Blue grass, he says, comes from our time. These new guys are using it now, you know? Old time bluegrass is playing over the speakers at the coffee house. I’m waiting to hang out with the cast of Listen To Your Mother Twin Cities, in a corner by the window so I can see our theater across the street. His beard is stark white. His long gray hair puffs out from under his hat. See? Listen to that, he says to his friend. It’s so good. He’s right, it’s really good. The other man nods and takes a sip of his coffee, looking over the top of a crossword puzzle. These new blue grass bands now, you know how they’re trying to do blue grass? They can’t. They’re too young. You can’t do blue grass well when you don’t know anything yet. They don’t know anything yet! Some of the cast started to […]
It was a long day with so much sugar in it. Jelly beans, pastel ones, everywhere and chocolate eggs and Peeps. The boys landed flat on their backs on the couches when the company started to leave, head and stomach aches totally taking over. Elsie zipped around, bouncing off the walls, with her cheeks full of stolen jelly beans like a little chipmunk. At bedtime it was a crash and burn situation. There were several requests for more water, more hugs, more stories, more time. The sugar needed to finish doing them in. The two youngest fell silent first, which is almost always the case. Miles has these big blue eyes that stare into the dark longer, with all kinds of activity behind them, his mind zinging and zapping. His synapses are more active than all three of my sugar-over-dosed kids combined. He went to the bathroom, again. He came to get me […]
In junior high and high school, my friend Jessica and I talked to each other in little kid-like voices that we borrowed from the way her mom would talk to us. We all did it on purpose, just a silly way to have our own little way of communicating. With that tone and silliness, Jess would ask me WHY after every single thing I said. (Preparation for motherhood?) But WHY? she’d ask, over and over after every answer I gave. It always came to an abrupt end when she was satisfied–with always the same exact last response I could possibly come up with–because He’s God. Then we’d move on. What else can you say? There are no answers after that. ::::: I want the marriage equality debate to be simple, but nothing with this much emotion behind it is simple. This is a many-layered issue from all viewpoints. Seeing some of my Christians friends […]
These sesame rice crackers taste different today. Yesterday I thought they were the best thing I’d ever tasted. Today they just kind of taste weird. Same crackers. I chew ice, the kind that’s all blasted apart by an in-the-freezer ice maker. I don’t know how it makes ice and then you can push a button and it makes loud noises to give you bite-sized pieces, but I love it. Chewing ice is a sign of anemia, did you know that? I mean, if you chew it addictively, like me. I’m anemic. Again. You’d think I would just keep taking the iron supplements all the time forever and ever amen, but I don’t. I stop. Then I want to go back in time to be more responsible about my diet and taking iron so I don’t have a hemoglobin count thingy of 9. But I can’t go back in time, obviously. That happens in […]
Please welcome Allison to the EO today, friends. She’s a gifted writer that I had the pleasure to meet in person this past weekend. I’m so honored to have her here. ::::: When I got married, I lost everything. It sounds strange to say that, and I’ve hesitated using those words for a long time. I wanted to protect my husband, who has bent over backwards to love me and invite me into his life and give me the things I’ve always wanted. And there’s already so much fear of marriage for my generation — I didn’t have the heart to add to it. I wanted to be one of those girls who, when you run into her at church weeks after her wedding, says, “Marriage is so awesome!” She’s practically floating, blissful, a little flushed from her love of it all. I wanted to melt in and around those words, like she did, the […]
The truth is, I was scared of her, and I will be again and again, but not right now. Today I’m remembering that we’re simply here to learn alongside each other. She’s my not even two-year-old daughter, and I have feared her. Maybe it’s not her, exactly, but rather, her fierce femaleness. Even the very best things, like femininity, can be terrifying and misunderstood–a girl, a lady, a woman–beautiful and complicated and strong, gentle, sweet and soft and then mean. I only know so far that my Elsie Jane will never stop surprising me, and that’s maybe what brings on the fear–the unknown. She goes from slightly shy to an uproar of out-going. She goes from falling asleep quickly and quietly for many nights to fighting it again night after night, like she forgot she was trying to win at something and now she’s going to take it to a whole new level. […]
A whisper, Asher! Get back up there! I tip-toe over to their doorway and look up at the top bunk. Asher opens one eye and quickly closes it again. Caught. Asher, don’t peek over the edge. Leave your brother alone so you don’t get in trouble. I half whisper half hiss this and then take a deep breath, trying not to get angry over bedtime stalling. There are much bigger things to need big breaths over, if I can only remember that. I sit down again and listen to the dog snore for a minute, waiting for any more stalling or messing around from the boys’ room. Elsie starts to call out. Mama, Mama, Mama… I hear one pacifier hit the wood floor and I wait to hear the other. Nothing. Quiet. Except for the snores from the dog, who has plopped herself down in the middle of the living room on Ryan’s […]
The man on the news said the temperatures are going up, but for now we’re still hiding mostly inside, under blankets, never without slippers. Put on your mittens, where’s your hat, put your snow pants in your back pack. These bundles of joy are always bundled. Even the dog rushes back in like she’s being chased by backyard chickens, but she’s not because they are safe and warm in the garage coop. I’m pretty sure Elsie believes all chickens live in garages, even if we move them back and forth when the temperatures will let us. My friends from warmer states wonder how we can survive this, and I don’t really know. It’s just what we do. So much of what all of us everywhere do is just what we do. Until something changes, like the way spring sneaks in and reminds us what it feels like to get through. All this blanket […]
Elsie Jane, my baby turned little girl, just walked by. She’s drag-pulling behind her a wooden wheeled dog on a string, upside down. That little brown toy puppy looks a little distraught over his fate, wood back scraping the wood floor, wheels in the air. Oh look, I told her. It’s upside down. You guys’ll move along a little easier if you turn it over. Elsie stopped abruptly and turned around with a big dramatic gasp, looking down at her puppy. Daddy came up behind her just then and leaned down to help. He turned the toy pup over on its wheels and off they went. Forward. :::: This post was freely written in response to yesterday’s Three Years Sober The words here are a metaphor sort of thing for yesterday’s post. :::: This is the 69th installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.} I […]
There are lines in the wood on the bedside table. Just one small area with slight scratches in a circle, from the bottom of my tea cup. There’s another deeper and lighter scratch from Elsie pulling my mug across the tabletop right as I said oooh, don’t touch. These lines are familiar now, a place to set my tea cup every night when I climb under the covers to read. I notice that bigger and deeper scratch on the table sometimes. I think of Elsie. The way she climbs and pulls everything off of things and is so fearless and yes, defiant. I smile, even though it’s not easy sometimes, these days with a toddler so fierce. This girl is mighty and she will let you know with her roar. Then she’ll come close and put her head on your lap while softly saying aaahhhh. This is the only way she has to […]
{That’s right, after a two week vacation, Just Write is back. Please free write the details of your moments along with me and link up at the end of this post.} I parked and walked Miles into school this morning. Instead of dropping him at the curb, I skipped that line and parked and crossed across the parking lot with him. As we walked I jokingly asked him if he wanted a pretend hug or a real hug, in front of everyone. He stifled a laugh and and drew out his response. Mooooom. He can’t be caught hugging me, or laughing at my hilarious jokes. No way. Okay, I’m going to go now, I said. I tried to push away that feeling that always hits me when he walks toward the school without me. On the drive home I thought about how I know the way so well. There are so many potholes, […]
I share this song every year and this year more than ever, it means so much. in the midst of the pain and darkness, love was all around Preparations were made For his celebration day He said “eat this bread and think of it as me Drink this wine and dream it will be The blood of our children all around The blood of our children all around” The blood of our children all around Father up above, why in all this anger have you filled Me up with love Fill me love love love Love love love Love love And the blood of our children all around So the story goes, so I’m told The people he knew were Less than golden hearted Gamblers and robbers Drinkers and jokers, all soul searchers Like you and me Rumors insisited he soon would be For his deviations Taken into custody by the authorities Less […]
I saw it on Twitter first. My sandwich is still sitting there half eaten. It will not go down, not now. It will sit here with grief and me and my choice to fight fear with everything else I have and I have words and this random space on the web and that’s why I’m here. I didn’t know where else to go because my first instinct to gather my children from daycare and school is, as much as it feels right, not. It is a fear response and I will not bow to fear because unspeakable tragedies may force it up and out but I do not have to keep it here with me. Fear is where it begins, I think. This kind of evil is born of fear, somewhere back there or right here, in the lives of the crazed minds connected to hands connected to guns going off in the […]
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 […]
{posted with permission, after reading each other’s words and deciding to post together. Vikki is co-directing LTYM Minneapolis with yours truly, and it’s a crazy good thing to be working with her.} Dear Vikki, I know there are a lot of political issues and I care about those issues, but yesterday (election day) you were heaviest on my heart. Maybe because we had lunch this week. Maybe because you shouldn’t have to be an issue. Isn’t that such a big part of it? People were voting about you, not just marriage, even if they don’t see that. That’s how it must feel. That’s how it feels to me. I try to imagine what it would be like if I were you, and I think I’d feel like a puppet and not a person–a stereotype, a label, a cardboard cut-out signage version of the all of me. All these months, while ads blared and […]
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 […]
I have received more emails and comments about PTLS than anything else. By far. There are far too many women out there googling their symptoms and landing on my blog. I’m still not totally comfortable calling what I deal with PTLS. There’s so much mis-information about this. Most of the medical community scoffs at such a “syndrome” saying that it’s impossible and it’s all in our heads. They say that the idea that we’re struggling because of a tubal ligation is one that doctors who do reversals created to keep themselves in business. That’s interesting, because no one told me my symptoms could be related to my tubal. I didn’t google it. I just knew. It’s called intuition or a gut feeling and as invalid as that may seem to many medical professionals, it’s a reality. We know our bodies. We know when something is wrong and I knew for certain that something […]
I was hungry and pinning things on Pinterest. I started pinning every food pin that looked even slightly tasty to me. It didn’t take long before I was salivating and oooohing and aaaahing and wishing I was eating all the pins. Crock pot chili- done in 20 minutes! Pumpkin cookie cheesecake melt-away touch-of-cumin bars! Fig Hazelnut Ricotta Crispy Maple Crostinis! Seven layer dip with 7 new layers for dipping! The pretty pictures! Then I had an idea. Instead of salivating and pinning, I could try… doing the pins! Instead of just collecting them! You know! DOING them! I could click open something from my foodies board and I could GO MAKE that SOMETHING IN THE KITCHEN! So that’s what I did. I got up from the chair and I made things! From now on, I’m going to DO the things I PIN. At least the doable things, anyway. Of course, I can’t […]
Dec, 2008 I typed in the title of this post and then got all shaky and had that limbs going numb kind of nervous feeling that comes from your core. Every time I even talk about Asher’s hydrocephalus it can turn into this. I’m okay, but I’m not okay, and that’s okay. That’s true for Asher, too. Over the last three years, I’ve slowly started to dip my feet in a deeper hydrocephalus knowledge pool, not by googling (THANK GOD) but by asking Dr. P. the hardest questions and thinking all the way through things rather than pushing away uncomfortable possibilities. Hydrocephalus is not a death sentence, but the reality is that it can be. 50% of shunts malfunction within two years. That percentage rises as more years go by, and malfunctions are too often deadly. You know what? That scares the hell out of me. I know I can’t sit forever in […]
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 […]
Maybe you love funny and irreverent with a tender dose of mother-love. Or maybe you like poetry and stories that’ll make your heart all swell-y. Maybe you want to learn something, about motherhood and writing or how to chase dreams while being home with a baby. Whatever you love to read, I’m sure you love relatable and real…so here you go, mama friends. All different books by all different mothers for all different mothers… Fellow Austinite and successful creator behind glamajama, Heather Schuck is honest about the inevitable imbalance that is motherhood and work. What needs to give? How do you go about painting your life on YOUR canvas, the way you’d love to live it? Heather answers these questions and so much more in her vulnerable and inspiring book, The Working Mom’s Manifesto: My friend Robin O’Bryant is the most honest mother you can find, most likely. She’ll tell you […]
We were walking down to the dock and one of my all-my-life friends was talking about income tax changes and how things got all wonky with moving to a different state. It was all like a foreign language to me, since numbers were involved. We talked then about how weird it is for us to sit around talking about things like taxes and school choices for our children and what we look for when we’re buying a home. It’s so adult of us to talk about these things, but I look at you and think you look the same as you always have, way back to childhood. Who are these grown-ups? Shouldn’t your parents be taking care of that whole tax thing? and we laugh. We sit three in a row on the edge of the dock and splash our feet in the water. It’s the most beautiful late afternoon, a breeze coming […]
Somehow I have an extra five minutes before leaving for BlogHer ’12 in New York City. I’m sitting with the boys in the living room while Elsie and Daddy sleep. I’ve been up too many times in the night and then up too early and that’s just how it is, so I won’t go on and on about the sick in our house and what a trying week we’ve had. It was hard. I’ll just keep it at that. Death by a million paper cuts. I’m going to drive away in a few minutes with two bags and in one of them is my breast pump. (Sorry male readers.) (All three of you.) (You might want to not finish this little paragraph.) I’ll be hiding here and there on my days of travel and while at the conference, while running the Serenity Suite, to pump. And I know I’ll cry and I know […]
We woke up a little later than usual on Sunday. This only happens when our early bird alarm clock that goes by the name of Miles actually sleeps past 5:45. Oh yes, an early bird he has always been. To roll over to peer one-eyed at the clock and find the first number is a 7 is a true gift. I made coffee and put my feet up, held the iPad and did pretty much nothing. Ryan shifted next to me, he’s always moving. Maybe boys never grow out of that. His newspaper was making those whispering and rustling sounds that only come from those good ol’ feather-light newsprint pages. Asher climbed up next to me and handed me “James and the Giant Peach”. He wanted to know what was going to happen next. Elsie took dominoes from their tin container, one by one, setting them scattered across the table and onto the […]
Have you been applying your wrinkle cream? Are your teeth white enough? What color polish did you choose while you had that mani-pedi? Or are you waiting until the day before to make sure it’s as fresh as possible? Have you been shopping and packing, packing and shopping? Did you get your hair freshly coiffed on just the right day so that it doesn’t look like you just had it done while it also looks totally fresh and healthy? No, I haven’t been watching you. But I have been applying my wrinkle cream and looking more closely at my teeth. I’ve been thinking of when to fit in a pedicure and wondering how many people will notice that I bite my nails. I didn’t go BlogHer shopping, but I’ve been standing in front of my closet wondering what fits and what doesn’t and then holding things up with other things, asking myself which […]
The dresses really do make me swoon and I don’t really swoon over a lot of things. Except my kids and their eyes and hair and the way they smell. SWOONABLE sniffy goodness. But I digress… Katie Hanson is the owner and creator of the handmade goodness that is The Crafty Chic. I’m lucky enough to live very near her, so I went to see her (and her gorgeous smile–seriously best smile ever) at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday and ended up coming home with this dress for Elsie Jane: I bet you had no idea that fabric owls could scream, WE BELONG TO EJ! but they do! Oh how I love the fabrics that Katie chooses when she sits down to sew. Aside from the beautiful little dresses, Katie has Nook/Kindle cases, smart phone cases, headbands, skirts, camera strap covers and MORE: and now Katie is doing us a solid […]
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 […]
Nope, I was not driving while photo-ing. But I am giving everyone suckers every time we go somewhere far, even Elsie Jane no matter if her thighs and toes get all sticky or not. Aaah, the quiet! ::::: You won’t believe it. We started off on our road trip yesterday, right? And we were prepared for a rough time, since EJ pretty much hates road trips. But then, this beautiful thing happened in which… it went really well. Maybe I’m a pessimist about such things, but I was utterly shocked and so was Ryan. Is it naive of me to give a whole lot of the credit to the Chrysler Town and Country we’re using? Does it sound like I’m just saying that because I’ve been given the use of this vehicle for one week for the sake of review? Well. I’m not. I sincerely love this vehicle, and my dear husband, who […]
