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By Mama Paloma, 25/03/2013 22:42

Hey there. Where have you been?

Kidding. I know I was the one who bailed for a bit.

The thing is, about eight months ago, in the midst of some big, crazy stuff regarding my kid, my blog started sending out links that took people to some weird sites proffering eastern European get-rich-quick schemes and other unsavory opportunities. I’d been hacked or malwared or something. I spent some time trying to sort out what to do about this issue but – not having the technical knowledge, time to gain said technical knowledge,  or funds to pay someone else with such technical knowledge – I soon gave up. Put it off for a day when one of these resources magically became available.

And got really busy.

Then, yesterday, I decided to have a look-see at the old blog again…and it seemed the problem was gone. Mind you, in eight months, WordPress had more than a couple of updates. When I loaded them up, things seemed to run like a CHARM. So, I figured I’d give it a go.

So, this is a test. If you get any weirdness, please let me know. Direct Message me on Twitter @MominLACity or email me at mamapaloma at gmail dot com.

The past while has been super intense and I’ve been processing a lot. There’s a lot of good that will come out of this time and, I think, a lot of good writing. Here’s a snapshot of the past two-thirds of a year, and what they have me thinking about.

Drama with the preschool got worse (if that was possible). The little guy started in a new school which has been all right but a tough adjustment, in large degree because of how crappy the original school was about it. It was sadly comforting to see the reports of another school that was closing due to almost identical issues – because I had been painted as being over-reactive by my son’s school, which is still open, and some of those evil people are bringing their kid to my kid’s soccer team (well, it’s not ‘his’ per se but we did get there FIRST). Can’t say much more about that as there are legal issues still pending. Still thinking about making our communities safer by challenging the ‘culture of silence’ around child sexual development and abuse prevention.

This connects to my recent obsession with Zerlina Maxwell and several rape cases that have received unusual press coverage.  One blogger wrote about the night that Jane Doe was repeatedly assaulted in Stubenville, Ohio as “the saddest night that Steubenville, Ohio, has ever seen.” It was sad all right, but hardly unusual. The videos and commentary by the perpetrators’ and victim’s peers made it clear that this was nothing new in Stubenville. For those of us who have been working in the rape crisis sector for years decades (!), nothing about these situations are surprising. This kind of assault is so common, especially in High School and college social scenes (though I personally have been assaulted twice in my thirties and forties by men my age). What is awesome about this and other situations coming out is the amazing conversations going on about rape culture and how to change it, particularly about how to raise our boys to not rape or be silent bystanders.

Recently, after a long hiatus, I made a foray into dating. With a much younger guy. It was fun for a New York minute but, man, did this dude have some internal conflicts and an inability to express what he really wanted. Desire for connection and sex and commitment are so easily confused and tangled up and put in opposition to one another. This has me thinking (in parallel to/connected with the combating rape culture theme) also about boys and the mixed up messages they get and how to raise my son in a way that he can fully enjoy being affectionate and sexual and own his own longing for connection and be ethical and respectful about it. Am sure there’s more to say about that.

Hopefully, there’ll be more dating in my future as, contrary to rape apologists’ ideas, this super feminist lady does love men and is ready to get back out there.

Then, just under two weeks ago (the morning after I told the young fella to hit the bricks once and for all),  a friend finally lost her war with cancer. There had been many battles and she was a trooper and the end came abruptly for those of us who had seen her rally a dozen times before. She left two little boys, almost exactly eleven months older and younger than mine. In addition to the sadness I feel that she isn’t in the world, this has brought up a ton of stuff around our mortality, our children’s fear of losing us, my son’s father being so far away and what will happen if he never sees him again, valuing people while we are lucky enough to have them around, and honoring them when they are gone.

I really believe that there is power in teaching both empathy and action. Last weekend, just after Denise died, my little guy had his third haircut ever at the LAPD/LAFD annual St. Baldrick’s Day event. He got sponsored (you can still chip in!) to have his head shaved to benefit children’s cancer treatment and research. Before he let them take off a year’s growth, he helped his buddies at Station 89 polish their truck before Chief Cummings showed up. The firefighters invited him to join their lineup and this photo has been making the rounds.

In other news…

My non-profit has grown and expanded projects. While we carry on developing our innovative peace-building project for Liberia and supporting transgender youth to find their social media voices, we’re getting ready to launch new collaborations with families affected by incarceration and Los Angeles area homeless people. It’s pretty awesome and terrifying – especially as our funding has not grown and expanded with the work and I am broke. Know any rich people who want to make their legacy by launching an innovative, awesome nonprofit into the stratosphere? Send ‘em my way!

Seriously, though, we are always looking for volunteers and are assembling a fundraising committee of people who love putting on events (I don’t) who will have a blast getting our work visibility and support.

So, this was meant to be far more entertaining. Sorry. This WordPress thing seems to be working, except the photo posting bit. I’ll get right on that…after I go get the laundry, tidy up, sleep a bit, get through tomorrow…OK, I’ll get to it eventually.

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By Mama Paloma, 14/02/2012 00:05

January 2012

So, usually, when I tell a story here, there is some conclusion to be drawn, some lesson I learned. This is not one of those stories. This is a more typical parent experience, I think…when your kid says or does something that leaves you shaking your head and you feel like you should be able to draw some lofty conclusion but all you can think is “Shit, he’s only three and already working me this way. What are the teen years going to be like? I need a drink.”  

I never intended to nurse my kid until he was four. Like most American moms these days, I had gotten the information about how nursing at least the first year has some pretty amazing health benefits. I had listened to/read about moms who are still breastfeeding their seven year olds. I thought a year or year and a half seemed good, seven a bit much. From the start, nursing came super easy for AJ and I. The day after he was born a lactation consultant came in to help me, took one look and said, “Well, he knows what he’s doing, you’re going to be fine.”

He did nurse for the first year. Exclusively. It was not the first time I felt the gaze of those who feel entitled to assess another person’s (particularly a single mom’s)  parenting. Other people would suggest different foods and try to get him to eat, even after I explained my own efforts to entice him. I could tell they thought this exclusive breastfeeding thing  was  about my need to be the most attached granola mom EVER. Eventually, he did start eating and is a ‘good eater.’

And he still wants to nurse.. He calls it ‘having babas.’ He asks for babas at night and in the morning, mostly, and when he’s upset.  Honestly, this has more to do with my general laziness than any parenting philosophy. I knew it would be work to cut him off and then I’d lose the one thing that can always calm him down.

I hoped, as with the food, he’d just get to the point of being ‘ready’ and lose interest but that wasn’t happening.. In the months leading up to his birthday yesterday, I told him that we wouldn’t be having babas after he turned four. This wasn’t an easy concept for him. One day, he was having a total meltdown. “I need babas,” he cried, “because I can’t calm down.” As he nursed, I wondered aloud about what I might do, after he turned four, to help him calm down, since he wouldn’t be having babas any more.

“Well,” he said, “when I am four, I will still have babas. When I am a big boy, like (paused to think), maybe ten or twelve, then I’ll just stop.” He made a definitive gesture when he said the word ‘stop,’ like a smoker swearing they’ll go cold turkey right after the New Year’s party.

“Oh, honey,” I replied, “the thing is, when you turn four, you are not going to have babas any more.”

“No, mommy,” he said, “because, especially for boys, if they don’t connect, they are going to have bigger problems.”

———————————————————–

February 13

So, tonight was a rough night. Actually, the past week has been rough. For several reasons, I am re-working my entire childcare setup. Addison’s birthday brought an ever-more acute awareness of his dad not being present (a topic for another day).. He has also been testing limits and getting very upset when I, say, turn off the movie. And then, there’s the babas.

When it came time for bed,  he was  sobbing about a movie-related conflict, then about not having babas to calm down,”I just want to go back and not have my birthday and stay little. I don’t want my body to grow. I want to be a baby.” I held him and talked with him and let him cry. I talked about how hard it can be when things change but how they usually end up all right.. I told him I am happy that he is growing and learning because that means that he is healthy and no matter how much he grows how he will still be my baby. I stroked his hair, rubbed his feet and talked about how things like that might help him calm down the way babas have. Finally, he began to relax. I extricated myself from his fierce little embrace, kissed his forehead, and whispered, “I love you so, so much, sweetheart.”

“Thanks, mom,” he whispered back and fell asleep.

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By Mama Paloma, 07/02/2012 22:56

I need time to wind down. Precisely two hours after my son nods off, I am ready for sleep.

I hear other parents talk about dozing off with their kids. Not me. Until his little body is still and relaxed, I am ON. Only after he is snoring to I begin to truly relax.

I noticed this when he was a baby. He was dreamy, then. I brought him home from the NICU when he was ten days old. The next day, my midwife stopped by and told me I didn’t have to wake him every three hours to feed–he was full-term, after all, and almost nine pounds. Please don’t hate me, but, after that, he slept six hours at a go. Sometimes, with a change and a snack, he’d follow that up with another couple of hours.

Ah, those were the golden days. These days, it’s different. These days, I work a lot and sometimes late, getting home just at or after his bedtime. He needs time to connect and then wind down. I get that. But I am TIRED and want to get to my winding down before too long. I get frustrated. Sometimes, I even scold him.

This doesn’t help.

Last  week, he had a new imaginary pet donkey named “Donkey.” Yes, it’s the donkey from Shrek. It also, he informed me 0ne day, came from my tummy, at the same time as him. “So he’s my brother. We’re twins.” My son’s twin clearly takes after their father. He does what he wants when he wants, without regard for others’ needs–particularly mine.

He keeps my son awake when he should be sleeping.

“Donkey,” I scolded one night, “if you don’t let Addison sleep, you’ll have to go to the living room.”

Yes, folks, I scolded an imaginary donkey out loud…

…and it worked.

I was amazed. I shouldn’t have been. The concept of ‘externalizing’ a problem is central to how I practice therapy. How brilliant that my little boy invented a naughty ‘other’ who gets him to do things he is not supposed to. We could side together in figuring out how to get donkey to relax, to sleep, to stop kicking off the blankets. Children do this externalizing so well.

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By Mama Paloma, 03/04/2011 23:10

I have figured out my immediate goals in life. Here’s the short version:

1. Get more sleep.
2. Have more access to money.

And here’s the background.

This weekend, I had a night away with three of my favorite people. We are 2/3 of the ‘study group’ our Master’s program forced us to form back in August of 1997. Our class wasn’t required to keep up the bi-monthly group meetings (we even had to take attendance) past the first semester but our particular group just ‘gelled,’ and we still get together  on a regular, though less frequent, basis. We have supported one another through school, professional licensure exams, babies, weddings, divorces, and more babies.

We planned this trip as a sort of retreat, to do a semi-structured “Entrepreneurial Life Plan.” This part was my idea, following on a conversation about missing the structure we had created when we were studying, and the cohesion, that unification of purpose, which was created. I had some materials from the New Leader’s Council Institute I did last year, so I recommended that book to the others and we planned to have brainstorming and reflections sessions to each come up with our ELP. I was really looking forward to this. I have been grappling with how to get a grip on my life, move things forward, and also get things into a sustainable balance.

Well, we didn’t do it. In any case, not in any structured way. I, for one, am fried. Burnt out, exhausted, ready to drop it all. That day was particularly trying as I had to pick up my car from the repair shop (finally being fixed after Ms. Nutjob rear-ended us last month–literally had not had the time to take it in before) and, just as I was leaving, my mom walked in with little AJ, who had just had his first real injury at school. Made sure he was all right, and that my mom was going to take him to the doctor just to be sure (bump on the head, but there was blood, rather safe than sorry).

So, the girls and I met, somewhat later than planned, me much less relaxed and cheerful than planned, at a beautiful hotel (three of us splitting one room made this possible for me) on Friday afternoon, sat by the pool and hit the happy hour at the sushi place in the hotel where I really, really enjoyed some hot sake. We talked, caught up, went back to our room, read and talked a bit more, and crashed. I woke up nine hours later.

In case that got by you, I’ll repeat it, with appropriate emphasis.

I  woke up nine hours later.

It wasn’t the alcohol. I was not hung over. I was just not awakened throughout the night or in the early morning. Dark-out curtains on the windows let me snooze in the luxury cloud of a bed until my body was done.

It was heaven. I was transformed.

Normally, I am in bed maybe (but not usually) about seven hours a night. Anxiety has had a hand in there, pushing me to do more and interfering with my drifting off. So, I stay up getting things done and writing blogs and such until I actually drop and then am dragged into the day short hours later by my three-year-old son.  Sleep has not been a reality, so it has not been a priority. But the difference I noticed after one good night was so profound, so wonderful, I decided to start there.

So, I made a pact with myself. My bed and I will have no fewer than eight hours together every night. That’s the deal. Go to bed late? Cancel that first meeting, p,ug in the DVD and let AJ rot his brain, whatever–but I am getting those eight hours. I even set up an app on my iPod to keep tabs on this.

It’s a place to begin.

Haven’t figured out number 2. yet but am pretty sure it will come as I am more rested, clear, strong. Maybe it will even come in my dreams.

Gotta go now, I am ten minutes late and my bed is calling.

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By Mama Paloma, 23/01/2011 23:26

Today, I had to do it. Take a break. Get some rest. Chill. We have been fighting colds and I am still recovering from the holidays/our recent visit with AJ’s dad.

Now it’s time to go to bed and, looking back on the day, I wonder what has become of me. Lazy Sunday used to mean staying in bed until I couldn’t stand it any more, getting up, going for a movie or bite to eat or both. That’s it. Today, in addition to some chill time with a book and snuggles with AJ, I somehow took a ‘break’ that included the following (not an exhaustive list, I am exhausted so my memory may be crap):

• 3 loads of laundry
• Cleaning out the car
• Grocery shopping
• Errand running–2 more stores
• Catching up on emails (well, some of them)
• Phone consult with client in crisis
• Organizing and putting away the remaining Christmas stuff
• Tidying up the house
• Moving the potty learning forward (AJ did #2 on the toilet twice today. Yay! But, man, is that work.)
• Ordering mundane things (cordless phone battery, etc.) online
• Finding right wall unit for dining area on Ikea website–resisted urge to go pick it up.

I think I need to re-learn how to relax. Geez. But I don’t think I am alone in this. So often we (and the world) expect us mamas to be more than the human beings we are.

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By Mama Paloma, 02/11/2010 14:28

Morning in LA City

I awoke this morning to yet another pre-dawn call from Liberia. They are eight, soon to be nine, hours ahead of us here on the West Coast of the US of A, so it’s tough for people to call me during ‘regular business hours.’ I have, however, learned not to pick up when I see the +231 country code on my phone at 4:00am, unless it’s a number I recognize. My friends will understand if I am confused and grumpy at 4:00am. The President’s Protocol Officer or some other Really Important Person might not. And, regardless of how clear I feel I can be, I am inevitably confused upon awaking in the wee hours.

In any case, for the third time in a week, I found myself unable to fall back to sleep in the dark. Once I got through the mental calculations my current levels of sleep deficit, my mind wandered inevitably to my work. We have an event on Wednesday, which each and every one of you should definitely attend–details online and on the FaceBook, and this event requires me to speak, very briefly and very convincingly, about what Survivors’ Truths does and why we do it and what makes us amazing and worthy of support. Reflect for a moment, if you will, on that last run-on sentence. Succinct, sales-ey speach is not my thing. I have struggled and struggled with this.

But as I lay there, trying not to curse the early AM call, trying to get a few more minutes of rest, my mind drawn back to the many tasks and decisions before me, dawn began in my mind. Who knows if I’ll be able to articulate it as well tomorrow but, for a few moments, what to say and how to say it came to me with clarity. The words illuminated the process with beauty and elegance. I could see myself giving a TED talk the way those geniuses do, drawing the audience in to new ideas with humor and comprehensibility. I imagined sharing this with community workers in Liberia and college students in Fullerton. For a moment, I was brilliant and vibrant and inspiring–at least in my own mind.

No longer tired and longing for sleep, I got up and came out to see the sky behind downtown Los Angeles awash in hues of orange and salmon. The tired, crazy city glowed. I could relate.