I am the kind of girl who buys a ginormous five dollar mirror at a thrift store because there must be a good place for it but I don’t know where. I am the kind of girl that has the ginormous mirror in the basement for over a year. I am the kind of girl who walks by said ginormous mirror every day on the way to the laundry and feels sort of guilty. I am the kind of girl who decides very randomly on a nothing-else-going-on kind of day that the mirror must go on the wall right over there right this very minute, after all this time. (Thank you Ryan and Dad.) I am the kind of girl who notices that the orange curtains can be seen at the same time as the orange pillows now because of the mirror. I am the kind of girl who has to […]
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!)
In just over a week, Elsie and I will leave on a jet plane and head to California for our first trip together! We’ll be attending the BlogHer conference in San Diego. I’m so excited to show off my sweet Elsie, to get some face time with far-away friends and to be a part of the Serenity Suite again this year. The suite was quite the success last year and it was an honor to help provide this space for people to relax and get some support in the midst of a beautifully busy conference experience. With Serenity Suite planning in full swing again this year, Maggie and I wanted to be sure attendees have all their questions answered in one place. You’ll find our best efforts to cover all the suite info. below. If you’re attending the conference, please stop by and visit us! ::: What is the Serenity Suite? Open throughout […]
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. […]
