And Sometimes Mama Gets A Break

I am dusting off my back pack, shouting so long to the old USA and diving into the thrilling sport of adventure and travel with my dear friend Honeybee. We leave next week for the olive groves, red tiled roofs and picturesque piazzas of Italy. Landing in the romantic city of Venice. This trip has been six months in the planning yet I still can't believe I will be boarding a plane alone next week to have 10 days of kid free time. I feel like I am getting away with something I should not be. Like once you become a mom that is your identity something you can't peel off like a satin dress. its like a pair of plaid pajamas you will wear for the rest of your life. The freedom of my early 20's was washed away. I now get my thrills from the domestic existence of mostly full time parenting and being in a partnership.

Well, I love my plaid pajamas, especially the sweetest M family, but sometimes it is just right to get back into that satin dress, dawn some fresh lipstick and step out sans child roaming the world the way I used too. Sure I am scared, scared I will miss Sweetpea so much, that she will miss me, that something will go terribly wrong when I am gone and I will be too far away to do anything. Scared daddy will be resentful of my full freedom, that at work, my students will forget me and we will have to re-invent the wheel when I return after getting to such a good place. Will all this fear stop me? No way. Thanks to the advent of Skype I will get to see her sometimes. She gets to be with her loving grandmother while I am gone and be with her adoring daddy. I will also get the chance to hit the refresh button on our relationship. Parenting a toddler requires a lot of refresh.

We start in Venice staying right off the grand canal. We move on to Cinque Terra and stay in the town of Vernazza. After this we head to Florence to rent a car in Tuscany for Easter weekend. I have never ridden a car in a foreign country I am scared and excited. After this we cross our fingers that the Uffizi Gallery in Florence will be open Easter Monday, if not we will see the Duomo and enjoy the renaissance architecture. We then take a train south to Sorrento in search of sun and beach on the Amalfi coast. We will end in Rome, a city I have been to most recently while filming Travel Queeries.

This trip marks a friend anniversary. 11 years ago two travelers in back packs with train passes and a hint of whimsey transversed most of Italy in 2 weeks. Now 11 years later with roller luggage we take on a  smaller chunk of the country hitting the highlights. A focus on good food and relaxation. As I grow older and see how easy it is to value my family life over my friend life I am happy to make this exception to the rule.

Toddler Tantrum

--> We are in the midst of a painfully hard growth period. Sweet pea is asserting her power and will and her just as stubborn mom is not cowing to all her desires. It is exhausting to have power struggle after power struggle. The inner voice says there must be some amazing life changing advise. If I was just doing this method or that she would listen better, I would have the upper hand, parenting a 2 1/2 year old would be easy and delightful. Instead I am fraught with anxiety about what’s around the next bend, what hump are we crossing now, how to get us both out of deep water without drowning.

Her daddy's approach is to avoid power struggle. He coaches me on distraction techniques, offering choices, giving her as much say in the thing without doing all of it. Example, letting her hold the candy that she wants to eat instead of just giving it to her so she has control of it but does not eat it. His method does seem to work some but doesn't always sit well with me. It goes along with giving her a lot more sugar and watching tv then I would like. It also looks like avoiding and distracting away the feelings that I know will bubble up no matter what we do.


I consulted friends and family via facebook about it one morning. I got a lot of good tips including foot massage after a tantrum to ground us both, following a stricter schedule so she knows what to expect, offering her choices and new objects to fiddle with as we go through a transition. Also just setting the party line and dealing with the volcanic eruptions of having a boundary placed on her. They were all good ideas and I will probably use a mix match of those ideas when confronting tantrums but it all seems to come down to what will uniquely work for my kiddo.


I have had to face my own feelings when she tantrums. Embarrassment: Luckily I have let go of a lot of feelings of embarrassment but still some linger when she throws an on the floor fit in the grocery store. Jealousy: My kid can wail, and damn, it feels good to wail. To show how freakin' hard it feels. Why does she get to take up that much space and I don't? I am not saying I want to throw a fit in the middle of the grocery store but at the end of a particularly hard work day I have been known to roll down the windows, blast the music and scream while driving to pick her up from pre school. I think she gets it honest. Fear/Sadness: Seeing my baby struggle like that is hard, it brings up fears that I am raising her wrong. Why did I decide to bring another life into this heavy harsh world? What values am I sending her when I lose it while she is losing it? How can I teach her empathy? That not just her desires matter? 


Facing all of this is difficult and complex and I am still figuring out how to work out these emotions in a healthy way and separate them from when she is having her big feelings. Still sometimes we both end up on the side of the road crying as I explain to her through sobs she can't scream the entire time while mommy is driving.


For now what I have figured out for my dear sweetpea is a lot of one on one and family time, this seems to lesson the desire to act out for attentions sake. Also when going to an overwhelming place like the grocery store letting her fill the cart with what she wants then at check out separate out the stuff and tell the cashier we don't need those things. It’s an extra step for the awesome grocery store employees but seems to make all the difference. Hopefully this will be a temporary need. I also let her pick out varieties of things for us like fruit and veggies. Getting a lot of emotional support and making sure I am getting down time and alone time. I am always ready to take on her big feelings after a good sleep or artist date by myself. We also do a lot of talking out the situation and offering something exciting at the end. Like explaining if she puts her shoes on now we can then skip over to the big tree and climb it together. 

The thing I am the most proud of is we always talk about it after the tempers have settled. Even when I lose my cool and shove her into the car seat, or pull the thing out of her hand without coaxing it away, Sweetpea has an emotional language. We talk out how she was feeling and how I was feeling. We can identify the emotions together and hug afterword. This kind of intimacy and communication makes me believe we can make it through any hardship together.