let's give some thanks, shall we?

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Good food, good company, no consumerism, and thanks. Here's what I've got to give thanks for today:

Good health, strong marriage, sweet children, clean water, cuddling in bed with my husband and kids while I type this, coming snow, that my husband has the means to support our family plus something extra to save and give back to the community, and the sweet bare curiosity and honesty of childhood.

I'm also extremely thankful that some things have changed. I find myself suddenly in a different space--where I don't long for the relief of a sitter or Mitch's getting home at night, where I look forward to hanging out with the kids, letting Frances help me make the cranberry sauce or Clark help me do the laundry. I'm aware that it was a mere three weeks ago that I thought I couldn't be around them at all. So what changed? it is me? Is it them?

More on that later. For now, just thanks. And off to a hike with my sweet husband, my shrieking son, my cooperative daughter, and our funny dog. Happy day of thanks to you too!

the moments to see

Ages ago someone posted an anonymous comment on the blog that just said, "You sure do complain a lot." Most likely some random surfing bloodshot human, probably childless, but it bothered me a good bit. I conjured up responses in my head like, "the blog is, after all, about the challenges of being a mom..." In the end I just deleted the comment.

Today, though, I gave the blog address to a new friend, and just this minute I took a look at the blog and read the last few posts to see what she was going to see when she looked it up. And damn, I sure do complain a lot.

That's unfortunate.

Because there are certainly lovely moments. There are transcendent moments. Moments when the light comes in all soft around the edges. Another blog I won't post a link to writes about exactly those moments, and I will admit that when I took a look at it (having been directed there by its being voted one of the top 50 mom blogs on Babble) I almost laughed. Yes, it's sweet, and grateful, and celebratory of life. But it also seemed like a bunch of crap to me, somehow. Not that I believe the blogger doesn't experience things in that light, (though, does she, really?) but why do other people want to read about it? I don't know... I feel like the transcendent moments are more private. The crappy ones are the ones you need company for. They're the ones we need to share so we don't feel so alone in our frustrations. Hence this blog.

However. One might argue that it's good to fine tune the focus on those sweet moments, let our eyes go lazy and our gaze drift on the more challenging ones. That would be nice. An nice way to live, to pay more attention to the laughing than to the yelling. Okay, perhaps I could use more of that.

Yet it's the challenging moments that call us, that ask of us the most that we have, ask us to look hard at the things that need seeing. Isn't there some danger to putting them aside? We can't live our lives in soft focus. (And who knows, maybe she doesn't. Maybe she just wants to capture those moments in the blog. Yet I have to ask: why? Why do you want to share them? Is it a kind of art? Capturing the sweet? The dainty? What about the powerful? No judgement, though.) It is a spiritual journey, after all. It's also a nerve-fraying-screaming-and-petrified-cheese-under-the-carseat journey, which makes us forget it's a spiritual journey. Perhaps we could remember if we could hear ourselves think.

Or maybe the moments that try us are just more interesting. They show us our mettle.

Moving on.

My new camera is lovely. Here is its rendition of JOY, or what we did Saturday morning:

And here's LOVE:

This is Leo. He lives across the street. He and Frances love each other. Love. Like the real, true, affectionate, whole kind. He's moving away at christmas, and my heart will break for her. For now, though, here they are. Happy. 

bbbbbetter

Turns out that particular freak out had much to do with hormones. Did I mention I got the IUD with the hope of eradicating PMS? Oh well, it's early; my body is still adjusting. And currently I blame the IUD not only for the hysteria itself but also for its wacky intensity, because it was way wackier than my usual PMS episodes. Hormones are strange things. Anyway, things are much improved over here, and I'm a much saner person.

In other news: Clark has a stutter. It's kind of cute, though am I allowed to say that? It started maybe 2 weeks ago and the past few days have actually been better. It's only the first sound of a sentence, and as he tries and tries to get it out, he gets louder and louder until he's shouting and red in the face. After about a week he realized he could speak clearly if he whispered, which I found to be pretty nifty of him. But then he started to stutter in the whisper.

It's a normal thing for kids to go though, I know. They say there's only need for concern if it goes on 3 months or longer. I'm not worried.

Also, Frances is a gem right now. Which is particularly fabulous given the terror that is my son. She's so helpful and patient when I have to deal with him. She's also very very affectionate, kissing, hugging, generally wrapping herself around me, telling me she loves me, wants to play with me, wants me to be with her. Aaaah, at least they're not horrible at the same time. (I probably shouldn't write that. My next post could be about what kind of padded cell they're going to put me in since they've both become intolerable.) For now, though, I can at least see that my patience comes and goes, rather than is gone. I was really worried for a minute. Thanks for all the concern and the love. It helps--really.

Plus, I bought a big fancy camera. Results to come.

Top 50 mom blogs... vote for your favorite (or for mine. :)

http://www.babble.com/babble-50/mommy-bloggers/nominate-a-blogger/

my undoing

I have no dishwasher and no camera. Damn the modern need for this gadgetry! It turns out I live in a very fragile and procarious tower (midieval stone and tiny window variety) where one brick goes and the whole thing tumbles down. I'm falling apart over here. I couldn't even get it together enough to go vote. And I really wanted to vote.

At first I thought it was the dishwasher that put me over the edge--the final straw--, or simply the snowball effect of sitters who cancelled and Mitch's migraine that put him completely out of commission for bath/bedtime routine the night before my embarrassing emotional collapse in the middle of the gym (while on a machine, no less. I had to flee to find a more discreet place to disintegrate). But it wasn't the dishwasher. It's Clark. Clark Clark Clark, who used to be my sweet baby, my agreeable one, the easy going, the less intense, the one who could adjust and flex and roll. I somehow thought his personality would allow him to bypass this developmental stage. How silly of me.

Let me be clear. He is no longer a sweet baby. He is two and a half, and he is a monster. MONSTER. Perhaps we are at the height of the thing? The most intense it will get? Perhaps he's not still building to his full monsterdom? Oh please let that be so. For everyone's sake, let that be so, and let this peak not last long, let us soon come down the other side oh so gently.

A MONSTER. It's gotten to where I don't want to go anywhere--the library or the carousel at the play museum or the hardware store--because there is a 100% chance he's going to be incredibly difficult about something. Getting in his carseat. Getting out of his carseat. Which carseat to sit in. Which song is on. The fact his blankie fell on the floor.

He's got a terribly traumatic life.

But the thing that undoes me is the 100% chance that once we get to the bagel shop, farmer's market, grocery store, he's going to throw a fit about something he absolutely cannot touch, climb, hit. Mr. Destructo coming through! I simply cannot take it. So we go nowhere.

He still throws fits at home, of course; about my telling him he can't throw Little People at the dog, or hit the cat with the wiffle bat, or climb daddy's dresser. Today we had a fit with Every Single diaper change.

It exhausts me.

It's not that I'm embarrassed about his displays in public. It's not that I feel like an incompetent parent because he's delivering them. I know it's a stage and it will (eventually...!) pass, but somehow the shrieking or the flinging--or something--has tripped my panic button and I don't know how to turn it off. I feel like a crazy person. (A couple of days ago I seriously wondered if I could come back from it, thought maybe we'd have to hire a full time nanny for a month or so, so I could lie in bed and read The Age of Innocence and the New York Times Magazine. I'm way behind on current events.)

I'm trying. I'm doing all the right things; going to the gym, being social, doing laundry. I have absolutely no motivation to organize and prepare food, and that's a bummer for everyone. But a few dinners of mac and cheese never hurt any kid. And a few dinners of cereal for mom and dad never did either. Hopefully the tide will turn and my energy will come back, my motivation will return. This hideous gray rainy weather isn't helping I'm sure. I'm holding out for the pretty white snow...

also

I've lost my camera again. Or more specifically, Frances has lost it. Just so you know. No pictures anytime soon, unless I cave and go buy the big fancy one I've been wanting. Which I just might do.

what is there to fear?

Boy, I'm really having trouble these days getting to the blog. Part of that is because in my free time I go to the attic, to my new painting studio, with which I am in love. This is a good thing, of course, but I also need this blog; I need it for for me, for me to process and record and extrapolate, to make some sense and order of the disorderly world. And I apologize to those loyal followers who check back often: YOU! You are some of my favorite people, the ones in it with me.

Sometimes I feel like all I do it try to get breathing room. Each art activity, trip to the park, sitter I schedule, space I declutter, are all done with the goal of feeling calmer, more organized, revived. I can't seem to revive.

But it occurs to me that there is no point in revival, just like there's no front of the line of traffic on the highway; there's always more traffic, and always more space to declutter, sweaters to mend, laundry to fold, dinner to cook. There's never going to be a time when it's all done and I can sit and read my book (or write on my blog) while feeling free and relaxed.

There are things I want to do with the kids--projects--but it's like I can't get myself rested enough (emotionally, physically) to put them together. If I wanted to make excuses we could talk again about my headaches... And it's true; much of the time I'm so depleted from the migraine and hangover after that I'm a success if I get people fed.

I feel like I'm waiting for the storm to pass, hanging on. But the truth is that there is no storm, and there is no passing. It's just life. Instead of hanging on and waiting, I should be letting go--falling falling, and enjoying the wind and rain.

venting venting complaining and venting

I know I do a lot of complaining on this blog. I would like there to be more questioning and celebrating and a little less complaining, but there it is. Perhaps that was part of the blog's initial intent anyway--a place to vent. (That's not true. I hoped it wouldn't be just a place to vent--that's for journals and coffee shop napkins--but a place to examine concepts with some consciousness.) One of the reasons I've been absent here for the past short bit is because I couldn't come up with much to write that wasn't complaining: about the strep Frances and I had (deargod did that hurt) or how although she seemed well within 5 minutes of starting her antibiotics it took me days and days of lying in bed without the energy to lift a spoon of soup to my lips; about the two-kids-and-one-me air travel which wasn't actually so bad and involved only a moderate amount of screaming ("Sit down, Clark. You must sit down on your bottom." "AAAAaaaahhhhhaaaahhhhaa!") and only one spilled drink in someone's-not-mine lap and seat, and I even had a change of clothes handy; about how I mistakenly thought that traveling by myself wasn't going to be the same energy expenditure as regular single parenting because we were going to see fun people and do fun things, but in fact it was rather exhausting; and now--now!--after coming home to my sweet sweet husband who not only greeted us at the airport with a rose for me but also straightened the whole house--our first weekend back and the excitement of being with Mitch because it's fun and because it gives me a hand, and Mitch spent most of the weekend in bed with some unidentifiable illness. Sigh.

I mean, really. My life does not suck. I do not live in war torn Serbia. I do not support these kids by myself with two low paying crappy jobs. I am not alone, abused, hungry. I live in a very nice house with a wonderful and supportive husband and disposable income. I have the freedom to choose whether to work or stay home with these children. My family are all healthy. Yet still I complain.

While we were in North Carolina I talked with one of my oldest friends about this: about the frustration and underlying general dissatisfaction that seems to come with caring for young children. My therapist assures me it is particular to this stage of my life and theirs; that staying home with small children is isolating and frustrating and makes you feel the loss of self, of identity, and that eventually the kids will grow and need me less, and things will all change.

Not that I need to tell this to anyone who has ever had a child, but it's just so emotionally exhausting. The crux of the thing is that you're never off duty. Even when they're finally (finally!) asleep in their beds and you and your glass of wine are settled on the couch for some mindless entertaining 30 Rock, they could resurface at any moment. You still have to listen for their calls, their cries, have to be ready to console or convince or clean up vomit, can't drink too much of that wine lest someone wakes with a fever of 105 and you have to drive to the hospital. You listen in your sleep, always ready and trained to act.

I've mentioned before my friend Sylvia's comparison of parenting to the trenches of war: hunkered down, ready to act, sleeping with one eye open. I really don't want to make light of war experiences, but it is a funny way to think about it.

I'm done. I feel much better.

No, one more thing: when will Clark stop flinging across the room everything he touches? When will he stop shrieking in response to any form of correction or suggestion or coercion or discipline? When will he actually play with toys rather than just dumping tubs of them on the floor and walking away? These things will pass, right?

Okay, now I'm done.

And since I'm done, I will tell you one uncomplaining thing: I set up my painting studio! I bought paints and funky gel texture mediums! I can't wait to get up there! I just have to find the time... and that's just a fact, not a complaint.

causality

Got an IUD. While I know that our contraceptive decisions may not be of any interest to you at all, I tell you this because 1) it brought back some pretty strong emotions and memories from our infertility days when I had to have that horrific test done where they tell you it might feel "a little crampy"as dye is shot into your uterus, and in fact you end up nearly coming off the table, and 2) it hurt like a motherfucker. Really hurt. Really. For several hours. Even though the gynecologist told me it would feel nothing like the dye test, liar she is. I'd even taken six (six!) ibuprofen an hour before. The plus side, besides contraception, is that it could help enormously with my PMS and mood swings (which, for everyone involved, are more trying than I want to tell you) and even with my headaches. I'll take almost any help with my headaches.

I didn't start this blog until Frances was 8 months or so, so I wasn't blogging when we were going through the 4th circle of hell, otherwise known as Infertility. Before I participated in that particular train wreck, I didn't understand when people said it was hard. Hard how? Why would it be hard? We didn't end up having to go the distance: Frances was conceived on our fourth try with Intra-Uterine-Insemination (IUI) rather than In-Vitro-Fertilization (IVF), so I still tasted the bitter pill, but didn't have to injest bottle after tiresome bottle. There are people out there who do a better job talking about it than I... the blog A Little Bit Pregnant is wonderful (and very funny) in exploring what infertility does to a person and how one slogs through it with some amount of sanity intact.

It's Hard because it makes impersonal and clinical something that should be the realm of story and fable, something surrounded by deep heart desires, by yearning. It's a private thing, this desire for children, for creating history, for connection and relation and love, and here you are on a table with your feet in the stirrups.

Also, you have no control.

But not only that: the logistics of infertility treatments provide a lovely roller coaster of hope and emotion. The third day of my cycle (day 3 of my period) I would begin taking oral hormones, and I would nurture this tiny sprig of hope that perhaps this time... Every few days I would go in for an internal ultrasound (a rather phallic wand, not very comfortable) where on the screen I would see the number of eggs developing that month. There they are. Hope. Each time I was there they would get bigger and bigger, until it was time. Then I would give myself a shot at home which guaranteed ovulation so precise the doctors knew the moment the egg was released. Hope hope hope. The insemination part was a turkey baster type of thing, just at the right time, no better opportunity, and now just up to the swimmers to get there. I didn't have to--as with IVF--have my eggs "harvested", removed and fertilized in the petri dish, a painful detail from what I'm told. After the insemination there was the waiting. Waiting. Ten days, which might seem short but absolutely is not. Then. After all that, after you're up up up at the top of the hope hill, you wake up one morning to the bright beginning of your period, and down down down you come. But lest you get too comfortable down there in the pit of hopelessness, in two days you will start another round of hormones and "this time," you think. "Maybe this time."

Oh god it's hell.

Why was I telling you this? Oh yes, the IUD. Well, enough about that.

A Little Bit Pregnant brought up an interesting question recently: does going through infertility hell make you a better parent? (ostensibly because of the sheer gratefulness of finally being pregnant.) But I say no. Grateful as you may be, blessed as you may feel, success granted through all the times you pledged to be a perfect parent if you could only become one forgodsakes, regular day to day parenting still puts you in that spot. That spot without much forest for the trees. You still have the regular frustration of unending care for someone else, and the needs of these little people are great as well as immediate.
The abovementioned blog says it nicely:

I don't think infertility has made me a better parent.  If anything, it's made me acutely aware that I am an average parent.  If I'm more grateful than I'd otherwise have been -- and whether that's the case is utterly unknowable -- well, so what?  Sometimes the only thing the gratitude buys me is the knowledge that I should do better, and the sadness when I don't.

Which sounds like a big damn downer.  But I actually think it's beautiful.  Isn't this what we all hope for when we seek to become families?  The chance to try, maybe fail, and then grow?


That's an awfully nice way to frame it. Yes, I believe that no matter what you go through to get here, here is where we all are. Welcome! I think I'll stay awhile.

happy happy birthday birth day.

A nice little quote to start us off:

The most important thing she’d learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one. — Jill Churchill

Oh, I've been thinking about this quote, and every time I do it makes me feel better. Because, of course, I am a good mother in a million ways, but somehow I so often forget that and focus on my lack of perfection. 

Being the good mother that I am, I spent all of last saturday--and I mean all--baking a castle cake. Frances was four on sunday and the party was by royal invitation. We had mostly princesses, one knight, one prince, and one determined royal firefighter. I was a little surprised by the lack of kings and queens. Perhaps these little people recognize their true lack of power and go instead for simple prestige. 

And I made princess hats (what is the actual name for them? the cone shaped things with veils out the top...) out of elmo birthday hats from Clark's party last year: I covered them with foil, cut the tip off, and pulled netting and ribbons through. I cut a few crowns for the fellas out of posterboard and covered them with foil also. They got to decorate these with little stick on gems from Michaels. Mitch erected a "castle" in our family room from a tent, a big blanket, and a broom, and inside we spread out the tea set on a footstool. It was the hit of the party. (Frances is third from the left in this picture, in the lighter pink.)

After the party Frances kept telling me, "You're the best mommy in the whole world." Ten hours on a cake will do that to you, it turns out. I'd been thinking about the cake for some time, trying to figure out how to put it together, or perhaps how to decorate the yummy Ultimate White Cake I was going to buy from Wegmans. Somewhere I heard the suggestion to use upside down ice cream cones for castle turrets and that seemed like a good idea except that I couldn't figure out, once you've frosted the thing, how to get it from your hand onto the cake. You see what I mean? In the end I felt brilliant: I thinned out the frosting with milk, used a pastry brush to paint it on the cone, and then rolled the cone in silver and purple sprinkles. They were lovely. I do wish I'd used a different color of gumdrops, maybe yellow, for the tops of the turrets... the purple doesn't really show up, but I'd already been to the store twice and wasn't going back again. 

The party was lovely. I boycotted the tradition--at least around here--of pizza before cake, which made me a little nervous and feel a bit like an outlaw. (When I brought out the cake, Frances said, "Mommy, where's the pizza?") And I boycotted the goodie bag, as I plan to do for the rest of my kids' lives. Good grief, they've just gotten free cake and drinks and maybe pizza, plus bouncing or painting or some other intentionally fun activity, and now they need goodies in pretty bags too? I don't get it. Isn't the party enough? But I digress.

Just before cake I had the kids line up outside the Entry to the Royal Ballroom and I recruited an older sibling as a trumpeter while each child was announced and introduced to the Royal Court. It might have been my favorite part. Really, can it get any cuter than happy agreeable four year olds? 

So four years ago today I had a newborn and no sleep and ice packs between my legs. Four years ago today we brought Frances home from the hospital and put on on the bed in her room where she lay mesmerized by the light through the gauze curtains. Four years ago I was a new mom and the light came down a little differently through the trees. Happy birth day to me.