Parenting

The Butterfly Effect of Parenting

Jeanna G3 Comments

You’re pondering life with friends, and someone asks, “If you could change one thing from your past, what would it be?” Does something immediately come to mind? Do you wonder if it has to be just one thing, or do you come up empty? Or, are you so happy with how your life has turned out, that you don’t want to change anything and risk losing what you have today?

Do you think one change of the past could have a huge, life-altering impact? What if you could go back and change things, and your life today would stay the same, but you wouldn’t have the memory of what you changed? Would the absence of the memory alter how you go about your day-to-day, how you feel about yourself, or how you interact with others? 

I like to think I’m special because my middle school-aged daughter still tells me what’s on her mind, about her crushes and dilemmas with friends, and asks my advice. But that got me wondering, how many of her seemingly mundane, inconsequential decisions – that I’m influencing – will actually have a huge impact on where and how she’s living life 30 years from now? Are any of the decisions she’s making today going to be the ones she rues? That’s a lot of responsibility!

As a parent, I know that I have the very serious and scary job of influencing a lot of her decisions, with both my words and actions. I think the hardest part is discerning when to take the wheel, and when to take a back seat. I hope I always have the choice, because I know it’s ultimately up to her to either hear me out or tune me out. All I really know today is that, 30 years from now, if I’m asked what I would change, I don’t want to be wishing I had been a better parent. 

The Best Mother’s Day Gift

Jeanna G3 Comments

My daughter has been dancing her way through life for as long as I can remember. She jazz walks into a room, pirouettes her way to the mailbox, and slow taps Shirley Temples on repeat while telling me about her day.

This Mother’s Day weekend, my friend is freezing through hours of her son’s hockey tryouts, my sister is silently watching her daughter from the cart path through a combined 36 holes, and I’m fixing hair, makeup, and costumes for my daughter’s dance recital. Together we roll our eyes and ask why these things are planned on Mother’s Day weekend. The nerve! Don’t they know we just want to sleep through a weekend for once?? But we grab our coffees, load the car, and gps our way to whatever our calendar is reminding us to do.

But today I sat in the audience and felt gratitude for two things: 1) That the auditorium was dark as tears streamed down my face, because 2) the joy that radiated from my beautiful daughter shot me straight through the heart. Being with her in that moment is what motherhood is all about. Sure, laundry, taxiing, coaching, feeding, mending, funding, negotiations and acquiescing is the work. Witnessing their joy in being who they truly want to be is the ultimate reward.

The Lost Art of Shoebox Dioramas

Jeanna G6 Comments

I recently bought a pair of running shoes, and I kept them in their shoebox in my car for when I go to the gym. My dogs like to go for rides whenever possible, and the last time they jumped into the car, they both managed to trample the shoebox. My immediate thought was, “Darn it! I could’ve used that for something.” But then, when I was carrying the empty box to the recycling bin, I asked myself, “What would I use this for?” And then the answer came to me: A shoebox diorama! Growing up, at least once a year in elementary school, we had to make some kind of shoebox diorama. One year it was a farm yard, another was a scene from the Jurassic period, then outer space, symbols from one of the 50 states, and then the Wild West. I’m sure it’s no mystery what happened to these 3-D assignments that required more than just a swipe and tap of a finger.

My daughter has an app in which she designs rooms in houses, stores, restaurants, and other hangouts in a virtual world. When I was a kid, I built a dollhouse, painted the walls, and filled it with upcycled furniture, before upcycling was a trend. (Remember those little round pieces of plastic with three legs that kept the pizza box lids from sticking to the cheese? They made perfect end tables for my Barbies.) My brother builds pirate ships out of Legos, and my dad built one in a bottle out of wood, wire, and glue. All of these are dioramas, and perfect for hobbyists. Even so, I think building a shoebox diorama is an elementary school rite of passage that every child should experience.

When I walked back inside after recycling my shoebox, I saw my daughter was watching “Night at the Museum.” It occurred to me that the natural history museum is filled with giant dioramas.

The app my daughter uses is very cool, and she’s definitely learning and using her imagination, bu maybe we can think inside the box, instead. We can visit a museum, maybe one that exhibits interior design marvels. Or, we could go on a Parade of Homes to see how our contemporaries are decorating their spaces. And then, after some research, we design our dream space… inside a shoebox. I wonder, will she think my idea is a shoe-in, or will she tell me to put a lid on it?