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PROLOGUE
You can’t stop the waves,
but you can learn how to surf.
—Jon Kabat-Zinn
I consider myself to be a reasonably logical, rational person. Which is too bad, because apparently, kids are rarely logical. Or rational.
For example, our 10-year-old daughter recently stapled together my last 95 pieces of printer paper—side by side by side—because she again wanted white bedroom walls after insisting for two years that I paint them with green and pink pinstripes (which I painstakingly did—12 days ago).
“I’m quite sure you cannot be serious,” I flatly stated as I continued to fold laundry.
With five kids ranging in age from ten to one, it’s not exactly chaos- or scream-free around here. “You cannot be serious” is a common utterance. It’s also a mindset. And a rule. Rules are critical. And I don’t mean for the kids. I mean rules for me.
Before I go much further, perhaps I’d better introduce myself in greater detail. After all, one’s credentials are important when it comes time to heed her advice. Or pay attention at all.
For starters, my husband David and I have five children. Said children, who are often referenced throughout this book, have both given names and nicknames. Since I go back and forth, I thought I’d provide you with a quick reference. Think of it as similar to—but thankfully not nearly as complicated as—the one required at the beginning of War and Peace.
Lyons Family Who’s Who
Given Name / Also Known As
Grace (10) / One, Boo
Jack (8) / Two, Big Daddy
Henry (8) / Three, The Senator
George (5) / Four, Diego
Nina (1) / Five, The Bean
Based on an old family photograph I have in my possession wherein I’m sitting, as a mere 3-year-old, amidst a plethora of baby dolls in makeshift car seats, it’s clear that I’ve been preparing for my current role as Mother of Many for quite some time.
Truthfully, the exact nature of how I’m defined changes minute to minute. Wife, friend, driver, lunch maker, homework enforcer, virgin organic gardener, avid reader, lunatic, shopaholic, world traveler wannabe, hopeful composter, carpenter, hostage negotiator, Heimlich maneuver practitioner, and on and on. If you’re a mom as well, I trust that you get this.
One thing I can tell you with certainty is that I’m wired to be more than “just a mom.” I would love to be the woman who bakes and decorates and comforts all the livelong day, but I’m afraid it’s not in my genes.
I’d like to tell you a story. Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (where they actually experience four separate and distinct seasons), I received a Bachelor’s Degree in Japanese from The Ohio State University. Let me tell you, I use that knowledge a lot.
I subsequently became employed by a major consulting firm, for which it was my job to write computer code—and then figure out what was wrong with it when it blew up the system. This is how I got my initial training in sleep deprivation, by the way, since most computer systems seem to abend (the technical term for “abnormally end,” which I’m simultaneously proud and frightened to admit I still remember), between 2:00 and 3:30 a.m.
When the company caught on that the only code I was ever going to truly understand was a bar code on a sale item at Nordstrom, I transitioned into Human Resources and acted as the communications lead for the firm’s North American diversity effort. This job was, in theory, right up my alley, but didn’t take terribly long to prove a most frustrating endeavor for all the reasons you can likely imagine (and many you perhaps cannot).
That said, it did lay appropriate groundwork for my future role as Mother of Many, as I spent my days balancing the unreasonable expectations of colleagues and bosses alike, some of whom I’m quite certain were less rational than toddlers.
Growing up, I had big-time career aspirations. International lawyer, doctor, political scientist, National Geographic journalist; they all sounded so exciting. But I nearly failed Bio 101, ix-naying the medical field, and couldn’t remember who the fourth president was, rendering politics an equally unlikely choice.
I was wondering how I might apply the lessons from my time creating dysfunctional (but diverse!) networking groups to a career driving—but not trekking—through the Himalayas when something happened, the ramifications of which I hadn’t fully anticipated.
I had a baby.
Three months after giving birth to our first child, I said au revoir to the frustrating position at the consulting firm (and acknowledged that the Himalayas weren’t in my future either). In one swift, hormone-induced fell swoop, I traded my degree for diapers, my briefcase for a breast pump, and my suits for sweatpants. I learned to meditate with toys flying over my head, accepted that the soundtrack of my life had gone from U2 to Blue’s Clues, and realized that quiet vacations with my husband had gone the way of the dinosaur.
Speaking of my husband (since he helped get me into this mess), we’ve been married since 5:37pm Eastern Standard Time on July 13, 1998. David has a few quirks I’ve learned to live with. He has some unacceptable hobbies (the worst of the bunch advertised by a deer named Vern whose head is mounted on the wall of our loft). He stores magazines from 1979 under the bed just in case he might maybe contemplate perhaps reading them someday. He can be trusted with a spatula but never a hammer, and he has a low-lying fascination with playing all C.I.A. or war-themed XBOX 360 games with the volume turned up to the point where exploding grenades actually vibrate our floorboards—in the wee hours of the night when the rest of us are trying to sleep.
But I’ve chosen to accept all of that because underneath the decomposing magazines and Bambie-like carcasses lies the human form of the most fun, understanding, logical, rational, generous, forgiving, adorable spirit I’ve ever met.
But lest I make it sound like it’s been smooth sailing since Day 1, the fact is that we haven’t always had a fairytale relationship. For all the gory details, refer to the Marriage section of Ready or Not…There We Go!: my guide to the toddler years with twins. If you’d prefer the condensed version, here it is.
Boy and girl met, fell in love, and got married; boy and girl had a daughter; boy and girl had twin boys; boy and girl had another son; boy pissed off girl; girl pissed off boy; boy moved to the basement; girl found a good therapist; boy and girl attended therapy separately for three months and then together for three months; boy and girl went to Vegas; boy volunteered to forego the craps tables to play Wheel of Fortune slots with girl for three days; boy and girl remembered why they fell in love in the first place; boy and girl each made concessions, and together vowed to start anew; boy and girl adopted another daughter; boy and girl (and their five kids) lived happily ever after.
There you have it.
I’ve been a researcher since I could lift the thinnest volume of my parents’ ecru and green Encyclopedia Britannica set. Once I became a mom I swiftly exchanged books, articles, and personal essays detailing strategies for climbing the corporate ladder to books, articles, and an occasional complaint about the plethora of new products, resources, and mindsets that make their way onto the parenting scene each and every day. I wondered how any woman is meant to remain sane while endlessly debating whether or not a pacifier will cause irreparable harm to her son’s teeth (or his ability to pronounce Susie Sells Seashells by the Seashore), not to mention whether I’d irreversibly stunted the growth of our daughter’s brain by not taking an Omega-3 supplement while pregnant with her.
Somewhere between the arrivals of our first and fifth children I decided that, no matter what anyone else said, I could and would have it all—as long as the “all” was self-defined and based on what I wanted to do, combined with what worked for me as well as the rest of my family, on any given day.
I wrote two books detailing real-world strategies for staying sane while raising twins, and some of my articles and advice found a home in the Chicago Tribune, Parenting, American Baby, Today’s Blue Suit Mom, Pregnancy, Better Homes and Gardens, and a few websites. If you’re wondering when I had time to write these things, I haven’t the slightest idea. All I can say is that I love to write; it’s my personal form of therapy.
Over the course of the last decade, I slowly chiseled and polished my own unique approach to managing most of the chaos of motherhood and all that comes with it—up to and including a kid who has been known to frequently and without warning drop his pants in the automotive section of Target, as well as the occasional need for me to do radio interviews from the front seat of the car with the kids muzzled in the back. Don’t worry; one of the pants-dropping stories is forthcoming.
I continually find myself confused by friends’ notion that I have boundless energy. Little do they know, I’m Google-ing “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” in the window next to one in which I’m Google-ing “BPA leaching from plastic baby bottles.”
Look, while not completely Simple Simon, finding and implementing balance in one’s life also isn’t rocket science. It just isn’t. Unless you don’t heed Rule 1. But I’m confident that you will.
In case you’ve made assumptions about any outside assistance I might have that permits me extra time to find my own balance, let me clarify that I don’t have a nanny. Or a frequent babysitter. Or an on-call therapist. Or a relative living closer than 120 miles away. Or a carpool partner. Or a cleaning service (though I really do long for a cleaning service that lasts more than a few weeks—more on that later—and if one showed up today and offered to clean out of the goodness of their hearts, I wouldn’t turn them down; I wouldn’t).
Do I have super powers? No. Do I have it all together all the time? Absolutely not. No one does. And as I mention in Rule 29 if you meet someone who claims that she does, I suggest you run in the opposite direction. Fast.
Do I ever flip out? Heavens, yes. In appropriate places? Si Señora. Do I consume unhealthy amounts of chocolate? Mm-hm.
But you really would be amazed by how far a custom-tailored personal parenting philosophy can take you.
On any given day, I have four kids trailing me hither and yon and one fighting to get out of the front of the cart. Usually, all five of these little people belong to me, though occasionally kids trade parents somewhere between the Clorox and the Cottonelle aisles; that’s normal, right?
As a mother of three boys who would each be as likely as the others to drop his pants in Target’s automotive department, a set of rules, which—when melded together—create a unique personal parenting philosophy that lends itself to sanity is critical. Of course my kids’ behavior differs, but in all cases, what’s required to survive it is nothing more extravagant than whatever I have to do not to permit the mayhem of the moment to necessitate a need for psychiatric assistance—beyond what I can get from a 9-1-1 call to my sister or closest friend.
While traveling through the Land of Chaos, it’s critical to acknowledge that without adopting an approach that prevents me from losing my mind every 94 seconds, I’d be forced to ingest large quantities of pharmaceutical-grade sanity. I mean, beyond the nine supplements I take before noon already.
My rules allow me to stay above the chaos that comes with motherhood in the 21st century. As of late, that includes an 8-year-old who tells anyone who will listen (as well as anyone who won’t) that the person needs therapy. He’s referring to speech therapy, which he receives and, therefore, thinks everyone else should receive. But that’s not what most people think he means when he harshly insists that they, too, better get themselves some therapy. A few seconds ago, you didn’t either, did you.
In a nutshell, my own personal parenting philosophy keeps the kids from being able to declare Checkmate even when my king is all that’s left on the board.
If you’re a mom of multiples, or a mother of multiple children, you’ve no doubt been asked two questions more times than the sun has risen since the dawn of creation: “Are they all yours?” and “How do you do it?”
I’ve seriously considered tattooing “Yes: 32 Rules” on my forehead so I can simply point when I see the inevitable glimmer of curiosity laced with a tinge of doubt in an oncoming stranger’s eyes.
Because tattooing hurts (I know from experience), and my face already bears a few unflattering lines, this book is my Plan B.
Every mom needs her own set of rules. And I wouldn’t suggest for one second that my set will, in its entirety, work for you.
I consciously developed my strategy over time by combining portions of approaches I gleaned from books, magazines, radio shows, lyrics of rap songs, and guests on The Today Show. Out of sheer necessity, I’ve even extracted tidbits here and there from Dora the Explorer and Oscar the Grouch.
I determined which pieces of the myriad available recommendations worked for me, and built my approach one layer at a time until, one day, I fell in a heap on the couch and proclaimed, “I’m 95 percent sane 95 percent of the time. I can stop now.”
Everyone has to start somewhere. If some of my rules sound promising, give them a try. If one sounds pretty good although not spectacular, tweak it to meet your own needs. If one of them seems insane, ignore it.
Hopefully it won’t take long for you to become clear on your own rules, begin implementing them, and find a greater sense of peace with which you can navigate the beautiful—if not crazed—world around you.
Enough with the introduction. I give to you my rules and the experiences that prove their necessity and value. May you soon have a philosophy all your own, tailored to your unique needs and personality.
And as my youngest son’s character du jour wishes with almost annoying frequency, “May the force be with you.”
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Are you ready to create your own unique set of rules — rules that will allow you to fall into bed each night utterly exhausted, and genuinely able to proclaim, “I love my life!”
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