Today I’m sharing the one thing that keeps me semi-sane. When I have a lot on my mothering plate (i.e. all the time) (don’t we all?), I tend to get that caged animal/buried feeling, you know? I try staying on top of things with tools for organization and I try finding time for myself and I try taking deep breaths…but sometimes there’s only one thing (besides praying my face off) that works for me. To read about that, please visit the Bravado blog… and then have a really good weekend, okay?
I’m watching her discover her hand. She’s doing what babies do, she’s trying so hard to keep it in focus. I don’t know what that is or who it belongs to but I want it. Her little fist is clenched so tight and her eyes have the intensity behind them that shouts something like awe mingled with frustration. Her whole body shakes with need. She seems to be willing that hand of hers to do something it just will not do. Maybe she wants it to open. Let go. That thumb of hers has been driving her crazy for weeks the way it hides itself between pointer and index, like she’s playing the old trick, I’ve got your nose! She has never taken a pacifier and she wants her thumb but she just can’t seem to free it. I’m looking at her and I’m thinking me too because as much as I want […]
I am all chills and aches and so are they, the whole family. There is much whining, mostly from me. I have Mastitis on top of the bug or whatever we have and isn’t it funny that the first time Elsie slept through the night was my second night of Mastitis? So I didn’t even get to enjoy it because I was too uncomfortable and couldn’t sleep. See? Whining. Ryan had to take me to the doctor for antibiotics because everything just hurts and I didn’t want to drive and we were driving along and then went to Target to get Needed Things and there was a mom standing in front of the gas drops for infants and I walked right up to her and asked about her baby and then we talked about things that help those very fussy gassy babies. (That was all one huge run-on sentence and I’m not even […]
I didn’t think anything was wrong. I thought maybe I was just experiencing something normal that I hadn’t experienced before. But while we set up shop in triage and the doctor started running tests, we saw the anxiety in her eyes when she came to talk with us. She had run a test to check for amniotic fluid and sure enough, it was positive. So as fast as we had come in the door and I had gotten myself in the pretty little gown and on the bed, we were being whisked away by ambulance to another hospital with promises that it was the best place for a baby to arrive this early… {Please won’t you continue reading our story over at the Million Moms Challenge hosted by ABC News and The UN Foundation.}
He’s hilarious, this boy. He gets so so so excited about things like popcorn. He jumps up and down and flaps his arms because Friday night is movie night with popcorn. He also loves Fridays because my sister comes to be with him. They run errands and he calls her Auntie Slushy. That’s because she always gets him an icee slushy from the gas station. And then he says ridiculous things like, Daddy! ‘Go’ means poop AND ‘Go’ means drive! Um. Yeah. I worry about him because of his hydrocephalus. I mean, I worry about shunt malfunctions and when he doesn’t feel right, I hover a bit and I ask a lot of questions. But you know what? Other than that, he’s this boy that I don’t really have to worry about. He’s just so happy. He rolls with the punches. He overcomes. He loves life. He listens and he jumps up to […]
They are outside in a world I can’t see with ninjas and Star Wars and other strong fighters. Play is where they are. What now, brother? What’s next? There’s never an end to the story they create. Story begins with Play. They happen upon a treasure. A bug or maybe a rock or acorn. They see it this way because story is treasure and taking time for the freedom of fun keeps us fully alive and wanting to tell the story. Friends! Please join the Story Bleed team and the Go Go Gang in celebrating World Wide Day of Play by uploading a photo of your kids at play to the GoGoSqueeZ Facebook page. After the Go Go Gang on Facebook reaches 100,000 playful photos, GoGo SqueeZ will build a playground in an area that’s lacking a fun space to play! I love how this is such a simple way to do […]
If I were a box of cereal or a container of spice or a bag of brown sugar in a pantry, I’d be at the end of my shelf life. Expired. It feels like all of my nerve endings are exposed. I’ve got that everything-feels-like-sandpaper-rubbing-at-my-skin feeling. Too. Too much not enough. Not enough sleep, clarity, writing, health, time… A mother’s verse in every song is love-pain. I want all of this that hurts so much. I even want more of it when the day is done and quiet or when the womb is never going to do its stretching work ever again. Even though the quiet is good and more is not an option, I reach for more love-pain. In the dawn I say, it’s too quiet everywhere. Even when all I’ve wanted all day and all night is a buffer from The Loud. Suddenly quiet just doesn’t fit right. Quiet is the […]
We went to an art festival yesterday and the boys created. I love it when they do that. paper water ink flower by Miles (from a coffee filter) drying in the wind If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you probably already know, but my boys have been saying THE FUNNIEST things lately. Like yesterday when Miles went to greet Elsie after she woke up and he noticed she was sleeping in a sleep sack (in her crib) and he said, She’s like a little slug…a slug stuck in jail. And then the other day, Asher was in the bathroom and I heard him say, in a robot-like voice, You. have. 55. pees. So I said, What honey? and he answered, Oh nothing, that was just the toilet talking. Last night I was reading them books and the book said that a mother’s eyes sparkle like the stars in the sky. So […]
Miles with apple trees and apple picker I don’t know how to talk to them about God. I get worried that I should be saying more than I am. I want to tell them all about the way that I’ve come to know He’s there and He loves me and I know they can’t fully understand an invisible Being that made them up and follows them around quite yet or ever. Mystery. I mean, that’s what it sounds like to them. I know because of the confused questions they ask and yet mystery is exactly where He is, in the best possible way. He is story on a breath and inside all quiet things, good or bad all working itself out to matter and mean something. We are all just kids trying to make sense of things. More and more I realize that not knowing things is how we stay open, less […]
I’m whelmed over. On a whim I had the idea for Just Write and I quickly typed up a post inviting people to join me in free writing their moments and then WOW, did you ever show up, friends. I thank you so muchly. Let’s keep doing this, huh? I mean, your posts? They’re fantastic, and even if it’s going to take me all week to get through them, I’m going to read them all. There are some truly gifted writers out there! And together we’re discovering that if we get ourselves out of the way (thinking too much about what or how to say things), our words find freedom. THEN, it gets even better because as we write the memories of moments in our lives, the true beauty of every kind of moment shows up. I just love it. If you missed it this week, come back next week and join us. […]
We are driving along, just the two of us. I channel surf for tunes as Elsie Jane kicks and coos from her backwards position behind me. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is where I land and I sing it at the top of my lungs, windows down. Somehow she loves it when I sing. The working day is never done, but girls, they wanna have fuhunn. I pass by a house with much recycling out front. Cans and cans and bottles and bottles and cardboard boxes. All from alcohol. I think about how that used to be my end of the driveway and how it didn’t take long to add up and so I’d try to hide parts of it under cola types of things. I think about how, with the boys, I had to pump and dump a lot and worry because it is very simple: I was drinking too much. Maybe […]
Today I read an article in the October issue of Redbook magazine and was brought back to the beginning of my sobriety journey. Well, wait. Actually, I was brought back to my drinking days, too. The article is about drinking mothers and features myself and my friends Ellie and Corinne. I dont’ know if people who read that article will google The Extraordinary Ordinary and land here, but if so, I wanted to share something for them. So today I’m re-posting something from not long after I stopped drinking. I hope it speaks grace to anyone who comes along. :::: I am on a flight where you choose your own seat and this is new to me. At the same time that this empowers me, it also makes me feel like the unpopular kid in the lunch room, searching frantically for one of the last spaces and a welcoming face. Much like the […]
Do you want to write with me? I would love it if you would. {Edited to let you know: The current Just Write, complete with a linky for you, can be found HERE. Read on to learn how it works} I had this idea because I love both reading and writing things that are freely written in the moment, things that are descriptive of experience. Whether that be in the actual moment or within a day or two of living something, I don’t care. I just think the details need to be fresh for the writer and then typed without over-thinking in an effort to clarify. What ends up revealing itself when free-writing is that everything has meaning. That is a magnificent gift of writing. If we write from a free heart-gut place, our souls start speaking. So here’s my idea! Every Tuesday, here at The EO, we can link up our freely written […]
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 […]
I hope she always loves the mirror this much. I mean, not in a superficial way, but in a I-am-Elsie-Jane-and-I-am-so-lovable kind of way. Do you see the love in her Daddy’s face? I think that will help. {Today our Elsie Jane is three months old}
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 […]
