Kids, Parents, and Too Many Holiday Presents

It didn't take us long to realize we had a problem. Our first holiday season as parents was an initiation into overwhelm! My husband and I each have divorced and remarried parents. That means between us we have given our children eight grandparents and nine aunts and uncles (premarriage)! Our first born was the first grandchild in the family. To add extra complexity, my husband's family celebrates Hanukkah and Christmas, while mine celebrates Christmas and Solstice. This equals two major gift giving holidays, multiple celebrations, and extended family that numbers over twenty! 

Through that first overwhelming holiday season, we learned valuable lessons. Here are some pointers we gained from experience.

1. Start Young. This is the most important advice I can give you. Decide when your kids are still young--like preverbal young--how you would like to navigate the expectations around receiving gifts. As one of my parenting mentors told me many years ago, "What kids get they come to expect." You get to decide what they get and in doing so, you also determine what your kids come to expect. Make decisions mindfully and thoughtfully or you will find yourself scratching your head when your kids are older wondering how come they expect SO much stuff! After our huge first year, we established that on Christmas our kids would get one gift from Santa, a single gift from my husband and me, and a stocking. Our sons (who are now 14 and 16) still expect this, and only this, on Christmas morning.
2. Organize extended family with the power of the wish list. After we learned that extended family loves to shower the grandkids with goodies, we started being proactive and strategic with our wish list. We knew we were lucky to have so many generous adults wanting to make the holidays special for our kids and excess was rampant. We started saying things like this: "Thank you for wanting to give our kids such beautiful gifts. This year we could really use your help with..." One year, we decided to build a play structure in our yard and asked the extended family to gift the boys with components of the structure. One family member gave the slide, another the climbing wall grips, another the swings, another the play steering wheel and telescope, and another the monkey bars. The play yard was epic! The kids loved it, had gifts to open from each grandparent, the boys were excited by the entire building process that ensued soon after the holidays, and played on this holiday gift for years (my 16 year old was "hanging out" on the swings with a friend last week).
3. Simplify and Be Creative. With multiple holidays to celebrate, we had to simplify and be creative or go completely mad! We decided that Hanukkah would be the festival of lights AND books. Each night of Hanukkah, our boys would get a new book. The night we would celebrate with my husband's family, they would select the book and give it to our kids. This not only helped to minimize the over abundance of plastic toys, it built the kids' library and kept it fresh year to year. As a side bonus of this gift-giving ritual, our boys are avid readers who love books.
4. Think beyond the store-bought gift. The year we lived internationally, we had to think far outside the gift-giving box. We were living out of suitcases and spent Christmas in a hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Gifts had to be practical and portable. My husband and I filled the kids’ stockings that year with coupons. They included such options as “pick the restaurant,” “pick the movie,” and “one hour of extra screen time.” Our boys treasured these coupons of power and used them judiciously. 
5. Practice saying "no." Yes, you can say no and the holidays are a great time to do so! You can say no to plans as well as to your kids' wants. Their wish list might be long or contain something big, but you can always say no. As a parent of two teens, I have a garage littered with reminders of times I wish I had said no. I wish I knew then what I know now. 
6. Role model the value of meaningful experiences beyond gifts. Holidays are not just about gifts. For kids to learn this they have to SEE us actively engaging in OTHER things with at least as much vigor and attachment as we demonstrate around gift-giving. For the last decade, our family has participated in a charitable event on the morning of Christmas Eve. It is an important ritual that reminds us of our good fortune while also helping others.
7. Make holiday traditions meaningful and memorable. Creating (or continuing) family traditions can go a long way in solidifying holiday memories and meaning. For our family, traditions and the absolute adherence to those traditions, have become more important to our teens than to us! For our boys, Christmas Eve IS going to my parent's home, eating raclette (don't ask), and playing charades. For them, Hanukkah is lighting the candles and eating
   
   latkes (OK...Hanukkah has also become the "book" holiday, but we did the best we could!). Thanksgiving is about sharing our gratitude, one by one around the table, creating and putting on a play in front of the fire after dinner with the other "kids" (the plays have changed over the years as the kids have grown, but the tradition is unchanged). I am certain when my kids are older, their memories of the holidays will be about these aspects. Rarely, if ever, will their memories be about the material gifts they received.

These are a few of the ideas we've incorporated into our family life with relative ease and joy. It hasn’t always been possible to maintain traditions to perfection, but we have done the best we can—going as far as finding raclette on Christmas Eve the year we were in Vietnam. We missed our family, but I can guarantee memories were made!

The holiday season can be a truly overwhelming time for parents and kids alike. 

What do you do to minimize holiday gift overwhelm and maximize meaningful connection during the holidays with your family? 

I Never Really Learned How To Be a Grown Up Woman

I don't think I ever really learned how to be a grown up woman...you know, like those women who know how to dress, how to do their hair and makeup, how to do small talk, that sort of thing. No matter what sort of business-like gathering of women I attend I seem to stick out as the unrefined one as if I have a sticker on my head that reads, "grew up swearing, lived in Hawaii where dressing up means fancy flip flops, and currently lives in a cabin in Topanga." You know what I mean?

Makes me think of the time I went to the Holiday Party of a business group my husband was a part of where the theme was "Sex in the City" and the instruction was "come as your favorite character." I took that to heart and channeling my inner Carrie, showed up in a bright pink tutu skirt and a blonde wig. Nearly everyone else heard the same instruction and understood it to mean, wear a sophisticated cocktail dress!

Where were these instructions taught? How come I missed them? How did I miss "Sex in the City--come as your favorite character" meant sophisticated (and mostly black) cocktail dress?! Is this what one learns reading Vogue, Cosmo, and I don't even know what other magazines? 

Maybe I was supposed to learn refinement in high school or college. Sure, I was a high school cheerleader and, not only was I in a sorority during my college years, I was the president. But let's take a look at these because I was not selected for either due to my refinement! 

I went to high school in Hawaii, so right there the definition of refinement has completely different meaning and tends to involve a surfboard, a bikini, and the ability to pronounce Hawaiian words with ease. I was skilled in only one of the three. But as to cheerleading...If there was something I could be involved in, I was. I joined the squad because I was joiner and rather LOUD. I could lead call and response chants without needing the aid of a megaphone. I wasn't a particularly coordinated dancer and I'm still rather klutzy, but LOUD? I had that down and still do. This might be a side effect of having seven siblings. 

And the sorority president...well, I rushed as a freshman in college at a rather conservatively leaning university and did not get on-campus housing. How was I going to find my people? Fortunately for me, I went into rush without many preconceived ideas about which sorority was the "best" or "coolest." I was pretty open to following my instinct. A friend told me the best method for figuring out which one would be right for you was to ask yourself while at a rush party, "would I be comfortable waking up around these women with no makeup and be completely yourself?" Since I didn't wear much makeup and didn't know how to be anyone else, this was rather important not just upon waking in the morning, but all the time. I was lucky and had my pick of sorority. I found women with whom I felt comfortable being silly, odd, and irreverent. In other words, I found my people and they were not one of THE sororities on campus. I guess because they were my people and equally comfortable in their own oddity, they made me president. I didn't run for office, I was slated, which is sort of where a committee picks who they think should be in each position and the chapter votes on the whole thing. No one got to complain that the newly slated president didn't shave her legs and was a "professional clown" on weekends, among other missing refinements!

Clearly, I didn't learn refinement from either my high school nor my college experiences. I didn't learn it in my years as a yoga instructor or yoga studio manager either; I worked barefooted and in yoga clothes! 

Working in birth hasn't really upped my finesse game either. We're a rather casual and crunchy bunch in general, but even there I have a tendency to find myself breaking established norms. I was the one at the annual awards banquet who dropped to the floor in her "prom dress" and did a mock labor contraction! Yep...so refined!

How does one learn the language of refinement in the middle of life?

Or, do we really need to? Yes, I was the first to dance on the tables at that Sex in the City party, but I was not the last. In the end, I think others had a pretty good time with my pink tutu and blonde wig, even though I was so out of my skin for the first hour or two and felt deeply relieved when we left.

Clearly, refinement isn't my superpower! Edgy, courageous, goofy, and a willingness to break out of the norms of completely respectable behavior--that's a bit closer.

The clash between my introvert (who just wants to blend in) and my extrovert (who loves to be the life of the party and to be seen) is horribly strong!

AND...There are times I have to play at the "Business Woman Table." If my career moves in the direction I desire, that will happen more and more. So what's an oddball like me to do?At those times, I will ask my energetic extrovert to show up and play, regardless of the looks, questions, or discomfort of my introverted side. I pledge to focus on connection with others and with my own authenticity in the midst of the discomfort. I will make it a practice. Personal growth shows up in so many ways.

That...and I'm going to go shopping with a friend who knows how to dress the part! Don't worry, I will always add something funky or a quirky piece of jewelry; something will always not quite work.  

I don't think fitting in will ever be my strength. 

Maybe that's my superpower. Maybe that's meant to be everyone's superpower.

And maybe each woman has her own unique flavor. My particular flavor is a bit irreverent: I swear, I wear my hair in a messy bun all. the. time. I wear lots of color when others wear black, I drop to the floor in mock contractions whenever I feel called, and I have a panache for reading "costume" into almost any dress code! Maybe it isn't that I need to learn how to be more refined. Maybe, I need to work on my definition of what it means to be an adult woman. For some that includes a flavor of refinement. For others, like me, not so much. 

Maybe being an adult woman means stocking our pantry boldly with all sorts of spices and flavoring our lives in exactly the way we feel called to do so! Time to get cooking!

Faith, Hurricanes, and Childbirth: Taking Refuge in the Unknown

"Faith is taking refuge in the Unknown."

~Adyashanti

I listened to a podcast this morning and had to pause it when I heard this quote. Like many birth professionals, listening takes on a few different forms: personal and "how does this relate to birth." It is as if I have different ears and processing centers in my brain where everything flows through and is diverted into the appropriate sphere of importance. I am well past giving birth; my youngest is fourteen. Regardless, the diverter sends most content through both filters even when it does not seem to be birth related. 

This morning's podcast was no exception. When I heard the above quote, I couldn't help but think of the four pillars of birth as I teach about them in my childbirth classes: Love, Faith, Doubt, and Determination. For various reasons, Faith has always been one of the harder ones of these four to understand. You see, faith brings to mind religious belief or even a system of religious beliefs. As such, how does it work for those who are nonreligious or atheists? Does that pillar not apply to people who don't believe in God? On the contrary, I think it is still highly relevant. 

Which would then lead me to another definition of Faith: trust. But this too doesn't sit quite right for me. Perhaps my aversion to the word trust is based on the mantra-like phrase going around the birth community, "trust birth." To me, the idea that all you have to do to have the birth you want is to trust in it happening, misses so much. Nope, trust also didn't fulfill my need to more deeply understand Faith. 

But this Adyashanti quote moves me closer to how I feel about Faith. Let me break it down. 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines refuge as, "shelter or protection from danger or distress." Shelter or protection from the danger, not removal of the danger. There is a huge difference here and brings to mind my experience of living through Hurricane Iniki on Kaua'i back in 1992. During that incredibly powerful category 4 hurricane, I remember being sheltered from the storm. Several of us hunkered down in a semi-basement room in the home of a dear friend. Outside, the storm raged, RAGED, around us. We could hear it howling and whistling through cracks and crevices in the house. We could feel it in the form of water around our ankles as rain poured in through slat windows. And, we were OK. We were in the storm, but not in the way the hikers stranded on the Na Pali trail were IN it! We had shelter and protection. And it was scary, threatening, and hair-raising. We were sheltered from the hurricane, but that didn't mean the hurricane suddenly didn't exist. To be sheltered in birth does not imply the removal of all obstacles, nor does it mean the effects of the storm raging around you won't leave you up to your ankles in water.  

What does "unknown" mean? Using unknown in a noun form refers to all that we cannot understand, know, or control; it is the realm of mystery, the sacred, and the holy in all its forms. Birth fits firmly within the realm of "the unknown." Much is unknowable in labor, birth and parenthood. Control is illusory. Birth is like what my backpacking instructor taught me about Sierra Nevada weather; "the only thing predictable about mountain weather is that it is unpredictable." The unknown is not only not known, it is unknowable. Weather, like birth, is a force governed by nature and as such, is not predictable nor controllable.

I learned this first hand in that hurricane. Iniki was one hell of a storm. The roof of the house I was in did eventually blow off toward the end of the storm. Those of us sheltering in that basement room had to act resourcefully and responsively to the new situation of our shelter. After the storm passed, we turned the garage into a makeshift sleeping quarter for our motley group of hurricane riders. We didn't know everything there was to know about hurricanes before the storm made landfall. Much of what we learned we learned through experience. We became resourceful in response to our needs in the moment rather than following a specific plan...we were already blown off course. 

And we were ultimately, totally and completely OK. We had faith. We took refuge in the unknown. We found shelter in the midst of Nature. 

For many, faith is easily understood and deeply felt. It runs through their being as an ever-present thread in tapestry of their lives, be it religious, spiritual or both. For me, Adyashanti's definition of faith, brings closer another understanding of what Faith as a pillar in birth might mean. 

Faith is taking shelter within the storm of all that is unpredictable and unknowable. It is a form of trust, not that nothing unexpected will happen, but in knowing you can make it through regardless of the size of the storm.  

The protection offered by this type of faith relies upon an innate or trained knowing in our own OK-ness. Many of us charge into difficult situations with mantras like "I am strong" and "I am powerful." And yet, we often face moments when we don't feel strong or powerful. What is true of us even when we don't feel strong and powerful? Faith reminds us--even in moments when our belief in ourselves (or even God) is tested--that all is ultimately OK. 

A parent in one of my classes recently summed this concept up artistically and beautifully...

"We are okay; I am okay."

art credit: anonymous 

On This Day...Sharing Birth Stories

Fourteen years ago today I was precisely 40 weeks pregnant with our second child. Yep, it was my estimated due date. It was also the day after we had new sod go in our newly landscaped backyard. Frustrating the avid gardener in me, the landscapers did not "tamp down" the new grass, helping the roots to connect with the soil below. 

This was not acceptable and off we went to the equipment rental company...my mom, my full belly, and I. There, I rented a metal roller, the kind you fill with water and then roll it across the grass to help tamp it down and smooth out any unnecessary pockets. The men at the rental store asked if there was someone at home who would be doing this for me. To which I answered, "No, I plan to do it myself." Aghast, he asked when I was due. With cheer in my voice, I said, "Today."

Somehow that day, I did manage to get the 250+ lb roller out of my minivan and roll the grass! Thankfully, I have photographs to prove it as I can hardly believe it myself. That night, I sat exhausted in my favorite chair after putting our toddler to bed and proudly proclaimed my gratitude that I had not gone into labor. I was beat!

It's sort of funny how those things go, large proclamation to the Universe and then...yep! Our son was born just after midnight that evening.

But this is where sharing my birth story (in this manner at least) ends. What happened between that proclamation of exhaustion and our baby's arrival just after midnight is sacred, special, and remarkably, transformatively, intimate. How might I communicate just what happened that night and all that occurred inside my soul during those hours? To do so would be to invite you into a part of my being I share with only a few of my most beloveds. Birth, to me, is a lot like your most transformative and intimate sexual experiences. Not that birth is sexual itself (although it can be). Rather, I mean this is in terms of who I let in, with whom I share these moments, their profound sacredness and in how inconceivably difficult they are to translate in ways that allow others to enter the moment with me.

And so for me I share the story of tamping the grass, I share the story of our older son meeting our new baby for the first time, I share the humor of his being born just a few minutes "late," but what occurred within those bookends, those moments are for me, my family, and our intimate circle with whom we carefully and selectively choose to share them.

Few hold the strict stance on sharing their birth stories that I have, nor do they need to. 

Each birthing person gets to decide for themselves how they share or don't share their unique story. 

It is, after all, theirs to do with as they please!

I have found that new parents who share their stories in thoughtfully selected, supportive and even therapeutic environments, often find that the act of telling their story supports them on the path of healing and integration. Therapeutic and healing story-sharing is most effective when there is little to no concern for how the story will be received. In other words, helpful birth story sharing thrives where the values of acceptance, non-judgment, and empathy are foundational. 

As a birth professional,  I apply a "do not share" standard to how I hold the stories of births I attend. I may reveal a snippet of a birth story in my teaching or writing, always with a specific learning objective and without any names or features that could be identifiable. I have my intimate group of trusted colleagues where I can go to process my experience, what happened, what I did and didn't do, where I felt strong or powerless, where I wish I'd done things differently, what I can learn and grow, and where I shone brightly in my personal genius (that we each have). Birth is powerful. We all need sacred circles within which we can be witnessed, but that is far different from processing publicly on social media.

I am on call to doula for a birth as I type this. This mother's estimated due date was yesterday. It is no wonder that I reflect upon my own labor 14 years ago as I await the call that could come at any moment. The phone will ring and I will drop everything to support a couple as they step across the threshold that will transform them from couple to family. 

If I am fortunate enough to be there to share in this experience, I will hold it as a profound gift, a shared intimacy, a few moments of magic woven together in a unique and privately shared rite of passage.  As such, the story of their birth will be theirs alone to share if, when, and how they desire.