Fragile

Here’s a confession:  I got lazy in the last few days of packing up our house.  My brain was numb from sorting and wrapping and nestling ALL THE THINGS that I stopped being specific with the labels.  Instead, I just scribbled the word “FRAGILE” on every box.  Books?  Fragile.  Pillows?  Sure, why not.  (Sidenote: every time I wrote the word, I thought of the scene with the dad from A Christmas Story:  “FRUH-GEE-LAY….must be some Italian word.”  If you have no clue what I’m referring to, I’m sorry, but we can’t be friends.  2.  There are 18 more Wednesdays until Christmas.  You’re welcome).

 

A couple of weeks ago, I had just scribbled on approximately the 11th box in our dining room when I got a text from my mom.  “I’m at MCV.  Your dad’s been in a motorcycle accident.”   

 

Sometimes a word is just a word.  Until it’s not.

 

I used to think life was about either/or’s.  So much of my anxiety in my early twenties was driven by the myth that fragility and strength were mutually exclusive.  And yet, I found them together that afternoon in the trauma unit, heard them in the rhythmic beeps and drips of room 128.  Six broken ribs.  A broken collarbone.  The relief and sobering reality.  I watched them in the waiting room- fear and fortitude clutching clammy hands across stiff, vinyl chairs.  And I was reminded that the tension between those two always exists.  I think I’ve known this for a while, in my head.  It’s easy to speak it and it looks good on paper, but all it takes one text, one phone call, one sudden stop in an intersection…. to remind you how truly fragile- and also resilient- you are.

 

A few days later, I sat upstairs in Ollie’s new room and began to try to put her crib back together again.  It’s the original one- the one that Jake spent three tedious hours putting together in that tiny room of our first house more than seven years ago.  The one that showcases Milo’s teeth marks around the perimeter.  The rails of which I had covered with a fresh coat of white paint during that January snowstorm before Olive came.  I thought about all of the times it had supported the weight of our weary bodies bending over to retrieve a lost binky or memorize the curves of cheeks.  About a year ago, the base had finally cracked under the bounces of our three monkeys when they climbed in together to play.  We had repaired it then- rather crudely- with some wood glue and bolts.  And that’s exactly where I saw that it had broken again- though this time, beyond repair.

 

It was the first time I had really allowed myself to recognize that something in me had shifted since my dad’s accident- the frighteningly finite undercurrent of motherhood and daughterhood finally converging and then erupting into hot tears on that August morning.  Sure, it was exhaustion.  Probably even some hormones.  But I knew those only to be the cracks on the surface of something much deeper.

 

It’s parents who are getting older and children who don’t stay young.  It’s the divine weight we carry as mothers and fathers and children- the broken ribs and broken cribs, and the frightening speed of the years that I had assumed would drag by.

 

Sometimes we crack.  Other times, it’s a clean break.  And yet, the same love that breaks us open- exposing our worst fears and frailties- is the One that mends.

 

 

 

 

  “Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

 That’s how the light gets in.”  {Cohen}

 

Just Like That.

 

 

 

 

Hormones are a funny thing.  You’d think, having gone through two births and recoveries, I would have been better equipped the third time around. Instead, the day we came home from the hospital with Olive, I plopped down on my bed (okay, I actually lowered myself very gingerly) and sobbed because I couldn’t find my hairdryer.

I think I was truly upset about my hair dryer.  But probably also because there was this teeny, tiny creature lying beside me and oh-my-god-we-have-three-kids-now.  I stared at her in awe and disbelief.  I had photographic proof that Ella and Milo were once that small, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember it.  And it was THAT thought that caused me to spend the subsequent hour holed up in our upstairs bathroom, eating chocolate chips and crying (even harder) into a hand towel.  A few minutes had passed when Jake opened up the door and set a small glass of wine on the bathroom counter.  This was clearly not his first rodeo, either.

And then, just like that, the hormone surge was over.  The rest of the evening felt like deja vu- oddly familiar, but then again not. We put the kids to bed, ate a late dinner on the couch and watched TV, and I relished the feeling of Ollie’s perfectly round head in the crook of my arm.  I knew we were outnumbered, forced into zone defense- but we would be okay.  I knew this, if for no other reason than for the fact that time simply moves on.  However depleting and exhausting the newborn phase feels, it doesn’t continue on with the intensity it brings in those first four weeks.  “It might feel like it will, but it won’t,” I have told my recent mommy-to-be friends.  And although I intend for it to sound optimistic and encouraging, I can’t ignore the fact that it’s tinged with sadness.  The telltale wistful quality that can only come from someone who’s held her last newborn.

In fact, the “hair-dryer incident” (as it’s come to be known) was six months ago.  We no longer have a newborn in the house, and now,  we’re about to have a Kindergartner.  There’s been an undercurrent of excitement and angst in our household over the last week as we tick down the days to the start of this new chapter for Ella (for all of us, really).  It was once so far off- the idea of packing lunches and morning rushes and a backpack that was twice her size.   But just like that, it’s here.  I’ve busied myself shopping for clothes and school supplies and yes, even building a new dining room table, because it meant I didn’t have to acknowledge the speed of it all.   The intensity.  The finality.

 

They’re growing up.

 

I’m getting older.

 

I’m actually going to have to let them go.

 

I remember the first time I had to let Ella go, and it happened much sooner than I thought it would. It was 11:30 pm on the second night I was in the hospital after having her.  There I sat- on the side of my hospital bed- shaking and crying.  Poor Jake helplessly offered up every convenience he could find: Another pillow?  A blanket?  Some takeout?  Chocolate?  A foot rub??   It was the hormones, sure.  But it was something else, too.  I cried until I could barely breathe and then, when he was a few seconds from paging a nurse, I finally stammered out…

 

“I want my baby.  I want my baby.  I want my baby.”

 

“What?”

 

“I need them to bring her back to me.  I just need to hold her.”   I missed her.  It didn’t matter that I had just fed her and sent her to the nursery in the hopes of getting a couple of hours of sleep.  It didn’t matter that she was only a hallway’s length away from my room.  It sounded ridiculous at the time, but it was the first time in 41 weeks that she hadn’t been WITH ME.  It left me feeling almost panicked in a way I couldn’t have predicted.  Come to find out, parenthood is a series of those panicked moments- the HOLY SHIT moments when you realize you have absolutely no control.

 

The knot that’s been welling up in my throat this past week is nothing more than the increasing awareness that I have no control over this this proverbial, runaway train of parenthood.   I’m on it, indefinitely.  And not only am I on it, I’ve somehow been charged with making it worth the ride.  Holy. Shit.  So this Tuesday morning, a small contingency of family members will be walking Ella to her first day of Kindergarten at her school two blocks away.  The morning light will have that golden look to it- the way that early September does as it ushers in yellow school busses and nostalgia and the first crunchy leaves on the ground.   I know our family.  We’ll joke, keep the mood light, be excited (because we really are).  There probably won’t be a lot of pomp and circumstance.  In fact, it might even be somewhat anti-climactic.  But then, as we start back home, I’ll probably bite my bottom lip and remember back to that night in the hospital.

 

I want my baby.  I want my baby.  I want my baby.

 

But she’s ready.  She was born ready.   She’s just needed to give me five years to get used to the idea.

 

 

 

 

“Once in a while, when it’s good, it’ll feel like it should

And they’re all still around, and you’re still safe and sound

And you don’t miss a thing, ’til you cry when you’re driving away in the dark

Singing ‘stop this train, I wanna get off and go home again’

‘I can’t take the speed it’s moving in

I know I can’t

‘Cause now I see I’ll never stop this train.”

 

 

*To all my mom and dad friends sending their babies off to Kindergarten this year….enjoy the ride.  (And pass the tissues, please).  🙂

Go get ’em, Bug.

 

Awake.

 

I was really nervous about Olive’s c-section- more so than the other two.   In part, because I had a particularly rough time with Milo’s c-section.  I experienced one long, continuous panic attack on the OR table with him, and I was so loopy and nauseated from the drugs that I didn’t even want to even look at him or hold him for the first couple of hours.  When I first went to see my OB, I had asked her to please let me try to VBAC with this delivery- even though I knew it was considered much more risky to do so after two previous c-sections.   As much as she could empathize (having had a c-section herself), she told me she just didn’t feel comfortable with it, given the risks.  I understood and from that point forward, tried to mentally and emotionally prepare myself for another OR experience.

 

Fast forward to February 18th, 2014- baby day!  We drove to the hospital at 5:45 that morning on top of sleet and slick roads.  I exhaled for about the 40th time on that short fifteen-minute drive and told Jake that I wished I could “just go to sleep and wake up and have her be here.  You know, like the “good ol’ days.”  

 

We got into our sauna- I mean, room (it was set at a balmy 82 degrees), I put on my gown, the IV was started, and then, time almost seemed to stop.  Olive was moving all over my belly and giving the nurse a heck of a time trying to monitor her heart rate.  We’d get the belt positioned and she would move.  We’d reposition it and lose her again.   It became a sort of joke and provided some much-needed levity.  Jake started nodding off in the corner of the room while I vigorously fanned myself- partly because of nervous energy, but also because someone must have missed the memo that pregnant women tend to get hot and nauseated when thermostats are set above 80 degrees.   A nursing student who was coming to sit in on the section came in the room and we made small talk for a few minutes while I eyed the clock and ignored my gurgling stomach.  I tried to imagine myself in recovery- on the other side of the sterile OR, bright lights, pulsating machines, and the sting of the spinal.  I imagined her crying- what it would sound like to finally have her on the outside, to know that she was here and safe.  Try as I might, though, the what-if’s creeped in.   What if she didn’t cry right away?  What if I barfed all over the OR table?  What if she had some fluid in her lungs?  What if I started to hemorrhage?  What if….

 

Then the phone in the room rang.  It was the anesthesiologist.  The nurse walked over to the computer, clicked on a screen and I watched her jaw open just a bit.  “Oh, wow,” she said.   I really wanted to like the tone of that “oh, wow,” but, come to find out, it’s generally not something you want to hear your doctor or nurse say as they stare at your chart.  When she hung up, she told us she was going to go and talk with my OB and the anesthesiologist- that apparently, my platelet count was very low.  I don’t know much about this kind of thing, but I do know that it’s not a new issue for me in pregnancy.  It was discovered that I had a borderline low platelet count when I was in labor with Ella and wanted to get my epidural.  Because of my gestational thrombocytopenia (take that spellcheck), I had to wait a painfully long two hours for it while they ran some lab work to check and make sure it was safe for me to have it (which it was, thankfully).  When I went in for Milo, I was, again, just barely at the safe cut-off for a spinal for the c-section, but everything went ahead as scheduled then, too.  So, in this instance, I wasn’t particularly alarmed to know that history was repeating itself.

 

A few minutes later, the nurse returned with my OB, the anesthesiologist, and even more nurses.  Tthe anesthesiologist explained that a typical low platelet count was anywhere between 100,000 and 150,000.  Mine was 77, 000.   Neat.   And I knew what it meant: there was no way they were going to do a spinal- the risk of hemorrhaging was too great to chance it.

As I tried to absorb the curveball, I looked at my OB, hoping for some sort of cue as to how I should react.  Was she worried?  But when I looked at her, I didn’t see worry.   There was confidence.  But then also, I saw a genuine sadness.  The empathetic look of a momma, herself, who understood exactly what I was going to miss when I went to sleep.  She looked as genuinely sad as I felt.  I listened as they promised me that it would be over in the same amount of time as a regular section, that they would get Olive out quickly so she wasn’t sedated for too long, and that I’d still have skin-to-skin time as soon as I was in recovery.  Of all the things I had prepped myself for, this really wasn’t on the list.   Jake was then told that he wouldn’t be able to be with us at all until we were in recovery, and the reality of it finally hit me while I laid on the OR table and they began to place the catheter (NOT my favorite part, by the way).  Dr. Tyson held my hand and stroked my hair while the tears streamed down my cheeks and I squeaked out, “I’m scared, I’m scared.”  And just before the anesthesiologist told me I was about to go to sleep, my OB looked at me and said, “Just think, you’ll go to sleep and wake up, and she’ll be here.”

 
Sometimes, things have a funny way of working themselves out.

 

And at 8:31 a.m. . . .

 

 

 

 

 

Anesthesia is a crazy thing.  I swore I had only just dozed off when I heard someone calling my name and then someone else said, “Olive is here!”   And I remember thinking, for one split second, “who the heck is Olive??  Let me go back to sleep.”  Then, as the fluorescent lights started to become less hazy above me, I suddenly felt an intense, searing pain in my belly.   And then I heard her cry, from somewhere behind me.   Baby.   My baby.   My Olive.

 

7 lbs, 1 oz and 19 1/2 inches of pure, screaming, pink, perfection.

 

 

My first time holding her in recovery.  (And also, if you must know, our first ever selfie).

 

 

 

 

Girl was hungry.  She wasted no time gettin’ the goods!

 

 

 

And here’s where I need to give a huge shout out to the team that was with me that morning, for a couple of reasons.   As I mentioned, I was initially told that Jake wouldn’t be able to be with me at all during the surgery but that he would be able to join me and Ollie in the recovery room as soon as I got there.  It was only later in recovery that I learned that someone had pulled some strings (my OB, no doubt) and had sent someone to bring him in to the OR right before she was born.  The nurses told me that basically NEVER happens.  So, as it turns out, he got to be in and take pictures and I was able to at least see her first precious minutes in the world through those pictures when I otherwise never would have.  I am so incredibly thankful for that, and for the fact that they went above and beyond to do that for us when they didn’t have to.

 

Daddy meets Ollie for the first time.  I wasn’t yet awake.

 

Oh, my heart.

 

The day that I was discharged, Dr. Tyson came into my room to check on me and we chatted for a bit.  We were laughing about how apparently, Olive hadn’t exactly cooperated during the surgery.  Dr. Tyson had to push several times on my belly- HARD- to get her to descend, then use the vacuum (which failed), THEN use the forceps to finally get her little head out.  (Jake later told me that my body had been flopping around on the table like a rag doll).  But the more disturbing thing was what she told me next: when she cut me open, she noted that I had a uterine window.  Apparently, my uterus was so paper thin, she could see right through it to Olive’s face, as well as the amniotic fluid.  She told me that had I gone into labor on my own or tried to VBAC, I would have almost certainly ruptured.  I thought of the many hours of contractions I’d had in those final weeks- all of which eventually fizzled, but how- at the time- I prayed they wouldn’t.  I remembered my first appt with my OB and my list of (what I considered valid) reasons that I wanted her to let me VBAC.  I still shudder when I think about what I could have lost had either of those scenarios actually come to fruition.  Olive’s birth didn’t go according to plan, but it went exactly how it needed to go, down to the smallest detail.    Grace.  Providence.  Protection.

 

Every time I’ve given birth- even amidst the abundant joy and celebration- I’ve wrestled with the intense vulnerability and sense of mortality that it brings.  After doing it three times, I still struggle to put it into words.  All I know is that with each 7-ish pound bundle, I was actually handed the weight of the world in a most profound way.   Each one has awakened me, and given me more clarity on who I was meant to become, what parts of me were okay to let go of, how sacred this life is.

 

This is my OB- Dr. Katherine Tyson at Virginia Women’s Center.  I couldn’t have asked for a kinder, funnier, more down-to-earth person to have been with me through this pregnancy and delivery.

 

Not even a month after Ollie was born, Dr. Tyson’s son was diagnosed with leukemia.  He’s four years old, just like my Ella Bug.  And though I don’t know her outside of the appointments and my time in the hospital, in a way, this has felt so very personal to me.  I think it’s because of that vulnerability.  That precious, divine weight that we all, as parents, experience when we hold our babies for the first time.   For some, the weight is so much heavier than others.  The fight is so much harder.
But Team Callen is fighting the good fight and the Seward clan is fighting with them in our thoughts and prayers.  And I continue to be thankful for this woman, doctor, and mother who took such good care of me and Olive.   And may we all stay awake and present.

Dear Milo,

My boy.

My bean.

I want you to know something that, up until recently, has been really hard for me to say:

I was afraid of you.  When you were in my belly, I wasn’t sure how I could have enough love for both you and your sister. People told me I would, but really, a part of me didn’t believe them.   Almost everything about my pregnancy with you was marked with anxiety, like I was holding my breath and afraid to exhale.  I loved you before I knew who you were, and yet, even though we wanted you and planned for you, I found myself becoming increasingly scared of how you would change me, how you would change the three of us as a family.  At times, I wasn’t even sure I could picture myself having a boy.

But then there you were.  8:06 a.m. on February 9th, 2011.  You came out pink and mad and screaming with perfect apgars and a feisty appetite.   And for the first time in months, I felt myself exhale just a little bit.

But it was the first time you smiled at me- I think that’s when I finally exhaled the rest of the way, when I knew it was okay to let go of the fear that I had been carrying around.  I remember thinking that it was pure sunshine, like your face just couldn’t get big enough to contain your grin.  Your eyes crinkled up and turned into little slits the same way mine do, the same as your P-Pop.  I don’t remember the very first time I sang “You Are My Sunshine” to you, but I know it was soon after that.   And then it was every night before bed,  every time I nursed you, every time you were upset.   Or just because.  It became our song, our thing.

“One more dun-jine, mama,”  you’d tell me, when you were big enough to climb up into your crib, but still small enough to want to stay in my lap and let me rock you.  Sometimes, randomly, you would crawl up onto my lap while I was sitting on the couch or working at the computer and simply say “dun-jine.”  And whatever it was that I thought was so important at the moment was put aside because sunshine always takes precedence.  We know this.  Even now, when I lay you down in your new big boy bed, you still reach up to touch my face and in your sleepy whisper, say, “Sing sunshine, mama.”   

One day, I know you’ll stop asking me to sing it to you.  I don’t know when, but that’s one of those things about parenthood- you never really know when that last time will be, you just always carry around this sense that what you have is fleeting.  But even after that time comes- after you’re too much of a big boy to let me sing to you, or play Spiderman, or give you a hug and kiss before I drop you off at school- you will always be that to me.  I’ll always see it when I look at you, Miyo.  You are the sunshine that came after my gray, the reassurance that came after my doubt.  You were my beautiful exhale, brought to me in a tiny and perfect  7 lbs 7 oz.

Next week, you- my baby boy- will become a big brother.  I imagine that when I put you to bed on the night before your sister is born, I’ll sit and hold you on your bed like usual.  We’ll both try to maneuver around my bulging belly like we have for the last several weeks, and I’ll once again be amazed that you’re able find a comfortable spot in my arms.   And I’ll sing Sunshine for you, but also for me.  For your sisters, for Daddy.   For all the changes I was scared of, that in your own sweet way, you taught me me were okay to embrace.   The words will hit me differently that night and in the days to come than they ever have before, but even so, one thing I know beyond any doubt: I’m a better person because I’m your mommy.

I love you, Miyo.

 

 

 

 

 

Where Are You, Christmas?

Christmastime can potentially be a Type A perfectionist’s nightmare.  I’m outing myself, so get ready.

For example (and these are clearly hypothetical)- the mantle needs to look just like that pin you recently added.  The Christmas tree has clumps of ornaments in various spots because little hands just. can’t. stop. touching. the. ornaments. PLEASE.  (You take a deep breath and vow to move them back once the kids are in bed and then by night three, you just give up).   You might even want the wrapping paper to coordinate.  (Don’t judge.  There’s a color palette, and NO, if you must ask, silver and blue just don’t go with anything else).   Then, of course,  there’s the shopping, the baking, and the making-sure-that-everyone-on-your-list-is-covered.  Errands.  Long lines at the post-office.  Back to the store AGAIN for the one thing you forgot to get the last time you were there.  Doctor’s appointments.   There are five more nights to do something with that stupid elf and you’re running out of ideas.

Sometime last week, I hit the “click to place order” button on Amazon and thought, “thank God that’s done.”

Which in turn, makes me even more frustrated.  After all, it’s time of year when, according to every ad and song, we’re supposed to have joy and peace and contentment.   (And if you want those things, you can find them for $39.99 each on Aisle 14 in Target).  Wasn’t there also something about a baby born in a stable?  The seemingly forgotten One who waits for me to remember that He came to save me, mostly from myself?  Instead, I’ve been running myself ragged and taken it upon myself to try and set the perfect stage for Christmas to “happen.” Because I actually told myself that if I have just the right settings, buy the right stocking stuffers, or do the same kinds of things that my mom did with me when I was little, Christmas and all of the accompanying warm fuzzies would just happen, too.   THEN, it would feel like Christmas.   Embarrassing to admit, but true.  Ironically, in all my efforts to re-create Christmas this year, I’ve been failing to recognize all of those warm-fuzzy moments for what they were.  My children’s unbridled (and yes, sometimes unruly) joy- in it’s many forms- has often been the target for my displaced, perfectionist frustration.  They’ve been inviting me into those moments with them, and I’ve brushed them off.   Mostly because it didn’t look or feel the way I wanted it to.

And then, there’s the reality that this time of year is sometimes anything but warm and fuzzy for so many, and for so many reasons.   I’m grateful this year that my reasons for turning somewhat Grinchy were all shallow and self-induced.   But for others, there are constant and painful reminders that only seem to be magnified at the holidays.. tragedy, death, divorce, financial strains, unspoken hurts, missing loved ones.  My perspective was forever shifted last Christmas when I had the opportunity to spend some time with a family who was preparing to say goodbye to their five year-old daughter after a brave fight with cancer (she passed away on Christmas Eve).   It rocked my cozy, safe world- as a mother, a wife, a photographer, and a human being.  I walked into my house after the shoot that day and it had never felt more like home to me than right then.   My children’s laughs were more intense and joyful to me than they had ever been.  Their warm, healthy bodies were beautiful in a way that broke me.   So it was no surprise that last Christmas was different for me.  I don’t remember the decorations, or the tree, even the gifts.   I just remember Ella and Milo.   Jake.   Our families.

I remember us.

With six days left and counting, I can officially say that I’m done.  Not with my to-do list.  Not with wrapping or baking.  I think my dense head and stubborn heart have finally realized that I’m done trying to make something that never needed to made at all.   The four- soon to be five- of us are here.   Excited.  Hopeful.  Thankful.  Tired (some of us more than others).  Forgetful (some of us more than others).  A mess, actually.  But, together.   Us. Odd as it might be to say, I think some of the best gifts I’ve given are the ones I give myself-  the ability to let go, let myself off the hook, forgive, slow down.  Stop forcing.   To realize that Christmas isn’t actually depending on me.   What a relief

“A thrill of hope,

The weary world rejoices

For yonder breaks a new and glorious ‘morn.”

Love You, Love Me

On good days, motherhood can make me feel like a rockstar.

I always know what Milo is trying to tell me about the truck driving down the street, and I can affirm him, even when no one else understands him.  I know how to make Ella’s “itchies” stop burning when I have to put cream on them. I can cook dinner, be Princess Celestia from “My Little Pony,” apply neosporin and bandaids, and have a dance party in a five minute time-span.  I know how to recover just about every “lost” item in this house on my first search.   I can reach behind me while I drive and plunge my hand into the exact compartment of the diaper bag to fish out a sippy cup without ever taking my eyes off the road.   I have memorized all of Milo’s favorite tickle-spots and know that Ella wants her back scratched in circles only– not in “up and down lines” at bedtime.  My kisses supposedly have super-healing powers.

I am all they want when something hurts.  And if I can’t make it instantly all better, I can usually make it at least 91% better.  I get the excited jumping-up-and-down dance and hand waves in the preschool pick up line. “Look, it’s MOMMY!  THERE SHE IS!”  On a couple of occasions, I’ve even gotten applause when I walk in the room.  (Thank you.  Thank you very much).

Of course, there are days I moan and gripe about being needed so much. (After all, can’t a girl walk in the kitchen by herself to refill her coffee without being followed?  Can I please go to the bathroom ALONE?)  But then there are those days that I breathe it in and revel in it- the fact that they actually want me.   They don’t care that I haven’t showered that day, that I have no makeup on.   But let’s skip past the external and talk about all the other stuff.   Like how I swear when I drive, or let out a string of profanities every time I drop something on the floor now.   I have paper-thin patience and a quick temper.  I’ve told lies- big and little- to get myself ahead and look better.  I’ve sold myself out and chosen the easy way over the right way. I struggle with jealousy and vulnerability.  I am always just a little bit anxious, sometimes a lot.  I might be medicated for the rest of my life.   I’m exhausted at the end of the day, and it’s only when I lay down at night that I realize, maybe it’s not actually the kids who drained me the most.  Maybe it’s me.  Maybe it’s because I lug around the extra weight of the guilt and shame and the fear that one day my children will grow up and see me the way I often see me.   What then?

They see bits and pieces of it now and yet, they still want me.   The broken me.  The scared me.  The selfish me.  The me who doesn’t know shit about being a parent.  The me who says the word “shit” in front of my kids.

I don’t talk about it much because, over the last couple of years, I’ve been on my own journey in my understanding of God- the idea of Him and the experience of Him- and what it looks like to fully embrace  Love.   (Also, I don’t talk about it because, after years of being a preachers kid, I have a pretty sensitive internal gag reflex when it comes to church and theology). But I think about it a lot.  In fact, I’ve contemplated God more in these past four years as a parent than I ever did in all the years leading up to it. And it hasn’t escaped me, the reality that my children exude Love so easily and naturally- the unconditional kind that I feel least deserving of. It’s not lost on me the fact that they want me- all of me– even when I’m at my worst.  I focus so much on my failures that I sometimes forget about the forgiveness. Turns out, there’s redemption in those long bedtime snuggles at the end of long days. And there’s complete and utter acceptance in those embraces after preschool.

Did I really think I was the one teaching my kids how to love?

As moms, I think maybe we have a hard time accepting that we’re just as precious to our children- just as beautiful to them- as they are to us.  It’s surprisingly hard sometimes to let someone love us the way we’re supposed to be loved.

In this case, I’m grateful that they haven’t given up on me.

“Mommy’s Sorry.” Again.

I think it’s important that children see their parents apologizing to them, admitting they were wrong or out of line.  I can still remember numerous times as a child when my mom or dad would come to me, one-on-one, and ask for my forgiveness.   One time when I was in the third grade, my dad drove all the way to my elementary school, had me pulled out in the middle of my spelling lesson, and hugged me in the hallway there outside my classroom after he told me he was sorry for yelling at me that morning at breakfast. (I didn’t even remember what it was about, even then).   But it’s always stuck with me that apologizing was something he felt that just couldn’t wait sometimes.

I think it’s so important that my kids have the act of apologizing modeled to them, that I have decided to take upon myself the arduous task of yelling at them and losing my patience, just so I can apologize to them and they can see how it’s done.   Again.  For the eleventh time since they got out of bed that morning.  I think they’re going to be really good apologizers one day.

Right now, I can pull the pregnancy card and blame it all on the raging hormones,  but the truth is, I struggle with a chronically short fuse, even when I’m not pregnant.  I could beat myself up for the many times I lost my patience (and I still do that plenty), but lately, the best I can do is focus on the fact that my kids- Ella especially- understand that mommy is human.  Mommy has a breaking point.  But mommy will hopefully always admit when she was wrong, no matter how hard it is.

One evening this week, I found myself negotiating my way with Ella up the stairs to take her to bed, once again.  It had been one of THOSE evenings.  She was crumpled on the bottom step, begging for me to carry her up.  I was feeling sick and my belly was sore, and I was in no mood to honor her request.  But instead of explaining this to her calmly, collectedly, I snapped.  More wails and tears followed and only by an act of God Himself, we made it up the stairs into her room where I collapsed beside her on her bed.  We laid there for a few minutes, both of us whimpering.

Then came the inevitable waves of guilt.  How many times had I snapped already that day?  Five?  Six?  Probably more.  I knew it was time, once again, to tell her I was sorry, that I shouldn’t have spoken to her that way.  To explain to her for the hundredth time, that I just didn’t feel very good, but that it was still no excuse to lose my patience (this, by the way, has been my most frequently-used apology since becoming pregnant.   And while it’s always sincere, I fear my kids might know it verbatim by now).

She looked over at me then, and said, “I get worried, mommy.  Your belly is getting bigger and you won’t ever be able to hold me again.  And who will hold me if you’re holding this baby and Daddy will be holding Mi-yo?”

Daggers.

Of course.  OF COURSE.   In those painstakingly long moments at the bottom of the stairs, I had observed my 4 yr old pulling out yet another stall tactic to get under my skin.   But just then, in that moment lying on her bed, I saw my big girl who was unsure of being the big girl, wary of the future and this new baby- in spite of her excitement.  I had been so absorbed in this growing-another-human-being thing, that I hadn’t stopped to consider that her acting out was more than just that.

That night, we laid in her bed and talked for a half hour- talked about the baby and how big my belly would get, about her new class at school, what she wanted to make for breakfast the next day, and all kinds of random things, like how the stars outside look so close, but we can’t touch them.   And also, do princesses have night-lights in their castles too?   Right now, her thoughts are a 50/50 mix of preschooler and old-soul, and I realized, it really must be exhausting to be four.  Possibly even more exhausting than it is to be the mommy of someone who is four.  I promised her that I would never, ever make her feel bad for asking me to hold her, ever again.  I said that I would find a way- no matter how big my belly gets, or how crap-tastic I feel.   Because I know what she doesn’t: that one day all too soon,  she’ll be too big for me to carry, and too grown-up to want me to.   And there will always be a part of me that will be a little bit sad about that.

But for now, I’m thankful that day isn’t today, or even tomorrow.  Today, there might be at least a half dozen times when I might need to apologize.  But I also know there will be at least that many times- if not more- when my kids will wrap their arms around my neck and their legs around my ever-expanding waist, and love me.  Short fuse and all.

And that, is how my kids are teaching me grace.

Making Room

I’m an only child.  Sometimes I hate it.  Sometimes I love it.  But I always knew that when it came time for me to have my own family, it was going to be big.  And then, practicality set in.  Morning sickness was hard.  Post-partum depression was even harder.  Preschool tuition is sobering, and let’s not even talk about college.

So, I’m not talking “Michelle-Duggar-big,” maybe not even “Walton-family-big.”  But, as it turns out, our soon to be family of 5 is going to be plenty big enough.

Friends have asked me how I knew we weren’t done after we had Milo.  When I was pregnant and random people would ask if we knew the gender, the common response was,  “Isn’t that great?  Now you can be DONE!?”  I’m still baffled by the Leave-It-to-Beaver mentality.  It’s been an incredible experience to have one of each.  But it would have been just as awesome to have two girls, or two boys, and that’s exactly what I tell people.

But after Milo came, something in me knew- even in the throes of PPD- that there was room for one more.  I had initially sworn off pregnancy, cursing the all-day morning sickness and fatigue.  I gave away almost all of my maternity clothes.  I consigned most of the baby gear.  It’s no secret that I turn into a ghost of a mother and wife when I’m sleep deprived.  Most of my memories from when Ella and Milo were newborns are an exhausted and sometimes-medicated blur.  And yet, I found myself wondering what if.  What if we had one more?  What if Milo could be a big brother?  What if Ella got to be the BIG, big sister?  What if we decided that, even though we had finally gotten our groove as a family of four, we were willing to sacrifice it and start all over again, for the sake of creating this legacy.

I knew we weren’t done because of those what-if’s.  Because they were too many and too frequent.   Because I believed that if we were “done,” I would have felt it in the very core of my being- the way my friends spoke when they knew their family was complete.

After months and months of hoping and crashing and hoping again and over-analyzing and praying and finally, wondering if maybe we were meant to have just our Bug and Bean, we decided to take a break and re-evaluate things in 2014.  Not quite a month later, on Ella’s birthday, I found myself shocked to be staring at a blaringly positive pregnancy test.   I was speechless.

Of course, I knew Jake wouldn’t believe it until I bought the test that says “PREGNANT.”  Men.  So I went out and bought a test, just for him.   There ya go, honey.

I thought I couldn’t be any more excited, but then it came time to tell Ella.  For nearly a year, she had been asking when there was going to be another baby.  Some days, I didn’t know how to answer that question.   I fought the urge to spill the beans to her the same day I got the positive test- on her birthday- to tell her that she must have been my good luck charm.  My lucky 13 girl.   But I wanted to be sure that everything was okay with our little bub and get an ultrasound first.   Also, I later discovered that telling a 4 year old you’re pregnant can guarantee that EVERYONE will know faster than if you posted it on facebook.  Family, friends, the drive-thru lady at Wendy’s, the neighbor up the street walking her dog, the entire preschool staff,  the man at the dry-cleaners, the nurse at the pediatrician’s office.  It turned out to be a good thing that we waited to tell her.

Some days, when the morning {allfreakingday} sickness is bad or I’m overwhelmed wondering about all the logistics as a family of 5, I like to go back and look at this video.  It’s easy for me to have tunnel vision, to see only one week at a time, one trimester at a time, to fret about the sleep deprivation and medical bills that I know are lurking right around the corner.  But then I see this.  That my big girl has already made room in her heart for the newest member of our family.   This is the bigger story.  This is our legacy-in-the-making.  Sometimes, I like to think it’s about me.  But it’s not at all.

Once again, I’m so glad I have a four year-old to teach me the important things in life.  🙂

Silent Night

I’m awake now.

I think I was asleep, I think maybe even a little bit numb, but I felt everything today.   Not nearly as much as those precious families in Connecticut, and yet I still felt a hurt that I ordinarily wouldn’t allow myself to feel.   It reminds me of how I felt on 9/11 and Columbine.  The kind of heavy, unspoken sorrow exchanged in weary glances while out at malls and grocery stores.  No one wants to bring it up, but you know everyone is thinking it, avoiding it, attempting to shove it back down with a scone and a vanilla latte at Starbucks.  But it won’t go away.  Not this time.   Because once again, we’ve been pulled out of our slumber to realize that our waking world and our sleeping world are drastically different.   And we are all changed again, for better or for worse.    We won’t wake up tomorrow the same, even if we want to.

It’s actually quite easy to numb ourselves with stuff and status and keep ourselves in our own safe, cozy, emotional cul-de-sacs.   It’s easy to tell ourselves that what we’re doing doesn’t really have an impact and that there’s no reason to continue to inch ourselves out onto that fragile limb beyond our comfort zone.  It’s easy to live week to week, rather than moment to moment.  To make plans for next Tuesday and the Tuesday after that and to rush our frazzled selves out the door, blowing kisses as we drive away, as if we know for a fact that we will all sit around the dinner table that evening.

Days like today ruin me.  They ruin all of us.  As if parents all across the globe don’t have enough worry in their hearts for things that are utterly out of their control, here’s something else.  As if the holidays, for some, already aren’t dark enough.

There is no Joy to the World tonight.   No Silent Night.

Tonight, it’s anything but silent.  There are muffled sobs in pillows.  There are teeth clenching, gut-ripping moans in showers.  There are mascara-stained cheeks and embraces at front doors and bus stops and extra long bedtime stories.   There is a sense of hollowness and “what the hell is happening?” that shakes even the strongest of faiths.

What do we do?  One of my friends called and we both spoke in hiccuped, broken sobs. Because in times like this, we’re desperate to do something.  Anything.   We pray, we let IT sink in even deeper, and while we are overwhelmingly filled with a sense of gratitude, some of us may even feel something close to guilt as we tuck our babies- warm and safe- into their beds tonight.  Why do we have it so good?  Why them?  And what do we do with…THIS???   This intangible but very real heaviness.

What now??

The answer, I think, is easy.  But then again, it’s not.   We love.  We let the numbness wear off.   We continue to breathe deeply and steadily and speak truth and let our guard down and be vulnerable.  We cry in public.  We get mad and punch pillows.  We sneak into our children’s rooms in the middle of the night to kiss their bed-heads.  We hold our spouses and partners.   We apologize and ask for forgiveness.   We build bridges.

When resistance pushes us, we push right back.  Hard.

And when we do this, it naturally follows that we allow ourselves to hurt in ways we never knew we could.   When something is lost, we mourn it fiercely, but with dignity- whether we’re glued to a TV screen or sitting in a sterile hospital room.  We cry out, we write, we post, we sit in stillness and take a good, long look at the state of our souls.

And ultimately, we let go and surrender, even when it goes against every fiber of our being.  Because it almost always will.

I always knew that my babies weren’t really mine to keep.   When I was pregnant with Ella, Jake and I talked at length about our role as parents, and one of the most defining of those being the role of “letting go.”  At the time, I was naive enough to think that the letting go part would occur one day, far off in the future.    I envisioned Lifetime movie-scripted scenarios like the first time they drove away by themselves with their brand new license, or me and Jake standing in the driveway sending them off for the first semester of their freshman year of college.    Then, I remembered how my mom spoke of putting me on the bus for my first day of Kindergarten and barely making it inside before she dissolved into tears.

It starts early.  And not only that- it’s a choice that we must consciously make every, single day.

Today, it feels harder and more exhausting than it ever has before.   I know I’m not alone in feeling the weight of it.   Try as I might, there’s no pretty way for me to wrap up these thoughts.  No “and that’s all I have to say about that” Forrest Gump-like ending.  There is emptiness on this side of my screen tonight.  Fear.  Anger.

But I hope that compassion wins out in this.  I hope that in some way this devastation moves me to live differently than I did before 10 a.m. this morning.

I hope I stay awake from here on out.

The Best Laid Plans

I’ve often joked that God has a sense of humor. But it’s always so much easier to say that when you’re not currently being the butt of the joke.  So when Ella crawled into bed with us last Thursday morning- four hours short of when we were supposed to board a plane to NYC for a fun birthday weekend with my mom- and proceeded to tell me that she was going to “spit out,” my first reaction was to blow it off.

“You’re not going to get sick, Bug.”  (Only because she’s said it a few times before and we would wait by the trashcan for the elusive “spit” which never came).

“No, but mama- I really am.  There’s a rock in my tummy.”

Then the second reaction- denial.  {plugs ears} “LALALALALA.  I can’t hear you.  You’re not sick and we’re still going away to NYC for a much-needed getaway and this is all just going to blow over. You’re so silly- freaking mama out like that.”

 

And yet, even as I saw her face turn green, as I rushed to grab the trash can and hold it in front of her, I still clung onto every last shred of hope that was still left.  She just has a bad burp. No wait…. okay, yeah, she’s definitely puking. 

And even still, after she was finished, I found myself camped out in denial and not about to budge.   She just ate something last night that didn’t agree with her.

Then more puke.

And more again.

And each time I grabbed the trashcan, NYC slipped further and further away and reality set in– we weren’t getting on a plane that morning.

Jake, clearly unphased by profuse amounts of stomach acid, requested McDonald’s for breakfast that morning, at which point I volunteered (read: practically bolted out of the house in my slippers) to go and pick up.  I drove very slowly, in silence, hoping that I’d be able to zen my way into a better place by the time I returned with the food.  And yet, I wasn’t as crushed as I had expected to be.  I kept waiting for that moment when it would REALLY hit me that we weren’t going.  But that moment didn’t come.

The day before we were supposed to leave, I was in a horrible mood  I woke up in a funk, and went to bed even funkier.   I was having what Ella would call a “terrible awful no good very bad day.”  In retrospect, I realize I had been running myself ragged that day- between teaching a few random piano lessons, editing and mailing prints, packing for two adults and two kids for a weekend get-away, laundry, bills, christmas shopping, and tying up a few other loose ends.  I came in the door at 7 that night, Little Caesar’s pizza in hand for the kids, and flopped down on the couch.  A few week’s of later-than-normal bedtimes and always-earlier-than-I’d like mornings were catching up with me.   Add to that the over-abundance of processed foods, lack of daily rhythms, and of course, the mounting heaps of pressure I’m prone to put on myself and I was feeling downright grinchy.  I snarled and snapped and bitched and cursed my way to bed that night, even though I had every reason in the world to be excited.  Two days and nights without kiddos!  Broadway tickets!  ALONE TIME!  Dinners out and central park and Rockefeller Center and shopping and cocktails and….

…and then, a sudden stop to all of our best-laid (and thankfully “insured” plans).   But how could I be mad?  It’s not like anyone ever wants to get sick.  And yet, it was so eerily well-timed, I had to believe there was a reason why, maybe, it happened that way.  Maybe the universe, in it’s own twisted way, knew this was the only way to get me to slow down.  Because NYC is anything but slow.   Maybe the last thing I needed was to be surrounded by more this, and merry that, and spend here, and line up over there, and run around until your feet hurt.

I think, looking back, that’s maybe the last thing I needed.  But I wasn’t going to admit it to anyone- not even myself.  Up until practically the very last second, I was still pressuring myself to want it because, for as long as I can remember, I’ve said I wanted NYC at Christmas.  But not this time- not on those terms.  Not depleted and exhausted and with one (possibly two) sick babies at home.   NYC looked different to me ten years ago than it did ten days ago.
So instead, I practically lived in my pajamas all weekend.  We watched Christmas movies.  We ordered lots of takeout.  We drank wine by the fire after the kids went to sleep.  I lysoled the living HELL out of my house.  I gave myself permission to be lazy.  We laid low.  I started planning and brainstorming for 2013.  And to top it all off, we rescheduled our trip for the week after Christmas.  NYC will still be bright and shiny and decorated and all of the things I’ve been told it will be.  It will still be alive and bustling and waiting for me.

It wasn’t the weekend that I had initially wanted, but it turned out to be exactly the weekend that I needed.   Funny how that works.