by Rachel Toalson | On My Shelf
On my shelf this week:
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume
God Help the Child, by Toni Morrison
The Pocket Wife, by Susan Crawford
Best Books for Boys, by Pam Allyn
This week I’m lost in nostalgia with one of my favorite kid reads (Blume), lost in admiration with the newest from one of my favorite authors (Morrison) (and it’s absolutely brilliant, as usual), lost in mystery with a book club read (Crawford) and lost in learning about boys and what kinds of books they enjoy most (Allyn)—because I plan on writing books boys want to read, so I figured I’d better do a little research on it.
Best quotes so far:
“It’s not so much that I like him as a person God, but as a boy he’s very handsome.”
Judy Blume (She totally gets the adolescent girl.)
“What you do to children matters. And they might never forget.”
Toni Morrison
“So this is what insanity is. Not goofy behavior, but watching a sudden change in the world you used to know.”
Toni Morrison
Read any of these? Tell us what you thought.
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
Lately I’ve been reading Write. Publish. Repeat. by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant, guys who started a podcast called The Self-Publishing Podcast several years ago. These guys are legitimate. They produce a crazy amount of content every year—mostly fiction, but some nonfiction—with word counts in the millions.
In their book, they talk about producing a new episode (they release some of their books like TV episodes—one a week—which is a model I’d like to be trying out soon) every week. Each episode is about 20,000 or 30,000 words.
Each week they’re writing 20,000 to 30,000 words, getting those words into format they can sell, publicizing it, and then launching it to sell.
Let me just say: I can’t even imagine doing that.
Each week I’m lucky to log 25,000 words in rough draft form and another 10,000 or so in final draft form (and that if I’m REALLY lucky and the kids don’t interrupt me even once). I’m lucky to spend a little time compressing something into an actual book I could sell. I’m lucky if I have the slightest amount of time to work on a book description or back matter.
So, of course, lately I’ve been comparing my output to their output and feeling a little discouraged. Will I ever get there? How can I be more efficient? Why can’t I do that, too?
They have a successful indie publishing business, and they produce a crazy amount of product, but what if my not-so-crazy amount of product means that I won’t have a successful indie publishing career?
Platt and Truant talk about the importance of creating funnels, which really means leading one book into another, like with book series or something that will naturally lead readers into another book. They say you shouldn’t launch a book until you have two.
Problem is it takes me six months to write a book. So a year’s worth of work (if I’m lucky) and I can’t even get a book in my store?
Well, here’s the thing, though: comparison isn’t helpful or our own, specific situation.
Sure, these guys are producing an insane amount of content every year, but that doesn’t mean I have to do it exactly like them to run a successful indie business. They’re not even saying that. In fact, they explicitly say in the beginning pages of their book that it’s not a training manual; it’s a this-is-how-I-did-it manual.
They log incredible word counts every week, but that doesn’t mean I have to log the same word count in order to be taken seriously as an author.
Sometimes I catch myself thinking, There’s no way I’ll be able to do that. It’s true for now. But there may be a day I’ll be able to do it, when kids are older and need me less. That day is not today. I don’t have the margin to write for long hours of the day. I will have to take what I can get, because I’m not giving up.
Sometimes we can see these comparisons and think we’re just not trying hard enough or we just don’t have what it takes or we should just quit before we get our hopes up, because obviously we’re lacking something that they have.
Comparison can stop us right in our tracks.
The truth is, writer careers take all different sizes and shapes. Some people can release a 30,000-word book every week. Some people can release a 70,000-word book in a year. It’s all legitimate.
Some writers have kids (lots of them). Other choose not to have kids or family or anything that might distract them from the end goal. It doesn’t mean that either of us is wrong or less or more of a writer.
We can never see ourselves clearly if we’re looking through comparison eyes. We need to take off those lenses that say we should do it that way exactly, like that person, or else…
Or else we’re not going to see success.
Or else they’ll never take us seriously.
Or else our writing won’t be esteemed.
The world wouldn’t be a very interesting place if we all looked the same. The writing world wouldn’t be a very interesting place if all our writing careers looked the same.
So we must do what we can do and let the work rest in our effort for today.
Here are some ways to stop comparison in its tracks instead of letting it stop us:
1. Keep a log of how many words you write each day and celebrate when the word count goes up. Don’t look at others’ word counts. Just look at your own and make yourself better day by day. One word at a time.
2. Start a journal of everything you accomplish each day. At the end of the year, look back on the list and remember. Remember how productive you were. Remember how much you enjoyed it. Remember how exciting it was to build your writer career and how humbling it is that you get to do this.
3. Assess your expectations. Sometimes our expectations, when they’re not aligned with reality, are what can make us look around at other people, because we want either affirmation that we’re on the right path or we want to know if we should set a different goal for ourselves. Make your goals and remember that they’re fluid, not set in stone. And then give it your best effort because you think it’s right, not because someone else’s career told you it was right.
The beauty of building a writing business is that we get to make the rules. We get to work toward our own goals.
Don’t let comparison kill what momentum you already have.
Let me say it again: Don’t let comparison kill what momentum you already have.
(This post is just as much for me as everyone else. I’ll be reading it as often as I need to. I hope you will, too.)
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents, General Blog, Wing Chair Musings featured
I have a large family. Six children. In a world where people are choosing to have fewer children (or none at all), this can seem weird and crazy and, for some, unacceptable.
These people always come out to play when I mention anywhere in my article that six kids live in my house.
I get it. Six kids is a lot. Many people can’t imagine having that many, let alone choosing to have that many. It seems like a crazy, why-would-anyone-want-to-do-THAT kind of thing.
Their concerns range from whether these kids are all from the same dad (yes) all the way down to what my uterus looks like. So, since I don’t plan to stop writing about my large family, I thought it would be fun to have a page of FAQs and FCs (Frequent Comments) where I could just send them to save time. Because I’m considerate like that and wouldn’t want anyone to die wondering.
“You do know how they are conceived and (that) there are methods of preventing said conception, correct.”
-I’m Real Original
Dear I’m Real Original: This is certainly the mystery of the century. And, to be honest, I really have no idea. You know how people joke about that woman whose husband just looks at her and she’s pregnant? It’s not a joke. It’s me.
Please tell me how this happens. I really don’t want any more of these…things…wrecking my home. So let’s go get a cup of coffee and you can tell me the whole conception story. The more details, the better.
“I’d like to sit down with her and ask her exactly what she thinks she’s giving society by having six kids. These people are so selfish it makes me sick.”
-I Have No Kids
Dear I Have No Kids: Huh. That’s weird. I didn’t think I owed society anything.
(Also: My boys are awesome. I could care less what you think.)
“I think you have enough kids.”
-The Child Police
Dear The Child Police: I’m glad you noticed. Thanks for not being afraid to tell me, because now I can finally stop. Because I truly do care what you think, even if I don’t care what I Have No Kids thinks. You are the police, after all.
“I prefer a dog. I’ve always wondered why someone would bring another awful human into the world.”
-I Hate Everyone
Dear I Hate Everyone: I want to be offended by your words, but I just feel sad. I wish I could find you and let you know how important you are to the world. My guess is you didn’t have anyone to tell you that as a kid. Growing up in a world like that stinks. But not everyone is an awful human (I’m not. My husband’s not. My boys aren’t, either.). I hope you find some not-awful humans soon.
“Children can be taught to take care of their things. A quiet home may be impossible, but it can be a controlled noisy.”
“Do some parenting and much of that nonsense will stop.”
“Manners and chores are taught, not everyone who has boys has a torn up home.”
– Perfect Parent
There you are Perfect Parent! I’m so glad you could come around. I know you’re super busy raising your perfect kids. Can you do us all a favor and start a parenting class for the rest of us dopes? We could learn so much from you. Just tell us where to sign up and I’ll try to make sure I can’t find a pen anywhere.
“It just sounds like they run free, without any constraints. If something were to happen to the mother, who would want to care for them?”
-I Don’t Get Humor
Dear I Don’t Get Humor: Your name says it all. We’re speaking a completely different language.
“Take a step back and figure out routines to control their acting out behaviors.”
-I Know Everything
Dear I Know Everything: That sounds way too hard. I’d rather just let them run wild and terrorize the world while I lie on the couch and dream about my life before children.
“Why on earth do parents saddle their kids with ridiculous names?”
“What a bunch of bizarre names you’ve selected for your boys, lady.”
-Names Are My Business
Dear Names Are My Business: I didn’t realize I was in violation of the “Acceptable Names According to Society” list. Next opportunity I have, I’ll march on down to the courthouse and change their names to something that might be easier for you to stomach.
Or maybe I’ll just take a shower. Because it’s been a while, and opportunities are opportunities.
Shower or courthouse? Shower or courthouse? Shower or courthouse?
Aw, dang. Shower won.
Welp. Guess you’ll have to get used to those ridiculously bizarre names.
“What were you drinking when you named them?”
-I Know Names
Dear I Know Names: That would be peppermint Schnapps, straight from the bottle. Because, you know, they allow that at the hospital during a woman’s childbirth recovery. By the time the birth certificate official came around I couldn’t feel my tongue anymore. You know what happens next.
Let that be a lesson, people. Don’t drink while naming children.
“If they are anything like the Duggars…”
“Is she related to the Duggars or just another dimwit breeding for the heck of it?”
“Trying to be like the Duggars or something?”
-I Can’t Count
Dear I Can’t Count: I know, I know. Six is so close to 19. Scarily close. Turn around, and I might have more children than the Duggars tomorrow.
Truth be told, we’re trying to be like another famous family. Just call us the Weasleys.
“What I learned from six boys: have a vasectomy.”
“Should’ve had an abortion at some point.”
-No Tact
Dear No Tact: What an educated, insightful answer. I’m so glad you could contribute something valuable to this discussion.
“Maybe booze has something to do with you guys getting pregnant so many times?”
-Stay Away From Alcohol
Dear Stay Away From Alcohol: I don’t really remember. All I know is every day I had to buy a new bottle of red wine from the corner store because the old one just kept mysteriously disappearing.
“She should have told her husband to put that thing away after birth #3.”
-Sexpert
Dear Sexpert: I did. Didn’t work. Mostly because I look dang good in yoga pants and an unwashed-hair ponytail.
“She is discusting.” (stet)
-The Educated One
Dear The Educated One: Sorry, I don’t take insults from people who can’t spell. Maybe that’s snobbish. But I’m just being honest. Come back to visit once you learn how to spell the word “disgusting.”
“They sound like the worst parents ever.”
-I Share Opinions
Dear I Share Opinions: We are the worst parents ever. Just ask any of our kids when they have immediate lights out for getting out of bed for the third time and someone’s not dying (which constitutes an emergency). Just ask them when they get an extra chore for getting down from the table without being excused. Just ask them when they aren’t allowed to watch the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie like all their friends do because the content is too mature.
“No wonder there’s not a husband in the picture. She’s ugly.”
-Fugly and Fffffpppsmart
Dear Fugly and Fffffpppsmart: I know it’s really hard to understand, but there is this thing that happens when someone takes a picture. It’s called Standing Behind the Camera. You see, someone has to stand behind the camera in order for a picture to be taken (unless you set an auto-picture, which I have no idea how to do. Technology’s not my strong point. Having babies is.). Husband was behind the camera.
Please don’t let your brain explode with this amazing revelation.
“I know your hands are full, but you chose to have a large family, and it is time for you both to step up and be responsible. Do them a huge favor and try to have them become gentlemen. Make them pick up their own clothes instead of leaving them all over the floor. The world will thank you.”
-Concerned Non-parent
Dear Concerned Non-parent: Well, this just dashes all my parent-hopes. I guess I thought my boys would leave their clothes on the floor forever, or at least until they found a wife to pick up after them. I definitely didn’t plan on teaching them to find the hamper or clean up their own messes or do their own laundry. Mostly because I LOVE BEING A MAID.
(Said no mother ever.)
“Her uterus must be dragging the floor just like her vag.”
-Crude Dude
Dear Crude Dude: Kind of you to be concerned. As far as I know, I haven’t tripped over either yet, so I think I’m doing okay.
“Women like this keep popping out kids to try and remain relevant because they have no skills or talent. Get an education, lady…they will teach you how to keep ur legs closed.”
-School Fixes Everything
Dear School Fixes Everything: I must be dumber than I thought. What does “ur” mean? I’ve never come across that word in my study of the English language.
Oh, wait. Study? I’ve never done that. It probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that I did not graduate valedictorian of my high school class, and I didn’t get a full ride to a university of my choice, and I most definitely didn’t graduate four years later with a 4.0 GPA and a degree in print journalism and English. Because, you know, women like that don’t have trouble keeping their legs closed. They know where babies come from, and they make sure they don’t have six of them.
I’m sure it also wouldn’t surprise you to know that I’ve never, ever, in all my life, won a writing award or been recognized for any of my work, because, of course, I have zero talents.
Now I feel sad that I didn’t do more with my life. Guess I’ll go open that new bottle of red wine and have another baby.
Thanks for commenting! If you have any personal issues with any of my answers, please email idontcare@babymakingfactory.com.
See you next time I write an article about my big family!
This is an excerpt from Parenthood: Has Anyone Seen My Sanity?, the first book in the Crash Test Parents humor series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
(Photo by Helen Montoya Photography.)
by Rachel Toalson | Messy Mondays
When I went to bed last night, these guys were asleep. I know because I stayed out on the couch with a direct line into their room, watching them until they stopped moving—because the last time I left them alone for any amount of time, they tore their closet doors off the hinges and tried to squeeze into their 5-month-old brother’s shorts.
And yet, when I flicked on their light this morning (they were still sleeping) to help them from their baby-gated room (yes, still baby-gated, even though they’re 3. Because TODDLER TWINS.), I found this. Drawings. All over their walls. There were “people” and “ducks” and a “sun” and “mountains” and all sorts of indistinguishable shapes that surely meant something deep and profound.
“Who did this?” I said. I wasn’t even mad. Just really curious and a little stupefied (and maybe impressed) as to how (1) they did it without our knowing and (2) they did it in the dark.
“Not me,” Twin 1 said.
“Not me,” Twin 2 said.
Of course.
“That’s weird,” I said. “Who did it then?”
They both shrugged. They didn’t look at each other. They didn’t even blink. “I don’t know,” Twin 1 said.
“I don’t know, either,” Twin 2 said.
Yeah, I bet.
“So a neanderthal from prehistoric times found a portal into our house and drew all over your walls while we were sleeping?”
“Yeah,” they said at the exact same time.
Because that makes WAY more sense than twins drawing on walls. They would never do that. No way.
I have to hand it to them—they’re a united front.
They spent the morning washing walls. I spent the morning searching for that dang piece of chalk. I never did find it.
So today, while they’re “napping,” another caveman will probably find a portal and redo all his drawings. Oh, well. At least chalk isn’t permanent.
Now, if I could just find that Black Sharpie that went missing this afternoon…
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
“Are you going to go swimming tonight, Mama?” he says in that little-boy voice. It’s the 5-year-old, who likes to play with her hair. Who loves to snuggle. Who thinks she’s the most beautiful woman in the world.
All that doesn’t matter. She’ll still say no.
“Not tonight, baby,” she’ll say. Because she didn’t shave her legs or her bathing suit doesn’t fit yet (maybe it never will) or she’s just too tired today to deal with the emotional effort of trying to put on a swimsuit.
Because it takes great emotional effort to squeeze into that piece of spandex she keeps in her closet, where she can’t see it.
Those secret excuses—I’m just not ready to see what I look like, I’ll wait until I have a chance to lose more weight, no one wants to see this—go unsaid.
It’s okay, she tells herself. I’m still watching, so it’s not like they’re missing me. It’s still family time. I’m still present and fully engaged. I’m still there in the way it matters.
Every time she reads one of those articles urging women to just put on a swimsuit and get in the pool, this is what she tells herself.
Because, you see, it’s not as simple as just putting on a swimsuit and getting in a pool.
She’s had babies, and with every one of them, she added new marks, the ones that are almost invisible, almost unnoticeable, until they see daylight and start shining like they’re proud of their jagged lines, and people don’t need to see that. People don’t need to see the jiggly stomach she still carries five months, five years, fifteen years later. People don’t need to see those blue veins on the back of her knee.
God, she hates swimsuit season.
She does a pretty good job of hiding that disappointing body on a regular basis, with baggy shirts and hold-it-in undershirts and those workout pants that actually make her butt look a little bit good maybe.
Swimsuits are nothing of the sort. There is nowhere she can hide.
Children don’t understand these things, of course. They need other excuses—like she just doesn’t feel like it or she’s tired or she’d rather watch them having fun than join it. (Well, maybe not the last one. It’s too close to the truth.)
Her boys don’t care about the way she looks. They don’t care what other people think. They don’t care what she thinks, even.
Neither should she.
She knows this.
It’s just that it’s easier said than done, that putting on a swimsuit and getting in a pool. See, she is recovering from years of eating disorders, years of body dysmorphia, years of I-just-want-to-be-perfect-but-can’t.
It’s been years, a decade, more, but she is still recovering. She will always be recovering. This is her reality. No matter what they tell her, no matter what those body-empowerment proponents say, she still cares about having an attractive body, and she still cares about swimsuits telling the truth that she doesn’t (at least not from her perspective).
Every year after babies were born, she slipped back into that perfection mode—gotta lose it fast, gotta get “it” back in record time, gotta somehow fit back into that spandex suit well before summer rolls around, even if the baby came in May.
Every year she could feel those old ghosts creeping in, telling her not to eat, telling her to stick a finger down her throat, telling her to reach for the laxatives. Just do it. It’s easy. You’ll be thin in no time at all. Remember?
She fought hard, too. She pressed through, every day, every hour, every second. She made it, sort of. Her hair was a little tangled and her clothes a little torn and she still walks with a limp she’ll try to hide.
But it’s not a once-healed, always-healed kind of thing. This is her body. This is her eyes. This is her criticism of something that would be beautiful on someone else.
Trying to stay in a constant state of body-appreciation instead of body-despising is really hard work for women like her.
There is no easy way out of this body-conscious state irritated by summers at the pool. There is only through.
She will have to go through.
She’s managed to avoid it, until now. But now they’re asking, every day, and she knows. She knows how this will go.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who can look their best at all…
After children
in a swimsuit
walking in broad daylight?
What all those “outsiders,” the ones who have never fought through anorexia or bulimia or dysmorphia, don’t understand that it’s not so much what other people think as what she thinks of herself, how she feels about that body wrapped up in a too-tight suit.
What does she think?
Well, she tries not to think about that.
So she makes her excuses for as long as she can. She stays out of the pool. She watches.
Her boys just keep asking (and thank God they do, because she can’t use those excuses indefinitely. They’ll never let her.).
And then, one day, her husband whispers in her ear, I think you’re beautiful. Just wear it for me. Just get in the pool and play with your boys.
And she thinks maybe, maybe, maybe she can.
Maybe she can.
She doesn’t look, can’t look, in the mirror, so she doesn’t know exactly what she looks like. These steps have to start small. This is how it must be for now. She’ll leave without looking, but that doesn’t mean she’s lost. Because she GOES.
She goes. She leaps. She soaks up the joy of those precious boys, who are just so excited that their mama is finally, finally, finally in the pool with them. Finally.
And Isn’t she beautiful? their eyes say.
Isn’t she beautiful?
And another day, another more courageous day, when she has the strength to look in that mirror and still go, she will see it, too.
Yes. She sure is beautiful.
by Rachel Toalson | On My Shelf
On my shelf this week:
Two-Part Invention, by Madeleine L’Engle
Everything You Ever Wanted, by Jillian Lauren
Nightbird, by Alice Hoffman
How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination, by Sally Hogshead
This week I’ve got a beautiful memoir by Madeleine L’Engle, all about her 40-year marriage to Hugh Franklin; a memoir from a mom who “wanted a second act at life;” an intriguing middle grade novel from Alice Hoffman; and an interesting scientific read (because I’m a nerd like that).
Best quotes so far:
“Accepting that we are angry is a healthy and appropriate response as long as we don’t get stuck in it. Acknowledging it is one way of going through it.”
Madeleine L’Engle
“We do not have to understand in order to believe that behind the mystery and the fascination there is love.”
Madeleine L’Engle
“When you stop trying to be all things to all people, you can stop worrying about being liked and start building relationships that allow you to be loved. If you are not creating a negative response from somebody, you’re probably not very fascinating to anybody.”
Sally Hogshead
“Different is better than better. Different doesn’t try to turn you into something else. Different allows you to highlight the singular traits you already have within you. You aren’t necessarily better than your competition. But you are already different.”
Sally Hogshead
Read any of these? Tell us what you thought.
by Rachel Toalson | This Writer Life
In the last month I’ve had some practice calling myself an author.
It’s usually in answer to the question, “What do you do,” asked by people who see my line of boys and think surely I must stay home.
“I’m an author,” I say.
The question that inevitably comes next is “Oh. What do you write?”
And this one is harder to answer, because I don’t have anything out in the market. Yet.
I am still an author. I write books. I finish books. I am in the process of getting those books ready to sell—either through self-publishing (the Speak series and some episodic fiction) or through traditional means (a middle grade novel).
I am an author.
But sometimes I feel like a fraud.
Mostly because there’s so much I need to do, so much more I need to learn, so much experience I need to gain before I can start calling myself a real author, before I can call myself an author and start teaching other people what I’ve learned.
We can feel like before we lay claim to the title “author” or “writer” we have to accomplish this and that, we have to have publishing credits, we have to sell a book well, we have to have a certain number of books under our belt.
But here’s what I’ve come to realize:
A fraud talks about writing. An author does the work of writing.
A fraud keeps all their story ideas in a brainstorm folder for some other day. An author fleshes them out and starts writing the rough draft, even if it takes years to finish.
A fraud is all talk. An author is all work.
So if I’m doing the work of an author, then I have the right to call myself an author.
And I am doing the work. I am writing every single day, cranking out story after story after story in notebooks and on a computer screen and in every space I have in my mama life.
I am an author.
Here are the reasons we should just get over it and call ourselves an author:
1. We know what we’ve been made to do.
Even if those people at the other end of our answer look at us like we’re crazy, even if they ask about our publishing credits (because “author” to others mean we have books on the market) and we don’t have any—yet—even if they don’t believe us, it doesn’t change who we are and who we have been made to be. People have their own standard for what an author should look like. But if we’re doing the work, we deserve the title.
2. We will never feel fully equipped.
It’s taken me a long time to realize this. I will never know as much as I’d like to know. I will never have all the skills I would like to have. I will never be able to produce as much as that other person can produce. There will always be someone better than we are. This is a good thing. It means we have a teacher.
But we can become bogged down in the trenches of this knowledge (or at least I can). We can want to know everything there possibly is to know about writing a book before we do it. There’s nothing wrong with learning what we need to learn. But there is something wrong when it keeps us from creating. The best practice, the best way to become an author or a writer is to practice like one.
3. We don’t have to be the best before we begin.
When I think about people who are masters now—Toni Morrison, Phillip Lopate, Cormac McCarthy, George R. R. Martin—I have to remember that they did not always start here. They did not always start on the bestseller list. They did not always write as well as they do today. Writing well takes practice.
And if we just wait until we’re perfect, until we have our skills in line with where we think they need to be (which will never happen, by the way), we will never seize the opportunity to become an author. We must create now, wherever we are. And then we must constantly grow.
It’s not easy to feel like we’re not putting on some elaborate farce, because who in the world gets to do something as amazing as writing stories for their JOB? Only the luckiest do. Only the best. Only the smartest.
That’s a fallacy. Only the hardest workers do.
So let’s get writing.
Happy creating.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
It’s their first day back from the grandparents’ after a week of running wild outside in the country and swimming in a pool and watching movies for Quiet Time, and my boys have forgotten how to act.
We are incredibly blessed that my mom and stepdad took the older three boys for a week (and do every summer) and that my father-in-law took the Dennis-the-Menace-times-two twins for a few days (because that’s about all the time anyone can handle with these guys), but man. Detoxing stinks.
My parents eat a lot like us—no processed food, lots of fruits and veggies, no special “treat” with every meal. So I can’t even blame it on the food (which is my usual culprit). But when they come back from Nonny and Poppy’s house, they are bouncing off the walls (And that’s an understatement.). No one wants to go into the backyard when I suggest bouncing on the trampoline instead, because they all missed their toys “so, so, so much!”
No one remembers where to put their shoes (the shoe basket we’ve had by the door for YEARS). They don’t even remember how to get dressed. It’s like dressing for seven days in a row is enough effort to last the entire summer.
The first day of detox was the third son’s fifth birthday, which means tradition set a birthday treat in front of him at breakfast. I had a feeling it was a bad idea, but what are you going to do with tradition?
Ten minutes later they were catapulting over the side of the couch so quickly I didn’t know who to get onto because they were blurs.
They got crayons, coloring books, Hot Wheels and a bin of four million LEGOs out all at the same time, even though we have a very important rule about “only one thing out at a time.”
“I’d like to see one of you build something with LEGOs, color a picture and play with the cars all at the same time,” I said.
They looked at me like I’d lost my mind. (By that point, I already had.)
After dinner, they forgot how to put their plates and silverware away.
“We used paper plates at Nonny and Poppy’s house,” they said when I asked.
“But Nonny didn’t make you throw them away?” I said.
“Yeah,” they said, not noticing the glaring inconsistency here: They still had to carry their plates somewhere.
There is just something about not being in the house where your parents live that makes you forget all the rules. Or, worse, make up your own.
Detoxing day one was filled with rules amended by incompetent-at-logic children. Here are just a few of them.
Actual rule: Only one book down from the shelves at a time.
Amended rule by detoxing, too-creative-for-his-own-good 8-year-old: Except when I create this world called Animalia. You see, Mama? I brought all my twelve thousand stuffed animals up from the garage where I found them in a trash bag—why were they in a trash bag?—and made my room like a stuffed animal resort. They have a reading corner here. See? There’s a book for every one of them. I’ll clean it all up, don’t worry.
Yeah, right.
Actual rule: Before you get something else out to play with, clean up whatever it was you were playing with before.
Amended rule by detoxing, I’m-the-birthday-boy 5-year-old: Except I get to pick everything to play with for the day AND I don’t have to clean anything up, because I’m the birthday boy. What’s that, Mama? It’s clean up time? Well, I’m the birthday boy, so I don’t have to clean up. Nuh-uh. I don’t have to clean up even though I got to pick all the toys. I’m the birthday boy and I LOVE NOT CLEANING UP! IT SHOULD BE MY BIRTHDAY EVERY DAY FOREVER!
Don’t ever promise a birthday boy he’s exempt from cleaning up.
Actual rule: Stay at the table until you’re finished with your food and we say yes to your “May I be excused?” question.
Amended rule by detoxing, I-can’t-stop-moving-my-feet 6-year-old: Except that I forgot to show you this really neat picture I made at Nonny and Poppy’s house, and did you see this word search I colored instead of circling words on, and, oh, yeah, I made this really neat paper airplane out of a superhero drawing. Do you want to see it fly? And my brother just go new markers for his birthday and I have this blank sheet of white paper and I LOVE TO COLOR SO MUCH!
This is getting ridiculous.
Actual rule: Don’t touch the CD player when you’re only 3.
Amended rule by detoxing, strong-willed 3-year-old twin: Except I’m an annoying 3-year-old who won’t listen to anything you have to say. Touch, touch, touch. See me touch?
“Stop, son,” I say.
Touch, touch, touch.
[Sit him on the couch while I sit beside him acknowledging that I understand he really, really, really wants to touch those buttons and that I really wish I could let him but that he could break the CD player touching them all. Let him up three minutes later.]
Touch, touch, touch.
Long, long sigh.
Actual rule: Body excrement belongs in the toilet. Please, for the love of God, don’t poop in your underwear.
Amended rule by detoxing I’m-the-other-menace 3-year-old: Oops.
I finally had to lock them all in the backyard (cruel, cruel mother) just to regain my sanity.
I am incredibly grateful for the time our boys get to spend with their grandparents, no matter how challenging it is to get them back on a schedule and remind them of the rules they’ve known since the beginning of time (at least their time). They are not only spending valuable time with another generation but they are also giving their daddy and me the opportunity to spend some beautiful time by ourselves, reconnecting and engaging in conversations where we actually get to finish our sentences and remembering how much we liked each other in the first place.
The time we spend detoxing is definitely worth that reconnection. Every single time.
P.S. Just power through that first day, Mama and Daddy. It will get better. Remember? It always does (not before you add a few gray hairs, though). Pretty soon you’ll be right back to counting down the days until you can send them away again.
by Rachel Toalson | Messy Mondays
This picture is called “This is What Happens Five Minutes After the Kids Get Home from the Grandparents.”
I don’t even know how this happened. I just remember going out to the car to get the baby and their suitcases, and I walked back in to a paper explosion all over the living room and boys chattering about all the stories they wrote and pictures they drew at Nonny’s house.
Husband and I sent the boys away for a week-long stay at my mom’s house (thanks, Mom! Sort of! I mean, thanks for keeping the boys! No thanks for sending home all the “artwork” they created while they were gone!). While the house sat silent, with only the infant to keep us company, Husband and I organized the house, donated half their toys, cleaned out our old clothes we’ll probably never wear again, reduced our books by about 200 (there are still about 800) and tidied the entire house. So you have to understand, the house was spotless before boys walked in.
“Wow!” they said, because they have never seen it so tidy. “How did you get the house so clean?”
Five minutes later, they had their answer.
WE SENT YOU AWAY.
Connections like that are lost on kids, though. They could not see the tidy house and, five minutes later, the papers-taking-over house and think, “Hmm. This must have happened because I decided to show Mama and Daddy my five thousands pieces of artwork.”
Oh my word.
I just got done reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I sort of thought it might be possible to keep our house tidy if we just had a place for everything and we reduced enough of our possessions so they wouldn’t make a mess every ten seconds.
BUT KIDS.
They’ll always find a way to make a mess of things, I think. I’m done trying. So, welcome, papers. Thank you for coming. Please stay a while. Crawl between our couch cushions and get shoved under the armchair farther away than my arm can reach when I finally have the energy to tidy up again and make sure you come visit our bed right before we fall asleep. That’s my fave.
P.S. Nonny, we are now working on Project For Nonny wherein they draw five pictures every day until the next time you take them for a weekend (don’t make it too long or…). I’ll make sure to pack them up in a suitcase all nice and neat and pretty. So of course they’ll stay tidy.
by Rachel Toalson | Wing Chair Musings
It’s summertime. Bikini season. It can be a make-or-break season.
All the other girls in your class are armed with their bikinis in a myriad of colors, and they have their perfect bodies with their perfect breasts and their perfect legs and their perfect skins.
But you. Well. You don’t look nearly as good as they do in a bikini (at least from your vantage point), and because of this, you feel uncomfortable baring so much of yourself in public.
It’s just that there is a standard. An unspoken understanding. If you don’t want to be ridiculed for being a prude or old-fashioned or ugly, you will have to wear one of those, too.
I see you shrinking in your own skin. I see how you take that shirt off and slip off those shorts in record time and immediately slide into the water. I see you, when it’s time to get out, covering up just as quickly as you can, even if it means soaking the only clothes you brought with you.
I see you watch the ones who strut around in their strings so confidently and wish you could be them.
Oh, yes. I used to be you.
My body wasn’t perfect according to all those unspoken standards, and there was nothing like summer to make me remember all the ways I couldn’t measure up.
There was nothing like watching all those other bikini-clad teenagers to make me realize I would probably never have what it takes.
We live in a different world than we did when I was 17. We live in a world of body-empowerment. There is all kind of talk about those girls without perfect bodies walking bravely around in bikinis and celebrating the different sizes and shapes of their bodies, but there is still an ideal, isn’t there? There is still an “us” and a “them,” and you don’t want to be a “them.”
In fact, you don’t really want to reveal whether you’re an “us” or a “them.” What you really want to do is cover up. But it’s summer, and it’s a swimsuit and there’s an expectation, and who are you to argue?
This is what it takes to fit in, you say.
Maybe it’s hard to see from your 17-year-old eyes right now, but I’ll let you in on a little secret: There never was much great about fitting in.
Much easier said on the other side of 17, I know.
I know what it’s like to be the odd one out, to be the only one who’s uncomfortable in her own skin, to be the only one without a perfect body while all those others look like a page straight out of a magazine.
I know how scary it is to try to defy convention.
We don’t think it looks like courage to cover up. We think courage looks like baring our bodies, because it’s much more frightening to peel off the over-shirt and stand proud with those bikinis covering only the tiniest outer pieces of us, isn’t it?
No. It isn’t. All it takes is a misguided connection between our bodies and who we are (“I am beautiful because of my perfect body”) to feel so comfortable with baring our bodies for the world to see, like it wants us to. That’s not courage.
Courage is covering up in a society that doesn’t think you should.
It’s not easy, when you’re young, to see the bigger picture. But there is a bigger picture (there always is), and it is this: Your body does not define who you are.
Let me say that again: YOUR BODY DOES NOT DEFINE WHO YOU ARE.
I know, I know. The magazines. The television shows. The ads. Even the body empowerment movement. All of it claims you will be able to find the perfect bikini (try this particular style for your shape!) for your perfect-as-is body (Even if you have a bigger-than-you’d-like belly, feel proud to wear this revealing piece of cloth that will teach you to view beauty in a better way!) and still feel comfortable in it (It doesn’t matter what you look like! We can make you look and feel great!).
All these messages can leave you feeling angry and disappointed and most of all unbeautiful.
Hear me, little sister: Some things weren’t meant to be shared (Like the shape of your breasts outside a triangle of cloth. Like whether you have a thigh gap like all the supermodels. Like whether your stomach jiggles at all when you walk.).
Sure, we’re asked to share those secrets freely every summer. We’re asked to uncover. We’re asked to leave little to the imagination—and that little becomes littler every year.
The world likes to tell us that our worth as women lies in our bodies—and in summertime that means how we look in a bikini.
It’s a lie, a deep-seated one that reaches it hands into a teenage society that says if you don’t uncover like all the others there must be something wrong with your body. Of course there must be. The girls with perfect bodies don’t have any problem baring themselves. They strut instead of shrinking. They bare openly and proudly. They could care less what people think.
And maybe it’s true. Maybe some of them enjoy the stares they get because of the way they look in a string bikini, but it’s because their worth has gotten all tangled up in how they look, and they need the reminder, too: Our bodies do not define us as women.
Our bodies are beautiful—no matter what their shape or size, but they are not who we are. They are only where we live for a time. They cannot tell us what we will do in the future. They do not control what happens to us. They cannot guarantee our success in anything of value (or they shouldn’t).
They do not tell us the whole story of beauty.
You don’t have to bare your body to be beautiful. A society like ours that sexualizes women at every turn doesn’t have to have the last word. It doesn’t have to tell us how to be beautiful.
Our beauty is not a cheap beauty that can be bought with a couple scraps of cloth. It’s not a beauty that says we can only claim it if we are seen through the eyes of sex and pleasure. This is not how we are taken seriously as women.
You don’t have to bare your body to be deemed worthy. You are worthy just because you are you. Believe it in your deepest parts.
And then turn the tide.
Change begins with you, little sister.
I know it’s the road less traveled for a teenage girl to say she’s not going to bare her body for all the world to see, and the road less traveled never promised easy, but nothing worth doing was ever easy.
You’ll learn that in time, too. Everything worthwhile takes work—relationships, career, covering up in a world that ask us to bare more and more outer pieces of ourselves.
Dare to defy “convention.” Dare to be different. Dare to cover up.
Dare to be a force of change.
You won’t ever regret it.
