Some Thoughts On Infertility

If you have no mental or spiritual tools to deal with feelings about childlessness then you have no tools to deal with parenting. There are many ways to find the tools. Look into the organization called RESOLVE. Talk to a counselor, friend, clergy, psychologist, therapist, someone who can help you learn how to relax. Take a class in yoga, meditation, mindfulness, mind/body awareness. Join a support group.. Do peer to peer emotional release work… Learn and internalize deep relaxation techniques. Just don’t drive or operate heavy machinery or baby sit when you do these things.

ALCOHOL AND/OR DRUGS ARE NOT GOING TO SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS. They may create a gap between you and your goal.

We lived in that Purgatory called infertility for eight years before Michael was born and adopted by Joe and me. No matter the race or background, when you adopt a child, deep in your souls, God gives you the spiritual knowledge that this adopted child is your soul child.

What makes you a mommy or daddy? It is a combination of love and a willingness to take on unending, overwhelming, exhausting responsibility in order to help another soul achieve his or her best potential. It is commitment, devotion, and willingness to be vulnerable and strong.  It is trembling with fear as you go bravely into the unknown holding a tiny hand or two.

Some Benefits of Family Life

• Having other people around who depend on you makes you more responsible to yourself.
• You have to get up in the morning even if you don't feel like it.
• You get a better understanding of God's love because you give unconditional love.

Celebrating Light Beyond History Part 1

Hanukah, Diwali, Christmas, all of these holidays have within them the celebration of light.

When someone special dies and others gather to honor him/her, some of us notice supernatural light in the room. I believe this is the light emanating from the process of someone’s essence of being joining the Essence so many worship as God in whatever name you choose. I believe we are more than just flesh and blood, I believe we have essence bigger than our bodies. I believe that the reason these holidays have survived besides being taught from generation to generation, these holidays celebrate something all of us have in common, that is the wonder of light.

Light that comes from the essence of being, light that drives away darkness, light that is fire that has kept us alive in the cold, dark winter, light that has enabled us to read at night, There are so many purposes for light.

I wonder if the celebration of light during the winter solstice started with cavemen. The discovery of fire at this time of year must have changed everything for humans.

Well, I have more to say, but the lights of my life are waking up and I have many delightful mundane things to do. To be continued…

Essential Moments of Motherhood Part 1

Every night no matter how angry, always tell your children you love them. Also, read to them every night. GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU is a great book to start.

For New Parents Here Are Some Things I Learned

•  Get a wide glider with a stain-resistant; print pattern…Your babies will make lots of stains on your chair… Also, your babies will get bigger (God willing) and you will need room for all of you on your glider/rocker. Get a real wide glider. There may be siblings later.
•  Get a wide variety of sizes in clothes… Your newborns don’t stay tiny forever….
•  Get bouncers that go up to 40 pounds or more… Fisher Price has one that converts from bouncer to rocking chair… Your children will get past 15 lbs. before you know it…
•  Get your children used to their teeth being cleaned as soon as they have teeth. Ask your pediatrician how to do it.
•  Get your children used to a wide variety of foods and textures as soon as your pediatrician says okay. A good book on food is Child of Mine. If you don’t have time to read it, find another mom whose older children actually eat vegetables and other healthy foods.
•  When your pediatrician says you all can get out go to Mommy and Me classes and support groups, too. Gymboree or the library or the JCC or the YMCA. You must find support. Don’t do this alone.
•  If you are an at home mommy, enroll in a Mother’s Day Out program or similar when your babies are old enough. You must have time without the children occasionally or you will go insane.
•  Take time off for you to do some non-child related things.
•  Dress your kids in the next days clothes instead of pajamas if you are due to take them somewhere early in the morning..
•  Buy a good carpet cleaning machine.
•  Get the most powerful hand held vacuum you can find
•  Get a Swifter or Pledge Grab It for cleaning hard floors silently….
•  Get a carpet sweeper that is quiet.
•  Buy lots of cloth diapers for spit up, nose drips, other clean ups…
•  Have changing pads, diapers, wipes and change of clothes in as many rooms as you can. Keep everything within hand’s reach. Include diversions like mirrors, rattles, and mobiles.
•  In your car keep a big bag stocked with the above along with a change of clothes for yourself and the children. Keep some snacks, toys and water for you and your children.
•  Have detailed and deep conversations with your co-parent about discipline now before it becomes an issue. Make sure he gets used to taking care of the children now. Every day whenever possible. No excuses. You don’t have to do it alone!
•  Have a professional child proofing expert evaluate your home before your child can crawl.
•  If you can, get the children to sleep at the same time so you can sleep (then tell me how you did it!)
•  Resist the temptation to take care of chores around the house when your babies are sleeping. Be sure to lie down and close your eyes ASAP… If you put off your naps even 5 minutes, it’s gone!
•  Don’t buy loud toys especially corn poppers. If you receive loud toys, muffle the speakers with some non-toxic duct tape. Loud toys hurt their ears and drive you nuts.
•  If you can hear your children cry all over your house, skip the monitors.
•  I like Desitin better than generic zinc oxide 40% ointment for preventing and healing diaper rashes. Many mothers, who can afford it, like Dr. Smith’s ointment. . Keep hypoallergenic disposable wipes everywhere. A more environmental solution would be soft wash rags with a spray bottle.
•  Paper towels or other towels are great for cleaning up little floods in the bathroom or kitchen.
•  Buy and use these books: Baby Bargains, Consumer Reports Baby Products, What to Expect the First Year. Best Baby Products, 10th Edition (Consumer Reports Best Baby Products) Also, What to Expect the Toddler Years and Toddler Bargains.
•  Keep a daily log spreadsheet with a column for each child. It should have room for food, potty/diapering, sleep and bath. Parenting multiples can cause short-term memory loss. We used the log for four years. . I also use the sides to keep a food and exercise journal for myself.
• ***Set a budget for gift giving.  Resist the temptation to buy lots of toys.  They will be much happier ultimately if they have a few excellent toys and books instead of a warehouse of goodies.  It makes your life easier to organize when there aren't hundreds of toys and pieces of toys everywhere. 

My Heritage, Part 1

Our Creator has been especially kind to me regarding my amazing family. My father, Bernie, besides loving me unconditionally as only a good father can, taught me so many important things. One that comes to mind is the lesson of the baby tree. I teach it to my sons and daughter too. We moved many times because Bernie is/was a dreamer and also worked in a field that required moving to advance. Every time we moved, Bernie planted a tree in our new yard. He said this is one way we can make sure that everywhere we go, we leave it a little bit better than the way we found it. So now, I pick up trash even if it isn’t mine and I throw it out. I pick up things that may cause someone to fall, even if it is not my family. My children are showing that they understand this lesson. Michael holds doors for the people that follow us even if I don’t tell him to. Thomas smiles at everyone he meets. Katherine helps others whenever she can.

Dad also taught me about non profit organizations for that is where he worked all his life. Dad is the last member of his generation in his family. His father was an activist. His mother was committed to the Jewish National Fund and women’s suffrage. Bernie’s father was Max. He was a union steward at a Department Store in Brooklyn, New York. His photo is in The World of Our Fathers and in Heritage by Aba Eban. In the photo he is leading a strike of workers of various nationalities. Signs were in English, Italian, Hebrew, and other languages.

One thing that passed on every generation in my family is the belief that all peoples are to be treated equally. My mother, Rose was an artist, a teacher and a friend. She loved to tell stories about the people she met in each day’s adventures. One thing she felt good about was making friends with people from diverse backgrounds. Our children seem to be truly free of prejudice. Daily and more I try to work on eradicating any vestiges of racism and other prejudices within me. With a “nice liberal” girl like me, the stuff looks like arrogance (believing subconsciously that somehow I am better than others) and being “helpful” to people of color without being asked or asking.
My brother Bob, is someone who should go down in history as a truly great man. He is someone you probably haven’t heard of yet he has had a great deal of influence and has done a great deal of good for this world. I’m glad that his children are interested in following in his footsteps. Bob is more than just a college professor and writer. He is a mensch. I’ll write more about him another time. I’m grateful to be his sister and I’m so proud of him.

I am grateful to have cousins, aunts and uncles that also have been good people who are committed to helping making this world a better place. Through fate, I managed to move to Houston in 1982. In Houston I had the blessing of time with my world-changing cousin Mark and his wife Carol. Anybody who knows Mark and Carol knows that they have met two truly beautiful people. I’ve never met more generous, kind, and smart people in my life. Plus, they have two grown daughters who learned well from their parents how to be angels on Earth. (Now, Karen is truly an angel in God’s care. May she rest in peace.) God has truly blessed me with a fabulous family.

When I write and publish my autobiography, it will really be the story of several generations.

Down Syndrome A Journey Begins

Before I gave birth to Thomas, I viewed persons with developmental disabilities as lovable or tolerable burdens to society. Now I know their mission is profoundly important.  They are messengers of love and hope.  They are here to enlighten us.  Parents of children with Down Syndrome usually seem to be aware of this mission of spirit.  I will write more about this another time.

Common Mistakes We Parents Make

Using sarcasm and yelling at children is like planting batteries. It is bad for the environment and nothing good comes out of it.

The Creative Process

Here is a reprint of an old article I wrote twenty years ago:
THE CREATIVE PROCESS: MAGICAL, PRACTICAL, ELUSIVE, AND OMNIPRESENT
Copyright Barbara Entman 2006
(This is from a talk I gave at the Texas Women’s Hospital in honor of Judy Chicago’s Birth Project in 1986. I also published it in the Womynspace newsletter a.k.a. The Wand.)
Rita Mae Brown, author of Ruby Fruit Jungle and other books, told me in a radio interview that "The wonderful thing about being an artist is that you cannot get bored. You can be poor. You can be miserable. You can wish you would die. You won’t be bored." I agree. Even when I feel blocked, I am not bored, only frustrated. Often when a project is due, I get my home cleaner than ever out of a temptation to resist working on my creation. Artists experience intense feelings, we have too much to do. Yes, we are never bored.

In an excellent book called Working It Out: 23 Women Writers, Artists, Scientists and Scholars Talk About Talk About Their Lives and Work, edited by Sara Ruddick and Pamela Daniels. There is a chapter called "Plain Truth" by actress Naomi Thornton. She says: "They loved me. Is that the point? ‘They will never love me. Am I to spend my life winning the love of un-lovers? To create that which is uniquely, your own, in response to and in harmony with that which is around you, as an offering (call it gift) is the only justification of my existence I conceive.

"May I daily, hourly, minutely find the strength to live that."
That’s one artist’s motivation. The question that comes to my mind is this – is it necessary to justify our existence? Do we create or live out of the spirit’s overflow or do we create out of the need to fill emptiness inside? What she says prior to the statement about justification seems quite apt and poetic to me. To create that which is uniquely your own in response to and in harmony with that which is around you." This points out the importance of awareness and receptivity in the creative process.

To make work that matters to the world, the world must matter to you.
As Vasily Kandinsky says in his book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, "… art is not vague production, transitory and isolated, but a power which must be directed to the improvement and refinement of the human soul…"

The creative process is a powerful, sometimes scary phenomenon, especially for women, I think. For so long we have been conditioned against thinking of ourselves as powerful. There is the mistaken concept of power as non-feminine. So the arts that woman have been encouraged to excel in are the practical ones, needlework, cooking, toy making. These are called crafts and not art. Although personally, I see nothing inartistic about crafts. We can dabble in painting, sculpture and photography if they are sidelines. But we won’t be seen in museums more than once or twice a year in a special exhibition. (That is beginning to change, thanks to organizations such as the Women’s Caucus for Art.)

When you have no role models or very few, it can be tough to find your path. I’m 31 years old in 1987 and I feel like a pioneer because back when I started getting serious about photography my classmates and teachers kept saying, "How unusual, a girl photographer!" This was true in radio broadcasting as well. At my first professional job, back in 1976, the women broadcasters were given the silent treatment just because we were women. Although it is nice to be unique, it is also lonely. Today there are organizations available for women in creative fields. They provide useful functions like giving information and support. We don’t have to work alone.

Learning about successful women can be inspiring. One woman who has inspired me a great deal is Maya Angelou – the author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She is a poet, scriptwriter, actress, dancer, singer, and television director among other nouns. When I asked her how she integrates her talents, she explained it like this:
"I try to live what I understand to be a poetic existence. That is, I take responsibility for the time I take up and the space I occupy. No matter what I do I try to be poetic. It doesn’t mean being abrasive either – unless it’s called upon. I think poetry permeates the best of worlds."
According to Rollo May in his masterpiece called The Courage to Create, "The creative process is the expression of a passion for form. It is the struggle against disintegration – the struggle to bring into existence new kinds of being that give harmony and integration."
What about the artists who convey disharmony? Those who strive to evoke the perceived chaos of the day? I wonder if their wild, sometimes shocking sounds and visions are warning signs that are put up to awaken us into action to bring about harmony? What motivates them to express disharmony? Most likely the desire to find harmony. Other than those possible exceptions, artists (to me that term is very broadly defined) do have a passion for form and harmony. Each person’s definition of form and harmony may be quite different. Witness the arguments over what types of music should be played on a particular radio station. Obviously, the terms form, harmony, and integration encompass a wide variety of juxtapositions and tastes.
This passion for form is the desire to distill our experiences and place them into some condensed expression that will move someone else to understand our experience, to understand her/his own experience, and perhaps even to decipher the workings of the world, a little bit.

Why am I an artist? What drives me? I think it is a force as natural and compelling as food digestion and waste elimination if I don’t expel that which is within me, it builds up inside until I can tolerate no more, and I am forced to expel it. At one point in my early twenties, I decided I’d rather be happy than be a poet, so I stopped writing. I thought I was holding on to my depression In order to have something to write about. I discovered: It is possible to write beautifully out of peace, joy, love and gratitude as well as out of anxiety, melancholy, and despair, If I don’t write for a long time, strange things happen - words haunt my dreams or I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night and can’t sleep until I write something. When I don’t write at least every week, I have to struggle for the flow of beautiful language to begin. The first few words are painful and usually trite. The same is true of any art; it is a struggle to get the technique back after a long absence (but worth it!).

I do my best work when I’m participating in a good workshop or class. It is important to have support: an audience, a critic, a fan, a network, and a workshop. When we work in a vacuum, we may find ourselves redundant, without fresh energy. But we should beware of sadistic patterns in some teachers and workshop colleagues. Although most teachers are helpful, some are destructive, eager to put others down to boost themselves up. A good teacher is a lifesaver, a fountain of inspiration, and a ladder to boost you up.

Believe in your talents and possibilities but leave room for humility. Confidence and power cohabiting with humility and compassion are essential. Awareness, sensitivity, receptivity, activity, and courage are all key elements to the creative process. If we want our work to matter to the world, the world must matter to us, that’s what awareness is.
If we want inspiration, we must have sensitivity to experience. This is linked to receptivity. Openness to new ideas and phenomena and openness to encouragement, constructive criticism, and observant perceptions are valuable.

Activity means doing work whether it is painting or cooking, writing poems or commercials or letters to mom. Courage means willingness to feel, face fear, face failure, face success, willingness to jump off the merry-go- round, willingness to walk the less traveled trail, willingness to embrace dreams and wrestle with nightmares, willingness to love and be loved, willingness to risk losing the comfort of the familiar.

Life is an ongoing creative process no matter what we do. We can shut ourselves down and never risk, never let go, never feel or we can live creatively, open to the magnificence of our own potential. Whether filing papers or writing them, whether directing a film or watching one, no matter what we do, we can treat life as a creative process.

Miriam Shapiro says in on article entitled ‘Notes From a Conversation on Art, Feminism and Work.’ from the book Working It Out, mentioned in the first part of this essay: ‘You ask me to suppose a young woman coming to me for advice. She is tempted to give up the struggle to find, to learn to do her work She will continue to paint in her ‘free’ ‘extra’, ’spare time’ but her painting work will no longer be at the center of her life, She asks me what she will lose If she gives up. She gives up her dreams. She gives up struggle harassment, disappointment, exhaustion, rejection. She gives up the song of angels, the creative angel and the angel of death. She gives up the magic of making, the miracle of being alive. What does she give up? The capacity to turn dreams into reality, the joy of accomplishment, the pleasure of sharing herself with the world, the fun of pretending, the chance to be part of a new breed of women who are creating themselves. She gives up adulthood, she gives up playing, she gives her hours alone in her studio, becoming once more a Child. She relinquishes her time, her moment, when she can change, can amend history. What does she give up? Nothing it she has to ask.’
(Barbara Entman is a freelance writer, fine arts photographer, poet and former radio producer living in Houston. Her photographs have been exhibited in galleries or spaces in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Illinois, Texas and Denmark. Her writing has been published in the same states and Canada.) P.S. I no longer live in Houston. I live on Long Island.

Some Thoughts About Food and Parenting

One area of parenting which has become surprisingly complicated is food. I was raised by Great Depression era parents who treated unfinished meals as evidence of a major felony subject to a sentence of unbearable lectures full of zealous nonsense. Just how can my eating everything on my plate help the starving people elsewhere? To ward off verbal torture, I dutifully ate everything after trading mashed potatos for peas. Then upon reaching for my dessert reward, I received the warning that I would get fat. Confusing, no?

I believe this set me up for a mom paradox. If my children do not finish all their food, I feel the urge to finish it for them. When I do that, it adds to my expanding body of life experience (okay, it helps me get fatter.). So, dieticians have instructed me to stop eating the children's food. Okay, easy enough, serve smaller helpings. "Mom, I want more!" "Oh, okay, here you go." "I'm not hungry anymore." "That food won't work as a leftover. It cost money. But, but, but." Can you see the dilemna?

For 2010, I have started anew.  Every week I buy yummy fruits and vegetables. Each child has begun eating at least a few fruits and vegetables each dinner.  I throw out leftovers that won't keep.  I resolve to stop acting as the family garbage disposal.  I resolve to feed my children and myself healthy foods.