I sit out in the sun with my boys and I love the sun and my boys so much and wasps start to dive-bomb us. We run in the house. They are playing so well together with coins and coins and more coins, pushing them across the hardwood floors, there are coins everywhere, scattered. When they’re done I ask them to pick up the coins and they listen the very first time. Then they get distracted and leave half the coins and I’m standing and saying it again like a record broken. I get up the gumption to take them to the park and not far into the sliding and swinging I can tell my biggest boy isn’t feeling well. We go home. I worry. I get out a snack, some veggies and dip and they eat them and I let myself think for a moment Look. I have boys that eat veggies. […]
The torpedo belly has taken to jutting out so far that it’s entirely possible I may yell at a staring-directly-at-my-protruding-belly-button-for-far-too-long stranger in public. I’ll just string all my usual responses together rapid-fire-torpedo style, like this: No-I’m-not-having-twins-and-no-I’m-not-due-any-day-this-is-just-how-I-carry-babies-speaking-of-babies-I-make-really-big-ones-and-yes-a-belly-button-CAN-stick-out-that-far!!!! Then the gawking strangers will look all apologetic and scamper away. At least that’s how it goes down in my head. 34 weeks Five-ish weeks to go, my friends. And I’m getting SUPER excited. It hasn’t always been that way for me, with pregnancy. I can get kind of distant from it, like it’s something foreign that’s happening to me that may or may not result in a person being added to our family. That sounds weird, but it’s just the truth. Sometimes things just aren’t really really real to me until they are actually happening. But this time, I’m just more connected and aware and anticipating. These five weeks are going to go fast-slow. When I […]
The always dirty little feet. Eating outside…or not eating, if you’re Asher. Which is the way it goes most of the time. Miles eats ravenously while Asher remains terribly distracted. Don’t worry, he’s still growing. The climbing of the apple trees. (Apples coming soon.) And um…yeah…happy small people. Last night we were eating outside and I looked around and said to my three people, Pretty soon there will be another one of us out here. Then she started hiccuping, shaking both of our bellies, as if to say I’m already here! Spring is good.
Yes. I am very very tall. Also. This… They are feeling the buds on the new little leaves. They said Wow, they’re soft. I say, Thank you Minnesota, for finally pulling off some spring. We’re reveling in it.
This post was written about a week ago, during Jen’s final days. ::::: There is a fuss. My Asher, he doesn’t want to “sweep” when it comes time for a nap and so I tell him he needs sleep because I can see how tired he is in his face, and anyway, his “fins must be awfully tired from all the swimming at the Y.” He calms down and turns toward me, curling himself as close as he can around my belly, both of us on our sides on the bed. His sister grows restless with my stillness and starts to roll and turn and bump and kick inside me. Asher’s face crumples with one last attempt to fight the nap and then he calms and starts to doze, his little fists holding tightly to his “maps” (directions for Legos). Our breathing starts to match and I stare at his suddenly closed and […]
Jen’s Story: Part One Jen’s Story: Part Two I shared some of Jen’s story (above), of her life and struggle with cancer, months ago here in this space. At that time Jen was still under-going treatments and my times over coffee with her were full of her energetic spirit, her light and her grace. In these last few months and then weeks, as Jen’s body failed her and it was getting harder and harder by the day, I would pray for her peace over and over again. And my heart would break for her goodbyes. Jen passed away earlier this week and her funeral is today. There are so many people feeling this loss, so many who were very close to this woman of vibrant joy. I’m hurting for them and in that place where I wish I could say something that would relieve some of that pain. I can’t, but I will […]
I posted this news to Twitter and Facebook yesterday, so many of you know, but yesterday brought really really GOOD news! I had another test done yesterday to follow up on the one that was done when we first came in on Monday. That first test had a positive result, proving that I was leaking amniotic fluid (this is how they assumed there was a rupture tear.) I was also having numerous contractions that they immediately starting getting under control with magnesium. Well, friends. Today, the test to check for amniotic fluid was NEGATIVE. Meaning, NOT leaking. Meaning either there was a false positive that first night and I was in preterm labor with no leaking, OR the ol’ uterus was leaking and then it was not. (I think the second option is pretty cool, considering all of the love and thoughts and prayers that were coming our way.) Around this same time, […]
Strangely, this is morning number two. It feels like more and less. This is all surreal, friends. Both sunrises, I’ve woken early with words wanting out of my two thumbs. A tedious task on a tiny phone, but I’ve got time. Yesterday I received more information on preemies. It became really real to me that we are going to juggle life at home and here, two hours away for quite some time. She explained that the baby will be on a nearby floor from my room. two floors. two rooms. I cried. I hadn’t since the night before with all the things going so fast and such surprise. now I cried over reality. Last night Miles had a hard time at bedtime. We do this routine, you know and it’s hard to feel its absence. We both want me to stand in the doorway and blow just one last kiss while he blows […]
I’m typing this post on my phone from my hospital bed. Ryan is sleeping on the chair-gone-cot, snoring. There’s the sound of my fan for white noise and of paper being released from a machine that keeps track of our baby girl. She’s 31 weeks and now the fluid around her has up and sprung a leak. They keep saying rupture, but I don’t love that because it sounds so severe. My body thinks contractions are a good idea. It’s really something how your body can do exactly what you think is a bad idea, but it happens. We live quite far from the hospital and when we came here yesterday we thought we’d just be gone for the afternoon. We really thought something false-alarmish was happening. Then all the words came at us in a rush and I couldn’t believe it. “The baby is coming sooner rather than later…transfer you by ambulance […]
Dear Friends, I wrote an article for a site called Everything Mom (a great place for all things motherhood-soul stories, resources, menu planning, free printables and much more.) Here is how the article starts… I was a drinking mother. Today I’m a sober mother…. You can read the rest over at Everything Mom, if you’d like. Thank you. I hope your day is GOOD.
30 weeks This photo is deceiving, really. I’m wearing a shirt over a shirt and the shirt over the other shirt is disguising where the back of my body begins. When I don’t have a shirt over a shirt, people say… Any day now, huh? Then I say, Any month now, actually! The end of June…heh. Then comes the confused gawking and stuttering, How can that be? Ryan and I have taken to calling the belly The Torpedo. It just shoots right out of my body and my belly button completes its pointed look. I’m a mom, this is what we do. We do things that change our bodies and exhaust us and there is so much torpedo-love involved. (But I will admit I walk all funny around the house saying OUCH a lot while voicing many other complaints.) I guess I’m just weary and waiting, waiting to not be so weary, even […]
notes to my children: Don’t forget to feel and then move on if things don’t go the way you thought they should go. Sometimes what you want isn’t even what you wanted anyway. Open doors for girls. Or better yet, open doors for anyone and everyone coming through. Please. Your brother will be your best friend, if you let him. Don’t pass up chances to go to far-away places even if it doesn’t seem like the right time. Marry someone who likes so many of the very same things that you like. Please. You need to trust your heart-gut, it speaks to you. It is a true voice that can keep you safe from danger and lead you to great things. You were made for those great things, like laughing or changing your corner of the world. There are dreams in your heart and you’ll surely forget them sometimes so circle back and uncover […]
She’s a transplant, I thought. Taken out of there, the place where she built a life and then placed here, where spring is hard to come by and everything that was once familiar from her childhood now feels foreign. Her stories are here and there and she is both places, even though where she was is emptied of her. Only her mind’s eye can put her back there. She can’t really be back there though, because she just can’t, for so many reasons and besides, new people are in her old home. They came along to fill the cavity that was left when she was pulled out. You have a lot of stories, I told her. She answered that she wishes some of them weren’t true. I’m sure, I said, and I started to think about how I wish some of mine weren’t true. The difference is that most of hers weren’t of […]
I watch them now, how they run from one end of the house to the other and I really do want to keep them here, in this space and time. I had this crazy thought, when my heart was bursting for the right now of them. I wanted to scoop them up and put them in a glass jar that’s just the right size to hold them, to screw on the tin cover, just to watch them, to keep them this way. Like lightening bugs. But of course that can’t be, they are not boys meant for bubbles or jars, they are my little people, and they’re here, free. So free it hurts. When I try to break free of the inevitable, to fight reality, to stop growth, trapping, controlling, even with the best of intentions, it suffocates. And yet, one part of my mothering heart wants to do it anyway, The Great […]
a pudgy little hand and a little chocolate around the corners of his mouth.something spilled on his sweatshirt.long eyelashes.chubby cheeks. An IPod and head phones…who knew. ::::: This morning he took a little Lego light saber and pretended to laser off the age spots on my hands. Isn’t that thoughtful? He would say, “This will hurt just a little bit…zzzz…zzzzt.” I was almost convinced it was working so I sat very still.This is a good start to a (finally) sunny day. Happy Monday, friends. Thank you for allowing me to pop up in your inbox and for reading my words, silly or serious. I appreciate you. ~Heather
I’ve been a SAHM for about five years. Now I have childcare a few days a week for a few hours and during that time I leave the house, my children in good hands, and I work. But when people ask what I do, I don’t really know how to answer. I wish we could all just say “I work” and leave it at that. Yeah, all of us, mothers or not, gainfully employed or not, because life is work. I wish that a work title wasn’t just another way for people to gauge each other’s worth because we’re all worth the same whether that makes some of us uncomfortable or not. So anyway. I’m working on things, a number of things, writing and editing and creating things. The thing is, only one of these gigs pays me (currently)…and only a little. So all this work can feel less valid, I mean, if […]
Back when I quit drinking, I gave Miles an explanation I thought he could understand. Then I was a bit astounded at his ability to understand. (I give him all the credit.) This morning Ryan looked at his phone and saw it was the 20th. For us, the 20th always sticks out, a number that shouts SOBRIETY! So he said some congratulatory things to me from the other room, calling them out. Miles figured out what his daddy was referring to and came to me, stood next to me and asked, “Does that mean you had another month of not drinking wine?” “Yes, that’s right, honey.” He beamed and bounced a little bit, gave me a quick little side squeeze and ran off to play. ::::: When I think back on the days when Asher was brand new and Miles was so much smaller, it always stings my heart. It was a hard […]
21 weeks We are past halfway to meeting her.Pregnancy, for me anyway, is one of those things that goesboth too fast and too slow,mixing itself up to be just the right amount of time. I think back to seeing that faint line on the test, way back in Octoberand it was yesterday and soooo long ago. Before we know it, she’ll be here and we’ll be looking at her likeshe was always hereand that seems really far away,before we know it. It’s just the right amount of fast and slow and thenthere will be this soft and holy HELLO. She kicked right below my belly button right when I typed that. She did. Or maybe it was a hello punch. I’m not sure, of course. But it was just right. Thank you for allowing me to pop up in your inbox and for reading my words, silly or serious. I appreciate you. ~Heather
Her profile is so much like her oldest brother’s profile. I wonder if she’ll be more like him, or more like Asher? Or just plain different than all of us? For now all we know is that her profile is a lot like her oldest brother’s profile, a boy who will turn six the week after she is born. Ryan and I walked through aisles yesterday and we talked about six years ago. We carried that registering-for-baby-things-gun that beeps. (Yes, we created a registry for a third baby. We did. For moms and grandmas to know what we need, since we did that thing where we got rid of everything somewhere between colic and hydrocephalus…or maybe that was after…whenever it was it was obviously too soon, but we thought we knew we were done. Stress will do that to you…until time passes…I think I’m rambling like this because registering feels greedy even if […]
I am here alone in a place with Internet access and food, trying to clean up my inbox and clear my head. But their conversation is turning my limbs light and my stomach in circles. They are men, with gray hair and pot bellies and low grumbling laughs, at the next table. They are reminiscing about the good old days, the “good old days” with women. Heat is rising in my cheeks and my heart is beating faster and everything in me wants to strangle, to rail, to fight, to scream…to get them to stop, to get them to see. Here you sit with all these years to know…and you still don’t know. They are talking so loudly…with so much pride, it sounds like bravado, and I feel sick. :::::Last night I was randomly struck with a thought, right before bed. I called out for Ryan, to come from the other room and […]
He runs at me with his arms out,he wants to be held. He takes a break from whatever he’s doingand he saysmommy mommy mommyover and over while he lungesfrom across the room. It’s like he hasn’t had water all dayand suddenly he sees a lakeand he doesn’t think for a second thatit’s a mirage,he’s just certainthat he’ll get what he needs. Sometimes he saysI love you I love you I love youI wuv yooouuuulike a deep groaning whinethat’s how he says it,like his heartis burstingand he’s running out of timewhile he runs across the room. When did I lose that kind of certaintyin the rushing for what I need,I wonder.SoI pull him inand hold him tightand I say I love you I love you I love youwith an intensity like hisfrom the way we both feel it. I won’t protect myself in fear of the day that he pushes me away,Mom…don’t!I will keep […]
Sometimes I have these epiphany moments that aren’t even really epiphanies but I don’t know what to call them. Then later, when I try to tell someone or think through my “aha moment” again, it just falls flat and I’m all, well that’s really nothing new. But sometimes the epiphanies that are set on repeat, the ones that come over and over again because I have to learn them over and over again? The ones that seem so simple and plain a little while later?They’re like an old hymn or a favorite movie I’ve seen a hundred times, the way that parts just grab a hold of me and feel new. Maybe because I forget so easily, but my heart remembers and so it sends a ping! to my head. Yesterday I was thinking about how strange it is that I knew anything at all Before (Before motherhood or marriage or sobriety), but […]
Something keeps running through my head. It just up and popped in there one day and now I’m trying to cling to it. Because it’s not the big stuff that I have a tendency to sweat. I’m a survivor of many big things, just like most humans…so I have practice at persevering through pain and carrying on. But I’ve also had a lot of practice with the daily grindand yet it still really gets to me so much of the time.I mean, the thing about the daily grind is that it really won’t ever end.I’m selfish enough to dislike that. stupid kitchen floor always dirty stupid where’s the broom ughworry worry worry (enter big thoughts) why why why are the Legos all over the floor again seriously?It’s 5 freaking 45 what in the world is this child doing UP?worry worry worry (enter more big thoughts)oh I get so sick of meals. Three a […]
Yesterday we decided to be done with Asher’s pacifier. say it ain’t so! (Actually, Ryan decided and I begrudgingly tried hard to see why this made sense on this particular day because yeah, I’m quite easy-going about such things, I’ll admit it–I don’t get all uptight about what the books or other people say about pacifiers.) (And yes, Asher is 3 and a half and still slept with a plastic thing in his mouth.) (Don’t judge.) So last night was the big night, if only on a whim, and so we prepared ourselves for a fight. We prepared ourselves to get up a lot. We tried to prepare Asher by talking about it throughout the evening, before bedtime. He argued a whiny attempt at changing our minds incessantly for the last ten minutes before bed, his enormous blue eyes looking up at us, begging. So we tried bargaining and praising and convincing, etc…infinity… […]
Christmas, for me, is about one enormous gift. On 12/24/08 I wrote,“I love to imagine the unexpected fulfillment of love that first Christmas, breathing for the first time in the manger. His love filled the air like a scent, and moved through the people who came to touch Him. Love was all around.” Today the boys and I were driving slowly through the dirty and snowy streets to make our way to a new place to eat. We were going to pick up lunch and then head home. I was going to take a break from opening the fridge and staring at its contents for too long, wondering what to make for meal 2 of 3 in this day. I had my heart set on something fresh and healthy and it felt like a gift, to not have to make it myself. But the parking lot was full, very very full and so […]
One minute he was on the couch and the next minute, my youngest boy had somehow scurried off, his bare little feet making not a sound. (He looks so tall lately.)I said, Where’d Asher go ? He was just right here. And Ryan shrugged and laughed because talking about Asher just naturally makes a person giggle, even grown men. I went through the dining room and looked through the living room. No Asher. Just silence and the dark except for the Christmas tree lights.I said, I bet he just up and went to bed! And he had. There he was, under the covers, turned on his side, his eyes scrunched closed the way they do for the faking of the sleep. It hadn’t been long enough for real sleep. He smiled a little and we said prayers and goodnight and then I tip-toed out even thought I didn’t have to because obviously he […]
My boys have been fighting about who gets to sit on the far end of the couch for about ten minutes. There is much growling and gnashing of teeth. Somehow this spot on the couch has become very special and this is a very heated discussion. Each of them have great logic for why they are the one that should sit on that spot. Humans are just too much. I’m not intervening unless someone gets hurt. I’m all about not hovering or mirco-managing. Or maybe I’m just feeling extra lazy today. It could totally be that. Yesterday on Twitter Casey and I were lamenting winter. She’s pregnant too and she said, hibernation and gestation is the name of the game. Now that keeps running through my head and making me feel better because I’m an exhausted gestating mother in the winter in Minnesota and I kind of wish I were a bear because […]
Yesterday it snowed and snowed. So much snow. I shoveled our driveway because the snow is just fluff and I’m a strong pregnant lady. I shoveled again later so Ryan would be able to get in the driveway after work. I swear the snow plows push more snow from the street to the end of our driveway than all the other houses in the world. I’m sure of it. So then I was tired. After my first round of shoveling the boys wanted to make cookies so we got out all the ingredients and then we needed the butter to soften to room temperature. Both of them knew what that meant and I was surprised. So I lay down on my side on my bed and was glad for the butter excuse. Asher found me within 30 seconds and he walked up to the end of the bed and said, Hi Mommyyyy in […]
My addict mind has often told me that it wasn’t that bad, that maybe I don’t even really have a problem. And then something happens like the night with the wine for the cooking of the food. The way I was suddenly crying over that smell, suddenly frozen with fear and regret. Lately these surprise attacks of a clear memory of what it was like come packaged in morning sickness. I’m feeling sick (all through the day) not because I drank too much the night before, but for a much less guilt-inducing reason. The Acorn. My pregnancy. I’m so grateful for the constant nausea since it’s a good sign things are going well, growing and creating, cells and neurons zapping and popping and actual organs beginning to make their shapes. And all at the same time, even while I feel that joy, I’m frequently hit with this intense sense memory complete with every […]
My hCG level went up. It went up. This is hopeful and good and now I’ve hit that feeling you get when you come down from a three day adrenaline rush and all you want to do is sleep for three days. But I’m going to go grocery shopping with my two toot knockers instead because I’m hungry. This is our Acorn… The Acorn doesn’t really have a stem like that, I just drew that in for kicks….but you knew that… Our little seed is smaller than an actual acorn at this point, but in the right place and on his/her own time clock. (I would like he or she to hurry up and get that little heart going so we can have our hopes confirmed, but for that, we’ll have to wait a couple more weeks.) (oooof daaaah) For now, we’re simply choosing to believe that everything is okay. That whole increased […]
