what can I do?

My dear Hamish, my miracle of a human, my child. Is. Such. A. Fucking. Nag. I have no idea where he gets it from. 

His new thing is upon waking, he says, "I hate to bring this to you Mommy, but what can I do?" I tell him to get dressed and brush his teeth. No. That's too boring. He screeches, twists, writhes on the sofa that used to look so stately and clean before two years went by in a flash. I tell him to feed Don Pepe, the blood-clot of a fish we're fish-sitting for our neighbors who are abroad. 

biting the hook

It turns out that screaming at children is bad for them, and for us, but a lot of us are doing it.

shenpa

Whenever life is running smoothly and by smoothly I mean that I'm not throwing hissy hysterical tantrums when the kids don't follow my plans (obey my orders, however you want to put it), and life is still doing its crazy life dance but I'm centered and flowing and annoyingly upbeat, but then maybe because of or in spite of my pond-calmness, Hamish and Stella magically transform into doe-eyed vegetable eating cooperative huggy bears, which is good, obviously, but. Whenever I'm feeling confident, in control and thankful for all the abundance I am receiving a funny thing happens. I can't think of a thing to write about. Because, and I just realized this today, ding-ding! I've been working under the auspices that I have to bleed all over my keyboard in order to produce a piece of writing worth your time, which means mining my most odious characteristics and embarrassing foibles, since the human condition is a messy affair and I want to document it in all its gelatinous glory. To, you know, bring us closer together. But then I was all up in my own grill like, is that true? And I answered, no, Elise, it's ridiculous. And I was all, well no wonder I've been battling myself on the issue of writing, beating myself into, well, an emotional bloody pulp, wearing myself out over it.

right path

Not attaining enlightenment after deciding to, oh, about three pages into Eat Pray Love, for instance, had me a little down on myself. I meditated a total of thirty-seven minutes in two separate sessions about two weeks apart and found myself wondering, where is my blue light? Which I know is, well I don’t want to say ridiculous, because I know in my budding wisdom that beating myself up is not the Right Path, as the Buddhists would say, but I could maybe give myself a little more time to achieve the heightened states of consciousness that Elizabeth Gilbert makes sound so enticing, that took her at least five months and however many pages to reach in her life. And if I can’t get to Italy or India, at least I can go to a good Italian restaurant, and sit in my living room listening to my mind. So far I’ve been to a good French restaurant (rack of lamb and potatoes au gratin anyone?) and have sat myself down, and even though it doesn’t last long, it does feel like a vacation from my usual life of eternally explaining to my three year-old son why we don't dance with a glass of milk on the sofa. For instance. So I'm hopeful. I also seem to recollect that it’s best not to talk about your meditation practice, or your yoga practice, New Years’ resolutions, etc. But talk I do, because that’s what I do. I love to share.