Growing Up

"Mother's body is baby's natural habitat." I read that in a book on breastfeeding when I was pregnant, and I've thought of it a lot in the last year. When she was a tiny new baby it seemed very obviously true that I was the mother ship, and Ila was the dependent little satellite. Strangely, this phrase popped into my head even more as she got older. I'm more conscious of her connection to me as she navigates the world a teeny bit more on her own. This is sort of contradictory, but she seems even more connected to me now, though she was completely dependent on me before. Perhaps it is that she now chooses to check in with me, look at me, snuggle with me. I feel so physically connected to her, even now as she wants to explore more. According to Chinese medicine, a mother and child are energetically connected for the first three years. So, traditionally, if you needed to treat the child, you would look at the mother. This idea also feels sort of accurate to me. Ila is still nursing quite a lot, so, in many ways, we still are still literally physically connected. I don't know why this is surprising to me because it is pretty obvious, but I feel more and more connected with her. What I'm wondering is, will I feel this when she's an adult?

Seriously, I've been thinking about how odd it must be to have all these memories of your little baby - some of which are probably pretty vivid - when you are interacting with your adult child. It seems very uncanny. Sort of related to this, on Ila's birthday last week, I really was thinking about laboring with her. I wonder if I will often think of this on her birthday in years to come. It seems sort of cliche, doesn't it? Your birthday, mother regaling you with how hard her labor was, etc. etc. Well, maybe this is only because it was just a year ago, but it was pretty connected to all my thoughts around celebrating Ila's birthday.

So, Ila's birthday. Wow. She is now a one year old. It is hard to believe it has been a year - it has felt both longer and shorter than that. I guess mostly longer probably because I was actually awake for more of the last year than prior years. So it was actually longer. I found, though, that I've had a much stronger connection to the present moment this last year. It is nice to be reminded to stay in the present and focus on what is happening with Ila right in front of me...even if some of the time is exhausting and difficult! Most of the time I just marvel at how curious, adorable, and fascinating she is. These are the moments that time seems to go very quickly.

Lately, she is babbling constantly, including this morning at 4:30 AM. She's still not talking, but she is intent on communication. She uses her signs (check out "more" in the video below!), sometimes a little wildly, and clearly wants to be understood. Oh, and she does moo like a cow when she sees a pictures of them. She mimics sounds, gestures, faces. And clearly understands a great deal of what we say to her. I can't wait for her to use actual words...it will be so wild. It's hard to imagine what her first real word will actually be. Cat? No? Cow? Maybe even mama?


Now that she is getting to be a real, live kid, I was perusing the "discipline" section of some of our parenting books. One comment struck me about modeling behavior for your child. This is obvious and not anything new for me, but I realized that the strongest way I communicate my expectations for Ila is, of course, how I behave. Duh, right? Well, it really struck me at that moment. I started thinking about how...sometimes I'm so impatient or I kind of throw a fit if I'm frustrated. I get fixated on small things. It's hard for me to let them go at times...and I want to blame someone else in my frustration...for whatever is wrong. In Buddhist terms, I'm all about aversion. I don't want to accept that things aren't the way I want them to be - whether that is getting a cold for the seventh time in seven months or finding a wet towel on the bed. Really, I don't even want to accept when I'm deeply irritated. I don't want to just notice the emotion, feel it, give it space without clinging to it, let go of it, without the expectation of feeling immediately better. I like to push it away. Blaming someone else is a great way to do this!

See? I'm all about aversion.

Anyway, it occurred to me that self-discipline is an important place to start when when disciplining anyone else. ("Discipline" sounds so negative to me, yet "self-discipline" sounds so positive. Interesting.) I definitely realized this as a teacher too...but my tendencies toward impatience, aversion, anger...well, they're pretty strong. So, for the last few weeks, I've been thinking about how I really should both accept who I am...and subtly change it. What a tricky balance, no? (This reminds me of yet another fabulous Lydia Davis short story, New Year's Resolution . Very short and hilarious. Read it!)



I guess what I realized is that I'd like to be a very true, conscious version of myself for Ila - and my - sake; that there are ways that I create extra suffering for myself (and those around me, I'm sure)...and that it would be good to work on this since, as a parent and a model for my child, I will have a lot more credibility if I am not simply avoiding difficult emotions, blaming other people, erupting in anger. We'll see how this goes.

Here's to not throwing tantrums, at least!