Wow.  It’s been almost a month since I’ve been here.  I have a couple of excuses, and at least one of them is pretty good.

My biggest work project of the year was announced the week of Thanksgiving, with a February 24^th deadline looming.  All of my “spare” time is now spent frantically trying to move that project forward.   This is my “good” excuse.

The other “not so good” excuse is that I keep wanting to (eloquently & comprehensively) define what this blog is about for me.   And when I try to sit down and do that, I get completely overwhelmed by the vastness and complexity of it, and quit.  So for the moment, I’m giving up on definitions and allowing myself to relax into more fluidity and imperfection.

Each week I attend a contemplative writing class with a small circle of women, wherein we meditate together for 10 minutes, write for 20 minutes in response to the prompt from our instructor, and then share what we write with one another in the remaining time. It’s a wonderful practice, and it’s one thing I can rely on to get me to write every week.  And because we write for 20 minutes, there’s no time to go back and edit or make it perfect – what comes out is very stream of consciousness – but  can be amazing and often surprising.

This week I was feeling a lot of resistance to writing about winter (the prompt), so I got up and grabbed a few brightly colored note cards.  I started by drawing a few snow flakes with a sparkly pen, and then this is the story that came out.  Each time I start a new paragraph, it’s because I ran out of space and flipped over to a new side of the note card.  It had an interesting effect…

 ************************************************

 “No.”

This is how Mattie pronounces the word “snow”.  It’s darling.

It can be easy to confuse with the word “n-o”, given that he’s been using a LOT of that one lately also, to convey what he doesn’t want.  No breakfast, no lunch, no dinner.  Only snacks and sweets and mama milk, thank you very much.  No medicine, no brushing teeth, no sitting in his high chair, no taking a bath, and especially no removing him from precarious situations (like standing on the end table, for example).   These have been his preferences the past few days, much to our chagrin.  With each refusal we learn something – about ourselves, and how we think to handle each interaction.  Parenting — the greatest self-discovery tool of them all.

But Mattie has also been beyond fascinated with the s-n-o-w version of “no”, drawn to pull Ken and I by the hand to look at it out the window, leading us to the door to let us know that he wants to go out in it.  It’s not easy for him to understand that we can’t just walk out onto our front porch barefoot anymore.  And the resistance and the n-o version of the word “no” come back in full force when it comes time to putting on his snowsuit…and his boots…and his hat…AND his mittens.  It takes great patience and psychological preparation for the shrieking battle these simple actions can invoke.

Once outside, bundled against the cold, calm returns.  It is an incredible relief to close the door behind us, leaving that particular moment behind, never to have to be repeated in exactly the same conditions.  I’m thinking of this in terms of contractions right now.  I remember living through a really painful, intense contraction and telling my midwife that I didn’t know how many more like that I could handle.  She told me that EVERY contraction is different and that I’d never have to do THAT one again.  Sometimes I think of parenting moments like that too.

But these last few days have been so bitterly cold and windy that the feelings of serenity don’t last long.  I put Mattie in his sled and pull it with one hand, grab Girl’s leash with the other and set off down the sidewalk, determined to get some sunshine and exercise for all.  But the gusting winds blow s-n-o-w into our faces, causing us each to gasp simultaneously, forcing us to return to the house in less time than it took us to leave it.  We return too soon, leaving at least one of us feeling dejected and disappointed.

Thank goodness we have the fire in the pellet stove to return to.  There is comfort there, at least, and from its warm and cozy glow we can look out the window together, pointing at the s-n-o-w “no”, talking about how cold it is out there.  Mattie signing the world cold is delightful – he puts both hands out in front of him in fists and clenches them (and his whole body – including his teeth and jaws) and makes a grunt like he’s exerting himself strenuously.  Uummhhh!  It’s awesome.

All of this until the next day, when we’ll likely repeat some version of the same maddening, frustrating, delightful dance of n-o “no” and s-n-o-w “no”.

**************************************************

After thought:  It didn’t occur to me until after I published this post that there was another irony that I failed to note in my preamble.  I was feeling a lot of resistance to the writing prompt…and then I ended up writing all about Mattie and his resistance and how that impacts me.  So…interesting!