My Wellness Coach: Frances McDormand

So, one thing about being mid-divorce and, ahem, unemployed, is that money can be tight. Like: no we can't get a pizza tonight, but I can maybe make one with these bagels and pasta sauce tight. That's fine. I'm not a materialistic girl, and my kids aren't either. But while trying to find gainful employment, I have been on the lookout for quick and easy ways to make a buck, trying to resurrect my old freelance editing contacts, that kind of thing. When I came across an offer for a "wellness coach" through my health insurance, I jumped at it. Because it paid $75! The wellness coach would be calling me three times over the course of a couple of months, to help set some sort of health goal that I was sure I'd ignore as soon as I had my money in hand.

On our first appointment-call, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my wellness coach sounded exactly like the actress Frances McDormand a la Fargo. She was full of "you betchas" and "dontcha knows" and quirky midwest charm and she instantly made me feel at ease. So I rattled off my various health challenges (stress, divorce, lack of sleep, lack of money) and listened to her sympathize. She'd divorced when her children were young, and understood completely. Then came the coaching. "Ya know, the most important thing to remember in times of stress is to take care of yourself. Ya got kids. Ya got stress. Ya got endless demands. But if you don't take care of yourself first, you're no good to them." And the weird thing was, my Frances McDormand-sound-alike was exactly right. It was the same message I'd heard from my Reiki Master friend Heather. The same thing my doctor had said. The same thing my 8-year-old told me on occasion. But if the universe was sending me the message yet again, then maybe I still wasn't doing it.

Frances wanted me to do one thing: schedule a half-hour of "me" time every single day. She wanted me to tell my kids about it, so they'd (1) hold me accountable to myself, and (2) so they'd see me not just as mom, but also as a human being with actual human needs. She wanted me to set a reminder/alarm on my phone so I'd never forget. She wanted me to spend my half hour doing something that benefited no one but me. And with Frances' permission, I set my reminder. I had lofty notions of hiking and reading and taking yoga classes and doing things that involved not having children around, but that's just not my life. Due to their dad's travel schedule for work, I have my kids about 90% of the time. Daily alone time is a fairly distant memory. So instead, I settled for listening to half hour meditations in my room while the kids watched a half hour of TV and ate their after school snacks downstairs. A totally unproductive half hour for myself every day? Prescribed by someone my own health insurance sent to me? Such indulgence! Frances was my new favorite wellness coach, therapist, best friend, caller, and benefactor, all rolled into one.

About two weeks into it, my six year old came to me as I was working on my computer one afternoon and said, "Shouldn't you go upstairs and rest now?" Because here's the thing: not only is it a half hour of me time ensconced in my bedroom each day, it's also a half hour of kids-behaving-well-unsupervised time. It's a test for all of us. And somehow, we're passing. That's not to say that I never get a kid walking in during my half-hour meditation-time to ask me to open a stubborn package of snacks or wanting to know where her favorite headband is. I'm a single mom. That's the deal. But the fact that I can say to my girls: "Okay, I'm heading to my room for a half hour," and they give me hugs and settle down to do something quiet until I'm done? That's amazing. And the realization that it might not take them 40 years to realize they get to come first, for at least a half hour each day of their lives? That's the best part. Thank you, Frances.

It’s a Girl Thing

During hubby’s last long trip, two weeks in Asia, the girls and I headed up to my mother’s house for a break from all of our 24/7 togetherness that was getting to be too much for all of us. My sister also went up with her 9-month-old daughter. On the drive up, String Bean asked if her uncle would be there, and when I told her no, she said, “Oh, so it’s a girl thing.” I chuckled about that for the rest of the drive. One thing about super-effeminate String Bean, she appreciates girl things.

We’ve had three of these girls’ weekends at Mom’s house now, with Mom, her two girls, and three “grandgirls” as she calls them, and I have to say, I like the girl thing. Trips up to Mom’s house are a great way to get some extra help when hubby’s out of town for a couple of weeks, but when my sister and her daughter come, too, it’s more like a weekend-long party of girlness. We’re not sitting around painting toenails and doing each other’s hair: my sister is as makeup clueless and hair-product challenged as I am, but there are some feel-good movies watched and a lot of chocolate is consumed.

String Bean is a pretty good babysitter-in-training. She follows her cousin around, diverting her from danger, calling out updates to us every few minutes: “She’s near the stairs! She’s heading for the plant! She has a poopy diaper!” So that we can visit a bit and yet still keep a decent eye on the baby, who is now crawling and pulling up and getting into a whole new kind of trouble, especially at Mom’s un-baby-proofed house. String Bean understands which size objects are baby safe and which ones aren’t, and is pretty good at trading her little cousin small objects for larger ones. Peanut’s great at being silly and getting her cousin giggling. One of my favorite things about these girl weekends is watching the three girls playing and laughing together.

My other favorite thing is just hanging out with my sister, catching up and reminiscing and laughing about nothing at all. With three kids between us, we don’t get much quiet time to talk when we get together for an afternoon here and there, but over the course of a full weekend, we get lots of opportunities to talk and laugh. And this is in large part due, of course, to my mother’s tireless efforts in caring for her grandgirls. They are fed, dressed, bathed, fights are broken up, activities are planned, endless questions are answered, and instead of the constant “No, I want Mommy to do it!” that I always hear at home, I get to hear the beloved “No, I want Grandma to do it!” which is currently one of my favorite phrases in the English language.

It’s a Girl Thing

One of the things that I have always marveled at with String Bean is what a girlie girl she is. I have no idea where it came from, since I definitely didn’t get that gene, but she loves sparkles, dresses, jewelry, dressing up, tea parties, playing princess, and pretty much anything else you’d classify as traditionally girlie.

She has a posse of girls that she’s bonded with at school, and enthusiastically greets each morning, and reluctantly leaves each afternoon. In all there are six of them, which I believe is the total number of girls in her pre-K class. They share a brain, travel in a pack, are inseparable throughout the day, and adore each other as only a group of little girls can. Freely expressing their adoration with hugs, squeals, and endless praise for each other’s pretty shoes, beautiful hairstyles, or fancy clothes, this tight-knit little troupe of four-year-olds is an interesting study in the social development of young girls. And oddly, it’s the one aspect of her girlie nature that I can really relate to.

In high school, I had my own pack of girls I traveled in. There were five of us, and we ate lunch together, took classes together, and had endless sleepovers together. We were teased mildly for always being together, for all being the same height, and for speaking in our own secret language that only we could understand. The only difference was that we were not four-year-olds, so teenage hormone-driven drama was all around us, and occasionally infiltrated into our group. By the time I graduated high school, our pack of five was down to three, but I still count those other two girls, now women, as the closest friends I’ll ever have.

So there is something sweetly reminiscent in the way String Bean forgets I exist as soon as her “girls” arrive each morning at school. The way she’ll interrupt our long goodbye and run off beaming, holding hands with one or two of them, showing off her sparkly bracelet or complimenting her girlfriend’s sparkly headband, never looking back at me. I never really cared if I had a girl or a boy, I just wanted healthy babies. But now that I have two girls, I can’t imagine wanting anything different. As different as all three of us are, I feel like my girls and I form our own posse. Like my old group, we definitely speak our own language, have nightly sleepovers, adore each other unabashedly, and the way the girls are growing, very soon we’ll all be the same height. There is comfort in identifying as part of a group, something I think girls learn at a young age and carry with them into adulthood. I’m downright honored to be a part of their little pack.

Best Friends

So, after a couple of weeks off of preschool, my oldest has now started the summer session. She was a little unsure about going back, and I expected a little drama when I dropped her off yesterday, but when the teacher said it was time to sit down in circle, she rushed over to get a good seat, glancing back to wave and blow a kiss to me. It was surprisingly easy. I still kept my phone nearby the whole morning, half expecting the school to call (as they have a couple of times in the past) to say she was crying to come home. Fortunately, they never did.

At noon, my toddler and I went to pick her up. We found her with two other little girls (“my girls” she calls them), holding hands and dancing around in a circle. The teacher smiled at me and told me she’d had a great day, had laughed hard and played hard and enjoyed every second of the day. But the best part was when she looked away from her dancing group of girls and spotted her baby sister. They squealed and flung themselves at each other, arms open for a long, swaying hug. They’d been apart for all of three hours. But, after a couple of weeks of being together all day every day, that can feel like a lifetime to two little kids. Very few things warm my heart the way seeing how much my girls adore each other does.