He forgot that he thinks he’s too big, he held my hand all the way to the cafeteria. Two friends at the table were crying hard and another was so brave, he said he was left all alone once and didn’t even cry. Miles didn’t say a word to that but his eyes said his wheels were turning. It was time to line up and head to class and so I bent to hug him and bit back tears and he made his MOOOOM face and bit back a smile. I didn’t make it back to the van, sob-walking and then sob-driving. I was left all alone and I did cry. ::: Back at home I fed Elsie and her blue eyes looked up at me and Asher whispered questions. Nanny came to be with Elsie and I took Asher to an appointment and we drove by brother’s school together, waving and […]
Like good ol’ Hootie and the Blowfish like to say/sing, Tiiiiime, why you punish me? Tomorrow Elsie will be three months old, Asher will have his early childhood screening for kindergarten and Miles starts school on Thursday. When I started this blog, Miles and Asher were a toddler and a baby (WHAT?) and Elsie was what they call a glimmer. Miles and I were alone today, visiting with his teacher and then out for lunch. He asked me how he can go to school if he doesn’t spell yet. I explained that he’ll learn and it’s okay not to know things ahead of time. That toddler boy is still in there, wide-eyed and wondering how everything works. He will always be there. Yesterday Ryan took the boys to the State Fair while Elsie and I stayed home. The boys were so tired when they got home, I’m pretty sure they fell asleep with […]
Miles – 2005 I say every mother needs to trust her heart-gut. She knows, I say. It’s hidden inside her, the answer. Answers to all the many many questions that rise up, all day every day. We’ve made our decisions about Miles and school after years of wrestling with homeschooling versus public or private out-of-home schooling. We made the decision to have him not start school at all last year, after doing more heart-gut wrestling. So now here we are. We’ve made our decisions and I even feel good about them, as good as I can feel when every decision we make always has its right and wrong parts. This boy is going to full-time-is-the-only-option kindergarten at a public school next week. {Rain photo circa 2007} Mothers dream of a person and then grow them in their very soul and bring them here and then release them with a great push. Unleashed […]
You eat some sugar snap peas and a bowl of cereal and call it dinner. You worry that the crunching of your cereal may wake the baby. The baby that is in another room, behind a closed door. You consider yourself more accomplished than ever before in your life if you water your two plants in the same day. Wait. Scratch that. You consider yourself more accomplished than ever before if you master the magical babywearing contraption called the Moby wrap on the first try. If it takes twenty tries, you are normal. No matter how many times it takes you to master the wrap, every time you wear your baby in it, you feel a bit smug and also totally in love with carrying your baby close, hands-free! You throw a pillow across the room at 3 a.m. because you just can’t.be.awake for one more second and then you cry when the […]
I turned to look at her at dawn.The light was just right. Out loud I said, I can’t believe you’re here. She slept on. No matter what, having Elsie feels like the icing on the cake, like my birthday every day. While Miles gets ready to start school, we start the baby stage again and I think about years of sippy cups and diapers and up-at-night and I’m suddenly grateful. So grateful. I see them, our three kids, up in the unknown future and the now starts to go even faster so I try to stop doing that. I am here in the morning light, for today, looking at her. And then I’m up and I’m wiping the crumbs from the table (again) while the pictures of now are uploading to the computer to be kept for future reference. So I’ll know for sure this really happened. I scrub at the table like […]
I woke up thinking about Asher this morning. Lately I’ve hardly even had time for that which makes me feel guilty, of course. It’s funny how being a mom can make you feel bad for not being able to think about every part of every child’s life constantly. As if that were possible. Anyway, I woke up thinking about Asher and all the ways he is joy embodied. And I was grateful that he’s such a trooper because of how we’re so busy with his sister right now and it’s just hard if you look at it that way. He’s just four and sometimes he lets us know he’s sick of us always tending to a baby, but for the most part, he is simply full of humor and grace no matter what. He’s inspiring. After I thought about that, I thought about how he would be if he had a […]
You’ve gotta teach ’em to self soothe, you know. You can’t tip-toe around or they’ll never sleep with noise. Babies know how to get you to pick them up–just let her cry. ::: I know which floorboards squawk under pressure. I avoid them. I am up on the balls of my feet, lightly stepping a dance out the door, gently turning the knob to make a silent shut. I so badly want these quiet moments to last, more for her than for me. Minutes later, it’s as if some unknown force with a foot has forgotten the dance and stepped on her. She squawks first, then she screams. A loud train has gone by and shook her from her light and always tummy-disturbed sleep. I rush back in, no longer careful just quick. Her face is beet red and crinkled with pain, her body making little sounds of too much air. I pick […]
I hear a boom and then a rolling sound. It’s an apple, falling through the air after letting go of its branch and then hitting our boat and then rolling along the angled bottom. I turn to look and another apple falls, closer to me, hitting the ground with a deep thud. We have two apple trees and so many apples. They’re beautiful, and they’re going to teach me how to make crisps and pies. I think. Sometimes we’ll just peel them and cut them up and put them in a pan and caramelize them a little and then put them with ice cream. A little dash of cinnamon on top. A creation to indulge in. You know that saying, The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree? I think about that when I look at Elsie. Some people say she’s starting to look more and more like me, but that’s […]
I wrote this (lengthy) post to be a helpy helperton to those of you who have (or know someone who has) a colic-y baby in your life. And maybe I wrote it for me, like an article to myself…one that reminds me that I’ve tried, that I am trying, really hard. This is not the only way I’m a good mom and I forget that all too often. (What’s that? You forget too? Well then, stop that. You’re good. You really are. Believe it.) ::: I don’t even know if “colic” is the word, you know? Babies are magical puzzles for the figuring out and sometimes what’s happening just IS. I guess colic is just a word we use when there are one thousand question marks and a whole lot of crying. Just as I say “constipated” when Elsie isn’t able to get the poops out because there’s so much air holding […]
Her eyelashes are getting so long that they go out and curve up and then bend straight out to reach a bit further. It’s like they just got tired and had to lie down. I love that. I love her. She is a spitfire while still being sweet. (LOOK.OUT.) We’re still working on helping her, with all of the pain and crying. This means, because I’m nursing, I eat NOT a variety of things, but more like no dairy-no wheat-no soy…I’m The Accidental Gluten-free Vegan. And I’m hungry. (Don’t worry, Grandma. I’m still eating…it’s just trickier.) Elsie is so worth it and I’m learning that it’s helping her to refrain from a lot of foods I love and so I do. I keep meaning to write a post about The Colic and all that we’ve learned after Asher and now Elsie. I feel like kind of an expert. Like maybe I’m a Doctor […]
I wake up thinking about another creative endeavor. I think this makes 5 Big Things I dream to do in the world. Number one is mothering, creating humans that live like this. Then the others, they are all of the other artist parts of me, reaching out and begging to explore the story of this life. I wake up with that new idea and then I feel the tap tap tap of the start to the day and I’m on my feet with breakfast and answering questions and rubbing away the sleep from all of our eyes. I’m reaching all around. We talk about finding balance and she has none and neither do I. We talk about accepting that in motherhood and then I think it’s impossible to accept that all at once. The only way to do acceptance is in moments. The balance is not in the big picture. It is in […]
wicker bending to hold intertwined and tight with empty oval spaces for hands grasping and lifting I’m a wicker basket, I said to myself. I was sitting on the bed, staring down at a storage chest made from wicker. I doubt I can remember the analogy all that well right now, but I’m going to try. It’s 5:30 in the morning in San Diego. Elsie is sleeping soundly for the first time all night…or morning. My lovely friend, co-host to the Serenity Suite and constant helper with all things baby, Ellie, is up with me. We laughed at ourselves because this sweet baby is finally at rest and now we cannot. Our time zones betray us. This trip and conference and hosting of the suite is all so much. It is so much good while it is so exhausting, especially while my head is buzzing with a high-speed need to think only of Elsie while I […]
What I love about 7 Quick Takes with Conversion Diary is that you get to cover 7 whole random things. I love random. So does my brain… 1. For two nights in a row now, Elsie has cried less and slept more. She fusses on and off throughout the day, but she’s more….fixable. (What mother doesn’t love fixable?) I’m beyond grateful and of course I’m holding my breath and knocking on wood and avoiding walking under ladders. I am also praying big thank yous instead of just please please please and that feels like coming up for air. 2. I was thinking, just in case there are moms out there reading this who are in the trenches with colic as well, that I should share what I’ve tried. I’ve been given so many recommendations and tried many of them. I also re-used some once forgotten knowledge from Asher’s colic days. Some of it […]
I shook with sobs, perched with my back to pillows on the bed, holding a swaddled and screaming Elsie. It was 1 a.m. and I’d been pacing and bouncing for six hours. Somewhere in there, I put the boys to bed by calling out brush your teeth and go potty over the cries. I shouted prayers and they giggled at the absurdity of our…routine. !!!God bless Miles and Asher and Elsie!!! Ryan texted from Salem, his plane had landed. My heart dropped; that’s far and long and this is just the start. I want him home. He wants to be home. But alas, the bills must be paid. The sobbing came with her eyes wide open after so much trying and over my inability to make it stop, to take away her pain, to know what to do. I am not complaining, in all of these posts. I am simply telling this story. […]
Elsie Jane, you keep me on my toes. And just look at you… I’m just so glad you’re here. When you’re in the midst of The Colic, you wonder if your baby will ever smile or sit content for even a moment or sleep peacefully. So this small moment? The one up there? I will (prepare for sappy sapperton) cherish it. I will cup my palm around it and gently pull it close. And then I’ll wait for more. There is so much more to come. the girl is mine. (That’s a song lyric, right?) (MY BRAIN!)
Elsie is sleeping and so I changed the laundry and I started dinner and I swept the floor. I hurried. I should be paying bills now, or calling in a prescription or sweeping the floor, again. There is so much dog hair when it’s this hot. But I needed to come here, to just sit with my fingers tapping with words that are going in no particular direction or maybe in many directions. We (the parents)are in the trenches, friends. We just are. We’re fighting a battle and I’m doing that thing where I over-think it hoping that I can miraculously come up with an answer that would fix the pain for Elsie. But I can’t. The reality is that she’s a newborn and she won’t always be one and her little gut will mature. (Yes, I do realize I keep saying that over and over, almost every time I post something. Maybe […]
he won’t be the bad guy. Miles asks, can you be at least half bad and he says emphatically NO. I’m good. he is. he is so good. he wants his sister close and he takes each of her knuckles one by one those teeny tiny knuckles between his fingers and he presses softly smiling his cousin gets hurt and he brings it up all day wasn’t that sad when that happened, mama? yes it was, sweetie that’s him. he is sweetness. He is four. We got to keep him, despite every fear and he is so much more than the boy who had brain surgery when he was one and the boy who has a shunt and tubing through his body and the boy with the adorable glasses. He is The Noggin but of course he is Asher. Everything about him is simply who he is, just parts making up the most […]
Now my hands have found a small back to land on and one of them is always working hard on air bubbles, like morse code; tap-tap-tap, I tell that air up and out, you don’t belong. Now my hands are gently rubbing up and down a tiny spine, wondering how the terrain can be so small for now. I smell her head (of course) and I reach to move my hair in case it might be in her eyes or nose or mouth. She is up on my shoulder and moving my hair reminds me that I haven’t lately or slowly moved my hand around her small head, brushing soft little wisps of her hair into lines. So I do. I move my hand around and around this soft and tiny noggin and I breathe her in. I want to write pure and profound words about her existence and I want everyone in the world to read […]
1. There are things about each of my children that mirror who I am. Some of these parts are appealing, I suppose. Others…notsomuch. One thing that Miles carries of mine is neither good nor bad. Or, maybe, it’s both good and bad. Memory. Fierce memory. Just today he said, Remember that one time when I was three and that fly landed on my hand and I stood very still and it stayed there a long time. I do remember, mostly. I know he remembers entirely. That boy seemed to enter the world intent on memorizing every moment and everything. He hardly ever cried as a baby, so unlike his brother and sister, and looking at him you would have seen a furrowed and concentrated expression. It’s as if he arrived here knowing everything that was going to happen, an old soul, if you will. And it seems if that’s the case, he just […]
I’ve been trying to write a post for days. Days I tell you! The problem I’m having is that there’s not enough time. And when I have a moment, in short doses, I read what I’ve written so far and I think too hard about it while I’m sitting there not really being able to think at all. I can’t write like I used to when sleep-deprived because my head is too fuzzy and confused all the time. I’ll be back. That’s what I wanted to say to Asher the other night when I tucked him in. He sounded sad and sweet at the same time when he said, Have a good day with your baby, Mommy. It was night, but I knew what he meant. He knew I needed to go be with his almost always crying sister in the other room and it broke my heart, the way he said that. […]
There are a lot of infomercials on in the night. Every channel it seems. I’ll be up in the night with Elsie, either pacing the floors to lull her to sleep or nursing her in a sleepy haze. And someone is always trying to sell me something if I turn the TV on. When I was up nursing Miles I remember watching Little House on the Prairie a lot. I think there were marathons every night. With Asher I remember watching televangelists a lot. I don’t even like televangelism…at all, but there I would be, zoned out and strangely fascinated. Now, when I’m up with Elsie, I do more reading on my phone than TV-spacing. I read blog posts mostly, and a reflection of the day for we recovering alcoholics. It’s a good start to the day-night. Sidenote: I’m going to just go ahead and point out that I tried to discreetly erase […]
My Dad asked about postpartum depression yesterday. He asked when it usually sets in. I couldn’t clear my head to answer the question because I don’t sleep enough to have normal conversations. I don’t know exactly what I said, but what I meant was something like, “as soon as the baby comes out…or anytime after that. Or even while you’re still pregnant.” I don’t know if it’s happening to me. Again. Maybe it is. It’s hard to tell without sleeping much at all. What I do know is that this is hard and that I cry a lot. As much as I don’t want to cry, as much as I just want to constantly feel joy, that’s not my reality. Sometimes I cry because I sing to Elsie when she’s crying and I just can’t hold it back. I’m a horrible singer and I really really mean the words… There you go with […]
Elsie looks nearly identical to Miles as a baby. It makes me think about how we come here– how we arrive as everything we are but nothing like what we will be, all at the same time. I’m not sure how much sense that made. I’m exceptionally tired. Sometimes I forget that I won’t always feel this way. I mean, newborns come as they are but they don’t stay this way. Not long at all. I just love this picture. This is a proud big brother picture. Elsie lost her umbilical cord stubby thing already. It actually got snagged on some clothes. Ouch. But it’s okay, we’re watching it closely. When Asher noticed it was gone he said (excitedly), “LOOK! Her power cord is gone!” These people in my house, they’re something else. Everyone is handling this transition so well, I’m just so grateful. Everything is about Elsie while some things are still […]
My friend Casey has done some extraordinary things for us. She sends messages that make me laugh, talks baby with me over email and coordinates great big surprises in which she asks our friends we’ve come to know through blogging to shower me with all the baby things we didn’t have. I am so grateful. Thank you, Huckleberry and friends. This morning I sent these words to Casey: “It’s funny, the difference a new morning with some sleep on top can make. Elsie slept in 2.5-3 hour increments last night. That’s like…FOREVER. She is a happy baby, actually. We’re doing really really well–knockonwood. I mean, breastfeeding, healing, etc…it’s all going really well. Of course, sleep deprivation adds to the emotion of it all, but even that is okay…just okay. I’ve been working on a post about the emotional side of the newborn life. How I grieve the old life even though I’m NOT at […]
I want to tell you so many things. It has been a scary and exciting and lovely couple of days. I’m too tired to type out all the details, so for now, let’s just welcome… *really fast and suspenseful drumroll please* Elsie Jane!!! (That’s EJ of the EO, I just realized…ha.) Yes. Elsie Jane is here and she’s just…pure…goodness. But… does she look a little suspicious to you? That’s because she’s had a rough night and day, trying to figure out how to breathe. She’s doing so much better now though–breathing more peacefully on her own and slowly getting well enough to leave the special care nursery so we can be together all the time. I can’t wait. She may even be able to come to stay in my room with me tonight or tomorrow morning! Elsie also got to meet her brothers today. They touched her fingers and toes and […]
I don’t really even know what to say about this. Except that it makes my back hurt and I’m really excited for the person that’s in there to come out. *yaaaawn* P.S. I’m so grateful for all of your kind words on my last post. You people leave me as speechless as that large belly. Thank you for being you. (photo taken with the Droid Retro Camera app.)
I’m shocked that he remembers… Can we go in there, Mommy? Where? I want a sucker. Where do you get a sucker, I don’t understand? He’s pointing across the parking lot, to a strip mall. I look up to see the liquor store and my heart sinks to my feet. No, honey…we can’t go in there. Why? Because that’s a liquor store and I don’t drink alcohol anymore. Then he blows me away. Mommy, if you saw the wine in there, it would make you want to drink it? Yes. That’s true. It would. After that, maybe it was a rising up of things buried, of things I thought I had forgotten, heavy feelings of regret, I don’t know. But I could not stop crying. I drove and cried and remembered and even though it hurt, it’s good to remember so we don’t have to go back. They were so vivid, the memories of […]
Baby Girl, Your head is down low now and you’re curled along my right side, your little booty making a bump in my extended belly. Your legs are bent and your feet are always in my ribs. Sometimes you kick, sometimes you just let those tootsies rest and I forget there are feet in my ribs. I remember coming home with Miles and Asher after they were born and feeling so suddenly empty on the inside after being so full for so long. Now it will be your turn to exit and I’ll adjust again and then you’ll be another person in this home who fills my life, not just my ribs or my side. I still can’t believe you’re a girl. I want to know what you’re like. I want to feel what my friends describe, this healing that having a girl brings. I want to teach you things, the very few […]
It was pretty ironic that on a day when I really needed a mental health break, I got an email saying that The Extraordinary Ordinary has been nominated on Circle of Moms for the Top 25 Mental Wellness Blogs Written By Moms. I’ll admit, I chuckled. I said something to myself about my own current mental health and I chuckled. Don’t get me wrong, it’s truly an honor to be nominated…I’m just being honest. I mean, after all, I did leave Ellie a message yesterday that said that I was sitting on the couch eating marshmallows and had absolutely no desire to move. Then I asked her voicemail, Is that so bad? I was simply practicing self-care, of course. Having a rest. And some sugar. My boys and I have had a solo week and I’m really pregnant, what can I say? (I am always thinking of single parents when Ryan is gone […]
If the weather is perfect for sitting outside at night around a fire making s’mores, then it’s pretty perfect, huh? I will call this photo “MMMMgooooo” This one? “Happy” This one? “Who Cares About S’mores Just Look at Those Lashes” Lastly, I am calling this photo “Peek-aaaah-BOOM” photo credit: husband By the way, this baby girl is very very busy at certain times of the day. She takes a spin class, I swear. I had a dream last night that she was about one and she was all.over.the.place. We’ll see… Last night when we were eating s’mores, I turned to Ryan and said a first and middle name for our girl. It felt like The One. He thought so too. We’ve known for a long time that we like a few names, but we were having trouble feeling sure. We still won’t feel entirely sure until we see her, but […]
