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[to-my-children]

Intuition and Emotion

Sadness

It's an emotion we're all familiar with. We feel it for ourselves and sometimes for other people. Sometimes it's valid, sometimes it's not; often, it's related to our intuition about a set of circumstances.

When it comes to intuitions that keep us out of harm's way, we come by a lot of those naturally. However, intuitions that lead us to be sad for other people, and something they may "struggle with," hasn't adapted to the time we live in. The sadness that naturally comes up is related to something called "belief grief."

A good example comes from an interaction we had the other day at a gathering for Dan's school. One of his classmates was both very interested and somehow saddened by Marta. This student had some belief that was causing grief for another person. In this case, the intuitive grief was not valid. Marta was, in reality, enjoying being in a group of people, surrounded by new sounds and things she found quite interesting. Here's the thing with belief grief, though: it's difficult to shake. Whatever we tried, this classmate was not persuaded that there was no reason to be sad for Marta.

Fortunately, it's a little better with adults who can think about the circumstances a little differently, at least for a moment. With all the possibilities in the wide universe, different is just different! I'm sure that most of us can intuitively understand that it's healthy to have diversity, however, that intuition is strongly complimented by another that feels the safety in sameness. In the meantime (until we hit the "hundredth money effect";), that's kind of the way things are going to be as life and intelligence move forward.

We all have intuitions and beliefs about our own lives and abilities. If there is something you want to do or be but don't believe you can, here's something from the sciences: being committed to your goal is more important to attaining it than making progress toward your goal, at least in the beginning. Sometimes our intuitions are wrong and sometimes that's not a bad thing.

[to-my-children]

Dear Dan,

You have recently discovered that holding your hand up takes a picture on one of my phone cameras. You love this feature and you love to take pictures with me and I'm so grateful for that.

A lot of moms feel that they are invisible because there aren't many pictures of them with their children. Here you are, at 3 years old, taking up the task to make sure that I am seen, that I am remembered as your mother and, particularly, as your mother in your preschool years. You probably won't remember these days but, thanks to you, we have pictures to remind me of some stories to tell you.

For instance, last year you attended a playgroup in English. This year, you are home with me and Marta, full time. She had a bit of a rough start to the air-breathing phase of life and we didn't want to give her immune system samples from a preschool petri dish to deal with along with everything else. It's a little bit crazy at the house because her feeding and physical therapy schedule is pretty tight during the day and she has doctor's appointments often. As a result, we don't go outside much. In an attempt to compensate, it is my daily goal to get you into a roaring fit of laughter at least once. Most days, we hit the goal several times over.

We do have babysitters that come and take you out a couple times a week for a couple of hours at a time. You come back so refreshed! You love concentrated, individual attention and running around outside. It's a blessing for everyone involved.

As I was interviewing babysitters and telling them a little bit about you, I had to tell them, warn them ahead of time, that you are a charmer and dangerously clever. I told them a couple of illustrative stories so they knew the risk of taking their eyes off you, even for a split second. In only the second week, you decided to give one of your babysitters a memorable example-experience of her very own to cherish.

We haven't had any of your adventures end up in the emergency room yet, but this one came pretty close. I was walking up the stairs, talking with Lucie and you were coming down the stairs to meet us. When I looked up and saw you, I thought I had one more conversational glance before you jumped. You calculated differently. I glanced away. You jumped from 8 stairs up a spiral staircase. Both you in the air above me and the helpless onlooker below me had an inconvenient, shared moment of shocked silence. I turned back just in time to see you splay out at my feet. I'd like to think that, given any vocal cue, I could have at least broken your fall before the stairs did but, given the current state of my athletic career, we really can't be sure. In the end, all you had from it was a sore nose and a black eye but poor Lucie will have the traumatic memory of that scene etched in her mind forever.

Since you were birth-minus-28-weeks of age, I knew our life together was going to be full of high-octane adventures but, even so, you are so calm and gentle with your sister.

Thank you.

Thank you for being helpful and thoughtful and maybe a little too clever, but I hope that'll pay off for you into adulthood. In all the adventures you'll have that I might not ever find out about, I hope you'll be safe. And thank you for taking pictures of our time together ❤️😊

Love you lots,

mama

[to-my-children]

Your Grandfather is Goofy!

Like literally, his favorite laugh was an impersonation of the animated character, Goofy's laugh.

And today is the 9th anniversary of his graduation from mortality. A few days before his birthday, this year, I birthed someone who will likely remind me of him every day. Her eyes are very much like his. Her head-shape is his. Her facial features hint of his. 

Growing up, I was my father's shadow. I was interested in everything he did. It seemed like he could fix or make anything. He could certainly make things work beyond what the manufacturer intended. Whether it was a string of old cars that were always working just enough to get us around town for what we needed - one of my more emotional memories is when we tried to go an hour away to Chucky Cheese with one friend for my birthday, but the radiator wasn't taking the heat and we had to turn around and go back home - or a pair of stilts he made of PVC pipes because I wanted to be taller, he was the ace in my hand of cards.

As much as I could have been a "Daddy's girl" to a man who only wanted to be called father, I was. He had a complicated relationship with his dad, hence not wanting to share a title, and I had a complicated relationship with him after the age of 10. 

While I was still wearing a back brace - as I think of it now, I have no recollection of traveling there, but I remember sitting being an uncomfortable affair with a broken back - my grandmother took me from New Mexico to live with her in Florida. All the sudden, the person who I loved the most wasn't around. I was disappointed for years when he didn't come to visit. And then, when I was seventeen, I recognized the power of communication. 

You would be hard pressed to catch me complaining about anything because I very much find it to be a useless practice. Even though he hadn't come to visit, my father would call every week to check up on me. One time, while we were talking on the phone, he complained, yet again, about not liking where he lived. Somewhat annoyed at this point, I asked, "Have you thought about where you want to live instead?" Keep in mind, he had lived in the same place with his young family, and still lived there with the dog and the cat he was left with after the divorce and his mother-in-law taking his children far away. One can imagine the ghosts of memories that haunted him there. He had complained for seven years. And yet, when I asked a simple question, he had moved within a month and was much happier for it. This was an "aha" moment for me.

As much as I had been disappointed that he never came to visit, I realized that I had never asked him why he didn't come to visit me. I asked. He came to visit a couple months later. There was a shift for the better in our relationship because I learned the power of using my words to express my thoughts.

Things only got better from there. I loved having my goofy father back in my life. I learned that adults are still growing up long after having kids of their own. Of course, this only made it all the more unfair to me when he was suddenly out of my life again. I can't exactly blame his mother-in-law for this one, but she did go the same way earlier that year. 

P.S. I love the only grandmother that I knew growing up, I just also feel for my father in the role she played in his life.

We don't know what his grandchildren are like just yet, but I'm sure they would have loved to have a goofy grandfather in their lives that could fix or make anything. He made it clear that he would have loved being a grandpa, though mostly by threats that I'd have a little girl just like me someday. In an ironic twist of fate, at least in looks, it turns out I have a little girl just like him.

As much as he was excited to be a grandpa, I was excited for him to be a grandpa too. I didn't quite realize how excited I was until I had to grieve again this morning that he wouldn't get the chance. 

Happy Deathday Grandpa Art 🎉🎂😄🎉 we love you and miss you.

[to-my-children]

[to-my-children]

Dear Marta

Welcome to Earth!

We were beyond excited to have you in your family before we knew anything about you. What I hope you won’t mind is that I was even more excited when I learned that you have a juicy genetic difference. Here’s the thing: I wished to have someone with whom I could “eat clean” and invent creative exercise spaces. What I didn’t know was that I must have brushed by a monkey paw at some point  with that wish. Your genetic code makes it imperative for you to eat clean and be active or there are dire consequences. Obviously the principle is written into everyone’s genetic code, but your genes are missing a buffering bit of code. 

Most people’s code gives their body ways of communicating hunger and satisfaction. When you’re done with your milk-only diet, your code will offer a really loud and constant HUNGER signal that may never shut off and a really quiet “satisfied” signal, if it’s there at all. So while some parents send their children to bed hungry as a punishment for not eating what was for dinner, we’ll be sending you to bed hungry every day of your life because that’s all your body knows. 

The good news is that they have made leaps and bounds over the past 20 years in treating the needs of your genetic difference. There is a chance that we’ll figure out how to help you feel less hungry and more satisfied after eating. The other news is that, in the meantime, it’s still going to be quite a ride but, as it turns out, that’s kind of the case for everyone in this life. 

The thing is that food is kind of your heroin. Really, it’s the white powder form of sugar that’s added to food products that are abundantly available all around you, but that’s a topic for another day. Essentially, I draw the comparison because of something called a “safe injection site.” It’s a place that keeps people safe who take heroin because it’s so addictive that people can take too much and get into trouble they didn’t mean to. For all intents and purposes, home or the close supervision of trusted adults will be your “safe injection sites'' for food until your brain is fully developed. While the abundance of that addictive white powder in food products does do damage to any brain and body, it is especially damaging to yours and, for that, I may owe you an apology.

It’s not that I did anything to intentionally give you the genetic code that you have. I rolled the dice, so to speak. The result that you got is about a 1 in 15,000 chance. There’s nothing that has been found to cause the partial code deletion you have and nothing proven to prevent it from happening either. It appears to be a random event. The reason I feel I may need to apologize is that I realize that I’m very addicted to the white powder and I’ve been trying to quit the stuff for quite some time. A wish may have formed in my mind that manifested in a tiny little code deletion which formed a body for you that gave me just what I was looking for.

In all honesty, there are things that I’ve wanted to say or do, but didn’t value myself enough to make the demands. I know that I’m heavily addicted to the white powder in those meticulously designed food products and I want to be free of it. The thing about being a parent is that it can make someone like me much more bold. It’s no longer a list of demands for my benefit, but for your imperative needs with your particular genetic code, to protect your developing mind and body. A few of the demands look like:

If there is a social gathering that we have been invited to attend, none of that white powder is allowed to be out or offered to us.

The only drink we want is water, maybe with some cut up cucumber or lime, or an herb, but that’s it.

No animal products. They count as processed food, as the animals processed the whole plant foods before becoming food products themselves. It’s much healthier if we chew for our food for ourselves.

The only acceptable consumable gifts are whole plant foods. Please do not offer us anything else. (I’m sure I’ll have to go through lots of iterations to figure out the most effective and also loving way of rejecting these gifts. Food is, after all, a big love language for me and many people that love me).

Being meticulous in the way that I nourish your growing body and mind is something I very much look forward to. There may be times in your life when you may be mad at me for wishing on a monkey paw to give you the genetic code you have but, I promise you, I have no idea where I possibly could have brushed across one of those things! What I hope is that you will spend most of your life in love with your body and caring for it in the wisest ways. 

Love you lots,

mama