Tulsi stayed with my parents for a whoppin’ 52 hours while I went to NYC for the children’s book art show, etc., and I can’t tell you how much my heart and head ran around with this decision before I made it (supported by Patrick and my parents). Some of you might not think a couple of days is a big deal, but it was huge for me. And for Tulsi. We had not spent more than 5 hours apart since the first day of her life, when we’d been separated seconds after her traumatic birth. So it was not an easy decision. Would she feel secure that I would come back? How would she sleep? Would she be distant from me after? And of course, I worried about something happening to either one of us. I know it might sound silly to some mothers who have already grown through the early years, but as a mother, I know your whole heart and being are in every present moment, and you feel each phase fully. It is “everything” in that moment. I knew ultimately she’d be ok, but of course I still questioned if it was necessary. And when some friends quickly responded, “It’s fine — growing pains are good for her,” I cringed and hesitated even more. I mean, she’s only 2 1/2. I didn’t want to force growing pains — or push her to grow up faster than she needs to. But the more I felt into it, I knew I needed to go to NYC for me, and well, it’s a big step for a mama to ‘take time’ for herself. It’s always easy to put that aside for later.

And so I went. And she stayed. And she wailed when I left (but for a mere 30 seconds my mom said), and I cried in line at the airport, too. In an instant, I was on my own, and it was odd. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. Or how to walk. There was an open space. And even though Tulsi was on my mind a lot, I breathed deep and appreciated my mind and back relaxing. I had lunch at a sidewalk cafe with an old friend and a sweet dinner with two mama-friends, relating in that mama-to-mama way, with a glass of wine. It felt slightly like a forced vacation (albeit work), but I was happy I went. Tulsi learned to walk like a penguin, that monkeys like hammocks, too, and she learned all about baseball.

When it came to night, I didn’t sleep much at all. My mom said Tulsi didn’t sleep well either and that she rocked her a lot of the night. I loved that my mom said she didn’t mind at all, because she knew it helped Tulsi feel secure, and I immediately wondered if my mom misses those rocking-her-babies days, like I know I will miss someday.

As I watched Tulsi draw Nama and her, and describe all the details, I knew how important those 52 hours were, for her, too: ”This is Nama holding me like a baby, rocking me. Her arms stretched out. She has boobies. I have nipples. She has a belly button. I have a belly button.” She drew both their eyes wide open and said they ”were looking at each other”. And then she colored purple over her own face and said, “Me close my eyes and sleep with Nama. She hold me like a baby.”

What a beautiful moment, a gift, that she will always carry with her, that came from those 52 hours, and my own letting go. I know it has strengthened their connection, too. All 3 of them. As for Tapas (my dad), she drew the photo below and said, “Tapas is funny.” :) Like my note to Tulsi, I’m sure her pictures will make my parents happy.

This is a collaboration Tulsi and I did together although I only made the left eye and mouth. She is in a phase of wanting me to paint or draw with her. She knows the word “collaboration”. Ha. So I play, too, but I try not to screw up anything she has done so effortlessly. Tulsi calls this one, “Talking guy”. She loves to look at Picasso’s books. It shows. Watercolors have always been scary for me, but Tulsi is helping me get over my fear. Kids have no fear.

Here is another collaboration — she made the drawing a few months ago. It’s a family portrait: That’s me on the left, Oso got cropped off a bit up top, Tulsi is on the right with her mouth wide open, and Papa is big and center with the funny hair and big nose and smile. I added the 3 creamy collage shapes and used an antique varnish to mesh it with a wooden box frame. It was our father’s day present for Papa.

I love playing art with Tulsi. We get lost in it and forget about the world. I hope she always remembers that sacred place she can go to.

So we made a mask and she sat in front of a mirror on the floor holding it up, yelling, “CAAAAWW, CAAAAAAWWW!” for fifteen minutes. She reminded me how much I love corrugated cardboard and tape.

Tulsi, I never questioned whether we gave you the “right” name or not. I always knew it was perfect. You are a rare and beautiful spirit. I see the Divine every time I look into your eyes and heart! I have treasured every moment of your first 2 years with us, watching who you are today and who you are becoming. Thank you for taking my hand and showing me how to draw flowers (again) for the first time. For pointing out the fish swimming in the orange clouds at sunset. For giving me spontaneous love, always a hug AND a kiss, never just one. For looking me in the eyes. For asking to hold my hand. For insisting on long walks in the woods when I’ve been inside for too long. For inviting me to lay down on the ground so close next to you to say, “HI BUG!” at the long-legged, glistened winged insect walking by. I am so excited for who I have become, and who I am becoming, too, because of this gift of being your Mama. I love you all the way up to your toes!

How awesome every single “first” is. Side by side this morning drawing, Tulsi draws her way into her first “fun guy”, all by herself, and shouted, “Look, Mama! A fun guy!” She laughed out loud cause it was “fun” to make, too. Don’t you wish you could remember your own first “fun guy”?

A friend found this sticker in a store in Boulder, and I had to share it. I’m pretty far from being enlightened, but I do feel enlightened about life in ways I never was before being a mother. Every path has something powerful to teach us, and I am grateful to be walking this one.

Not that I feel like I know what I’m doing all the time — I wonder whether I can do more or if my choices and instincts are ‘right’.  I was meditating on that recently, wondering if it’s ok that I don’t take Tulsi all the way to town for tumbling or music class or storytime like other cool moms I know. Is it ok that we spend our days tiptoeing thru the woods after coyotes or lying in the meadow watching clouds sail by and leaves fly? (A mother’s mind can question herself a lot if she lets it.) And after a few minutes of slight panic, I thought about how we all just have to walk our own walk and play in whatever way feels right for us. We can be inspired by each other, but it’s perfect for it all to look differently. These little years are our unique gift to our babes.

I’ve been trying to remember every day — especially when I’m tired, or when my mind wanders to a project I’ll work on when Tulsi falls asleep, or when she’s trying to tell me something that requires total stillness on my part to understand her, or when she doesn’t eat, or nurses a lot at night, or when she is watching me interact with others — that being her mother IS my practice right now. I’m not sitting in the mornings, and I don’t have my stellar home yoga practice that I used to, BUT mothering is a 24-7 meditation-heart-asana practice, so of course it will be the most challenging (and amazing) practice I could do. Especially if I keep this in view. Let thoughts float in and out without judgement…and soften. For now, being as present as I can, and following her lead, and sharing my loves with her, and answering her endless questions, and cuddling+smiling often, and being gentle and forgiving (to myself), and staying OPEN to learn from other mothers, and even giving her space when she walks away, I can do. Each day, each moment, is my chance to practice and grow. If I stutter or make a mistake, I have another chance with my very next inhale. We all do. And what a beautiful thing that is.

………………….

Erin Ross created these great stickers — thanks, Erin! — and you can order some for gifts to your mama friends. Email her at: motherhoodlotus@gmail.com

Photo above by (I think) Edouard Boubat from Motherpeace: A Way to the Goddess through Myth, Art, and Tarot, by Vicki Noble (AWESOME)

The past two weeks I’ve gotten even less sleep than usual, and I’ve felt more alive. Wild, huh? And I feel really happy, in a different way than my usual giddy-cause-I’m-Tulsi’s-mama-kind-of-way. All because I’ve been creating.

It’s like I’m finding myself again with my art. My art is the thing that sorta defined me before I became a mother (ha) — as much as any one thing can define a person. Then, all of a sudden, I was a mama — a new mama who had no spark to create anything ‘else’. I remember wondering if that was normal. (Was I still an artist, or was I now a mother?) Then that mama became a mama who struggled to create with deadlines in the wee hours of the night (to pay some bills). Then that mama became the mama, who suddenly felt inspired again to create art but had no time and little energy at the end of the day to do it — the mama who kept wondering, “how the heck are other mamas doing it?” And somehow … maybe with time or being more gentle on myself, or maybe with erasing any dividing lines between the two “me’s”, or simply feeling the purest desire to do both, I’ve become a mama who is also an artist — and making art. Whew! It is such a journey and a continual balancing act, I know, but I think it’s important to shout out a big thank you to the universe when life IS in balance, don’t you?

(The projects I’m working on, I can’t share until they are published…but it will be fun when I can!)

And I see how making art grounds me, like a full day digging in the garden, barefoot. And how it fills me, like harvesting and preserving enough food from our garden to last the whole winter. And how it challenges and grows me, like every moment I’m with my Tulsi — the fun, tough, and every one in between. And that it’s just as important for me to make art, as it is for Tulsi to see her mama doing what she loves. I wonder how being a mother will change me as an artist. It’s bound to…

I’m going to take some liberty to add to Ben Shahn’s “capsule recommendation for a course of education (for an artist)” : Become a mother. To anything. A baby or pet or horse or garden. Know what it’s like to take care of someone else first. To set your art aside for some time, if needed. To give all of yourself, even when you are exhausted and to trust and let go of yourself to become someone new.

For you mamas out there, I’m curious what you let go of when you became a mother, and did you find it again — or did it find you again?

• First, I covered the rough, concrete floor with those cushy (and affordable) puzzle mats. This was essential.

• I found a fun, thick soft wool 5×8 ft version of this rug on overstock.com

• Next, I converted a lower cubby on my bookshelf into a music space with drums, rattles, shakers, flutes and more. She LOVES it and really knows how to shake her booty when we drum! I also moved books for her on the lower, reachable shelves and put storage in the cubbies with doors.

• I traded out my computer chair for a big, bouncy exercise ball (which I prefer anyway). It’s softer and safer (no hard edges to bump her noggin on), takes up less space, inspires spontaneous back bends and yoga, and it’s fun to bounce and roll and drum on.

• I have samples of my Oopsy Daisy art that I give away or that sit in storage, so it was fun to hang my World Wonders growth chart on the nearby bathroom door. I just marked: Tulsi 13 months: 29 1/2″, 18 lbs, 1 oz !

• When I was little, my favorite spaces to hang out were in my closet and in our kitchen closet underneath the table-desk. I thought it’d be really fun to create a similar, sweet space beneath half of my work table. First, I replaced the awkward, funky old table end with this perfect book/toy shelf that our friend made just to fit this space.  (I’m still debating whether to paint this a fun color with flowers or with chalkboard paint…or to paint the wall where the painting is now, with chalkboard paint…ideas?)  I found another fun rug on overstock.com, hung up my original painting of Kimono Moon from Oopsy Daisy Fine Art for Kids, added some soft pillows for leaning up against the side of my flat files, and topped it off with a sheer, silky curtain for playing peek-a-boo, taking spontaneous naps (if those ever happen…), or for times when she’s older and wants to just be in a closet (like I did, hee).

As this art+play space was still being converted, Tulsi got into a couple basket drawers full of collage and inspirational images…

She helped me do some spring cleaning which inspired a new play house that she LOVES.

One fun part about “sharing my space” with Tulsi is that, when we aren’t outside in the garden, she wants to be in here playing — and just playing in this studio-play space (even when I’m not working) seems to really fuel my ideas and energy for making art. Tulsi is the best studio mate! It feels really perfect. “All” it needs now maybe is some fun dangly, mobiles from the ceiling…

Here is Penny’s blog post about a studio-playroom she created last year, although I think she’s since moved from it and maybe will be creating another one soon. Has anyone else made one? What did you do? I’d love to hear more ideas!

I wrote that last post not knowing if I’d delete it or edit it down into just the positives. I’m a pretty private person on certain levels so I tend to share some things and not others. But I’m so glad I shared that — the part about feeling the rough spots of searching (and struggling) to find balance with Mamahood and my art. As I started to read so many comments and emails from other mama-artists on the same path, I felt more and more relief! And when I got to Dona’s comment reminding me about this film, Who Does She Think She Is?, I immediately watched the trailer and cried! Cried and laughed and felt like, “YES! Thank you.”

Another GIANT exhale of relief. And then an even bigger inhale of energy feeding every bit of my passion for both being a mother and being an artist.

I want to run out and watch this film, but it’s not out with Netflix yet. I actually had the chance to see it when I was pregnant, but I couldn’t make it to the viewing in town. I don’t think I could have really ‘gotten’ it then anyway. Mayumi Oda, who is interviewed in the film, is one of my favorite contemporary woman artists. Patrick introduced me to her work after he met her several years ago in Hawaii and she gave him a couple signed books of hers. (He also bought one of her Ganesha prints for a friend, and this Ganesha is AMAZING. And curvy, feminine, and full of shakti. So radically rare in an image of Ganesh. I stare at him every time I visit our friend’s home.) In one of her books, she wrote about her struggle with being an artist in a man-art world, especially while being a mother. I’ve been reading and rereading it lately. Again, relief. Energy. Inspiration.

Check out the film’s youtube station for more interviews, too…

I also remembered something I shared in an interview a couple months ago … about how mamahood resembles times when I’ve traveled in foreign countries for extended periods of time. While it’s true that I spend a lot of time in my sketchbooks while I travel and I’m not so much now, it’s also true that this whole year has been the most incredible journey that has filled me to the rim and then some. It’s nice to come back to previously discovered realizations that I maybe forgot in the present moment. To remember “aha” moments and say, “YES!”

Another “aha” moment…I noticed yesterday after a somewhat rare couple hours in my studio — it doesn’t take much art-time right now to fill me up in that art-soul-nourishing way. I love and appreciate that. Because, really, right now, I don’t desire to spend much more time than that in my studio each day/night…I don’t want to miss anything with Tulsi! I’m really quite attached to her! Someone commented about having a lot more time when she goes off to school in a few years, and I giggled to myself, since we are planning on homeschooling. Another friend (an artist/mama of two) recently told me, “It’s actually not harder with two babes because you don’t have to become a mother all over (for the first time) again. You don’t have to go thru that process of letting go of your previous self and figure out how you(r artist) self fits in with being a mama.”

Tulsi had her first ride on a radio flyer this weekend. We went to visit a friend, the horse. She was shrieking and shaking her head with delight. (Of course, you might not know that from the picture since she’s not into documenting that on camera.) So much wonder and sweet simplicity. Being a mother has become a huge part of my spiritual practice. She is my walking-swinging-sleeping meditation, and I am learning so much from her (about love and life and about myself).