Mommies with a method?

I think we've all seen them: mommies with the latest baby buggy all of their clean and trendy children walking orderly in shopping mall. You can just imagine how they go home to their clean and well-kept houses (the likes you see in a journal of interior) and even have all their books on alphabetical order on their shelves.

The worst thing is to run into a perfect mom in a shop with plenty of mirrors. My inner self-hater jumps into action telling me that my clothes are covered in dog-hair, the Older Princess' clothes are all muddy and I haven't done anything to my hair since I braided it three days ago. My self-hater goes on to tell me that if I were any kind of mother at all, my house would always be spotless, my children would never scream, run wildly or argue with me. Without a total and utter control of everything, declares my self-hater, you're a pathetic excuse of a mother.

Luckily the best parenting guide ever written is available at all times in our house. A collection of moomin-stories. Fillyjonk is deffinetly an archetype of a mommy with a method. Clean, orderly a with three disciplined children she is the opposite of Moominmamma whose most beloved piece of wisdom is "if it makes you happy, it's good for your stomach." Their children are quite different too. Moomintroll is adventurous, happy, outgoing and brave - and hardly follows any outside rules at all. Fillyjonks children do not speak unless spoken to and seem scared of any good ald fun that might get their clothes dirty. (More about the moomin characters here.)

So when considering your own mommying method the thing to think about is rather "what it is that I want to gain" than "how does this look to others." The only "others" you need to be considering are your children (and your hubby). If I want my children to be happy and grow into self respecting adults what is the action I need to take right now? Is it cleaning? Sometimes it is. Sometimes the best action is to invent a cleaning-game and include the children in it. Sometimes it's living by the words of Dalai lama and deciding that a clean, well-kept house is indeed a sign of wasted life.

I suppose my mommying method would be to keep my eye on the ball - and the ball being happiness.

On a day like this.

As a mom I live in a quite strange time-frame. Although I seem to be at home for most of the time and should have "all the time in the world" time it-self isn't quite mine. You other mommies of the out there might know what I'm talking about. It's difficult to plan things and even harder to get them done. Time that used to be yours has been kid-napped by tiny and determined dictators who don't seem to follow any rules reasoning, pleading, asking nicely or plain being polite on when and how they need you.

So I plan on writing a blog about being a pagan mommy and the joys and worries of parenting. I sit down to do it only to discover that Older Princes needs help to go to the potty. I sit down again only to notice that Younger Princes has woken up and wants to eat. I feed her and realize that there is a massive pile of laundry to wash. And after that there is dinner to make... And a day like this turns into a week like this and maybe even a month like this, before I get anything but the most urgent chores done.

The day I was about to begin writing was the day of first snow here. I could see huge, fluffy flakes floating from the sky, dancing in a slight breeze. That snow is already melted away and new snow has fallen. (To the great joy of Older Princess and the doggies.) And weeks have passed from beginning this entry to the point of getting it written. Mysterious, at times unforgiving and always quite surprising mommy-time.

A big part of the mysterious seems to be made of involuntary sleeplessness. I begin the night with the epic Battle of Getting the Older Princess to Bed. Younger Princess seems to be quite the night creature and likes to eat all the way to midnight before sleeping for a few hours. She's still so tiny that she needs her milk three to four times every night. The Older Princes on the other hand is an early bird and wakes up between seven and eight AM.

Sleeplessness doesn't kill you and the breast-feeding hormones with a big dose of coffee keep me on my feet, but I do feel quite air-headed at times. My beloved friend calls it mamnesia (=motherhood induced amnesia). I don't know what to call it, but I love it. Well most of the time I do. It seems to quiet down the rational, left side of the brain and give more space to the non-verbal, feeling and understanding right brain. It is easier to see our other-kin neighbors as flashes in the corners of your eye. It is easier to understand the unspoken language of our horse- and dog friends. And it's really a lot more easy to loose your temper, if your not following your own feelings closely.

OK, the last part I don't like.

There is a lot that makes motherhood and parenting resemble a pilgrimage. There is though, an extra challenge as you're not doing it on your own - you do not get to choose the pace, the direction or even who or what you encounter - but the challenges of any old "seeking the sacred" are there. The task of giving up anger, the challenge of quieting your ego, the dare of being sensual and finding time your partner - and  to do all this without feeling guilty, exhausted or inadequate.

So time is not a mommy's best friend - or is it? When seeking the sacred changing your perspective is often the answer. I gave up most of my rigid ideas of controlling time. I do no get as much done to be honest, but I gained peace of mind. Time still seems to rather flow like a river - sometimes faster, sometimes more slowly - than proceed in orderly measures of hours and days. I do not always know for sure if it's Monday or Wednesday and if asked to guess the time would probably go wrong. In stead of clock and calendar-time there is an inner rhythm of daily life - a more organic way of being if you will. It is measured by meal-times, naps, going-outs and coming-ins, caring for dogs and doing stable-chores. I do not need to know what time it is, to know what it is time for.

When I am really tired, time is my friend too. I can tell my-self that the first, most intensive months are a very short period of my life. Instead of making it a hurtful journey of blaming my-self for things I have not done, I could use it being present and enjoying the love and imminence of my beloved baby. As sure as night follows day there will be a time when I no longer need to wake up for wet-nursing. And equally surely there will be times I will have to wake up for more difficult tasks.

So on a day like this the best gift you can give you-self is the realization that this day is the only day like this. Other following days will not be quite like this one, nor have days before been like the one your living. As you cannot change the days that have passed and would waste to-day if you spend it worrying about the days to come you're left with one option - to live to day to the fullest. And sometimes the fullest is taking a blanket and snuggling under it with the tiny dictators and a good book of fairy tales and leave time out side to flow it's way to a moment with more energy for the dishes and dirty clothes.

Peace and good growth!