Showing posts with label balance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label balance. Show all posts

That moment

...the one when circumstances make clear the necessity of change.
...the one when nobody's guessing what comes next.
...the one when doubt becomes impossible.
...the one when you finally get it.

heart. break. ing.

In the end, it's all ok.

Right now though, it's time to shake the dust off our feet and move on.

Still working it out.  Still working on it.



0 comments Labels: , , , | edit post

Notes on a day.


It is only Tuesday afternoon, but I already feel like I'm running out of time in the week. Sick children and ballet practice, overdue library books and overflowing laundry baskets, dental appointments and language assessments, races and grocery trips - these things seem endless. And I can't imagine what it would be like if we did more than one extra-curricular activity each.

What happens to the time?

...

Math takes up a lot of room. There are lots of pieces to math. Lots of worksheets. Lots of counting blocks. Lots of money. Lots of rulers and shapes and flashcards and erasers and balances and clocks and cubes and charts and stuff. It takes up a lot of room.

There are lots of pieces to school in general. Lots of pens and pencils and erasers and markers and crayons and colored pencils and glue and scissors and paper (and lots of kinds of paper) and folders and pictures and books and more flash cards and more worksheets and rings and binders and more folders. It takes up a lot of room.

And science and history and art and music and geography. These things take up a lot of room.

And we don't even have a real globe yet. (Ours is a blow up model that often sees time spent as a ball.) Or a real microscope, or safety goggles, or a piano.

Also, in addition to all the pieces, these things take up a lot of mental space.

I have long ago forgotten all the reasons why the a and the i and the a and the y say "aaaaa". This is also true for why the e and the a say "eeeee" sometimes and "eh" others. These reasons are filed away in the dark storage room of my getting-older-by-the-minute brain, and it is hard to find the folders, dust them off and recall the facts I used to know.

I have long ago forgotten the names of the properties (all but the commutative) and the rules for where you are supposed to start drawing the four and whether or not it has a square or a triangle as its base. I can't remember what order I learned all my facts in, and if I liked it or if it was beneficial or if it was destructive to my overall comprehension of mathematics. It is all filed away, in the same room as the phonics and grammar rules, albeit a different drawer.

How does one keep up with all of these facts? There are a lot of facts to know. There are a lot of facts to remember, and then there are the reasons behind the facts. This, I've discovered, is the beauty of the teacher's manual.

I have decided today that teaching multiple subjects to multiple ages is hard. After three years of homeschooling, I now understand the joyful existence of co-ops and academies. OHHHHH, so *that's* why you add that one-more-trip-out-of-the-house to the weekly activities list: so someone else can keep up with the science facts.

...

Thank God for the sunshine and the warmer air. The trees are still missing a lot of leaves, but the air smells like spring and the light is finally staying longer in the evenings. I like how it feels to have the doors open in the daytime. The birds are chirping nearly all day, and their songs make for a happy energy.

Soon, soon, soon, I keep telling myself, that soon it will be spring - lovely, color-filled, sweet smelling spring. And then summer, hopefully a long, warm, sunny one, spent by the ocean with these fast-growing girls of ours.

...

Last night, we cooked dinner for two nights. That means tonight I don't have to cook. That is a blessing, a huge, warm hug of a blessing. It removes so much stress from the day to have one less thing to do. The dishwasher will still have to be unloaded (for the third time today) and re-loaded, but that is so small in the grand scheme of things. And I think it also makes the dinner taste even better, to know that it comes with little more effort than warming up a chop or two.

As I sit here listening to the girls sing and color together, all of us waiting for the man of the house (and let's face it, the hero to each of us) to arrive, life seems more manageable than it did fourteen graphs ago. Perhaps it's the coffee.


0 comments Labels: , , , | edit post

head*ache*s

The dearest husband has taken the dearest children out to pick up diapers and bread, the staple items of our daily lives, and to let the small ones wear off their afternoon naps at the indoor play area near our favorite Target.  It's a gift today, though normally, after a day in-house with the ittys, I am more than happy to head out in the evenings for errands.  Right now, though, I am just extra thankful for the moments of still and the dimness of this room.

My head is a wreck.  There are multiple ways to take that, but in this case it's mostly just a two-fold meaning.  My head is a wreck of pain and twitching, the latter being a new symptom that goes along with the monster aches that seem to come more and more frequently these days.  My head is a wreck of lists - the kind of lists that organize what needs to be done and what's coming next, the kind of lists that are usually in order and neat, the kind of lists that have somehow become a monster ache of their own, growing longer and longer with less completion.  Neither of the wrecks does anything to lessen the other.  (At what point in life is it appropriate to hire a personal assistant?)

And it's spring.  My favorite time of year.  Everything here is blooming and beautiful.  The ocean even seems new.  I only want to be out, seeing, breathing, loving, enjoying the time and the new light that spins golden shadows later and later and later into the evening hours.

The physical ache is stifling that.  It's having an effect.  Affecting life and living, forcing hours spent in a dark room with cold compresses and mounds of ibuprofen (thirty-two-hundred-milligrams a day, plus the in-between spots filled with Tylenol is a. lot. of. Motrin) that only dull the pounding.  Now with the added twitching, I'm not sure what to think.  Maybe time to stop self-dosing and see a professional M.D.

I hate going though, because they always have to stick you with something.

Pressing on.

0 comments Labels: , , , , | edit post

TIL: life

It's a breezy day here.  The sun is in and out of the clouds which are thick and grey and heavy with coming rain, and the wind is moving them and the trees in every direction.  The light is nice, not too bright, not too golden, not too clear.  It's hard to explain, but everything is easier to see today.

Girl-the-first is sitting on the loveseat in our school/playroom reading book after book after book.  She can't read all the words yet.  But she loves going through all her favorite ones and finding the words she knows by sight: the, a, and, is, this, on, to, in.  She finds them and runs over to me with her small finger marking the exact spot on the page - "Mama, close your eyes!  Now, look, Mama! It's 'and'!"  I like this. I like it a lot.

Girl-the-second is sleeping.  Yes, she is.  She is sleeping soundly in her own room, in her own crib, in her pink sleep sack with no bloomers on.  An afternoon nap.  After sleeping all night last night.  Well, from midnight or so to seven-thirty.  It's incredible.  And restful.  I feel a little sleepy myself.  It's almost as if getting those straight seven hours have made my body and mind suddenly conscious of how much they've missed in the last fifteen months. They both want to shut down and cuddle with a pillow for a few.  They are greedy for more slumber.

As I type this, the pages for next week's kindergarten classes are rolling off my printer.  I'm scanning them ahead of time, and am so thankful for these minutes to do this.  Just a little bit of preparation makes it all so much easier.  I feel like this about most things, but especially school.  It is so much better when my lessons are prepped in advance.  If only I could get this far ahead with my dinners, laundry and grocery shopping.

Aside from the general state of the house (toys everywhere, on everything, under everything, in everything, laundry waiting to be folded, dishes waiting to be put away, and one persistent cobweb on the chandelier), things feel good, balanced, calm.  It is a good feeling.

So many times what I know to be true doesn't translate to feeling true.  And when it does, when what I know to be true also feels true, oh how nice the minutes are.

It is a good reminder to me of perspective.  Despite the hard - despite the sad - despite what can feel like a forever of struggle - life is so, so, so good.  It is better than what we deserve it to be.  I am thankful, filled with gratitude for this goodness.


0 comments Labels: , , , | edit post

working on it. working on it. working on it.

Blogger just erased the three paragraphs I'd written. I think that's probably a sign that I didn't need to write it. I'm starting over below, with less venom, I hope.

It's amazing to me how something good can become something bad so quickly, how in a matter of minutes joy can turn to sadness. And while I think that sometimes the reverse is true, that sadness can turn into joy and do so quickly, it's my hypothesis that usually, the conversion of sorrow to anything less takes a lot of time.

It's also amazing to me how little we really know of one another, even in our closest moments. We think we get past that surface space of 'how are you? - oh, great, great! and how are you? how's the family? - doing well, doing well, thanks for asking', but we don't really. At least not that often. And the stuff that lies underneath that surface, that's the stuff that really needs knowing, needs to be known, and yet somehow can't bring itself to an experiential understanding of the concept.

I'm pondering these two ideas here on the couch ... hastening sadness and the superficial knowing. How deep our sadness can be and how very fast it comes, all the while, those around us never really knowing just how dark the days or nights are, or how we're struggling for footing. But it's more than just that. It's how the superficial knowing deepens the pain of our sadness, how that longing for someone to know and yet fearing with all we have that someone will know, how it makes the struggle seem unconquerable and hopeless, it's this that spins the 'little grey cells'.

I don't really have any special truths on the subjects, or any clever insight. And the only conclusions I've reached today are that time adds to the increase of sorrow, especially in sorrows un-addressed, that in as much as I want to know and be known, I fear more the being known than the knowing, and that once that low plateau of unbearable weight finds its way into the center of a life, the climb back up, whether it's a solo hike or a group journey, is hard to the measure of near impossible.

I know that joy comes in the morning. And yet it often feels like that morning is so far away. And I long for home.

0 comments Labels: , , , , | edit post

how boys and girls are different

Two days ago:

Him-the-boy: "Ok, give me my task list for tonight."

Me-the-girl: "Throw away 27 things."

Him-the-boy: "27? Why 27? Is there a reason for the 27?

Me-the-girl: "Because it's the number I picked."

Him-the-boy: "Ok, what things do I throw away? My things?"

Me-the-girl: "No, trash. Not your things - trash. Like empty, open envelopes."

Him-the-boy: "hmm. Ok."


Today.

Him-the-boy, holding a brand new box of unused envelopes: "I didn't do my 27 things. Should I throw these?"

Me-the-girl, staring in confusion: "Um, no ... why would you throw out my brand new box of envelopes? Is there something wrong with them?"

Him-the-boy:"oh, no, um, you said throw away open envelopes, so I thought these."

Long, Long Pause.

Him-the-boy:"ohhhhhhh. you probably meant like the envelopes we've opened from the mail, huh?"

...

Of course there's that other stuff, too.

1 comments Labels: , , , | edit post

therapy

This blog started out a long time ago as a random place for personal therapy. A place I could come and work stuff out on my own, without the pressure of a time table or the need to do it on some kind of schedule. And I guess it is still that. A random place for random thoughts.

It's a random day. I'm still tired. The younger girl is sleeping better. The older girl is, too. We just have to get the whole thing moved forward about an hour, and I think the adults will be sleeping better as well.

In the meantime, I feel dazed with the strength of my exhaustion. I feel it everywhere ... in the increasing number of headaches that happen each weak, in my limbs when I'm trying to fix the swingy-chicken-parts of my arms before they are past saving, in my lack of desire to cook or plan or grocery shop or even eat out. I feel it in my racing thoughts and my too-quick temper and in what seems to be the constant irritation I feel when I hear either a whine or a scream from one of the two small persons, or the cat. I am so tired.

Yesterday, I took a nap. I don't remember when I did that last when it wasn't a Sunday. Lately, even those Sunday naps have disappeared. I woke up after an hour next to the older girl feeling no more rested than when I lay down. It is the same way I feel each morning when I climb out of bed.

And I don't know how to fix it. The tired. I don't know how to get past it and gain my energy again. I don't know how I got here in the first place, and I don't know how to go back, or how once I am back, if I can ever find my way, how to stay out of this zone of fatigue.

And that also bugs me. Because I am the fixer. It is what I do: I fix things. Yet not me. I can't fix me and the tiredness that is always there. Irritation. Grrrrr.

I question myself daily:
Are you depressed?
Are you homesick?
Are you getting enough exercise? (no)
Should you eat more vegetables? More protein?
Drink more water? Drink less coffee?
Are you hungry? Too full?

And I feel no answer to any of those questions actually comes close to defining what on earth is making me so tired.

The last time I felt like this was when the thhg (transient hyperthyroidism of hyperemesis gravidarum) hit with that last pregnancy. (Question: are you pregnant? Answer: no)

The difference being that I don't fall asleep in the middle of a sentence and I'm not so nauseated I require daily meds (excepting these headaches, man they are killer).

So, what? What is it?
Maybe it's the final stages of a year without sleep.

Also, why can't tortilla chips be good for you? If we fry food in olive oil, does that make it heart healthy? How long can ten pounds stay attached to my body? Why is my hair so grey? And what do I do to it to make it cute again? And when did birding become so fun?

Ther.Ap.Y

0 comments Labels: , , , , | edit post

Sleepless.

My sweet, totally precious little baby girl will not sleep. It seems to me as if there was a time when she did sleep. But I could be making that up. I mean, it's been so long since I slept like a regular person, I'm sometimes not sure what I'm remembering and what is wishful, wishful day-dreaming.

This moment, the smallest person in our family is lying flat on her face in her crib screaming the way I'd imagine I myself might scream if someone was trying to cut off my leg. She has been screaming like this for the last twenty-two minutes, save a brief respite during which I stupidly entered her room to make sure she wasn't stuck in the crib bars or that the ceiling hadn't fallen in on her or or that a giant sheepdog hadn't broken in through her window or that some other catastrophic even hadn't taken place while I was making the afternoon coffee that I need to stay awake for the rest of the day. It's a need, by the way, driven by last night's {this morning's} "feed-me-mama-I-need-you-party" that began sometime around 3 a.m. and lasted through until roughly seven-thirty. And what time did that sweet little bundle go to sleep you might ask? Just about eleven o'clock.

Right. She went to sleep at eleven, and slept until three. I think. Her Daddy might have walked her somewhere in the three hours between midnight (which is when we crawled in bed) and her waking, but I really don't have any memory of what happened then. I'd say I slept, but I think it was more of a passing out from sheer exhaustion kind of thing.

Today, she's had an hour long scream-fest in her crib - that's the time that's supposed to be her morning nap - and now, she's been in that bed for nearly an hour screaming again. I can't begin to calculate her sleep deficit, and she's only ten months old.

I know she's tired. And I know that she needs sleep to be a happy baby. And I - we- have tried everything we know how to try to help her go to sleep and stay asleep. This letting her cry thing is excruciating, and yet I fear that if we relent, we will end up with a baby who will only sleep if she's comfortably ensconced in our arms or leisurely suckling and snuggling in our bed.

As I finish this post, it is 4:40 p.m. EST. I put her in her bed exactly one hour and one minute ago. She just now stopped crying.

I think now it's my turn to start. Because I hear the sound of a Chinook. And it's gonna fly right over the top of our house.




0 comments Labels: , , , , | edit post

Just thankful.

Amid what seems to be one of those 'terrible, horrible, no good, very bad' days, when everything that could be a wreck actually is a wreck, the sound of a big sister working so hard to make a little sister laugh, and the successive sound of that little sister laughing at her big sister's efforts is a much needed gift.


0 comments Labels: , , , , | edit post

TIL: Skip*Hop

This could've been a post about my failed, "too-cool-for-east-coast-sense-we're-from-cali-y'all" diaper bag purchase. And maybe one day I will post about that ... I do after all, have a tag for things I hate. But in a springtime fueled effort to focus on the positive, I thought I could rave for a bit about something I love. And the latest in the long (yet somehow not nearly touted enough) list of those things is my brand new, finally got it right, Skip*Hop diaper bag.

The shortest version of the Diaper Bag Tragedy (yeah, it needs its own post) is that since the birth of child the first, I have purchased and/or used a large assortment of diaper bags. There was the cool Dad-bag I got for Scott, and the black working-mom bag I got for myself. Then there was the little back-pack bag, and the insulated charcoal colored bag and the black and white flowered bag that almost worked well, the monkey bag, the regular backpack (which actually does work well when we're doing some kind of family outing in the great out-of-doors) and finally, amid a mix of other random bags, the one I bought shortly after the birth of child the second, which began to fall apart not quite six months after her arrival.

Fed up, and I do mean fed up, I decided to really do some research, go on actual store excursions, touch, feel and generally pull on some bags, and then spend a nice chunk of change on a new, and hopefully long lasting diaper bag. So I did. I visited the only 3 baby stores in the city, two of them high end baby boutiques and the third a baby-super-store of national fame. I pulled on bags, carried them, reached into them, tried them on my stroller. All of this, mind you, with a seemingly always needing to be nursed 7 month old and my suddenly very into everything 4 year old. I endured the stares of the sophisticated sales ladies in boutique number one, (I mean come on, I'm a mother ... of course I have spit up on my shoulder and running shoes on my feet ... do all the moms in your store dress in silk and heels? ... um, yeah, that's an altogether different post), and the toy traps of the big-box kids store and finally made it to the third boutique, which alas, only had three bags in the entire store. Nearing exhaustion, I headed to Target, one last hopeful stop to try and find the bag of my dreams. And yet, I found nothing there that was any better or more affordable than the higher-end bags I found at the fancy mother's boutique.

I'll not bore you with any more of the details. Besides, those are for another post. Suffice it to say that I finally, after a few online missteps and one now nonreturnable bag, found the very same bag I loved at the "we-are-so-better-than-you-baby-boutique" for thirty dollars less (and free two day shipping!!!) than the ninety-eight dollar price I would have paid had I purchased it from the obviously child-free sales girl.

This bag is ahhhhh-mazing. It is cute without being cutesy, big without being a suitcase and organized without inflexibility (I hate those pockets that can only be used for one kind of item ...). It has an antimicrobial pocket ... you know, for poopie diapers and clothes. It has awesome hardware including built in stroller straps, super quiet magnetic closures, seven inside pockets big enough for diapers, wipes, clothes, whatever you need, and this awesome pocket for my Incredible right on the front. I LOVE this bag. I LOVE it. And it is worth the whole awfulness of what I had to go through to get it in my life. Especially because it makes my life so much easier.

I always know what needs restocking (diapers/wipes) because I can see what's there easily. I always know where my keys are. This bag even has a special snap that lets you tuck things like blankets or toddler jackets or stuffed animals underneath it for an extra quick carrying capacity. It has pockets perfect for moms: I know where my personal stuff is and don't have to go digging around looking through a million zip lock bags to find my Blistex (another TIL). It is comfortable to carry, holds my Bible and my laptop, and I think, I think I might actually be able to fit the baby in there if I had to. Did I mention I LOVE this bag? Because I do. Along with my running shoes, my charcoal wool coat and the lipstick I got for my birthday, this bag is one of the best things I've ever owned.

What bag did I get? I got this one. Mine is the pewter dot. I also loved the charcoal. If you like it, too, you can get one at the Skip*Hop site. You can also get yours where I got mine, and though the great deal is a little less great than it was, you can still get two of the color options for right around seventy dollars which is a total steal for the peace of mind this bag will bring to your baby-totin' life.



Got a bag you love?? I'd love to know about it ...

1 comments Labels: , , , , | edit post

Unexpected encouragement

It's hard to be a good mother. I know some people say it's not hard, that it just comes naturally, but I disagree. No matter how much you love your children, no matter how long you waited for them, being a good mother does not come naturally.

It's not part of my natural state to wish to stay up for days without sleep, or wear someone else's stomach acid on my shoulders, or wash huge swaths poop out of teeny, tiny clothing. It's not part of my natural state to go for weeks and weeks with no solitary moments - no moments alone, not even a shower or a trip to the loo. It's not part of my natural state to remain calm when the floor I've just picked up for the eighth time is suddenly littered with cheerios or spilled fruit or toys or tiny clothes. It's not part of my natural state to give up nearly everything I want for people too small to know, understand or care. It's not part of my natural state to control my selfish desires and my short temper. It's not part of my natural state to persevere, to endure, to press on, when 'me' is the last person to get a break that lasts fifteen minutes, if that.

Sometimes I don't want to do it. Sometimes I just don't want to. Sometimes I don't want to hear my name five hundred times in a row. Sometimes I just want it to be quiet. Sometimes I just want it to be still and soft and isolated.

There is never a moment when I don't love my kids. Even in those moments of longing for alone-ness, I still love them, and I am still filled with joy at the thought of their sweet smiles, soft skin, and shining eyes.

But you see, it's the 'them' that I love. It's easy to love them. That comes naturally. The hard part comes in the 'service'. Learning to love the service part is the part that doesn't come naturally. And let me just say, from my perspective (which isn't much better than cloudy, so don't take it to the bank or anything), learning to love being a servant, learning to be a good mother, is h-a-r-d, hard.

Some days I do a pretty good job. Some days I don't. I do my best and try to remind my mind that I am an imperfect parent raising imperfect children. But in the middle of the job, it's easy to lose sight of the times I do it well. It's easy to only see the times I lose my temper or don't get the dishes done or keep them up way too late or skip reading a book because I just don't feel like reading about big bird one more time. And it's easy to get stuck in a state of disappointment with the me that is mama.

Today was one of those days. Until right around lunch. When the sweetness that is my three-for-only-three-more-days little girl asked me why I was looking down at the ground.

"Are you sad, Mama?" she asked.
"No," I replied. "Mama is just thinking about things."
"Oh," she said. "I'm thinking about things, too."
"What are you thinking about?" I asked her.
"Well, Mama," she said. "I'm thinking about you."
"Me?"
"Yes, Mama. I'm thinking about how kind you are and how good you are and how good you are at playing outside with me."

And with that, she went back to messing around with her horses and her pasta salad.

I just sat there wiping away the water that kept springing up in my eyes.

"Not to be served, but to serve". Love is an action, after all. Press On.





0 comments Labels: , , , , | edit post

Rickenbacker.

It's just on eight o'clock here. Both the girls are asleep. The husband is well out the door. I am wearing my new birthday slippers (and they rock) and drinking coffee that is hot. Not cold coffee as is usually the case. Not even lukewarm coffee, which is the kind I am so thankful to get on Saturdays when my mister is home to help. But hot, just-about-burn-your-tongue-but-still-perfect-for-drinking coffee.

It is quiet and still. Even the cat, a dim gray mass in the dim gray light, is not moving. The trees are still. The moss is the only thing I see in motion. It's swaying just the barest bit with some hushed and invisible wind. I think it's warm outside, but I haven't touched the glass yet to see.

Last night took it out of me. Three nights in a row of good sleep and then bam. Ya go to bed expecting another bit of the same stuff, but instead you get something different - something new - something requiring more than the few, small drops of energy you saved up for a 'just in case'.

Now, I sit here, alone in the morning, drinking my hot coffee, thankful for just these few minutes before the storm of the day. I feel a mix of readiness. On one hand, my head feels like it used to feel many, many, many nights ago after those combo rounds of kamikazes & miller lights: warm and thudding. My eyes hurt in the same fashion. And my muscles are all cramped up from trying to sleep while curling my body around and between the tiniest member of the family and her daddy without bothering either of them ( ... again I ask myself, why didn't we get the king bed? ...). On the other hand, it is quiet here. And my coffee is hot, hot, hot. These few minutes of aloneness, of solitude, of silence and stillness - help and blessing - gird me up for the next hours.

In a few minutes, I'll hear the familiar tap on the wall - the one that signals the waking of girl-the-elder. It's the sound of her bumping her aquarium into the corner as she turns it on for music while she lies in bed 'reading'. It still amazes me that at nearly four, she does not get out of bed until we come get her.

Moments after that, her warm little face will be buried in my neck, and she'll ask me if her daddy's here and can we go get her sister. We'll debate the merits of removing her socks and whether or not she can strip and put on a dress before breakfast, and then we'll make our way to the table for her traditional big girl bowl of cheerios and m&ms. And then we're off.

I know how the remaining hours will go. Not to the details, mind you. But the day-to-day activities are more often than not, pretty much the same. I suppose that's what all the professional moms call having a capital 'S' Schedule. That isn't a place I ever thought I'd willingly be ... the Scheduled mother. Especially in light of the fact that the me that is me when I'm not being mama or wife absolutely detests those things. And yet, here is me, here is the she who knows how it will go down for the next nine hours.

But, my coffee is hot. And I'm still drinking it. And I've had a moment to sit and read and write and be the me that has a moment to stop and contemplate the things I love, to watch the moss swing the tiniest of swings, to pretend that the gray of the day will translate into a warm blue, to think about what I'm going to do with the first round of baby clothes my little ones outgrown, to think for a moment about what we could eat for dinner.

These things are good. And despite the pain left radiating through my eyebrows from a hard-night's-daybreak, I'm feeling like I can make it through.

Here's to it, and feeling all right.



1 comments Labels: , , | edit post

Oh.

I.am.so.tired.

Today was one of those days ... the kind of day that there's no way to pretend your way through ... the kind of day you just have to push hard against ... kind of like kicking your way back to the surface of a fast flowing river after a sharp and unexpected plunge to the bottom.

The lack of sleep is starting to get to me. I think I sense it most in my apathy toward the number of cupcakes I'm eating in one day and in my inability to find a pair of matching socks.

Child-the-first is bearing up well. She has a few dark circles, but really, I'm amazed at how well she functions on so little sleep. Today, while she did stay in her bed during afternoon quiet time, she didn't sleep one wink. In fact, she confessed to her sweet papa that she 'read the whole time'.

Child-the-second is bearing up, but I think today's shriek-fest proved the bearing is definitely not in the upward direction. I don't know if I've ever heard a baby scream so loudly for such a long time with no breaks. And it's not like I haven't been around colicky babies before.

Husband-the-hero arrived home in the nick ... and somehow, God bless him, he managed a trip to the store with both girls, (yeah, for more cupcakes ... and rust-free beer), during which the younger fille made not one peep. In fact, le bebe deuxième was asleep when he returned. Hero-daddy is currently reading to both of them in another room to give me a continued break.

As bedtime nears, my prayer is that both of these tiny persons will fall asleep quickly and deeply and stay that way until well past sunrise. I'm old and not used to this kind of night time party anymore, and frankly, the cupcake-crutches I'm depending on are starting to add up ...

Pressing on.

2 comments Labels: , , , , | edit post

Pressing on.

So. It's now been 4 months and 24 days since we added one to our three. Life as four is good. It is a new kind of good. A kind of good I guess you don't know exists until you get there. Because three was good, too. And I really didn't think it could get better than the good we had at three. And yet, this new kind of good changes what I thought of the word before four existed.

Seeing the interaction between girl one and girl two is a whole new kind of love. It's a whole new kind of good. A whole new kind of living. The emotions - unhidden, raw, full emotions - of brand new people, learning to know one another while still learning to know themselves are incredible, terrifying, and inspiring. There's no pretense, no holding back, no waiting to see how the friendship will turn out, no fear of expression. I see my heart there in the two of them, their father's eyes and need for activity, sometimes my own smile, and their own, unique personalities, thoughts, desires.

Maybe it's the holiday season. Maybe it's those nursing hormones. Maybe it's just how beautiful they are. I just feel full of them, full of this growing joy, full of a beauty and a hope and a love - for them, for their father, for our family.

Certainly they are not perfect. Certainly I am not either. Certainly, we as a family, fail, stumble, crash, fall. Certainly, surely, truly, this four is the hardest thing. There is little sleep, no time for so many of the things that seem like 'musts', very little adult conversation, and seconds only for individual solitude. Certainly there are days that seem to never end, nights that seem to never come, and moments of sheer desperation.

But we're doing it. We're doing it, every second, every minute, every day. We're getting there. All of us. Together.

And I love this. I love them. I love being a mother, being a wife, being this 'me' - this different person, this different me than I still don't know how to handle most days, this me that sometimes doesn't get a shower, that often wears the same clothes every other day, that cooks less and buys take out more, that writes seldom, that reads less than that, this me that forgot how eyeliner works, but this me that hears tiny, 'I love you, Mama'-s, that remembers all the words to fifty children's books, that knows how to make a sandwich into a star, that knows just how many different ways a ballerina-princess-fairy wears her hair, who can change a thousand diapers in less than a day and still manage to eat lunch while being simultaneously spit-up and pooped upon.

It's a new me. A new girl, a new life, a new everything. A change that started with two, and grew to three, and now grows into four. Four.

We four.

0 comments Labels: , , , , , | edit post

The Swing of

things ...

That's where I am right now, this instant, 4 weeks and after the birth of my second baby girl: I am in the swing.

I've passed the starting point, I think I can see the place I'd like to finish, and I'm moving (slowly-quickly-slowly) toward the end. But I'm definitely not there - not even close to breaking the line that marks the half-way point.

Life is good. And harder. And better. And more frightening than before. Just adding that one extra body, albeit a teeny-tiny one, to the mix has made such a huge difference to each second of waking consciousness.

I'm not sure where the balance point is from moment to moment, so things - sleep, dinner, showers, playtime, bedtime, breakfast, dressing, teeth-brushing, everything really - feel as though they are continually shifting.

The few constants are the 5:10 entry of my husband, the daily afternoon discussion about naptime with my three year old, the sure-to-wake-said-three-year-old-screams of my month old (which occur almost exactly to the second the elder daughter falls asleep) and the growing pain in my back and ribs that seems to get worse no matter what remedies I try.

Everything else is just hanging, moving, flowing, falling, jumping around somewhere in between the start and the finish.

Did I mention it's harder? Better? It is. Both. I'm trying to 'lean in to the chaos' ... a piece of advice that I think I'm beginning to get.

Here goes.

1 comments Labels: , , , | edit post

Balance.

With my sweet three-year-old now at home, and our second daughter due soon, a work-from-home job and the regular day-to-day of life, it seems like finding that center of gravity is an impossible feat. How do I get the laundry done and the dishes and clean the bathroom and cut the lawn (*right, the weeds) and make dinner and balance the budget and read Dr. Seuss and paint and fight off helicopters and code and write and breastfeed and breathe?

That's the big question these days ... and is all of that the right thing to do after all? Is it the right outlook - should I be doing all of those things? Should I be dropping some of them? And what happens if we decide to add homeschooling ... which has secretly become a wish instead of just and idea ... ?

Everyone talks about balance. Well, maybe not everyone. But a lot of people seem to be all about balance - life is about finding the right balance - the balance that fits your life - that sweet spot on the see-saw that keeps you grounded and sane, right in the middle.

I'm not seeing it. I'm actually thinking it doesn't really exist - that it's just one of those things that the wanna-bes make up to make the rest of us feel bad.

My newest hypothesis (still in the testing phase) is that any balance we may have is momentary - and the place in the middle changes from day to day, sometimes even hour to hour. I don't think there's one perfect spot, or even one perfect stance, that lets us attack the many opportunities of life from a safe, protected space.

I'm testing out the idea that we have to be swift of foot and swift of mind, adapting second by second (in pre-school world) to the needs we have at a given time. Maybe it's more about moving in and out of many different patterns of action and less about getting the right amounts of this and that, the right number of minutes at each of our life stations.

Not sure how all of this theory will play out over the next months. I'm actually happy I just found a few minutes to think this out on the keyboard. And I'm wondering, for what must be the millionth time two things:

Why won't my daughter take a nap, and why do manufacturers insist on putting itchy tags in the side seams of maternity tops?

0 comments Labels: , , | edit post