Dharma LIVE! from the Bradfield house

My mother gave me a little present in honor of taking refuge vows. A tiny, pocket Dhammapada. (Non-Buddhist friends, it's like a book of Psalms.) Poetry, wisdom, truths to be unraveled.

It has already begun to work its wonder in my life.

Yesterday I trudged home with groceries to make dinner. When I got home I discovered that Brian had an important personal project that he needed to give his attention to, so the entire evening was my responsibility. The baby, dinner, picking up, all of it without help. As always, early evening is my difficult time. It has been since the beginning of my career as a mother. I have a lot of anxiety about dealing with the evening.

When I walked in the door I began to do one thing at a time. One of these things was changing my clothes. As I sat on the bed I picked up my tiny Dhammapada, opened it and read this: "Every man do his own work". It only took a few seconds to read it, and it meant nothing to me. Nothing.

I carried on with the evening, my chores, Ramona. As I did these things Brian sat on the couch and did nothing. Nothing to help me with my burden anyway. As I began to cook dinner, quickly, because it was time to nurse the baby, I felt the anger building. And building. I tried to shove it down. All the while thinking "Every man do his own work.....hmmmm.....every man do his own work". And also trying to not shout "Asshat....get in here and HELP ME!!!!".

Then I thought, "Would Brian helping change anything about how I feel? Would it take the anxiety away? Would it REALLY decrease my load?" The answer was No. And then I thought, I'm just going to do my own work. BINGO!!!!! I'm going to do my own work! I'm going to get done what I can. I'm going to do my own work and Brian can do his own work, whatever that happens to be. And then the anger went away for real and there was no self control needed. Nobody got called an "asshat" and nobody had to apologize.

Practice = Peace. This time, anyway.

ch-ch-changes

This is the season of change.

We are now vacuuming every night, because we can't keep Ramona on a blanket and we have realized that if we don't keep the floor picked up she is going to eat a paperclip! Last night when we were working on dinner, she rolled into the kitchen to see what we were up to. It seems like it's time to start baby proofing. Not just thinking about it, but really doing it.

Where is her baby-ness going?

But, you know, the people I really don't recognize anymore is Brian and me. Who are these people?? Who are these people who care about someone besides themselves? Who are these people that clean their house and try really hard to cook dinner?

I don't write much about Brian. Really, who wants to hear about another woman's amazing husband? And when he is a god-awful horrible selfish buttface miscreant, it's against the rules to air our problems out on the internet. So, it makes it kind of hard to write about him.

However, here are some things I've been really wanting to say about Brian:

1. His love and devotion to Ramona is startling to me. I have always thought Brian was pretty selfish and honestly, not really very interested in family. He's always been more about friends. I never get tired of admiring Ramona and her father.

2. He is very helpful around the house. He is kind of like Rainman. Once he settles into a routine you can pretty much count on him to take joy in carrying it out day after day. Brian was telling me about an article he read that said a large percentage of women with full time jobs are also responsible for most of the house work and child care stuff. It isn't this way in our house. Of course, there are LOTS of jobs that I do with Ramona that Brian is clueless about. I'm nursing her, so there is that. Also, I do her laundry, give her baths, clip her nails, get her dressed in the morning......the list goes on.....but, Brian really does the lion's share of the housework. And, to be fair, I kind of keep these little things with Ramona to myself, because I like doing them.

3. I'm going to tread very carefully on this one, very very carefully. He is enduring the change in our relationship with a lot of good humor. One of my favorite movies is Before Sunrise, and I also really like the sequel. In Before Sunset, Ethan Hawke's character talks about how he and his wife aren't affectionate anymore and it feels like they run a day care center together. When you watch this in your early 20's you pity poor Ethan Hawke. Now, I see the whole thing differently. Ethan should have stayed true to his wife and been patient. That's all I'm going to say about that.

I am feeling the shortness of my life lately. Ramona is growing so fast. She will be a little girl, and then a grown girl. And, there we will be, Brian and Nova. Maybe we will go to France?

ramona and her father

I'm feeling a little under the weather. I'm not sure if this is a little thing, or something that is turning into a big thing, but this has caused me to do something I have not done in the 4 months of my daughter's life. I took the evening off.

Since my Ramona is nursing, I did that part, but I left everything else to her dad. All the playing, entertaining, holding...he even gave her a bath.

I just laid around. I rested and read. I also noticed. I noticed something that I had been suspecting for the last week or so. Ramona is a daddy's girl. My first clue was when I picked her up from daycare last week. This is usually Brian's job, but he was working late. Our daycare person had told me before that she loves seeing how happy Ramona gets when Brian shows up. So, she made a huge deal announcing my arrival...."Ramona, GUESS WHO's HERE....It's your mama!!" Despite the nice intro, I didn't get the excited face. She was very busy looking at the carpet.

This is a new development. For the first three months of her life I was IT. I was the only one that could soothe her when she was super fussy, the smell of me calmed her immediately. I found it absolutely exhausting and it was hard to hear my husband say "I think she hates me."

So, let's hear it for Ramona and her father. Thank god.