Just now I found myself singing “I’m a Little Teapot.” I was alone. Well, no kids around. No excuse. It’s not even a song I LIKE. In fact, it reminds me of Candyland, which seemed like such an awesome game when I was a kid (OMG! Candy Mountain! Now I’d rather repeatedly stab my eyeballs with a rusty fork than play it Ever. Again). But “I’m a Teapot”? It has never been my song. I was baffled by it in kindergarten. What were all these silly hand movements? Here is my handle? Why do I need a spout? WTF?!
All that teapot angst reminded me of how not a day went by, maybe not an hour, that I did not sing to my kids. Years of singing. Now my partner asks me frequently to sing to him, and when I do I remember how I figured out how to time singing “Edelweiss” in exactly one minute, because that was the only song that would make infant Serena stop crying. I kept myself from going mad by trying to sing it in exactly sixty seconds. Over and over, my plea to a colicky baby.
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When I was little I was dumbfounded by the question teachers asked us at the beginning of every year through about third grade: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Really? I remember wondering, We have a choice? Is it that easy? And the choices offered — fireman, doctor, teacher, secretary — sounded so … wrong to me. Not wrong, exactly. Incomplete. Not ME. Is that all there is? I wondered, I have to choose one of those? I have to know now? I admired the kids who were certain about what they wanted, but I always thought that, for me, there would be more. Something wonderful. Something so awesome, so magical, maybe, that nobody had even thought of it yet.
When my older daughter was born I began to strategize and plan her life. Isn’t that what we parents do? We dream big into our children’s futures. We imagine their first steps, their first days of school, their first prom dates. So when Jessica was born, like every other parent I began thinking about her future. Our future. And what was my priority? Nope, not preschool waiting lists and Ivy League saving plans — my burning question was simple. Urgent. Life-affirming. And … all about me. How long would it take before she would be into Legos? 
Living apart from my kids as I do, our interactions are now more focused, more intentional, and more one-on-one than they could have been as the single mom of four that I was until three years ago this month. That’s mostly a good thing. Anyone who has attempted to answer, for instance, the Important Life Questions their seven-year-old daughter is asking while also diapering her baby brother (a squirming non-verbal three-year-old with special needs) knows the value and rarity of focused one-on-one time with children. But there are also drawbacks. Things I miss. Memories I cherish. And while my experience motherhood as a mom-from-afar differs from the way most of you are mothers, I am betting that one thing we all have in common are the memories of motherhood that we hold closest in our hearts.
Father’s Day is coming up and we are all thinking about Dear Old Dad in all his awesomeness: clad in a 
My world has just changed. It’s brighter, faster, shinier, cleaner. Why? Because my eleven year old daughter Serena just got her first laptop. Which means that the methods we can use to connect and keep in touch — since we live 3000 miles apart — just went from Early Twentieth Century (just a step up from tin cans and a string) to Oh My Freaking Awesome.
In the nearly three years since transitioning from a stay-at-home do-everything mom to a parenting-from-afar mom, I’ve had a lot of time to think and rethink parenting styles, specifically mine. I have learned a lot in that time about what works and what does not work as well in parenting. It’s ironic that I had to be 3000 miles away from my kids to better understand what it takes to be a good parent, but that’s how it worked for me. Today I read some 
I am moving. My tiny house is littered with half-filled boxes and my head is filled with the detritus of arrangement-making: Call Comcast, change address at post office, order a moving truck, do I have enough boxes, why do I have all this STUFF?
Last September I had an epiphany. My then 14-year old son Nathaniel should go to school in France for a year! It would be awesome. It would change his life. Yay me for seeing into the future and knowing how everything will turn out. Crystal ball mom eyes. I phoned him to tell him what his next few years were going to be like.
After more than two years of non-custodial parenting, I am finally seeing just how much influence I have over my children’s lives. Isn’t that odd? But I have traded in the day-to-day influence — what clothes to wear to school that day, what’s for lunch and dinner, and did you do your homework today? — for the Big Picture stuff. This is epic. Life-changing. And the oddest thing of all about it is that it takes no Herculean effort. We just talk regularly, I listen and give opinions when they’re warranted, and over time I see change.
