Inching back towards Monday. Yay! Hey, y’all. I have been working super hard on the details of my new business Beautiful Pie: Marketing for Good, which you can learn more about here and also at the bottom of this intro.
I’m posting an old essay that I stumbled across after the subject of said essay who is now almost 10 (!!!) told me he Googled “Bellamy Shoffner”. I’m sorry but, literally, WHY? And, how could I not then Google myself to see what came up. Something told me to click on this old essay published on HuffPost from back when I had a completely different name and not enough courage to stand up to the jerks who kept publishing my work and adding white kids as the featured image*. There’s a slight chance I may have posted this essay here on Substack in the recent past but I can’t remember. Joke’s on me, there have been MANY occasions to write about this exact emotion from Cyrus, which I attribute here to toddlerhood. Ha. So it’s easy to get these mixed up.
*Look at this baby, why wouldn’t you want to include a photo of the actual dramatic toddler who’s in the essay?
Anyway, happy reading, y’all. I’ll be back soon with new work.
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The Day the Popsicle Died
I was hanging out being a totally responsible mom, letting my kids have popsicles for breakfast in January. They are 4 and 1, and I am generally exhausted and tired of worrying about things that won't actually hurt them like veggie-based, no-sugar added frozen treats. There we were not having a heartfelt, warm family breakfast while talking about our wishes for the day, and eating homemade Belgian waffles, when things started going South.
My youngest son, at 18 months, hasn't had much in the way of life experiences. There was an extended battle over him wanting to hold the popsicle immediately. I was rushing to eat half of it so there would be half as much orange, liquid carrot goop all over my living room. He cried, he screamed, he demanded. I did my best to explain what was happening but I don't think he really cared.
Eventually, I wrapped the stick in a towel and handed him the popsicle. Things were great for about 5, maybe 10 minutes, both kids had happy tangerine-colored faces.
But, then...
That fateful moment when there's not enough frozen ice pop left to hold itself to the stick.
What was left of the toddler's breakfast hit the floor.
And he lost all of his chill.
He cried. He screamed. He picked up the two pieces and tried uselessly to salvage what was left. He was beside himself with disappointment, his popsicle had let him down. He was, himself, a melted puddle on the floor.
I tried.
I tried to hand back the individual pieces. I tried to explain the science of popsicle failure. I made it worse by washing his hands and melting away a remaining piece that I didn't know he was holding.
Turns out he cares nothing about the states of molecules OR clean fingernails so the whole time I think I am trying, he was crying the saddest, loudest cry -- the sound of the betrayed.
"You have big emotions." I said to him.
This is something I find myself affirming for him more often as he digs his heels deep into toddler-hood. He has the in-the-moment peaks and valleys of emotion that only a young child can possess.
Save for the cases when it involves throwing their dinner on the floor or running away from you in a crowded place, when kids are happy it's usually easy to allow yourself to be happy with them. Their smiles are contagious, there's hope in their joy.
But what about when they're upset?
When your brain defaults to the adult point of view: "Well, of course, it's going to melt. What's he so upset about?" Or when you wish they'd just stop crying, whining, complaining and understand that sometimes life is hard. What about those moments when you are challenged to find compassion in your child's sadness just as easily as you find hope in his joy?
I challenge myself daily to remember that we all have different material items, goals, and habits that are important to us.
As adults, our values are varied, our priorities are plentiful, none of us have identical belief systems. This is also true of children. Perhaps even more so as they are brand new to this life and don't have years of past experiences to refer to when sad things happen.
Toddlers naturally have big emotions.
I'm 33, and when I get to the end of a popsicle and the last piece starts sliding off, I think it's pretty disappointing. I can imagine it's devastating when you're one-and-a-half, eating a popsicle for breakfast is the best thing to happen to you all week, and the orange sticky ice pop disintegrates before your very eyes.
Compassion in the smallest moments, be it melted desserts or bubbles that burst a little too quickly, can lead to understanding our kids better in the long-term. There is power in allowing them to feel the full weight of their unhappiness. There is strength in supporting them as they work through their feelings and learn to regulate on their own accord without forcing them to stop crying -- to stop feeling -- before they are ready.
I know that when my kids are upset it is because something that matters to them has been compromised. I know that I have felt the same way many times before and I try to find empathy in that knowledge. I know they won't cry forever, but they may truly need to cry right now.
Eventually, when my children grow to be preteens, teens, men towering above me, with problems far greater than they can imagine today. I hope they will remember that although I am a hopelessly imperfect mother, I valued their feelings and emotions when they were small. I held them close when popsicles betrayed their trust. I hope they know without a doubt that I a here to offer support. I will listen to their problems even when they seem trivial to my adult mind.
I hope they know that whenever a popsicle dies I'll be there with a warm heart and calm understanding of their big emotions.
QOTD: I have been staring at a screen for way too many hours, no more words to give, ask ME a question instead! :)
Much love
—B
Oooh, a question for you this time! What is your favorite type of pie? Personally, I love all flavors of pie, just about - I love a chicken pot pie or an apple pie, a coconut cream or pumpkin, a lemon merengue or a chess pie... But if I had to choose just one last slice of pie for the rest of my entire life, I think I'd pick a slice of chocolate hazelnut pie from the much-missed Pie Chest (RIP).
Ooh, your new business looks amazing and the website is gorgeous! So exciting.
Little kids' big emotions are such a useful lesson for me (as someone who learned to squish down and ignore all my feelings) about how big feelings can be, and that I can have compassion for others -- but also for myself -- when a real or metaphorical popsicle falls off the stick. I'm slooowly working on giving myself some space, when something disappointing happens, to feel my own big toddler feeling go up and down and tell myself: Yeah, that WAS disappointing, huh? Instead of "get over it don't be ridiculous."
Question for you: What's a song that you're enjoying these days? (I got totally obsessed with that Sara Bareilles Orpheus/Fire combo you posted once.)