel of the grocery cart. I wouldn’t let him chew on the wheel of the grocery cart because I had just run it through a big pile of dog poop on the street, and his exploring mouth and large tongue were honing in on it.

I almost dropped the little vampire. I have tiny, toothy skid marks down my right chest where he bounced down and finally came to rest on my raised knee. I screamed out of surprise and immediately placed Wyatt on the floor. When my husband came in he saw Wyatt lying on the ground and me standing there, indignant, with my hand on my shoulder. Wyatt was crying. I was close to it. And of course my husband naturally went to the child first. I would expect him to. I would want him to. But at the same time, I felt a little twinge of sadness that he did. Sometimes some of the changes of parenthood manage to avoid my sleep-deprived, little brain.

Wyatt’s bite hurt on a physical level, and it hurt even more on an emotional one. I was really surprised by it, and I had to take a step back. I couldn’t look at him for a while. It was the first really angry display I had witnessed from my son whose nickname was “The Buddha.” Since he was six-months old, he has been a very calm, very wise baby. He was patient with me – far more so than anyone else in my life has ever been. It feels to me that we have an understanding between us and that he trusts me to make the right decisions for him and his brother. Especially when it comes to chew toys.

I know that infants bite for a multitude of reasons one of them being that biting is a means of communication. Wyatt was pretty clear as to what he was communicating yesterday: frustration, dislike, anger and outrage. He was furious with me for not letting him do what babies do: chew on things that are gross, so his reaction was unexpected. Yes. I know. I was quick to react. I didn’t want Wyatt to ingest dog poop, or anything off the streets of New York City for that matter. I was too sudden. I probably scared him. And I was thoughtless. He got angry, and I got bit.

But I think what has disturbed me most about the situation is that it took me a while to get over it. I wouldn’t hold Wyatt up to my body for a few hours afterwards. I kept him on my knee when I had to hold him, and I did my best not to have to pick him up at all. I kept those teeth as far from me as I could, and I did so without wanting to tell my husband how I was feeling for fear of judgment because I was having a terrible time getting past it. I was that upset. Wyatt didn’t seem to notice my distance. He was happy and bubbling and back to being the mellow little Buddha Baby that I know and love.

Here’s the thing: a child’s job is to teach the parent as much as it is the parent’s job to teach the child. So the little Buddha is telling me some things. He’s telling me to let go. To forgive so that I can set myself free. I need to do it with him, and I need to do it in other areas of my life. Because if there is one thing I am really good at, it’s holding on to pain so that I can use it to protect myself. I do not forgive people with ease or grace.

Eventually I picked Wyatt up, held him close, and we had ourselves a good giggle. He brings out in me a love that is so powerful it supercedes my willful defenses and irrational fears. So maybe if I could start with Wyatt, I can keep going. I can forgive other people who have hurt me in one way or another. I have been trying to sit with this and practice this all day, and I am not very good at it. However, I am not going to give up. Eventually, I’ll figure it out, and I will become proficient at forgiveness. And I will always have a little scar on my right shoulder to wear as both a reminder and as a badge of courage on my journey of parenthood.

Visiting New York - by Laura

Here are some tips for friends and family who are coming to visit our family here in New York City this summer:

First off, we don’t have a car. We walk everywhere or take the subway, and when we shop we buy only what we can carry or stash in the bottom of the stroller. And whereas it’s nice to hear about all the stuff you can fit in your SUV when you shop at Costco, Wal-mart and K-Mart, that’s not a reality here on the island. What is a reality is that we do pay more for everyday items, but we don’t like to talk about it for half an hour with you even after you’ve posted on Facebook how expensive paper towels are here.

New York City is a totally different lifestyle, so our conversations are vary from those you might be used to in the Midwestern suburbs. It may be fascinating to you to talk about resealing your driveway, to discuss why Budweiser is the king of beers, or to debate about which Lion’s Club will win the chili cookoff, but for this audience it might be a challenge to stay engaged. The bartender is not being rude. It’s just not relevant. Also, please don’t compare New York’s cost of living to your cost of living. We know we’re paying a lot in rent for very small spaces, but hearing that we can live in a mansion in Chickenville, Arkansas, for these prices doesn’t mean anything to us. Plus, there’s a reason real estate is affordable in Chickenville. Nobody wants to live there, and the Broadway productions suck.

No. Having babies in the city is not easy, but it’s definitely do-able. In fact, it has huge advantages. Whereas we may not have a lawn to play on, we also do not have a lawn to mow, so we have more time to sit on the floor and read to our kids. And to make up for the lack of lawns, we have plenty of lovely parks, award-winning, progressive schools, and a plethora of kid-friendly places where they can go and be exposed to art, music, theater and more. Just because we don’t have a backyard full of plastic toys, it doesn’t mean our kids are deprived of a rightful childhood.

Yes. New York City is dirty. And so are pig farms, restaurant kitchens, and your three-car garage. New Yorkers are probably some of the most germ aware people on the planet, and people like me have hand sanitizer on our persons at all times to prove it. That’s why we cringe when you put your shoes up on our furniture. We tend to take our shoes off when we’re in someone’s home, which is a gracious custom, as well as being more comfortable and relaxing.

Yes. New York City is loud. And so is your gignormous 72” flat screen TVs with Dolby surround sound that you have blaring constantly in your bonus room where you child spends most of his or her time playing with their Nintendo instead of getting outside and meeting other people, having social interactions, and being exposed to culture.

Yes. We have to go to the grocery store every two days. This is not a burden. It means fresh vegetables and fruits on our table instead of week-old broccoli from Safeway wilting away in the crisper. It means we walk more. It means we carry more. It means we stay active and actually burn off some of the calories we are eating.

You’re welcome here. This is a great place to visit and an advantageous place to live. But please don’t “feel sorry” for the children who live here. Most of them grow up to be very successful because of the culture, the education, the people, and the opportunities this city has to offer. The bar is set high here. And New Yorkers of all ages like to rise to it.

For Every Mother - by Laura

I remember the first time I saw my foster son Alex. He was ten years old at the time, and he showed up at the door wearing white knee socks, shorts, and a Trailblazers basketball jersey. At the time, I was working part-time as a volunteer at a youth center. He was assigned to me that afternoon. There was something about him. I will never be able to put my finger on it exactly. But I loved him right away. And six months later when his mom went back to smoking crack and drinking, I became a foster mom to Alex and his nine-year old brother Nate.

Even though Alex and Nate went back to their families eventually, they remain my sons, and I will always be their mother. Granted, they have had several mothers now. But I am still their mother. Period. That’s how it works. If you care for something, if you love it, it becomes yours. Forever. Sure. Alex and Nate no longer live with me. And I haven’t seen them for five years. But we still love each other, and we bonded over that period in our lives when we all lived together and formed a new kind of family. A family that cared about each other. They are still mine, and I am still theirs.

This is what motherhood is. It does not matter if you love and care for a child, an animal, a garden, a home, a building, a friend, a forest, a park, or a river. If you love it and you care for it, it’s yours. If you make something better because you love it, it’s yours. Forever.

On Mother’s Day, I fear too many women are not recognized for what they love and for what they do, and they are left out of celebrating a day of caring and nurturing.

I spent Mother’s Day writing my girlfriends who have not given birth, but who are stepmothers, animals rescuers, pet owners, teachers, counselors, social workers, foster mothers, small business owners, and gardeners, and I thanked them for all they do in the world, thanked them for the support they gave me in bringing my boys into the world. They cared for me and they cared for the boys. And without these women, I would not be a mother. And so I told them: You belong to us and we belong to you. Thank you for caring. And Happy Mother’s Day.

Planning for Love - by Laura

How many of us are as close to our mothers as we want to be? How many of us find friendship with our mother-in-laws? I don’t know of many. I know of too few. For those of us who long for a good relationship with our mothers, what is it about mothering that alienates them from us and us from them? And the most important question: How do we not repeat that in our own children?

I think it’s a grave mistake to assume that just because we sacrifice our time, bodies, lives, finances, freedom, and love that our children will automatically love us back the way we love them. We must ask ourselves; “How do we not repeat our parents’ mistakes when by being raised by them, we were taught their particular values on how to behave, how to parent, and how to love? If children learn by example, how do we unlearn what they have taught us?”

My mother-in-law was here over the weekend to celebrate her grandsons’ first birthday. It was a tough visit for my husband and his sister. They’re not close to her, and they do not speak warmly of their childhood. Apparently, she suffered from depression, and she could often be physically and emotionally abusive during an episode. She would go on religious rants that led to violence like the time she ripped a necklace off her daughter because she believed it was unholy. It was a frog – a cheap, silver charm on an s-chain given to her by a classmate – but to my mother-in-law it was a symbol of the devil, so she yanked it off, leaving a small scar on my sister-in-law’s neck.

The compassionate thing to do is take a look at how my mother-in-law learned to parent. She was raised on a remote farm in West Virginia, and she was the youngest child out of eight children. Her parents frequently left their children to fend for themselves while they went to Bible tent revivals all around the state. She was literally raised with animals. And when she was 18, she joined the army so that for the first time in her life she had three meals a day. She survived 18 years of neglect, loneliness and abuse. But, she did not escape West Virginia any more than she did her upbringing.

Her past explains her parenting. She repeated her parent’s mistakes: physical abuse, religious tyranny, emotional abuse and neglect. After continuing the cycle her parent’s taught her, she cannot understand why her children don’t like her. She thinks her son and daughter are ungrateful for all she sacrificed for them. She thinks they’re selfish. She thinks their dislike of her is due to their own personal character flaws. She denies she ever hit them or mistreated them even though they have the physical and emotional scars to prove it.

My husband and I are determined not to repeat our parent’s patterns. But ,we have hardly a roadmap at where to begin. We can only start by admitting how much we are like our parents, so that we can navigate change. It’s a painful thing for me to do. I confess when I see a mother and daughter enjoying one another’s company I get an ache in my chest. In spite of all of the pain between us, I long for a good relationship with my mother. And I hope my children want that, too. But, as I have learned it doesn’t happen naturally. It’s work. I have to work for their love when they automatically receive mine. My gift is unconditional. Theirs is not. If I can remember this, I think I can succeed. I believe I can nurture a relationship between my sons and me that cultivates both love and respect. I believe we can all love each other well enough. Not just now but 30 years from now. We can love each other well enough.

The Big Year - by Laura

We did it. We made it our first year with twins. Only 362 days and 2,933 miles ago we finally became parents at the age of 44. Somewhere in that year I might have gotten some sleep, fallen more in love with my husband, and learned a thing or two about babies. I also learned a lot about friendship. When we brought our little guys home to our farm in Oregon, there were friends coming and going, bottles of wine opened, meals shared, blankets received, and lots and lots of good, strong arms for holding babies.

These are my favorite memories from the year:

• The first time I saw the boys I was coming off the anesthesia as they wheeled me into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Sunlight poured into the room as if God and every one of my relations was visiting, too. To show my deep appreciation, I threw up all over the NICU floor.

• The drive home from the hospital was spectacular. Behind the wheel of our minivan with husband and boys in back, I felt a profound sense of satisfaction and joy. Colors were brighter, music richer, touch more sensuous. It stayed that way for me a long, long time. All summer long. All of those images burned into my memory, and I can look them up any time and get that same feeling instantly.

• Watching my friends get high from holding my sons, and hearing to them talk about their fantastical drive home while they were drunk on baby love.

• Waking up at 2am to feed one of the boys, watching the moonlight pool on the tiles in front of the sliding glass doors, and listening to my baby’s breath as he returned to a state of sleep.

• Listening to the boys giggle as they watched the chickens outside on the lawn peck and prance around for their breakfast.

• The first time the boys held hands as they napped together in their crib.

• Spending a week on Lopez Island, WA, hiking the boys all over the place so they could see their first bald eagle, gray whale, sea lion, bunnies and deer.

• Flying over New York City and looking at the lights of Manhattan with Lyle on my lap. I pointed to the buildings and said, “Our new home.” Lyle jumped up and down and laughed and suddenly I didn’t feel so bad or so scared any more.

It hasn’t been an easy year by any stretch or measure. People often ask how I do it. If I stop to think, I get overwhelmed. I just keep my head down and keep going. Having two is incredibly intense. It requires practicing great patience with them, with my husband, and with myself. And after a year of juggling, I couldn’t tell you how hard it is because I don’t know any different. But I do know better. And if you ask me, twins are better.

Happy Birthday Boys!

Beating My Parents -- by Laura

My mother hates my father. She has hated him for years. Like so many women of her generation, she got married thinking it was the cure for her loneliness and unhappiness. She thought my father would fix her, that he would be her therapist, that he would be her best friend, and, of course, that he would be her knight in shining armor. And like many women her age, she is resentful that he could do or be any of those things.

But unlike many women of her generation, my mother elected to stew in her anger rather than get counseling. Instead, she used me as her therapist. Throughout my childhood my mother gradually poisoned me against her husband. From age 12 to about age 20, I thought my father was a cold, neglectful, indifferent man. I refused to listen to him, I deliberately disobeyed him, and I was mean, mean, mean to him at every opportunity.

When I was 23, I moved to a part of the city that was only a few blocks from my father’s office, and on the nights I was not waiting tables, he would call and ask if he could stop by. He’d bring a six-pack of Coors beer, and we would sit on my patio even on the coldest of days, drink a brew, and play fetch with the dogs. My dad loved dogs. And he especially loved Labrador retrievers, and I had rescued two of them from the pound where he sometimes volunteered. They were the magnets that helped draw my father and I back together, and in my heart I have built a glorious memorial for those dogs.

On those evenings I got to know my father really well. And what I found was a man who was very much like me. He loved books, the outdoors, gardens, hiking, dogs, beer, and he especially loved his children and his life with them. He even loved the woman who had berated him all of his life, alienated him from his brothers and sisters, and tried to turn his own children against him. “She can’t help it,” he told me once. “She didn’t grow up with anyone loving her.”

To say I dislike my mother is an understatement. But over the past 20 years, I have tried to remember his words: That no one loved her, and that’s why she is the way she is.

I struggle with her more now that I am a parent myself. I look at her behaviors toward her family, and something deep in me bubbles up into my throat. My mother drove a wedge between my father and his twin brother. If a woman ever did that to my twins, I don’t know what I would do, but my wrath would be severe. My mother also liked to be divisive with her own children because she learned that if we were angry with one another, we would go to her to talk about the sibling we were disgusted with at that time. It was her way of guaranteeing attention. And saddest to me is that I bought into her lies and lost precious years with my father and siblings. It’s something I have not forgiven myself for.

Last week my mother found a letter I had written my father more than 10 years ago, and she sent me a venomous email in response. In the letter I discussed my mother’s accusations of his affair, and I suggested to my father that if the accusations were not true that my mother could be experiencing delusional episodes due to her own childhood. I also suggested that after 40 years of emotional abuse it might be time to leave my mother. I recommended he divorce her and go live with his twin brother. It was the right advice to give.

I was particularly worried about my father because he had just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and I knew as the disease worsened my mother would not take care of him. I knew she would let him deteriorate, she would not help him with his medications, she would not want to take him to the doctor, and when she did she would not participate. She would only hinder. She was angry with him and felt he had done this to her on purpose.

My mother is furious with me for writing that letter. She should be. But I am not sorry I wrote it. I am, however, finding myself angry with my father for sticking with her. If he had left, he’d be getting better care right now. If he had left, maybe he could have reconnected with his twin brother. If he had left, maybe he would not be declining so quickly. Sometimes I blame his disease on her entirely. Living with her constant criticism, her accusations, and her lies has to take its toll. I know it did with me.

It’s a fight, really, not to be a bad parent when you are raised by someone like my mother. Every day it’s a fight, so to ensure I battle in a good way, I am committed to picking up the phone and scheduling an appointment with a counselor. It’s good to have someone walk me through it so I can understand my mother and her hatred. I am not going to repeat this with my sons and my husband. I want them to love me as I love them. But sometimes I hear myself saying the things to my husband that my mother said to my father, and it knocks the wind out of me. And that’s when I pick up the phone and call.

Infertility and Friends -- by Laura

I spent five years trying to get pregnant. Desperately. It was the most painful thing I have ever been through, and when the test finally came back positive, the world seemed like and all-you-can-eat buffet of joy. But not everybody was happy for me. And I understand why.

When I was trying to get pregnant, it seemed like everyone else in the world could get pregnant but me. Every other month I was pushing a shopping cart through Babies-R-Us, until I just couldn’t even drive past the exit without wanting to throw up in my mouth. There was only one other person in my life who could not get pregnant. One of my best friends. I’ll call her Liz. We had been friends for over 15 years, and when we were together, we laughed like mad women. And our lives seem to parallel in so many ways, so when we both started trying to have children, we believed were in it together, and together we would triumph.

At first we were sort of private about our attempts. We wanted to endure the dreaded two-week wait alone. But we went through the same treatments at almost the exact same time. We even had the same doctor for the first two rounds of IVF. But as we continued our treatments, Liz became more and more bitter and more and more competitive. She was a wealthy woman, so she could afford to do more rounds of IVF and go to private clinics with more personalized care. I knew my shots were limited, so I plowed through books, trolled the Internet, and joined an infertility support group to gather as much information as I could. When I would present my findings to her over coffee, she called me obsessed and dismissed the conversation.

Liz was right. I was obsessed. If you want to get pregnant when you’re 40, you have to be. So I was, and I did.

There came a day when I had to tell Liz I was pregnant, and I knew I wanted to tell her in a good way. I wanted to tell her before I told my other friends so she would not hear it second hand. I wanted to tell her quietly and in person when her husband was there so he could be there to support her. I wanted to be calm and quick about it, and make sure the conversation shifted to other things at the right time. I practiced. My husband shook his head.

The right time came to tell her. It was a late November morning, and I had just hit the three-month mark. I drove an hour to her house, brought her muffins, drank tea and sat in her kitchen chatting about nothing in particular. Just catching up. Then when the muffins were eaten and the tea finished, I did it. “I’m pregnant,” I said. I could hear her heart break. I knew that feeling. I had sat where she sat many times over the last five years. It is miserable. It’s as if a sheet of shame has settled on the heart because you know you are supposed to be happy. You know you are, but all you want to do is curl up in the corner and cry.

Liz stammered. And stuttered. And I could see her face flush while her mind raced. She kept swallowing even though the tea was long gone. Her husband came in the room and placed a hand on her shoulder. I began to talk quickly. I felt like I needed to apologize, and I remember saying how hard it had all been and that I was still scared. And it was going to be a rough pregnancy with twins. “Twins?” she said. “You have twins?” And I could feel her world fall out from under her.

I changed the subject to her. To her adoption process. To her job. And then I said I had to go. She was relieved. And when we said goodbye, there were no congratulations from her. There was no more acknowledgment. I didn’t expect there to be.

After that day, she did not reply to my emails. She did not return my phone calls. She sent me a Christmas card but did not sign her name. I did receive a mass email from her four months later that she had successfully adopted a baby girl. I sent her a note congratulating her and wishing her the greatest happiness, but I never heard back.

To say I was hurt and angry about it is an understatement. At the same time, I knew exactly how she felt. I hoped that with the adoption of her daughter that somehow we could mend things. That her heart would be put back together. I was going to reach out and send her an email, but then my husband said, “Why would you want to reconnect with someone who treated you so badly while you tried to get pregnant and then was unhappy for you when you did?”

He had a good point. But there are other things to consider. Infertility brings out the worst in people. It’s a sad, sad thing. It’s grotesquely painful. Did she act badly? Sure. Would I have done the same thing? I don’t think so. My friendships are precious.

Perhaps it is time to let go. Perhaps there wasn’t the friendship there that I believed was there. But if I let my heart speak, it has its own take on the situation. It wants to pick up the phone and call her, so we can laugh the way we used to. It wants to see an email from her in my inbox with one of her silly titles. It would even take a Christmas card she didn’t bother to sign.

Keep "Em Close -- by Laura

The advice one receives as a new mother is inexhaustible, and I received my fair share the first six months. But I have a hard and fast rule about taking advice – I only take it from the people who make me ask for it, and I only ask for it from the people I respect. David and I spent five years trying to get pregnant so during that time we watched our friends and their kits. If the children were happy, engaging and well behaved, we asked them for their parenting philosophies, their approach, the books they read and the challenges they faced.

One of our favorite kids was Ani. His parents came from India, and he was a brilliant child – reading at age three, knowledgeable about his favorite subject (trains), polite, funny and more fun to talk to than his parents. So we asked: “What did you do?” They did not answer at first. They muttered something about Dr. Sears, but we persisted and they finally confessed that Ani slept with them in their bed every night for the first 18 months. They tried everything: cribs in their room, vibrators, noise machines, cry-it-out, the Ferber Method, but nothing worked. He insisted upon sharing their bed and only their bed. So they gave in.

Once they gave in, Ani established himself as a happy baby. He slept better, cried less, woke up happy, and settled right into his joyful, curious nature. It gave us cause to think. We heard from so many people that a baby in the bed is havoc on the marriage. But at the same time, didn’t it seem natural to sleep with your child if that’s what the child wanted in order to feel secure?

The second person we took advice from was our neighbor Candace. She has three children all of them teenagers, and they’re all very likeable at an age where most kids are distant and awkward. This struck my husband and I both as a testament to her parenting. Their family is a tightly knit group that spends a lot of fun time together, and when we watch them interact, we can tell the kids genuinely love their parents, and respect them as well. So we asked again: How did you do it?

And this is where I received the best parenting advice of my motherhood. Candace said: “Keep ‘em close. Throw out those books and all the nonsense they tell you and listen to your gut. And just keep ‘em close.”

So we do. We sleep with the babies. We travel with them. We take them out to restaurants, parades, art galleries, museums. Where we go, they go. It’s not always easy. We are not always pleased that they sleep with us in our bed. Although we love falling asleep to their soft breath and their hands against our cheek, and we sleep better because we are not up and down five or six times a night soothing them, we also long for the night where we can once again settle into our big bed with a book and just the two of us. People scold us for sleeping with them, saying it’s dangerous, bad for them, setting a precedent. Sometimes we find ourselves feeling a little embarrassed by it because it’s obvious this situation can impeded a couple’s sex life. And we do, indeed, have to try harder in that area to make sure things happen. But then we watch our babies as they grow into little human beings, and we see confident, happy, secure babies who communicate with us. We have strong bonds with our children. And we’ve learned to tune out the opinions and advice that don’t matter. We keep looking at the results and trust our instincts.

The other night we were coming home on the bus, and the woman next to us was managing three young children by herself, and we were surprised she could do it so well. They sat down when she asked them to, stopped bickering when she scolded, and the oldest daughter engaged in a conversation with me about my twins and how old they were. When I struggled to get a bottle out of the backpack, she offered to help. As we were getting off the bus I complimented the mother and asked how she raised such polite, helpful children. She said, “I keep them close. Watch them all the time. Let them know I love them and what my expectations are.” I asked her if she slept with them when they were babies. “Still do sometimes if they’re having a hard time with something,” she said. “It’s only a short time in life you get to have children. So just keep ‘em close and enjoy it. They’ll always love you for it.”

Best advice I ever received.

The Surprise Inside -- by Laura

Here are a few of things I try to avoid in life: motivational speakers, joining a group or a club, and the suburbs of a big city. I spent 15 years working for corporations that felt the need to ship me off to a convention every six months to inspire me with the latest corporate happiness guru on the circuit. After five or six of these conventions, the motivational speakers all sounded alike, they were rarely genuine, and to this day if I hear the I-saved-a-starfish story one more time I will run screaming from the auditorium. As for groups, the natural social dynamics often require too much energy for someone who has entrenched herself in life-long friendships with a handful of amazing women. When it comes to the suburbs, I grew up in one, and I couldn’t wait to get out.

So I surprised myself by getting on a train Thursday night and going to the suburbs of New York City to listen to a life coach with a group I had joined called Motherhood Later Than Sooner. It was a bit of an effort even getting there. Because I am new to the city, I caught the local train instead of the express, which would make me late, and I thought about getting off, heading to a quiet, dark little Manhattan bar and enjoying a martini all by myself. But I didn’t. I stayed on the train. I read the “New Yorker,” and I watched the city blocks go by and gradually fold into row after row of English Tudors, Dutch Colonials and eventually split-level ranch homes. The suburbs.

I am a judgmental person – especially when it comes to people. But please keep in mind this is not a bad thing. For me, meeting people is like going out for dim sum. The carts go by with varied offerings and pretty soon I start lumping the small bites in categories: steamed, fried, sweet, salty, bland, spicy. Organized judgment. But when I bite into a dumpling I have never tried before but deemed uninteresting, I am usually surprised by a new flavor or texture. And I feel delighted to be knocked of kilter. That’s how it is with people. I take a bite and I am pleasantly surprised by what I find. And that’s what happened Thursday night.

I sat down at the table with ten women who all had children later in life just like I did, but I prejudged them, thinking I would have little in common with them because they did not look like me, dress like me, or come from my part of the country. But by the end of the night they had me laughing and thinking, and I wanted to hear more of what they had to say about how they were coping with motherhood and how they were feeling about themselves and life in general. I liked them all – all different flavors coming together at the table.

And perhaps what surprised me the most was the life coach. She was one of us. She wasn’t phony, and she did not lecture. No starfish stories or tricky endings. She asked us questions about our life and listened in earnest, just like a best friend would. And she did not give advice, she made suggestions, just like a best friend would. And she offered provocative, original exercises that were meaningful to the woman around that table. The work we were doing wasn’t about her and how successful and smart she was. It was about us and getting us to think for a moment and be in that moment, which is something mothers rarely, rarely do. I rode the train back to Manhattan with her and another MLTS mom, and there was not a second of silence among us. We shared story after story on that empty train.

It was a great night. Unexpected. Full of laughter. And we all made new friends. And just for the record, the suburb had a beautiful downtown that was clean and welcoming – like something from a small town but with the progressive convenience of the city. I liked it. I liked the women. I liked the speaker. And I liked that I was wrong in my judgments. On all three counts.

The Favorite Child -- by Laura

When you have twins, people like to jokingly ask which one is your favorite. You can’t answer them honestly or they would look at you like you’re a cruel, callous mother. Because truth be told: you do have a favorite. You can’t help it. It’s biology at work, and it’s called social smiling, although sometimes I refer to it as passive infant manipulation. The social smile is designed to engage and elicit a positive response from the adult, which thereby creates a bond between parent and child. The parent then feels obligated to take care of the baby in order to ensure a regular source of warm fuzzies.

When my son Lyle was two months old, he began social smiling. He would spread his mouth across his face in a drunken, toothless grin when he saw me, and I would respond in kind. When I came in the room he cooed and beckoned me to him with that smile, and I fell all over myself trying to get to him like a 14-year old girl in love. Wyatt, however, wasn’t ready for the smiling and the engagement. He was born a pound smaller than his brother, and he spent his energy catching up.

My husband got angry with me because at that time I favored Lyle. I couldn’t help it. Mother and son were going through some biological and physiological changes that caused us to bond, thus ensuring Lyle’s survival. I was unsuccessful at getting my husband to understand that Wyatt as not neglected by any means. I still sang to him and fed him and cuddled with him just as much as I did Lyle. I also know that as soon as Wyatt started smiling and engaging I would form the same kind of bond with him, and the one who would get the short end of the stick would be me, because I would be frazzled from giving two babies so much love.

By three months Wyatt began social smiling, and he was better at it than his brother. He beams. Radiates. When Wyatt smiles he does it with his whole head. And he has a really big head. His head is so large I have to cut slits in his onesies to get them over that giant noggin. Wyatt’s grins are so enthusiastic that they often knock his cranium of kilter and he falls right over. And when he does this, he’s my favorite.

Lyle is the leader of their gang of two. He crawls around the house emitting shocks of laughter as he delights in his movement and his autonomy. He is the first to do everything while Wyatt watches with his mouth open and an expression on his face that says: Um! I’m telling! When Lyle doesn’t feel well, he comes to me and hugs my leg or my arm and holds on tight until I gather him in my arms and put him to sleep. Once when the entire family was sick with stomach flu, we all slept on towels and blankets in the living room. Lyle woke up and crawled around hugging us all and nuzzling his head into ours. He’s that kind of baby. Compassionate. Awake. Sensitive. The smile on his face was shy and gentle. And on that day, he was my favorite.

However, Lyle is also very demanding. He wants my attention all the time, and it is beyond exhausting. It becomes a fight to make sure Wyatt gets his needs met. One day when Lyle found new ways to request my time by throwing up, exploding in his diaper, and coloring his mouth with a pen, I was running back and forth with him from the kitchen to the bedroom to the bathroom, and I realized I had not checked in with Wyatt for almost an hour. I had left him playing in the middle of the living room floor with his soda bottle filled with pennies and his magnet dolls. I rushed by with a naked Lyle in my arms, and I paused in the doorway. Wyatt looked up from chewing on a doll, smiled his enormous smile, and fell right over. And at that instant, he was my favorite.

The Age of Motherhood -- by Laura

Last week I turned 45. I have never shied away from stating how I old I am, but on my birthday something happened that made me lie for the first time. I was in Central Park with my 10-month old twins taking a break from my jog when a woman in her 60s approached and ogled the boys as they slept in the stroller.
“Isn’t being a grandmother the best?” she asked.
“I’m actually their mother,” I said. “Not their grandmother.”
She was embarrassed and apologized, but I stopped her and explained it was OK. I have a crown of silver hair; I was disheveled from exercising. It was a natural mistake.
“Well, women are having babies at older ages these days,” she said.
We chatted briefly then she asked the question I knew she would: “So exactly how old are you?”
Before I could think I told her I was 40. Only 40.
On the way home I stopped at the drug store to look at hair color, and when I got to the apartment I went online and ordered $200 worth of skin care products. I also got down on the alphabet mat in the playroom and did 100 sit-ups and then 100 bicycle kicks, which left me barely able to move the next day.
I am embarrassed at being an older mom at times. I feel out of place with orthopedic inserts in my shoes, gray hair, glasses, and a heavier, slower body as I push a twin stroller down the sidewalk among the 20-year old nannies and the fit, fashionable, younger Manhattan mothers. And I am embarrassed that I am embarrassed by it. At my age I should know better. There are so many pluses to being an older mom – far more pluses than minuses.
But the real reason for the discomfort with my age is not just my crepe paper eyelids or the cricks in my back and ankles. It’s the time. If what I said were true, if I were only 40, I would have five more years – five more years of time at my disposal with my sons and husband. My lie wasn’t just a lie. It was a wish. A sincere wish.
While I write this, my father is struggling with declining health. As an older parent himself, he made a conscientious effort to be a fit man. My father learned to rock climb when he was 40. He hiked all over the Rocky Mountains with his children. He played tennis four or five times a week. But in spite of his excellent health and diet, he didn’t get a choice whether or not he got Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. For several years now, he is not able to participate in his own life, much less mine, and he has never met my boys. Yet if he did meet them, he wouldn’t know them because in spite of his best efforts to stick around and be there for his grandchildren, a horrible disease is scrambling his brain.
Even more sorrowful to me is that my sons won’t get to know the kind, quiet man who taught me the secrets of happiness: dogs, books, tomatoes, and camping. Lyle and Wyatt won’t have the chance to try to keep up with his long stride as he winds his way over the trails to the top of a mountain to watch the sunrise. They won’t hear his steady voice singing a cowboy song as he strums his guitar.
Some of my life’s greatest moments have been spending time with my father as an adult – two grownups together with a shared history and a deep understanding. I love that my father stuck around long enough see who I turned out to be, and he genuinely admires who he sees when he looks at me. I want to look at my children like that through the hallmarks of their lives. But when they are entering adulthood, which I believe is the best part of life, I will be coming to the sunset of mine. Thanks to my advanced maternal age, I may not get to meet the life partners they choose. If they wait as I did, I may not get to meet their children. I may very well miss seeing them achieve the things in life that can make them happy, whole, fulfilled human beings.
The next time someone asks me if I am the boy’s grandmother, I will try to be more grounded. I will tell myself I can live with the liver spots, the lines around my mouth, and the impending bifocals. But what will send me spinning is the thought of missing out on a minute of my boys’ lives. By waiting these extra years to have children, I am afraid I am going to have to lose a few years on the other end. And that kills me. Because this thing called motherhood is a wellspring of happiness, wisdom, pain, ache, joy and longing, and as Lyle and Wyatt grow through life, I don’t want to miss a thing. Not a single, tiny moment lost. The bitter. And the sweet.

Unlike My Mother -- by Laura

I’m new to blogging, to motherhood, to New York, and Motherhood Later...Than Sooner. My name is Laura Houston, I am 45 years old, and I have twin boys Lyle and Wyatt who are 10 months old. I recently moved to Manhattan from a farm in Oregon, and I transitioned from having my own business to being a stay-at-home mom. We’re a different lot – we mothers of advanced maternal age – and I find older moms bring a richness to their job that opens up a treasure chest of insights and wisdom. I hope we can all share.

I didn’t have much of a role model when it came to mothering. After four kids and a desperately common life in the suburbs, my mother got tired of being a mom and she checked out. And I got tired of being her kid, so I checked out. I did whatever it took to get out of the house, out of that Midwestern suburb, and as far away as possible from her life, her bitterness, and her unhappiness.

That was the start of my journey into motherhood. I called it the Do-Not-Turn-Out-Like-My-Mother Plan, and I hoped it would serve me when I finally became a mother, which is something I desperately wanted some day. I made most of my life decisions based on this question: “Would my mother do it?” If the answer was no, I would do it. If the answer was yes, I would not.

In order to have a life unlike my mothers, I wanted an extraordinary man who would want an extraordinary woman. I made a list of everything I desired in a man, and I set about to be that person. I went back to school to get my master’s degree. I spent a summer kayaking in Glacier Bay, Alaska. I started my own business and became financially solvent. I bought an old house, remodeled it, and flipped it for twice what I paid for it. I volunteered as a tutor for at-risk youth, and I ran a half marathon. I became a temporary foster mother. My life was almost as full and as rich as I wanted it to be.

But at the age of 35, I still did not have that extraordinary man, and I was running out of time to have children. My friend Valerie and I made a pact that at the age of 37, we would rent a limo and take it to the fertility clinic in downtown Portland and get inseminated.

When you’ve got a backup plan in life, it often seems you rarely need it. I ended up finding that extraordinary man one year before the artificial insemination due date, and this man was worth waiting for. Together we bought a farm that would be the ideal place to raise children. After going through six years of fertility treatments, we were finally able to get pregnant with twins. Finally, I could be the mother I had been training to be.

But five months into my peaceful, blissful motherhood, the phone rang with a job offer for my husband. It was a big job. In Manhattan. I asked myself, “Would my mother do it?” And of course she would not. So we left the farm, the chickens, my gardens, and the grape vines and headed to the city with our twin boys. And here we are trying to figure it all out and navigate the new challenges of motherhood and a fast city.

Living my life trying not to be my mother is not easy. At all. In fact, it’s downright hard. Manhattan is a challenging place to live for a mother of twins. My stroller doesn’t fit through some doorways, on the bus, the subway, or in the trunk of a taxi cab. The winter weather alienated me from my walks in the park. My dearest friends and helpers are 3,000 miles away. But I’m not living my mother’s life. Sometimes that’s the only gauge I have for measuring how I am doing. And most of the time, that’s enough.