Going Forward

So, the thing is... going forward is tough.

Smiley Jane, at seven-and-a-half-months, has had enough of staying in one place. She took off crawling this week and it is truly something to see. For one thing, she crawls BACKWARDS. She doesn't mean to but she can't quite get those knees to move her forward. She picks out the object she is trying to reach and she stares at it intently as she puts all of her energy (which is considerable) into reaching it. She strains. She grunts. And then, imagine her frustration when she finds herself even further away from it than when she began! It's enough to make her howl and quite often she does just that.

I wish you could see her --this little angelic-looking baby with the temperament of ZEUS. She has this dimple, see, and these enormous blue eyes ringed in the longest eyelashes you've ever seen. And she's such a smiley, happy thing. Until you cross her and then she goes from Happy to Completely Outraged in less than 2.5 seconds. And back again as quickly, thank goodness. She's so frustrated about this whole going backward thing that it's FUNNY. And a little sad, because she has to feel that frustration in order to learn to go the other way.

Anyway, I started thinking about how hard it is to learn to go forward --not just for Jane, but for me, too. And how frustrating when I find I've gone backward despite my best efforts.

We spent this past week at the beach. I love the ocean and would happily live where I could see the ever-changing sky over it if I could. We try to go to the beach several times a year but we hadn't been in a long time. There's something about the immenseness of the water and the sound of the crashing waves that helps me take stock of my life. Sometimes I get so caught up in the chaos of having two small children that I forget about things like perspective and serenity and the luxury of time to think through things slowly. I didn't get a lot of time to cavort in the sand this time, but I got some good time just to watch the water and reflect.

The weeks leading up to the trip were simply insane. I usually do a lot of preparation for the trip in advance --I plan the menus and cook enough meals that we don't have to spend our precious time at the beach worrying about all that. I pack and I make sure everyone has the appropriate swim wear, etc. I usually have books and some special toys for the kids so that the car trip isn't endless for them. I make sure we have the towels, sheets and sunscreen we need. My ideal trip would be to get down to the beach house and never have to leave it --except for discretionary trips, of course. But it never happens.

This time, I tried hard but I only got about a fourth of the trip organized. In addition to trying to do my usual preparation while juggling the needs of my two kids, we also had the first phase of our big landscaping project done and I became a sort of ad hoc supervisor on the job. I don't know if it's as hard in other cities, but in Austin, it is really hard to find good contractors for this kind of thing because all the really great ones are booked several years in advance, or so it seems. We had some erosion around the pool that had to be addressed immediately and so instead of the master plan designed by a licensed landscape architect, we went with the only available contractor we could find. (Read: three guys with shovels and a truck and a hand-scrawled estimate that fit within our budget.) And on top of all this, my mom had hip-replacement surgery, which is a very big and worrisome deal and left her constantly on my mind. (She's doing great.)

So anyway, I kept trying and trying to get things done. And it seems the more I tried, the less I accomplished! And I ended up feeling like a bad mom because I kept sticking Ana in front of a video and Jane in her Baby Bungee while I tried to cook and do laundry and direct the placement of the two dump trucks full of dirt. I developed a first rate BAD ATTITUDE every time I had to do some mundane task that didn't further my larger goals. It was so incredibly frustrating to lie in bed at the end of the day and realize that I had injured my relationship with Ana by snapping at her short temperedly, not to mention sacrificing my own peace of mind, and the pay-off hadn't been worth it. How could it have been? My patience wore thin and my family suffered and for what? It was like treading water furiously and feeling myself slowly going under anyway.

I don't know what the answer is but I suspect it's about accepting the concept that this particular time in my life isn't about super achievement. I keep trying to maintain this totally unrealistic standard of household/parenting efficiency and I am working myself to death. I feel like I'm juggling six balls and three of them aren't even mandatory, you know? And I'm not having any FUN. Even at the beach house, I found myself missing out on the small beautiful moments with my kids so I could get the kitchen cleaned. No one to blame but myself. Instead of taking the time to really relax and recharge, I kept trying to stay ahead of the chaos and hating every minute of it. Uh, I think that's the wrong approach.

Maybe there is a way to ride this unruliness like a wave, instead of fighting it all the time. Maybe there’s a way to just swim along and maintain some kind of peace within the daily routine. I'm just SO not programmed that way. But there's the possibility that the chaos is LIFE in general and trying to manipulate it is as fruitless as trying to stop the tide. Perhaps the key is to find a rhythm in the daily routine of this life and in the endless crashing of the best laid plans. A sort of serenity and humor in surrendering to the small, repetitive tasks of LIVING. When I think of who I want to be, it's not this grim-faced, harried and humorless woman who spends the best part of each day acting like a scullery maid. Seems like I have to learn this lesson again and again -- I keep going backward when I really want to go the other way.

But sometimes going backward again really is going forward, after all. Ask Smiley Jane.

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Barbara Cooper is the mother of Ana (3) and Jane (seven months). She lives in Austin, Texas and she used to make a point of turning cartwheels on the beach.