Ryan walked through the door with Elsie and Asher. Miles and I had fed and watered the chickens and cleaned up the house. I’d been writing and Miles was playing something on the iPad. He’s now off the iPad for fighting with his brother over it. It was Friday. It was supposed to just be movie night and pizza and popcorn night. I held Asher and Elsie close, just like I had squeezed Miles after school. Ryan put an arm around me and I bit back tears because I wasn’t ready to answer “why are you crying, Mommy?” So instead I asked Ryan to start a fire in the fireplace and the kids stayed right there because fires are so cool and good unless you get too close and get burned. We watched over their distance from the danger from our chairs and took in the warmth. We shared time just thinking and […]
{photo credit} I heard and saw the word helpless more times than I can count yesterday. As the number of slain children increased and the information on exactly what happened in Newtown, Connecticut continued to change, we sat helpless. Losing all confidence in the goodness of humanity is terribly uncomfortable, but it’s the way this feels, at least while it is unfolding before our eyes–on TV and Twitter and through Facebook links to the latest news. Oh. So it was Adam, not Ryan. Oh, his mother was a teacher there? Oh. He shot her there? WHY? Oh. No. He shot her at home…then WHY go to the school? All of this uncertainty forces so much insecurity. And while we’re feeling distraught and helpless, we try to think out loud with one another, to gain some semblance of control. Gun control. Control over the mentally ill. Control over violence in our media and entertainment. […]
She follows me, still. I came from the bathroom, to find her waiting in my bedroom. I was wrapped in a towel and dripping a little from the shower. She pointed and laughed. She does that when I have wet hair. At least that’s what I tell myself she’s laughing about. I pulled open the drawer with bras and dug around, wondering when I’ll ever purchase a post-breastfeeding one that actually fits me. Elsie was putting on my shoes and clomping on the hardwood floor, trying to not be a falling-over toddler even though she is one. I dropped the towel and suddenly she was by my side, back to just the footies of her pajamas and she was pointing but not laughing. She pointed to her mouth and pointed back at me, like she suddenly remembered breastfeeding. She, the one who decided to be done all in one grand statement in one […]
My feet won’t warm up. Today I learned how to make a water warmer for the chicken coop; a thing to set under the water so it doesn’t freeze. Now I just need to actually make the water warmer for the chicken coop. It looks so easy and the post even said it takes less than ten minutes. It’s getting so cold, the water freezes too fast. I’m in and out, trudging across the backyard with my puffy coat on, hood up, to bring fresh warm water that will freeze in about an hour. But I keep doing it, because chickens get thirsty too. So back and forth I go. We went to buy a warmer in the store yesterday but it just felt like there were so many hurdles. The price, the kids asking questions and going into other aisles and then wanting suckers. The farm store always has them asking for […]
This morning we tag-teamed the routine. Has she had breakfast? Where are the boots? On Saturday it was 65 degrees and this morning there was snow on the ground. Still is. I’ll take Miles to school, you take Asher and Elsie to daycare. I’ll start the van. I tromped down the walk to the van with my boots unzipped, slipping too much at my heels but you hurry in Minnesota, to start the car and rush back in. Asher was suddenly behind me. It’s not time to go, honey. You need to go back in, it’s too cold. I’m just starting the van to warm it up. I know! He loves snow so much. Okay then. Please go inside. I have everything I need, Mommy. He said this while his Spiderman boots flicked snow up on the cuffs of his pants. I have mittens and a hat and boots, so that’s all I […]
I had been away from Thursday to Sunday and it felt terribly long this time. Too many hours were strung together without the sights and smells and really-loud-sounds of home. I told the attendees of BBC Chicago that the chaos of my life breeds my creativity. I stood behind a podium and told my story. I said that without my family, the daily grind, the work of life, I would not write. I would not create. My life and all of its messes, it is the reason I am inspired to allow something artful to flow from me when I can. So on this night I tucked them in and then I climbed up the bunk bed ladder and lay down with Asher. I held the book out in front of him so he could see the occasional pictures. Miles ended up coming up the ladder and climbing in with us. It’s only […]
Last Friday began with snow. I kid you not. Snow. This is not shocking for Minnesota, but it is anyway, when Halloween has not yet happened. NOOOO, we say out loud and to God. It’s too early, we shout! Because we know we’re in for a loooong winter. Thankfully, it wasn’t a snow storm that caused any kind of rugged road conditions, because I was up and ready for the trip to Allison’s house and the snow needed to not stop me. After all, we had big plans; to give away 14 just released Graco SnugRide Click Connect-40 car seats to our blogging friends! The roads turned out to be just fine and the snow stopped midway through the afternoon. Now all we needed was for the big truck to pull up outside the O Family home with a pallet of car seats inside. But alas, no truck. NO CAR SEATS!!! You see […]
Remember when I said we were doing the hydrocephalus association’s walk? And that I wanted to raise $1,000 for Asher’s Noggins!? We totally did that! Isn’t that the best!? I learned a lot that day, and I’ve been wanting to sit down to write about it, but again, time keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin’…into the future. Today, by a random twist of Internet Fate, or Serwebdipity, I’m over at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital blog. There’s a wonderful woman there that uses words like penultimate in conversation and then I look up the word and I’m all, OHHHH and then of course I just SAY that I didn’t know what the word was and had to look it up. I’m a pleasure to work with, I tell ya. (Also. Serwebdipity is obviously a word that should be in the dictionary with a meaning like; a serendipitous or fortuitous meeting on the world wide interweb.) So […]
Our house has two walls that are all windows. So I guess they aren’t really walls, they’re windows, but you know what I mean. The light is good by those windows. Elsie was standing in front of one of them, between two pulled back curtains, with her blue eyes shining in that light. She had her little dress pulled up and she was pushing her little finger on her little chubby outie belly button. She caught me staring and she giggled. I giggled back and lifted my shirt just a little and let my not so little belly that has housed three not so little babies stick out just enough to show my mother belly button, all stretched out for them. She giggled more. I put my finger on my belly button and she rushed toward me with her finger still on hers and something pulled from my insides like she was going […]
I was rushing to get out the door to pick up Asher at preschool at one end of town and then get his brother in the middle of town and then drive out the other end of town to get Elsie. I wanted candy. I grabbed an apple. GO ME! (I didn’t have any candy.) I was driving with one hand and chomping CRUNCH my green apple in the other and the stem came off. It reminded me of when I was a kid and my friends and I would play the ABC game while twisting the stem. Whatever letter you were on when the stem broke loose was the first letter of your future husband’s name. Of course, we worked hard to pull the stem free at the first letter of the name of the boy we were “going with” at the time. Then we’d play M.A.S.H. on the bus or at […]
When Ryan is out of town for work, we sometimes get time to talk on the phone at some point during the day, but mostly we don’t get that time. He’s super busy with teaching some sort of software thingys to people and I’m busy…yeah, busy. Three kids + one of them being a very demanding and quite feisty little lovely creature + the start of school + working + All THE THINGS = a very tired and forgetful mommy. I was talking to Ellie yesterday and she knows how much I love Elsie Jane, how grateful I am for her. So I can vent and say that sometimes, when Elsie is especially…spirited…I feel like I might explode or like my insides are just going to turn to mush and then I’ll fold over and be stuck like that for a few days. Which doesn’t sound so bad, actually. As long as I […]
I’m so honored to tell you that I’m now a contributing writer at A Deeper Story’s sister site, A Deeper Family. I’ve been a subscriber of A Deeper Story for a long time, and I’m just plain excited to be a part of the Deeper Family Family. Heh. I don’t speak a lot of Christianese here at The EO. It’s not a secret that I’m a Christian, but I’m, in all honesty, quite uncomfortable with one word labels. I own my faith with no regret or shame, but I walk around with it quite differently than a lot of people with the same label. We all do. We’re all so much more than one word and we all put on all of our descriptors in different ways. I get terribly itchy around Christians, that’s just the honest truth. This is understandable since I’ve been trying to shake off some hurtful things for many […]
My feet are probably making a thwap thwap thwap sound, but I can’t hear it because my ear buds are full of Mumford and Sons. I will wait, I will wait, I will wait… and it’s hard not to sing out loud at the top of my lungs. I still throw my arms out sometimes, to the beat. Like I’m a drummer. A thirty-seven year old mother and wife from Minnesota, on a run on a tar path, air drumming. Sometimes I jump up to touch a leaf on a low branch, for that little zing of energy that trees give away for free. My head is full of anticipation and some angst, but I will wait, I will wait, I will wait. I’m tired of pushing My Way up a hill like I can control a boulder. I want to be pulled by a way that isn’t mine but is the best […]
I guzzle my first (and never last) cup of coffee. I don’t mean to, it’s just that it’s one of my last vices. I want to be a person who sips a fantastic cup of coffee, just one, and then goes on with a day drenched in 8 glasses of water and only whole foods. I drink a lot of water and I work hard to eat well, but I also love sugar as much as I love coffee. We addicts are far too aware of our compulsive behavior, at least in sobriety, so I bend and tip forward, pulling my eyes to my navel to dissect this behavior. Then I remember, I’m a human being. Flawed and a work in progress and imperfect and all that. One day I will sit and sip tea, decaf of course, maybe by the ocean and I’ll be wearing something white and flowy and the breeze […]
She toddle-followed me to the door, getting nervous. She always wants to go with me, through any door. She wants outside and me. She loves both a whole lot. Elsie Jane, my little but fierce follower. I was dropping her at daycare for the first time. She and her brothers will be there two days a week while I work. Write. Work. Write. Mother. Yes, I bit back tears when I drove away and no, they weren’t guilty tears. They were mother tears stripped of guilt because I’m learning it’s not so much about what I’m doing but what I’m thinking about what I’m doing. I could so easily ask myself if it’s wrong for my kids to be away from me when I’m not actually punching any type of clock, but I’m not. I’m a late bloomer, always so slow to grow up, fighting it. So I easily question myself, assuming I […]
{This is sponsored content by outmywindow and BlogHer.} This is a story about how I left Elsie for the first time and was Phoebe instead of Heather, for a moment. If one can randomly fly to California that’s exactly what I did. I wrote snippits of the journey for Just Write this week and I don’t really know why but it’s one of my favorite posts ever. Maybe because snippets of life is where it’s at, you know? It was a whirlwind trip, just an arrival in the afternoon, an overnight, a full day at Warner Brothers studios and back home again that same day. Or night, really, since I pulled in the driveway at about 3a.m. This was my first time away from Elsie and even though it was super short, I missed her and her brothers super much. But I had a great time and it was so good for both […]
{snapshots from last week’s solo trip} driving alone is a simple pleasure for a mother. There’s no mommy mommy mommy! or fighting from the backseat. No angry babies with screams. just you and the road and the radio. I was nervous, leaving Elsie and the knots in my stomach tried to take over what I could see around me but I took those deep breaths and then I saw it, the way the trees and their shades of green made matte and glossy and it felt like I could touch them through the glass. Deer were out during the day, a mama and her fawn standing in the farmer’s field looking on. No deer in headlights, just that look they get like they must be curious but you can’t tell because it’s as if they’ve had botox for animals or something. They were far enough away to not scare me and so it […]
I’ve been writing nearly all afternoon. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since that was the case. Simple uninterrupted time is a beautiful thing. And now I can’t wait for Ryan and the kids to walk back in that door. Asher will be sure to say something funny and Miles will lean into my side to hug me. Elsie will say Ma.Ma.Ma…over and over and over and come at my legs like hers have springs. Right now though, I love this time to just write. Before this afternoon it had been a couple of days since my fingertips had found their way or the time for a keyboard. When I sat down to log in and felt the familiar smooth indent of the keys and heard the clickety clack, I said, right out loud, OH I missed you! We had a combined birthday party for Miles and Asher this weekend and […]
Oh Milesy, you’ve been here seven years and you are a million good things piled up through all your learning and then a million more things that simply came along with you, out into the world on the day you were born. I was reading this book about age 7, about what happens developmentally at this stage and it said something about this being the year of melancholy. A year in which kids start to spend more time alone and a year when the brain and body is doing things that make a person extra sensitive and frustrated. I thought, UH OH. But I’m glad to know this ahead of time because it already started. You’ve always done that. As a baby you did everything the books said right on target, or as the over-achiever that you are, sometimes a little ahead. Back then I had no idea what a content baby you […]
I’ve been a mother (if you count pregnancy, which you do, of course) for about eight years. I’ve been a blogger for over half that time, and I’ve been active on Twitter and Facebook since about a year after I started blogging. That said, this question was posed: How has the technological age changed parenting for you? I love this question. It fascinates me. I mean, pretty much every parent I know is involved online in one way or another. We’re tweeting or updating facebook or writing and/or reading blogs. We’re talking about this bumpy road of bringing up humans and we’re gaining avenues to different perspectives every day. We have answers at our fingertips every second of every day. We have smart phones and smart notebooks and smart computers and smart laptops…(For real, they’re all smarter than I am.) We are taking in a lot of information about parenting, especially if we’re […]
There were older boys walking by and they took the boys’ soccer ball as they went and kept going. This was quickly reported back to the mother whose house our boys were playing in front of with friends. She told her oldest son to go get the ball. Just ask them if the ball is theirs, she said. So he did. He gathered courage and picked up his bike and hopped on to go find them and it was almost like he wanted the challenge–the adventure. He came back with the ball. My eyes were wide when she told me this, the way she encouraged her boy to figure it out. She told him, If they won’t give it back, just leave. It’s not worth fighting over. He came back with the ball. No big thing. He surprised them. He said they acted nervous and couldn’t answer his question. Is that your ball? […]
sometimes I just get bummed about the world. sometimes I forget about all the good and how it will always win. love always wins. sometimes it doesn’t seem like it at all, but it does. sometimes I get scared that we’ve put three cherished souls in a world that doesn’t measure up to what they deserve and I start to wonder, will they have health care? will they be able to get jobs? will they be accepted for exactly who they are? will…. I’m just so grateful that I can shake that off by diving into thoughts like will they be friends with people like the ones in these videos… will they BE people like them? and then I feel a little hope bubble up because in the midst of all the chaos and mess there is always so much grace and art… (hat tip to Lisa) (hat tip to my cousin, Caleb […]
these two photos were taken almost exactly one year apart. we had a birthday party for EJ yesterday and she had the best day of her life. So much attention and cake. My girl, she loves to be the center and she now knows that most every girl is bound to love cake. She ate that stuff like it was her first and last meal. One thing I know for sure about her? She doesn’t hold back. we had a bounce house and she had no fear about the whole thing, she just laughed and laughed her deep guttural giggly laugh like Asher’s. then Daddy bounced her up and down in our small pool and she slipped around and laughed even harder, bare naked and splashing so hard everything everywhere was getting wet. then she crashed super hard at 6:45pm and then woke up four times in the night. I’ll take this […]
You were written into my motherhood story and I knew it before I realized you were a little acorn growing inside. I didn’t know how to picture you here but I knew you were coming. I looked at your daddy and I asked, Do you feel like our family is complete? and he said No and I said, Me either. Even though we were riding along with two very loud and whiny boys on a road trip, those two who would become your doting brothers. We were crazy in love with them and couldn’t see past them but we knew. We could feel you. Like you were there in an empty seat beckoning. A little Elsie Jane half-wave from the place you are from; from Everywhere like Heaven and Nowhere like the sky and totally from Love and Grace. I felt your little call to our family–I’m yours!–and it made me nervous. Nervous […]
(photo courtesy of google) My friend Sarah and I (so) often talk about missing quiet. About how we probably stay up too late at night because we’re so hungry for the quiet that’s only there, after all the little human noise boxes are sound asleep and the computer and TV are off. Who am I there? In the quiet moments? I just asked me that this morning because I had a few awake moments in bed before I could hear the bang and crash of fresh morning boys. I don’t know that I’ve lost myself in motherhood, like they say not to do, or if motherhood has stolen me. Or if I am motherhood. And really, is that so bad? Maybe it’s only bad if when given the chance I can’t remember me at all, and even then maybe it’s not my fault. Maybe it’s just because there’s been so little quiet or […]
So often I ask them how much I love them and they say to the moon and then I say and back down again and we go back and forth like that until one of us speeds up really fast and back up and back down and back up and back down… INFINITY. When I imagined having kids I thought I’d tell them I love them to the moon, but then I had kids and I found out the moon isn’t far enough. Infinity is the only thing forever and endless enough. This weekend I saw these kids move from winter tones to summer kissed ones and somehow it makes them look older. And we moved the boys’ beds from apart to stacked and so they’re bunked boys now. Like the big boys that they are, apart and together. The duo and pals that run past laughing and asking what to play next. […]
she says uh oh, so soft. her first words. ones that aren’t dada or mama, how she says those all the time because she’s asked to but doesn’t seem to know who they apply to and we laugh. now it’s just constant uh oh and that suits her our little bull in a china shop spitfire Have you ever held fire close because it asks you to pull it in slight tilt of the head big eyes engulfing? We’ve been set on fire over here… on my birthday, I felt sick inside no explanation something for a therapist’s couch. The morning brought me pain down deep and when she woke up and I walked into her room, there she stood on fire ablaze and I wept I don’t know she is a healing fire God put her here for my soul and the world’s… anything she does brings the gift of feeling that […]
Finally, I had time to sit with all of the submissions to the Use Your Words essay contest. With each and every one, my heart found touchpoints, the kind that mothers feel when we share our stories, the details of the beautiful mess. Reflections. She said, the lights were too bright in the hospital and she said she was scared on African soul, a new boy put in her arms, he’s yours now. What do I do with him? Where do I start? Who will tell me what to do? ::: She said she was scared on a hospital bed, arms spread out in the operating room. My life is over and begun. Every word and every line and every essay, a theme. We are all so scared at the start–that enormous engulfing fear, like lava, she said, how she flew over a volcano and saw Mother Earth spit it forth–covering and engulfing. […]
As mothers, we do our best to maintain a home and schedules and meet all the needs of our children and still remain even a little bit focused on the things we do outside of being a mother, whether that’s paid work or hobbies. I’m a mother that has chosen to work part-time from home. I have some paid writing gigs and I do some speaking and the Serenity Suite at BlogHer. I’m juggling a lot. Whether or not it feels like there’s too much on my plate has less to do with what’s on that plate and more to do with whether or not someone is helping me hold it, so to speak. And what I’m learning is that even finding a paid childcare provider that suits our family’s needs is difficult. My parents have shown our family an invaluable amount of support and we’re so incredibly grateful. We are basically totally […]
This is a mother’s day and it has been a mothering year. We warrior mothers, we pass the thousands of hours in years and mark them with the birthdays of our children, not our own. Today we’re marked and celebrated with messy kid-handled pancakes and syrupy kisses and handmade cards with scrawls and artist’s drawings of ourselves with the skinniest of frames and huge eyes. They’re beautiful, and the pancakes are the best we’ve ever had. Yesterday morning I had that half of the day entirely to myself and I drove around a beautiful lake and stopped at beautiful homes for an annual garage sale extravaganza. It wasn’t about stuff as much as it was about a treasure hunt and treasures I found. More than in garages, I found laughter with my own mother and a gulping of the most beautiful weather God could have lended the day. I sucked it in and […]
