People.
It's happening.
RIGHT NOW.
I'm actually having
wait for it
ALONE TIME.
Quiet, blissful, rare as gray hair on a baby alone time.
Well, if you remove the dog's weird reverse breathing that she does it's quiet and blissful.
She only does that when she gets excited, though, so maybe she's loving the moment, too.
Her giant Boston Terrier eyeballs bugged out with glee.
The baby is in bed, the little girls are finally sleeping, Justin's at work, and Alena got invited to go see The Hunger Games for the sixth time down at the ghetto three dollar theater.
The theater that hasn't been vacuumed in about 14 years.
That's why they can charge so little.
They save on things like cleaning supplies and fresh paint and warm water in the bathroom sinks.
Also, Alena's at the age where it doesn't matter what it is or where it is as long as it's away from home and it keeps her from having to go upstairs and get something for me.
I don't even know what to DO with alone time any more.
I always think I want it and I'll use it doing spa-like things.
Soaking my feet or painting my nails.
In reality I watch things on YouTube, stare at my reflection in my magnifying mirror and sigh, or scrape dinner leftovers into the trash while the dog drools giant saliva bubbles beside me because she wants some of the brown rice.
All glamor
all the time.
I feel like there's so much I WANT to do with alone time that when I get it, I get so giddy trying to decide what to do first that I spin in circles and hyperventilate and before I know it, the girls are standing in front of me asking for snacks all over again and I've wasted it all.
*POOF*
Gone.
Back to reality.
It seems magical, this alone time.
Like a unicorn.
Powerful, mystical, and never ever seen.
I needed it, though.
Those brief moments of silence.
This has been quite a week.
I have endured so much whining this week I deserve some sort of prize.
At the very least a mylar balloon.
I picture the Pope kissing MY hand.
The girls have taken turns crying like they're in a relay race, passing the baton of terror, and the time-out chair has stayed perpetually warm for days.
It's getting to the point where I'm trying to figure out new consequences for them.
Bigger than taking toys away.
Bigger than going to their rooms to "think about their behavior."
(see: Scream bloody murder and kick the walls)
Like - Den of lions,
maybe.
I might have even considered posting an ad for them on Craigslist if I could ever remember my stupid password....
And it's not only been the little girls.
I'm seeing in Alena this week the beginnings of what other parents of teenagers have warned me about.
Here I thought I'd get by without dealing with it.
She was so sweet. So innocent.
Now I see the look.
The, "I will be mortified if anyone knows we're together" look.
The look of distaste in anything remotely related to family time.
I could set her up with a week at a chess camp and she'd be like,
"I don't play, but I'm there. As long as there's WiFi."
We got invited to a baseball game in a suite last night that had 18 seats available.
She waited to see where we were sitting and then chose her seat.
If we had been seats 1-4, she would have been in seat 18.
Across the aisle with the other group.
The group she'd never even laid eyes on in her life.
Then she spent the whole time casting mournful sideways glances at us then slowly returning to her book.
I tried taking her picture and she'd just make lame faces on purpose to ruin the pictures.
They were already bad enough from that far distance.
All grainy from the zoom I had to do to try to capture her that far away.
Then the girls cried tonight about VBS.
They don't want to go tomorrow, they said, because today they'd been separated and they "don't like being apart."
Uh....
You could have fooled me with the daily torture and drawing of blood they try on each other.
Most days I think they'd as soon hit each other in the temples with rocks than play nicely together.
Now they can't be apart?
Go figure.
I guess that's just siblings for you.
I SUPPOSE I was that way.
I mean, I did tell Branch Roth to remove my brother from the trash can he was sticking him head first into in high school.
Even though I agreed with Branch that wearing a matching sweat-suit and transition lenses was grounds for trash can dunking, I didn't want anyone to do it other than me.
We stuck together when we were in public.
We saved the flogging for at home.
Well. I DID.
Darren just laid there minding his own business eating his microwaved burritos.
On top of all this week's crazy, I've had a sick baby and daycare kids, birthday parties and trips to the city. Father's Day and shopping trips. Return lines and grocery stores.
I just never get a moment's peace.
Whatever happened to laying all afternoon on a Fun Island listening to Bob Marley in the summer?
When is a girl supposed to tweeze her eyebrows?
How does one stay on top of their DVRed Master Chefs?
I deserve some down time now, right?
Wait.
WHAT?
Well.
I did.
But now it's over.
Alena just walked in.
I think I'll make a memorial bumper sticker for my car window.
"In memory of Alone Time 2012.
Gone, but not forgotten."
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Wake Up Call Barbie
This morning it came to me.
I wonder if I could use the same technology they use in race horse gates to build a bedroom door for the girls that won't allow them out until the buzzer sounds.
They'd be in there pawing at the ground - eyes on the prize - until it was at LEAST past 7:00 before theyd be released.
How in the WORLD do they have so much energy?!
They wake up at 6:00 giggling and within five minutes they've dressed up in costumes, built something out of foam blocks, logged on to the computer dismantled 2 rooms and gotten in a fist fight.
I've been wondering the last three days why I'm so tired.
Like
eighty year old, supportive shoes and soft foods tired.
But then I realized that's just how one FEELS with four kids.
I seem to keep forgetting I'm not 20 anymore.
The WORD twenty feels like a foreign language when I say it, actually.
I still feel the same inside.
In my mind.
It's my body that isn't keeping up so well any more.
I mean, I WAKE UP tired.
That's just wrong.
And it doesn't help me ease into my day when the first thing I see with my sleepy eyes is a naked Barbie that just has to be dressed this very second.
Who cares that it's still dark out?
This, apparently, is Nocturnal Barbie.
Haven't you heard of her?
And have you ever tried dressing a Barbie?
It requires the focus and skill of a vascular surgeon to get their arms in those sleeves.
Every single Barbie outfit we own is shredded by the cuffs because those blasted hard, pokey thumbs just
Won't.
Go.
Through.
I am completely convinced that whoever designed them actually hated women.
They wanted not only to give them messed up body images, but they wanted to completely infuriate every sleep deprived mother who'd ever have to help dress them.
Doing it without contacts just by feel while your kids laugh at how funny your hair looks is not exactly top o' the day material.
And my body aches now.
All the time.
I thought I'd be at least 50 before that started, but boy was I wrong.
I've had a stiff neck for so long now I'm forgetting what good mobility feels like, and that has me turning around to look at things like my spine has been fused.
It's made backing up the van pretty hard.
I just pray a lot and try to do it fast so that my window of possible time I could spend backing over someone is a smaller window.
I'm basically completely falling apart.
Yawning.
Limping.
Unable to look behind me.
And the kids.
They're so ENERGETIC.
And unappreciative of all that energy, too.
The things they have to complain about are that their hair band is too tight or their sock seam is funny.
They don't even know how good they have it.
I used to ride my bike miles a day to visit my friend Katie across town.
Now that much riding would put me in traction.
I used to think the cereal pieces in Lucky Charms were just there to make the bright colored pieces you REALLY eat stand out more in the bowl.
Now I have to think about fiber intake and if I ate that much suger my heart would jump out of my chest.
In the last few days alone the girls have run and climbed and swam and jumped and chased and spun and all they have to show for it is some sun on their noses.
Me?
I almost need Hospice tonight.
Chloe acts like her growing pains are enough to earn her an AARP card.
Just wait till she's my age and she realizes she's spent over 85% of her day daydreaming about a foot rub.
The mental space that used to be taken up by thoughts of My Little Ponies and coloring pages will be replaced by fantasies of deep tissue massage and a well fitting Dr. Scholl's gel insert.
And SLEEP.
Oh. Sleep.....
Life just GOES FAST.
You never really understand that when you're younger.
Summers stretch out forever.
Time stands still.
I have childhood memories that, in my mind, were 40 hours long, but I know now were probably mere moments.
Maybe realizing this is what has made me really want to just spend time with the kids this summer.
Crafting, baking, creating.
Living vicariously through them. Remembering what it's like to stay out as long as the mosquitos will let you.
And good thing I have Pinterest.
I have prepped crafts like a crazy person.
I've used so much food coloring there's probably some sort of government surveillance on me.
I guess there's my answer to why I'm so tired lately.
It's probably some sort of food coloring toxemia.
It's probably some rare thing that nobody ever gets, but with my luck, I would.
I mean really - What person in ONE YEAR gets Lyme's, a rare serious reaction to a medication, pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure, a life threatening blood clot and goes into A-fib?
Now a day when I get sick I just assume it's probably the most rare random thing. That way, when it's not, I'm pleasantly surprised.
I've learned to push on, though.
To try harder to enjoy each day as it comes, because there are no guarantees.
See your friends and tell them they're important to you.
Hug your kids even if earlier in the day you used those same hugging hands to pull out clumps of your own hair.
Be kind to your family even if it's easier to take them for granted.
I guess I shouldn't complain that the girls wake me up at 6:00.
At least I have them to wake me up.
One day they'll be gone and I'll get to sleep as late as I want.
Or as late as Justin's Hoover powered snoring will let me.
Instead of buying 4 pairs of new tennis shoes, I'll be able to buy that deep tissue massage and I'm sure
while I'm laying there in perfect peace I'll miss it all.
I'll miss Barbie's dagger hands.
I'll miss wiping down the ENTIRE bathroom after their bath because there was so much splashing.
I'll miss cleaning up the ice cream bar that got left on the coffee table for a half hour and melted all over the shag rug.
OK.
Maybe not that.
I just want to enjoy every day as it comes.
Even if it comes at 6.
I wonder if I could use the same technology they use in race horse gates to build a bedroom door for the girls that won't allow them out until the buzzer sounds.
They'd be in there pawing at the ground - eyes on the prize - until it was at LEAST past 7:00 before theyd be released.
How in the WORLD do they have so much energy?!
They wake up at 6:00 giggling and within five minutes they've dressed up in costumes, built something out of foam blocks, logged on to the computer dismantled 2 rooms and gotten in a fist fight.
I've been wondering the last three days why I'm so tired.
Like
eighty year old, supportive shoes and soft foods tired.
But then I realized that's just how one FEELS with four kids.
I seem to keep forgetting I'm not 20 anymore.
The WORD twenty feels like a foreign language when I say it, actually.
I still feel the same inside.
In my mind.
It's my body that isn't keeping up so well any more.
I mean, I WAKE UP tired.
That's just wrong.
And it doesn't help me ease into my day when the first thing I see with my sleepy eyes is a naked Barbie that just has to be dressed this very second.
Who cares that it's still dark out?
This, apparently, is Nocturnal Barbie.
Haven't you heard of her?
And have you ever tried dressing a Barbie?
It requires the focus and skill of a vascular surgeon to get their arms in those sleeves.
Every single Barbie outfit we own is shredded by the cuffs because those blasted hard, pokey thumbs just
Won't.
Go.
Through.
I am completely convinced that whoever designed them actually hated women.
They wanted not only to give them messed up body images, but they wanted to completely infuriate every sleep deprived mother who'd ever have to help dress them.
Doing it without contacts just by feel while your kids laugh at how funny your hair looks is not exactly top o' the day material.
And my body aches now.
All the time.
I thought I'd be at least 50 before that started, but boy was I wrong.
I've had a stiff neck for so long now I'm forgetting what good mobility feels like, and that has me turning around to look at things like my spine has been fused.
It's made backing up the van pretty hard.
I just pray a lot and try to do it fast so that my window of possible time I could spend backing over someone is a smaller window.
I'm basically completely falling apart.
Yawning.
Limping.
Unable to look behind me.
And the kids.
They're so ENERGETIC.
And unappreciative of all that energy, too.
The things they have to complain about are that their hair band is too tight or their sock seam is funny.
They don't even know how good they have it.
I used to ride my bike miles a day to visit my friend Katie across town.
Now that much riding would put me in traction.
I used to think the cereal pieces in Lucky Charms were just there to make the bright colored pieces you REALLY eat stand out more in the bowl.
Now I have to think about fiber intake and if I ate that much suger my heart would jump out of my chest.
In the last few days alone the girls have run and climbed and swam and jumped and chased and spun and all they have to show for it is some sun on their noses.
Me?
I almost need Hospice tonight.
Chloe acts like her growing pains are enough to earn her an AARP card.
Just wait till she's my age and she realizes she's spent over 85% of her day daydreaming about a foot rub.
The mental space that used to be taken up by thoughts of My Little Ponies and coloring pages will be replaced by fantasies of deep tissue massage and a well fitting Dr. Scholl's gel insert.
And SLEEP.
Oh. Sleep.....
Life just GOES FAST.
You never really understand that when you're younger.
Summers stretch out forever.
Time stands still.
I have childhood memories that, in my mind, were 40 hours long, but I know now were probably mere moments.
Maybe realizing this is what has made me really want to just spend time with the kids this summer.
Crafting, baking, creating.
Living vicariously through them. Remembering what it's like to stay out as long as the mosquitos will let you.
And good thing I have Pinterest.
I have prepped crafts like a crazy person.
I've used so much food coloring there's probably some sort of government surveillance on me.
I guess there's my answer to why I'm so tired lately.
It's probably some sort of food coloring toxemia.
It's probably some rare thing that nobody ever gets, but with my luck, I would.
I mean really - What person in ONE YEAR gets Lyme's, a rare serious reaction to a medication, pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure, a life threatening blood clot and goes into A-fib?
Now a day when I get sick I just assume it's probably the most rare random thing. That way, when it's not, I'm pleasantly surprised.
I've learned to push on, though.
To try harder to enjoy each day as it comes, because there are no guarantees.
See your friends and tell them they're important to you.
Hug your kids even if earlier in the day you used those same hugging hands to pull out clumps of your own hair.
Be kind to your family even if it's easier to take them for granted.
I guess I shouldn't complain that the girls wake me up at 6:00.
At least I have them to wake me up.
One day they'll be gone and I'll get to sleep as late as I want.
Or as late as Justin's Hoover powered snoring will let me.
Instead of buying 4 pairs of new tennis shoes, I'll be able to buy that deep tissue massage and I'm sure
while I'm laying there in perfect peace I'll miss it all.
I'll miss Barbie's dagger hands.
I'll miss wiping down the ENTIRE bathroom after their bath because there was so much splashing.
I'll miss cleaning up the ice cream bar that got left on the coffee table for a half hour and melted all over the shag rug.
OK.
Maybe not that.
I just want to enjoy every day as it comes.
Even if it comes at 6.
Friday, June 8, 2012
The Peace Speaker
I was dreading today.
Dreading grabbing the lab slip that the pediatrician had filled out for Chloe when I took her in yesterday because for a month now she's been telling me her legs feel funny.
Like she's
"going to fall."
She's complained of dizziness, too, so I thought better safe than sorry and I took her in.
She's had bloodwork before, and actually did amazingly, but I still wasn't too excited to have to explain to her that they'd be poking her again and that she needed to be brave.
The nurses looked scared when they realized we were there for a blood draw.
Like they wanted to shout, "1,2,3 Not it!" and scatter, but we checked in and they showed us to the waiting room and told us we'd have to wait at least 20 minutes.
"Do you want to watch something on my iPad, Chloe?"
I asked her to try to distract her.
I saw her swallow really hard with tears in her eyes and say,
"Yeah. I want to watch that show where tgfggfgfgfgfgfhyhe kids dress up and their parents buy them fancy dresses."
I thought for a minute.
"Do you mean Toddlers and Tiaras?"
"Yeah."
So we watched it.
She commented that those moms seemed crazy.
Every time anyone walked by, she looked up. I could tell she wasn't really watching it.
Her mind was too focused on if they were coming for her.
And then they did.
"Chloe Green?"
She looked up at me with the look that every parent hates most.
The look that says, "Help me."
But you can't, and you have to be strong and show that you're brave so they can be, too.
I took her hand and told her she was going to to so so good, and we walked in together.
The room seemed cold and overly white.
Four phlebotomists stood staring like a row of sheep at us and Chloe decided to bolt.
I had to go retrieve her and literally pry her hands off of the door handle as the tears started.
Then came the screaming.
The total panic.
She had absolute TERROR in her eyes.
I've almost never seen anything like it.
I'm sure all four of the phlebotomists have asked for a raise now.
She pulled my arms around her body and screamed at me not to let her arms go. She was shaking, violently, and begging to leave. She didn't want to. She didn't want to. Please let her go. Please! PLEASE!
I tried reasoning with her. I tried talking more sternly. Then more gently.
One phlebotomist said they didn't think we'd be able to do the draw.
It was fear as intense as I've ever seen it. And I've SEEN it.
It went on and on for probably 15 minutes until finally I decided just to
pin her against me.
The phlebotomists took my cue and before long there was one holding each arm, me holding her toso, one holding both legs and then another one ready to do the draw.
It was a nightmare.
I had tried everything to get her to calm down and hold still.
At this rate there was no way they'd even CONSIDER trying to poke her for fear they'd seriously harm her with all her writhing.
All I had left to do was pray.
Now I know some of you aren't praying people. I know this might be the part of my story where you stop reading or roll your eyes, but I AM a praying person and I know what I have experienced in my life and I know that God is real.
He has met me in places no one else would go and I felt like I'd done all I could do on my own.
And that's the thing I've found about God - That's the moment when He really likes to show up.
It's almost like He's saying, "Are you done yet?"
As I struggled to pin this child that felt like, at that moment, had the strength of 3 adults, I whispered a prayer too quiet for her to even hear with her head pressed against me. Her screams were muffling all other noise.
"Father. PLEASE. I need you to be here with Chloe."
And in that space between that last period and quotation mark, He did just that.
INSTANTLY she was quiet.
The tight balloon that was her body deflated and as I clung to her every muscle in her body relaxed almost like she'd been drugged.
She offered her arm to the tech and sat. Still.
It seriously kind of freaked me out.
My own firey furnace moment.
And if that moment had a sound effect, it would have been,
"WHOOSH!"
2 seconds later the draw was done.
She was smiling.
I wasn't.
I was crying and totally unable to talk.
It had been palpable - the answer to my prayer for my child.
The most important prayer a mother can pray.
HELP THEM.
Today I was reminded that God cares about the things that matter to us because WE matter to HIM.
And I was also reminded that maybe next time I should START with the
prayer instead of trying to do it all alone.
Dreading grabbing the lab slip that the pediatrician had filled out for Chloe when I took her in yesterday because for a month now she's been telling me her legs feel funny.
Like she's
"going to fall."
She's complained of dizziness, too, so I thought better safe than sorry and I took her in.
She's had bloodwork before, and actually did amazingly, but I still wasn't too excited to have to explain to her that they'd be poking her again and that she needed to be brave.
The nurses looked scared when they realized we were there for a blood draw.
Like they wanted to shout, "1,2,3 Not it!" and scatter, but we checked in and they showed us to the waiting room and told us we'd have to wait at least 20 minutes.
"Do you want to watch something on my iPad, Chloe?"
I asked her to try to distract her.
I saw her swallow really hard with tears in her eyes and say,
"Yeah. I want to watch that show where tgfggfgfgfgfgfhyhe kids dress up and their parents buy them fancy dresses."
I thought for a minute.
"Do you mean Toddlers and Tiaras?"
"Yeah."
So we watched it.
She commented that those moms seemed crazy.
Every time anyone walked by, she looked up. I could tell she wasn't really watching it.
Her mind was too focused on if they were coming for her.
And then they did.
"Chloe Green?"
She looked up at me with the look that every parent hates most.
The look that says, "Help me."
But you can't, and you have to be strong and show that you're brave so they can be, too.
I took her hand and told her she was going to to so so good, and we walked in together.
The room seemed cold and overly white.
Four phlebotomists stood staring like a row of sheep at us and Chloe decided to bolt.
I had to go retrieve her and literally pry her hands off of the door handle as the tears started.
Then came the screaming.
The total panic.
She had absolute TERROR in her eyes.
I've almost never seen anything like it.
I'm sure all four of the phlebotomists have asked for a raise now.
She pulled my arms around her body and screamed at me not to let her arms go. She was shaking, violently, and begging to leave. She didn't want to. She didn't want to. Please let her go. Please! PLEASE!
I tried reasoning with her. I tried talking more sternly. Then more gently.
One phlebotomist said they didn't think we'd be able to do the draw.
It was fear as intense as I've ever seen it. And I've SEEN it.
It went on and on for probably 15 minutes until finally I decided just to
pin her against me.
The phlebotomists took my cue and before long there was one holding each arm, me holding her toso, one holding both legs and then another one ready to do the draw.
It was a nightmare.
I had tried everything to get her to calm down and hold still.
At this rate there was no way they'd even CONSIDER trying to poke her for fear they'd seriously harm her with all her writhing.
All I had left to do was pray.
Now I know some of you aren't praying people. I know this might be the part of my story where you stop reading or roll your eyes, but I AM a praying person and I know what I have experienced in my life and I know that God is real.
He has met me in places no one else would go and I felt like I'd done all I could do on my own.
And that's the thing I've found about God - That's the moment when He really likes to show up.
It's almost like He's saying, "Are you done yet?"
As I struggled to pin this child that felt like, at that moment, had the strength of 3 adults, I whispered a prayer too quiet for her to even hear with her head pressed against me. Her screams were muffling all other noise.
"Father. PLEASE. I need you to be here with Chloe."
And in that space between that last period and quotation mark, He did just that.
INSTANTLY she was quiet.
The tight balloon that was her body deflated and as I clung to her every muscle in her body relaxed almost like she'd been drugged.
She offered her arm to the tech and sat. Still.
It seriously kind of freaked me out.
My own firey furnace moment.
And if that moment had a sound effect, it would have been,
"WHOOSH!"
2 seconds later the draw was done.
She was smiling.
I wasn't.
I was crying and totally unable to talk.
It had been palpable - the answer to my prayer for my child.
The most important prayer a mother can pray.
HELP THEM.
Today I was reminded that God cares about the things that matter to us because WE matter to HIM.
And I was also reminded that maybe next time I should START with the
prayer instead of trying to do it all alone.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
My Nonnie
B
My Nonnie died today.
She wasn't a Grandma, or a Nana, or a Granny.
She was a Nonnie.
To the core.
My mom called to give me the news.
I stood in shock.
It wouldn't settle in.
The kids were screaming. The dog was spinning. Baseball was on. It wouldn't compute.
But tonight, as I settled into a hot bath after the kids were in bed and the house was quiet.
Then it set in.
I couldn't stop the tears.
Memories of her flooded me.
The way she clenched her eyes tightly closed and tilted her head back when she told a story.
How she'd do it again when she told the story the second time. Because she always did.
Then the third.
I thought of her soft fingertips tap, tap, tapping on the dining room table as she did this in a way that belonged only to her.
I thought of her walls so covered in pictures of family and nail holes from HANGING the pictures of family that you could barely see the wallpaper.
It looked like had a woodpecker for a roommate.
I thought of her love of a good republican president.
How she'd dedicated the only walls that didn't have pictures of family - The main bathroom walls - to be a place to hang THEIR pictures.
It was always strange to me to be sitting there, doing what business people do in a bathroom, and looking up to see Ronald Regan smiling down on me.
But she was proud to be an American and it showed. All over.
Nonnie loved cats.
Pictures of cats.
Cards with cats.
Clothes with cats.
Statues of cats.
But most of all - STRAY cats.
It took an entire family intervention to convince her that cats really, truly did not require a casserole sized pan of biscuits and turkey gravy every day to survive.
She was never convinced.
Nonnie was an early riser.
And she wanted everyone else to be.
We'd go to visit, drugged by jet-lag, and still she'd be banging on our doors telling us we needed to get up and eat breakfast because it was already 7:00 am - which was only 4:00am to our tired bodies.
I think she was positive that if people waited past 8:00 for breakfast they'd surely die of starvation.
If the banging on the doors didn't wake you, though, the banging of the pots and pans would.
We'd stumble out, not the slightest bit hungry, and before long would be having our mouths crammed with an 18 course breakfast.
As we gulped that down, she'd start making lunch.
No person on the face of this earth was louder (or more efficient) than Nonnie in the kitchen.
Even now, If I'm clanging around looking for a lid to a pot, Justin will say, "Hey Nonnie, do you need help?"
But she could clang and bang all she wanted because that woman could COOK.
You have never tasted a biscuit so flaky and perfect.
You've never had corn bread like Nonnie's.
I once mentioned that I liked these cookies she'd made when I was little out of ritz crackers, peanut butter and icing, and then returned later after taking a nap to see that while I'd slept she'd made literally hundreds of them.
There were pans on the counters, pans on the table....Even pans on top of the refrigerator.
Over the years she'd fed more people than you could even believe.
It was her call to fame.
She could whip up a pone of corn bread with her eyes closed.
What she couldn't do is give you the recipe, though, because she didn't have one.
I once asked her how she made her world famous hot fudge and she said,
"Oh. I don't know. I just do it"
Like it was part cocoa, part sugar, part magic.
I sometimes wondered if she REALLY didn't know, or if she just didn't want to tell because she wanted it to be something all her own.
Something no one took from her.
I thought of how many times in my life she told me she'd been praying for me.
How I knew that she had.
And hard.
How every page of her Bible had parts underlined. How the pages were bent and you knew that they'd each been read over and over.
And not just read, but LIVED.
I thought of how she rooted for me.
How she'd find ads in the Reader's Digest for becoming an illustrator and she'd cut them out and mail them to me.
The same ad every time.
Dozens of times.
No note.
No commentary.
Just an envelope and a clipping that said ,without actually SAYING, that she believed in me.
I remembered sitting at her table trembling and dreading to ask.
Just she and I in her kitchen as she stirred the soup she was cooking.
I was a single mom and I was struggling HARD to survive at the time.
Something had come up and I desperately needed money.
I didn't know who else to turn to.
"Nonnie....I need to ask you something. I hate to ask, but is there any way you can help me. I need to borrow some money...."
I held my breath waiting to see what she'd say.
Feeling ashamed for even having to ask.
She turned around with her wooden spoon still in hand, clenched here eyes, tilted her head, and said something I'll never forget.
Something that summed up my relationship with her, and the relationship I hope to have with my own grandchildren one day.
"Honey, Of course I'll help you. I'd jump in a runnin' saw mill to help save you."
Then she turned around and kept stirring.
I could go on and on.
About how she re-laminated her own kitchen floor when she was in her 80's.
About the stories I've heard of a fight between her and her second husband that involved something about burying a gun in the yard.
Something that was probably a good thing, because she had a true Irish, Murphy temper.
I'd tell about the way her skin smelled when she'd kiss you goodnight right before bed.
How as a kid I'd beg her to take her teeth out and she'd spit them out and suck them in in a way that would make me laugh and laugh and beg her to do it again.
I see her puffy permed hair and feel her soft, perfect-for-hugging body.
All my life, as my musical family has gathered, there's always been singing.
Every time, all the kids get together, with her in the middle and they sing about the River Jordan.
Nonnie sang the bass.
We'd all laugh as the low tones echoed in the room. A sound you didn't expect from an old, shrunken woman.
We younger cousins would give each other sideways glances and smiles.
Now, I know her voice will always echo in the room,
bigger than you'd ever expect,
in the empty space that will be left here that only she could fill.
Because no one will ever be able to sing Nonnie's part.
Today Heaven welcomes one of the truest saints it ever knew.
Norah Hitte-Hammonds.
She will be so VERY missed by us all.
My Nonnie, my fan, and my friend.
My Nonnie died today.
She wasn't a Grandma, or a Nana, or a Granny.
She was a Nonnie.
To the core.
My mom called to give me the news.
I stood in shock.
It wouldn't settle in.
The kids were screaming. The dog was spinning. Baseball was on. It wouldn't compute.
But tonight, as I settled into a hot bath after the kids were in bed and the house was quiet.
Then it set in.
I couldn't stop the tears.
Memories of her flooded me.
The way she clenched her eyes tightly closed and tilted her head back when she told a story.
How she'd do it again when she told the story the second time. Because she always did.
Then the third.
I thought of her soft fingertips tap, tap, tapping on the dining room table as she did this in a way that belonged only to her.
I thought of her walls so covered in pictures of family and nail holes from HANGING the pictures of family that you could barely see the wallpaper.
It looked like had a woodpecker for a roommate.
I thought of her love of a good republican president.
How she'd dedicated the only walls that didn't have pictures of family - The main bathroom walls - to be a place to hang THEIR pictures.
It was always strange to me to be sitting there, doing what business people do in a bathroom, and looking up to see Ronald Regan smiling down on me.
But she was proud to be an American and it showed. All over.
Nonnie loved cats.
Pictures of cats.
Cards with cats.
Clothes with cats.
Statues of cats.
But most of all - STRAY cats.
It took an entire family intervention to convince her that cats really, truly did not require a casserole sized pan of biscuits and turkey gravy every day to survive.
She was never convinced.
Nonnie was an early riser.
And she wanted everyone else to be.
We'd go to visit, drugged by jet-lag, and still she'd be banging on our doors telling us we needed to get up and eat breakfast because it was already 7:00 am - which was only 4:00am to our tired bodies.
I think she was positive that if people waited past 8:00 for breakfast they'd surely die of starvation.
If the banging on the doors didn't wake you, though, the banging of the pots and pans would.
We'd stumble out, not the slightest bit hungry, and before long would be having our mouths crammed with an 18 course breakfast.
As we gulped that down, she'd start making lunch.
No person on the face of this earth was louder (or more efficient) than Nonnie in the kitchen.
Even now, If I'm clanging around looking for a lid to a pot, Justin will say, "Hey Nonnie, do you need help?"
But she could clang and bang all she wanted because that woman could COOK.
You have never tasted a biscuit so flaky and perfect.
You've never had corn bread like Nonnie's.
I once mentioned that I liked these cookies she'd made when I was little out of ritz crackers, peanut butter and icing, and then returned later after taking a nap to see that while I'd slept she'd made literally hundreds of them.
There were pans on the counters, pans on the table....Even pans on top of the refrigerator.
Over the years she'd fed more people than you could even believe.
It was her call to fame.
She could whip up a pone of corn bread with her eyes closed.
What she couldn't do is give you the recipe, though, because she didn't have one.
I once asked her how she made her world famous hot fudge and she said,
"Oh. I don't know. I just do it"
Like it was part cocoa, part sugar, part magic.
I sometimes wondered if she REALLY didn't know, or if she just didn't want to tell because she wanted it to be something all her own.
Something no one took from her.
I thought of how many times in my life she told me she'd been praying for me.
How I knew that she had.
And hard.
How every page of her Bible had parts underlined. How the pages were bent and you knew that they'd each been read over and over.
And not just read, but LIVED.
I thought of how she rooted for me.
How she'd find ads in the Reader's Digest for becoming an illustrator and she'd cut them out and mail them to me.
The same ad every time.
Dozens of times.
No note.
No commentary.
Just an envelope and a clipping that said ,without actually SAYING, that she believed in me.
I remembered sitting at her table trembling and dreading to ask.
Just she and I in her kitchen as she stirred the soup she was cooking.
I was a single mom and I was struggling HARD to survive at the time.
Something had come up and I desperately needed money.
I didn't know who else to turn to.
"Nonnie....I need to ask you something. I hate to ask, but is there any way you can help me. I need to borrow some money...."
I held my breath waiting to see what she'd say.
Feeling ashamed for even having to ask.
She turned around with her wooden spoon still in hand, clenched here eyes, tilted her head, and said something I'll never forget.
Something that summed up my relationship with her, and the relationship I hope to have with my own grandchildren one day.
"Honey, Of course I'll help you. I'd jump in a runnin' saw mill to help save you."
Then she turned around and kept stirring.
I could go on and on.
About how she re-laminated her own kitchen floor when she was in her 80's.
About the stories I've heard of a fight between her and her second husband that involved something about burying a gun in the yard.
Something that was probably a good thing, because she had a true Irish, Murphy temper.
I'd tell about the way her skin smelled when she'd kiss you goodnight right before bed.
How as a kid I'd beg her to take her teeth out and she'd spit them out and suck them in in a way that would make me laugh and laugh and beg her to do it again.
I see her puffy permed hair and feel her soft, perfect-for-hugging body.
All my life, as my musical family has gathered, there's always been singing.
Every time, all the kids get together, with her in the middle and they sing about the River Jordan.
Nonnie sang the bass.
We'd all laugh as the low tones echoed in the room. A sound you didn't expect from an old, shrunken woman.
We younger cousins would give each other sideways glances and smiles.
Now, I know her voice will always echo in the room,
bigger than you'd ever expect,
in the empty space that will be left here that only she could fill.
Because no one will ever be able to sing Nonnie's part.
Today Heaven welcomes one of the truest saints it ever knew.
Norah Hitte-Hammonds.
She will be so VERY missed by us all.
My Nonnie, my fan, and my friend.
Friday, March 9, 2012
The Door
I woke up this morning and cried.
It was today.
The appointment was today.
And, yes, we'd talked about it.
Yes, we'd said we were done.
Yes, I know in my HEAD that I just can't have more.
It was my HEART that was the issue.
Today, Justin would get his vasectomy.
It really did have to happen. Not only am I of "advanced maternal age", but each pregnancy has been harder and harder on me physically with this last one ending in pre-eclampsia.
At first I couldn't really pinpoint why I was so upset over it. Why I felt so unsettled.
But then it hit me.
It's been a long road for me.
It's taken so much of my energy - emotional and physical - to have these children.
It's hard to settle into that that chapter in my life that I've devoted so much to, is ending.
The time of trying and hoping and holding my breath as I sit waiting in the bathroom
- Squinting my eyes to see if there are two pink lines.
"Were you trying for a boy?"
That's the number one question I get asked when I tell people we just had our fourth daughter.
No.
We weren't.
What we were doing was bringing to fruition the only dream I've ever had that really mattered.
Becoming a mother. That's what it was about.
I've thought about it for as long as I can remember.
From the time I'd stuff blankets up my shirt to make it look like I had a belly.
From the time I did photo shoots with my Cabbage Patches and then carried those photos around in my Velcro wallet.
I even planned what their names would be.
(The librarian giving me funny looks because she'd never seen an 11 year old checking out a book of baby names before.)
I always knew I wanted more than two.
Being one of only two had made me long for more siblings. I wanted a playmate.
Someone who got me unlike anyone else.
Especially since MY only sibling was a BOY that liked shooting things and drawing things on graph paper.
?
Snooze.
I dreamed of Thanksgiving tables filled with family.
Laughing and yelling to be heard and even arguing. Because that meant passion. And a family was the thing I was most passionate ABOUT.
I dreamed of traditions.
Of stairway walls lined with photos of toothless children and shots from vacations where at least one kid looked disgruntled.
I'd see a mother and her children out in public and find myself completely unable to turn away.
Taking in the subtlety of the looks that passed between them and the magic of what they were to each other.
It so overtook me, that when I found myself pregnant and single at the age of 22 and a friend of mine exclaimed,
"You can't be a mother NOW" I realized that yes I could.
I was made for it.
And mother I did.
From an apartment the size of a birdhouse.
We shared a room. We had no AC, and hardly any money - but she never missed a well-child visit. She was always clean and well-mannered. She was reading full books by the time she was three.
And when you ask Alena now what she remembers of the time when it was just me and her, she just remembers ME.
And HER.
And happiness.
That's it.
When Justin and I met, we never had that "it's all about us" phase, because it never was.
Alena was already there and therefore, we were immediately family.
A month after we got married, we sat at dinner in a crowded restaurant and decided WHY WAIT? - We were going to try for a baby then.
We knew we wanted kids, and who knew how long it would take.
And try we did.
For a year.
We tried everything.
Every convoluted idea, every herb, every theory.
I put egg whites places no egg whites should go.
It almost drove me crazy.
Then, after a year of trying,
I got pregnant.
I was ELATED.
Alena was elated.
Justin was scared. And a little deer-in-the-headlights-y.
But when I started bleeding a few weeks later, I was more crushed than I've ever been.
That pain was so deep and scarring that I will never forget it as long as I live.
There were weeks I don't even remember.
I have never cried more, prayed more, begged more than I did then.
PLEASE don't let me lose this baby.
PLEASE.
But I did.
I cannot explain the pain that I had at that time in my life.
I felt hollow. And teased.
I wondered why God would answer my prayer and then yank it away.
But I chose to trust and believe. And believe me, it was a choice.
I chose to pull myself up from the pit I was teetering by, and move forward.
To try and hope again.
Then a month later, I was pregnant again.
With Chloe.
Chloe who has been different and special from the beginning.
Chloe who sparkles.
I was scared to even breathe wrong for fear that it would happen again.
Thinking back, I didn't even enjoy that pregnancy at all. I lived in constant fear of loss.
Every child is special. Each one unique and wonderful.
Chloe just reminds me to trust.
Chloe reminds me that I was never forgotten.
That I was heard.
She was the answer to so many prayers.
Each pregnancy was hard for me. Multiple trips to the doctor. Multiple scares. Multiple ultrasounds.
I got used to staring at the primary colors of the mobile that hung above the exam bed in the ultrasound room.
The room where I'd have good news.
Then not so good news.
My pattern became have one, then lose one, with miscarriages between every one of the girls.
Three in total.
All three painful and challenging in different ways.
They challenged who I thought I was. My beliefs. My marriage.
It's something you never get used to.
But then, with the birth of each girl, over and over I have seen that God's plan is the best plan.
That we just cannot see the beauty He has planned for us until we're in the middle of it.
That what feels like painful and cruel stripping of our dreams is actually the pruning of our branches so that real growth can happen.
So that the fullness of our potential can be brought out.
As I sat on the bed this morning, changing the baby with tears dripping down my face, I don't think Justin understood.
WHY on earth was I saying all this NOW?
Hadn't we discussed it?
Hadn't I been around as he scheduled the appointment and made plans for it?
But no logical plan changes who I am, and who I am is wrapped up in being a mother.
It's hard to turn to the next chapter, when so much of your time and thoughts have been wrapped up in getting pregnant.
In staying pregnant.
It's almost been a full time job.
I know I have to close the door at some time, but
closing that door is SO hard.
My hands are shaking as I do it.
I'm not ready to see the door right next to it that leads to more freedom and independence.
I just want to stand and look at the back of THIS door for awhile.
To remember, in vivid detail, what lies behind it.
A finally positive test.
A fluttery kick.
The feeling of a warm baby being placed on your belly for the first time.
Big, gummy smiles.
Pudgy hands with dimples where the knuckles should be.
The sound of soft, sleeping breaths being breathed into the crook of your neck.
The weight, and the warmth of them.
Just let me stand at the door for awhile longer.
What's behind this door is the most beautiful, magical thing in the world.
It was today.
The appointment was today.
And, yes, we'd talked about it.
Yes, we'd said we were done.
Yes, I know in my HEAD that I just can't have more.
It was my HEART that was the issue.
Today, Justin would get his vasectomy.
It really did have to happen. Not only am I of "advanced maternal age", but each pregnancy has been harder and harder on me physically with this last one ending in pre-eclampsia.
At first I couldn't really pinpoint why I was so upset over it. Why I felt so unsettled.
But then it hit me.
It's been a long road for me.
It's taken so much of my energy - emotional and physical - to have these children.
It's hard to settle into that that chapter in my life that I've devoted so much to, is ending.
The time of trying and hoping and holding my breath as I sit waiting in the bathroom
- Squinting my eyes to see if there are two pink lines.
"Were you trying for a boy?"
That's the number one question I get asked when I tell people we just had our fourth daughter.
No.
We weren't.
What we were doing was bringing to fruition the only dream I've ever had that really mattered.
Becoming a mother. That's what it was about.
I've thought about it for as long as I can remember.
From the time I'd stuff blankets up my shirt to make it look like I had a belly.
From the time I did photo shoots with my Cabbage Patches and then carried those photos around in my Velcro wallet.
I even planned what their names would be.
(The librarian giving me funny looks because she'd never seen an 11 year old checking out a book of baby names before.)
I always knew I wanted more than two.
Being one of only two had made me long for more siblings. I wanted a playmate.
Someone who got me unlike anyone else.
Especially since MY only sibling was a BOY that liked shooting things and drawing things on graph paper.
?
Snooze.
I dreamed of Thanksgiving tables filled with family.
Laughing and yelling to be heard and even arguing. Because that meant passion. And a family was the thing I was most passionate ABOUT.
I dreamed of traditions.
Of stairway walls lined with photos of toothless children and shots from vacations where at least one kid looked disgruntled.
I'd see a mother and her children out in public and find myself completely unable to turn away.
Taking in the subtlety of the looks that passed between them and the magic of what they were to each other.
It so overtook me, that when I found myself pregnant and single at the age of 22 and a friend of mine exclaimed,
"You can't be a mother NOW" I realized that yes I could.
I was made for it.
And mother I did.
From an apartment the size of a birdhouse.
We shared a room. We had no AC, and hardly any money - but she never missed a well-child visit. She was always clean and well-mannered. She was reading full books by the time she was three.
And when you ask Alena now what she remembers of the time when it was just me and her, she just remembers ME.
And HER.
And happiness.
That's it.
When Justin and I met, we never had that "it's all about us" phase, because it never was.
Alena was already there and therefore, we were immediately family.
A month after we got married, we sat at dinner in a crowded restaurant and decided WHY WAIT? - We were going to try for a baby then.
We knew we wanted kids, and who knew how long it would take.
And try we did.
For a year.
We tried everything.
Every convoluted idea, every herb, every theory.
I put egg whites places no egg whites should go.
It almost drove me crazy.
Then, after a year of trying,
I got pregnant.
I was ELATED.
Alena was elated.
Justin was scared. And a little deer-in-the-headlights-y.
But when I started bleeding a few weeks later, I was more crushed than I've ever been.
That pain was so deep and scarring that I will never forget it as long as I live.
There were weeks I don't even remember.
I have never cried more, prayed more, begged more than I did then.
PLEASE don't let me lose this baby.
PLEASE.
But I did.
I cannot explain the pain that I had at that time in my life.
I felt hollow. And teased.
I wondered why God would answer my prayer and then yank it away.
But I chose to trust and believe. And believe me, it was a choice.
I chose to pull myself up from the pit I was teetering by, and move forward.
To try and hope again.
Then a month later, I was pregnant again.
With Chloe.
Chloe who has been different and special from the beginning.
Chloe who sparkles.
I was scared to even breathe wrong for fear that it would happen again.
Thinking back, I didn't even enjoy that pregnancy at all. I lived in constant fear of loss.
Every child is special. Each one unique and wonderful.
Chloe just reminds me to trust.
Chloe reminds me that I was never forgotten.
That I was heard.
She was the answer to so many prayers.
Each pregnancy was hard for me. Multiple trips to the doctor. Multiple scares. Multiple ultrasounds.
I got used to staring at the primary colors of the mobile that hung above the exam bed in the ultrasound room.
The room where I'd have good news.
Then not so good news.
My pattern became have one, then lose one, with miscarriages between every one of the girls.
Three in total.
All three painful and challenging in different ways.
They challenged who I thought I was. My beliefs. My marriage.
It's something you never get used to.
But then, with the birth of each girl, over and over I have seen that God's plan is the best plan.
That we just cannot see the beauty He has planned for us until we're in the middle of it.
That what feels like painful and cruel stripping of our dreams is actually the pruning of our branches so that real growth can happen.
So that the fullness of our potential can be brought out.
As I sat on the bed this morning, changing the baby with tears dripping down my face, I don't think Justin understood.
WHY on earth was I saying all this NOW?
Hadn't we discussed it?
Hadn't I been around as he scheduled the appointment and made plans for it?
But no logical plan changes who I am, and who I am is wrapped up in being a mother.
It's hard to turn to the next chapter, when so much of your time and thoughts have been wrapped up in getting pregnant.
In staying pregnant.
It's almost been a full time job.
I know I have to close the door at some time, but
closing that door is SO hard.
My hands are shaking as I do it.
I'm not ready to see the door right next to it that leads to more freedom and independence.
I just want to stand and look at the back of THIS door for awhile.
To remember, in vivid detail, what lies behind it.
A finally positive test.
A fluttery kick.
The feeling of a warm baby being placed on your belly for the first time.
Big, gummy smiles.
Pudgy hands with dimples where the knuckles should be.
The sound of soft, sleeping breaths being breathed into the crook of your neck.
The weight, and the warmth of them.
Just let me stand at the door for awhile longer.
What's behind this door is the most beautiful, magical thing in the world.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Tessa Green and the Tunic of Torture
Most of the time I'm happy to have all girls.
Even when I see people's eyes bulge out when I tell them I have four.
When I see families of all boys, and the mom just sits near-comatose, eyes glazed, while the boys scream like banshees and poke at things
(like other kids' eyeballs)
with sticks, I count my blessings.
I don't think I could handle all that bashing.
Girls play differently.
Most of the time.
For example, I can set my girls up with crayons and paint and they'll sit quietly for over an hour "creating."
Hearts and stars and smiling princess faces.
I tried giving my daycare boys crayons one day and after I finished cleaning up the crayon marks on the hardwood left by one, I turned around to see a thousands bits of blue wax covering the other one's mouth.
The crayon was nowhere in sight.
Until later when I changed his diaper.
Therefore, most of the time I'm happy.
Except with one huge difference between boys and girls that I have found.
Girls have opinions on what they wear and boys don't.
I've found it starts, as most scary things do, around age three.
The age of independent thought process.
The age of disdain for every thing you, as a parent, do or say or think.
The age of total lack of reason and the love of tulle.
This last weekend, as Tessa entered hour two of her crying fit over a tunic top she didn't like, my sister in law - mother of three boys - chuckled and said, "I can't say that's ever happened to me. I just pick things out for them and they put them on. They never even comment on it."
She's livin' the dream.
But it doesn't matter what you hand a three year old girl.
She's going to hate it.
You could see it and think it's perfect and there is no earthly way she's going to find any fault.
And you'll be wrong.
The seam in the socks isn't straight.
The tag is itchy.
The waistband is too high and she "can't like" pants touching her bellybutton.
The neck is too tight.
The sleeves are too long, too short, too puffy, too tight.
And my all time favorite:
"These pants go all the way down to my feet."
Which is confusing, because isn't that the very NATURE of PANTS?
I try explaining to this darling three year old that when I see children who's pants DON'T go all the way to their feet, I usually look at their mothers funny.
I judge.
I can't help it.
I contemplate handing them $15 and pleading with them to head to Kohl's immediately, and maybe even leave their kids in the car while they shop to spare them public embarrassment.
A child's life is hard enough with peer pressures and home haircuts gone wrong.
Don't add waders into the mix.
On Chloe's birthday, I put Tessa in a brand new ADORABLE outfit.
It was one of the cutest outfits she'd ever worn.
I couldn't stop looking at her. Hearts for eyes.
I asked if I could take her picture.
The look she gave me in that moment was like something out of Children of the Corn.
Her pupils dilated and changed color.
I almost turned to a pillar of salt.
Then it started.
I knew it was coming.
With her eyes locked on mine, she slowly reached up and tugged at her neckline.
A look of distress formed on her face.
A silent look that needed no explanation.
Then she writhed her spine into a slight "S" shape.
She did 3 short exhale grunts.
Her lip curled up on the left side.
She was waiting for me to ask what was the matter.
I knew this, so I didn't.
I just stood and waited to hear it.
"I don't lllliiiiiikkkkkeee this shirt" she whined.
"It's too long down to my legs."
"That's because it's a tunic top. It's supposed to be long."
"I don't like tunic tops."
"Yes you do. Because I say you do. That is what you're wearing. Get over it."
This is when a fit began that I thought would never end.
I was pretty sure she'd still be crying over that tunic top as she entered her freshman year.
It was a battle of wills like you can only imagine.
A battle of wills that ended with me giving up and telling her to go upstairs and grab the brand new dress on her dresser that I had actually bought for her sister, but would let her wear just to shut her up. I knew she liked dresses. I thought it would be a clear win.
She was gone for 15 minutes.
When she returned, she was wearing the dress.
She was also wearing the exact same expression that she had been wearing with the tunic top.
Her nostrils were flared.
There were the beginnings of tears in her eyes.
"What on EARTH is the matter NOW?"
"I don't like these sleeves."
Cute little ruffle cap sleeves that they were.
"What is wrong with the sleeves?! They're adorable. There have maybe never even BEEN better sleeves."
"I don't like how they stick out."
Oh for the love of God.
"Look. You are either going to wear that dress with those stick out sleeves, or you are going to march back upstairs and put back on the tunic top. End of discussion.Those are the choices."
You would have thought I told her to wear chainmail.
It went on and on.
The party was about to start.
I tried distracting her with the thought of cake and balloons and friends arrival.
To no avail.
Those sleeves were just too darned stick-outy.
With two minutes until the party started, she arrived back downstairs wearing the tunic.
All of that for nothing.
Square fricking ONE.
Last night I got her dressed for Kids' Club at church.
I picked out a sweater and some jeans.
Jeans that were too "long down to her feet."
Another battle ensued.
I pressed on, though, and wouldn't let her change. I knew if I let her choose, she'd pick something like she'd picked earlier.
Last years' spaghetti strap Easter dress with size 2T stretch pants underneath and sandals.
It was raining.
I took her to kids' club, dropped her off, ignored her forlorn look, went shopping and returned to pick the girls up 2 hours later.
The MOMENT she saw me, from across the room, with a mouth full of cupcake she yelled, "Mama! I DO like these jeans now!"
She'd been thinking about those blasted pants for two hours.
But good. She likes them now.
That's one item of clothing out of 200 that I can put in the "safe" category.
At least for five minutes until she decides the pockets are too deep or the button is too button-y.
Good grief.
This is why little girls end up at the grocery store in rainbow tights, a tutu, and rain boots with their hair uncombed for days.
Because of opinion.
Because those girls' moms finally just gave up trying to control the beast and let their little girl pick what suited her.
Even if it's inappropriate for the weather.
Even if it makes it look like you are running a group home for troubled youth.
I'm just scared of doing that with Tessa.
I'm scared that if left to her own devices, it wouldn't just BE rainbow tights, a tutu, and rain boots, it would be a dog collar and black nail polish and leather pants.
And she likes Katie Perry's hair.
Maybe even a little TOO much.
And God help me.
One day I'll have yet ANOTHER three year old girl.
Just when Tessa's finally done fidgeting with her sock seam, it'll start all over again.
I'm not naive.
I know it won't skip one girl.
Even the most mellow of souls has extra sensitive skin to "itchies" at age three.
It's an actual medical condition.
Maybe I should go ahead and put myself on the prayer list at church NOW...
Either that or just buy about 30 of these and be done with it.
Even when I see people's eyes bulge out when I tell them I have four.
When I see families of all boys, and the mom just sits near-comatose, eyes glazed, while the boys scream like banshees and poke at things
(like other kids' eyeballs)
with sticks, I count my blessings.
I don't think I could handle all that bashing.
Girls play differently.
Most of the time.
For example, I can set my girls up with crayons and paint and they'll sit quietly for over an hour "creating."
Hearts and stars and smiling princess faces.
I tried giving my daycare boys crayons one day and after I finished cleaning up the crayon marks on the hardwood left by one, I turned around to see a thousands bits of blue wax covering the other one's mouth.
The crayon was nowhere in sight.
Until later when I changed his diaper.
Therefore, most of the time I'm happy.
Except with one huge difference between boys and girls that I have found.
Girls have opinions on what they wear and boys don't.
I've found it starts, as most scary things do, around age three.
The age of independent thought process.
The age of disdain for every thing you, as a parent, do or say or think.
The age of total lack of reason and the love of tulle.
This last weekend, as Tessa entered hour two of her crying fit over a tunic top she didn't like, my sister in law - mother of three boys - chuckled and said, "I can't say that's ever happened to me. I just pick things out for them and they put them on. They never even comment on it."
She's livin' the dream.
But it doesn't matter what you hand a three year old girl.
She's going to hate it.
You could see it and think it's perfect and there is no earthly way she's going to find any fault.
And you'll be wrong.
The seam in the socks isn't straight.
The tag is itchy.
The waistband is too high and she "can't like" pants touching her bellybutton.
The neck is too tight.
The sleeves are too long, too short, too puffy, too tight.
And my all time favorite:
"These pants go all the way down to my feet."
Which is confusing, because isn't that the very NATURE of PANTS?
I try explaining to this darling three year old that when I see children who's pants DON'T go all the way to their feet, I usually look at their mothers funny.
I judge.
I can't help it.
I contemplate handing them $15 and pleading with them to head to Kohl's immediately, and maybe even leave their kids in the car while they shop to spare them public embarrassment.
A child's life is hard enough with peer pressures and home haircuts gone wrong.
Don't add waders into the mix.
On Chloe's birthday, I put Tessa in a brand new ADORABLE outfit.
It was one of the cutest outfits she'd ever worn.
I couldn't stop looking at her. Hearts for eyes.
I asked if I could take her picture.
The look she gave me in that moment was like something out of Children of the Corn.
Her pupils dilated and changed color.
I almost turned to a pillar of salt.
Then it started.
I knew it was coming.
With her eyes locked on mine, she slowly reached up and tugged at her neckline.
A look of distress formed on her face.
A silent look that needed no explanation.
Then she writhed her spine into a slight "S" shape.
She did 3 short exhale grunts.
Her lip curled up on the left side.
She was waiting for me to ask what was the matter.
I knew this, so I didn't.
I just stood and waited to hear it.
"I don't lllliiiiiikkkkkeee this shirt" she whined.
"It's too long down to my legs."
"That's because it's a tunic top. It's supposed to be long."
"I don't like tunic tops."
"Yes you do. Because I say you do. That is what you're wearing. Get over it."
This is when a fit began that I thought would never end.
I was pretty sure she'd still be crying over that tunic top as she entered her freshman year.
It was a battle of wills like you can only imagine.
A battle of wills that ended with me giving up and telling her to go upstairs and grab the brand new dress on her dresser that I had actually bought for her sister, but would let her wear just to shut her up. I knew she liked dresses. I thought it would be a clear win.
She was gone for 15 minutes.
When she returned, she was wearing the dress.
She was also wearing the exact same expression that she had been wearing with the tunic top.
Her nostrils were flared.
There were the beginnings of tears in her eyes.
"What on EARTH is the matter NOW?"
"I don't like these sleeves."
Cute little ruffle cap sleeves that they were.
"What is wrong with the sleeves?! They're adorable. There have maybe never even BEEN better sleeves."
"I don't like how they stick out."
Oh for the love of God.
"Look. You are either going to wear that dress with those stick out sleeves, or you are going to march back upstairs and put back on the tunic top. End of discussion.Those are the choices."
You would have thought I told her to wear chainmail.
It went on and on.
The party was about to start.
I tried distracting her with the thought of cake and balloons and friends arrival.
To no avail.
Those sleeves were just too darned stick-outy.
With two minutes until the party started, she arrived back downstairs wearing the tunic.
All of that for nothing.
Square fricking ONE.
Last night I got her dressed for Kids' Club at church.
I picked out a sweater and some jeans.
Jeans that were too "long down to her feet."
Another battle ensued.
I pressed on, though, and wouldn't let her change. I knew if I let her choose, she'd pick something like she'd picked earlier.
Last years' spaghetti strap Easter dress with size 2T stretch pants underneath and sandals.
It was raining.
I took her to kids' club, dropped her off, ignored her forlorn look, went shopping and returned to pick the girls up 2 hours later.
The MOMENT she saw me, from across the room, with a mouth full of cupcake she yelled, "Mama! I DO like these jeans now!"
She'd been thinking about those blasted pants for two hours.
But good. She likes them now.
That's one item of clothing out of 200 that I can put in the "safe" category.
At least for five minutes until she decides the pockets are too deep or the button is too button-y.
Good grief.
This is why little girls end up at the grocery store in rainbow tights, a tutu, and rain boots with their hair uncombed for days.
Because of opinion.
Because those girls' moms finally just gave up trying to control the beast and let their little girl pick what suited her.
Even if it's inappropriate for the weather.
Even if it makes it look like you are running a group home for troubled youth.
I'm just scared of doing that with Tessa.
I'm scared that if left to her own devices, it wouldn't just BE rainbow tights, a tutu, and rain boots, it would be a dog collar and black nail polish and leather pants.
And she likes Katie Perry's hair.
Maybe even a little TOO much.
And God help me.
One day I'll have yet ANOTHER three year old girl.
Just when Tessa's finally done fidgeting with her sock seam, it'll start all over again.
I'm not naive.
I know it won't skip one girl.
Even the most mellow of souls has extra sensitive skin to "itchies" at age three.
It's an actual medical condition.
Maybe I should go ahead and put myself on the prayer list at church NOW...
Either that or just buy about 30 of these and be done with it.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
I'm Bringing Kerri Back.
The fact that I can see these words appearing on this screen is proof that I made it.
I have survived yet another swipe with death.
I have just come out of what was the worst virus of my life.
There were a solid two days when I thought I might ACTUALLY die. My life was flashing before me. I was having all sorts of really weird memories.
Most of them about the odd ways my old boyfriends dressed, strange jobs I've had and roommates I'd had that should have been INmates.
I was scared to go to the doctor because of fear they'd tell me I had mere moments to live and I just wasn't ready because I haven't even been shopping in New York yet.
Last Monday night, the whole family got sick.
It started with Tessa yelling, "Mommy! I frowed up" into the baby monitor at 1:00am.
We Greens use the baby monitor as less of a monitor and more of a cheap intercom system.
Before daybreak, they mayhem had progressed to Justin and Alena both throwing up and me trembling in the bed with chills.
It's really not prime newborn care-taking situation to have a fever yourself, while your three year old lays face down in a bucket on the other side of you.
It's really hard to nurse with one hand, hold back someone's hair with the other, all while feeling sickness overtake you, too.
I didn't even know Justin was sick until Chloe told me the next day. I had been counting on him to take care of us all.
He'd gone to sleep in the room with Chloe when Tessa had come into our room in the night. I thought he must have escaped it.
Nope.
That dude was down for the count. Head in the trash can.
And now it was Valentine's Day, nonetheless.
Nothing says true love like simultaneous contagion.
We called my mom.
Because that's what we do.
We have a Bat Signal, of sorts.
And thank GOD for her, because we never would have survived the week without her. Never.
Valentines Day was spent with me in our bed shaking so hard, I think I chipped paint, and Justin down on the couch wrapped up like he was scaling Everest, ALSO chilling.
Or so I heard from my mom, who was running back and forth between us giving updates and taking orders.
I had a brief moment of being really glad we'd earthquake strapped the bookshelf.
It was pretty extreme.
We barely spoke two words to each other all day.
The girls just played, and kept coming in staring at me like, "But....Who's going to make LUNCH?"
I feel like I lapsed in and out of being conscious.
There was something about a mermaid baby, but I can't be sure if that was real...
And one of the worst parts of the whole thing was that my best friend, Lisa, had just flown into town days before and we were supposed to be doing a laundry list of things we'd planned, not the least of which was to watch the rap battles on 8 Mile - VERY IMPORTANT - and all of that was just thrown right down the drain.
By the next day though, everyone in the house was totally better.
Everyone but me.
I was actually WORSE.
Of course.
Because WHY on EARTH would I think I should get a break?
I mean - I only just had a baby.
I'd only just brought LIFE into the world after hours of hard labor and what ended up being TWO epidurals and a jab to the raw nerves of my spine.
Why should I get off easy?
Well darn it if that sickness didn't get worse and worse and worse.
I'm glad I never looked in the mirror because I'm pretty sure I looked like the scariest person you can imagine.
(Joan Rivers?)
I have never had an almost 104 fever for even one day before, let alone 7.
The bedroom had started looking pretty dreadful.
Like I hoarded sweat drenched tank tops and pain reliever bottles.
I was changing my clothes 8 times a day. First I was freezing. Then I was burning up. I gave up on putting the clothes away and instead just piled them high by my bedside for easy middle of the night access.
I wasn't eating.
My entire diet consisted of water and medication.
The baby stopped nursing.
The horrors just kept on and on and I thought, once again, that the end was near for me.
And in the midst of all of this, Justin came in to the room and stood at the foot of the bed.
He gazed at me. I thought, thinking of some loving words to say to me in this, my dark dark hour.
I waited, thinking he was surely about to utter some sort of affection.
Then he said the words every sick wife yearns to hear.
"How long has it been since you washed your hair?"
*blink* *blink*
Yes.
Yes he did.
Alena kept showing up telling me how sorry she was I was sick and how she didn't like it because,
"You're usually the one who takes care of US and when you're sick it seems weird."
I took this to mean she wasn't liking the carrot stick and lunch meat dinner they were currently eating.
In some ways I think it's been good for them.
They'll appreciate me a little more, I think.
They'll realize that there IS a value to parting your hair well while it's wet so it doesn't dry funny because of those weird callicks.
They'll now see that it's nice to have someone around who contemplates balancing a meal and making sure not all four things on the plate are orange.
Justin's totally stepped up his game.
He went to the grocery for me. He's been bathing the girls and getting them in bed. He's made phone calls and totally taken care of business.
It's making me realize I can relax a little bit.
They ARE capable.
Imagine that.
When I finally came downstairs after almost days spent only in my room, I realized there is some damage control that needs to happen.
There was a Costco sized pan of Cinnamon rolls on the counter accompanied by a VERY large bag of Reeses Pieces.
And though I realize that the "CLEARANCE" sticker on them must have made them EVER so appealing, they are still something I'd never allow to enter our home if I was lucid.
The cabinet now holds a bag of Golden Puff cereal.
The kind in a bag.
I have a general rule just to never buy cereal in a bag in the first place. It scares me, just by nature.
The very first ingredient is sugar.
FIRST INGREDIENT.
And if you don't recognize Golden Puff cereal, that is because you probably didn't grow up in a house that would buy something like that.
Or Kool-Aid. Or Tang. Or Spam.
Or any of the other accompanying "side dishes" that go with this childhood memory delicacy like Justin did.
He unpacked it from the grocery bag almost as carefully as he pulled Paige out of her car seat the very first time we brought her home.
Justin Green. The Golden Puff Gollum.
It was clear that Tessa had been on a candy free-for-all. Possibly for days. She feels about 8 pounds heavier.
She keeps repeating, "Candy is NOT a snack" as if she's trying to remind herself. Not sure THAT'S working.
And I'm pretty sure I heard some weird chirping sound coming from the direction of Chloe's hair.
I'm scared to stick my hand in there.
Today was the first day I've gone outside.
The wind felt strange on my face.
I had to fight the urge to not lay down on the park bench. I just sort of caressed it like a creeper while the girls ate snacks and fidgeted with their shoes.
I guess it all has taught me a lesson as well, though. That maybe I DON'T want to always be sleeping and have quite as much quiet as I thought.
I missed making the girls lunch and putting them to bed.
I missed the daily routine that can seem so repetitive at times.
Those kids are wild beasts, but MAN it's boring when you don't have them and you're listening to your 6th loop of the Relaxing Guitar cd you bought at Target while you wait to take more Advil.
A childless life seems so boring now.
It's why I HAD kids, actually. So I wouldn't wind up one day alone on my death bed with nothing to do but write my medication schedule on my mirror with eyeliner so I don't overdose.
The week long nap was OK, but now,
I'm bringing Kerri back.
I have survived yet another swipe with death.
I have just come out of what was the worst virus of my life.
There were a solid two days when I thought I might ACTUALLY die. My life was flashing before me. I was having all sorts of really weird memories.
Most of them about the odd ways my old boyfriends dressed, strange jobs I've had and roommates I'd had that should have been INmates.
I was scared to go to the doctor because of fear they'd tell me I had mere moments to live and I just wasn't ready because I haven't even been shopping in New York yet.
Last Monday night, the whole family got sick.
It started with Tessa yelling, "Mommy! I frowed up" into the baby monitor at 1:00am.
We Greens use the baby monitor as less of a monitor and more of a cheap intercom system.
Before daybreak, they mayhem had progressed to Justin and Alena both throwing up and me trembling in the bed with chills.
It's really not prime newborn care-taking situation to have a fever yourself, while your three year old lays face down in a bucket on the other side of you.
It's really hard to nurse with one hand, hold back someone's hair with the other, all while feeling sickness overtake you, too.
I didn't even know Justin was sick until Chloe told me the next day. I had been counting on him to take care of us all.
He'd gone to sleep in the room with Chloe when Tessa had come into our room in the night. I thought he must have escaped it.
Nope.
That dude was down for the count. Head in the trash can.
And now it was Valentine's Day, nonetheless.
Nothing says true love like simultaneous contagion.
We called my mom.
Because that's what we do.
We have a Bat Signal, of sorts.
And thank GOD for her, because we never would have survived the week without her. Never.
Valentines Day was spent with me in our bed shaking so hard, I think I chipped paint, and Justin down on the couch wrapped up like he was scaling Everest, ALSO chilling.
Or so I heard from my mom, who was running back and forth between us giving updates and taking orders.
I had a brief moment of being really glad we'd earthquake strapped the bookshelf.
It was pretty extreme.
We barely spoke two words to each other all day.
The girls just played, and kept coming in staring at me like, "But....Who's going to make LUNCH?"
I feel like I lapsed in and out of being conscious.
There was something about a mermaid baby, but I can't be sure if that was real...
And one of the worst parts of the whole thing was that my best friend, Lisa, had just flown into town days before and we were supposed to be doing a laundry list of things we'd planned, not the least of which was to watch the rap battles on 8 Mile - VERY IMPORTANT - and all of that was just thrown right down the drain.
By the next day though, everyone in the house was totally better.
Everyone but me.
I was actually WORSE.
Of course.
Because WHY on EARTH would I think I should get a break?
I mean - I only just had a baby.
I'd only just brought LIFE into the world after hours of hard labor and what ended up being TWO epidurals and a jab to the raw nerves of my spine.
Why should I get off easy?
Well darn it if that sickness didn't get worse and worse and worse.
I'm glad I never looked in the mirror because I'm pretty sure I looked like the scariest person you can imagine.
(Joan Rivers?)
I have never had an almost 104 fever for even one day before, let alone 7.
The bedroom had started looking pretty dreadful.
Like I hoarded sweat drenched tank tops and pain reliever bottles.
I was changing my clothes 8 times a day. First I was freezing. Then I was burning up. I gave up on putting the clothes away and instead just piled them high by my bedside for easy middle of the night access.
I wasn't eating.
My entire diet consisted of water and medication.
The baby stopped nursing.
The horrors just kept on and on and I thought, once again, that the end was near for me.
And in the midst of all of this, Justin came in to the room and stood at the foot of the bed.
He gazed at me. I thought, thinking of some loving words to say to me in this, my dark dark hour.
I waited, thinking he was surely about to utter some sort of affection.
Then he said the words every sick wife yearns to hear.
"How long has it been since you washed your hair?"
*blink* *blink*
Yes.
Yes he did.
Alena kept showing up telling me how sorry she was I was sick and how she didn't like it because,
"You're usually the one who takes care of US and when you're sick it seems weird."
I took this to mean she wasn't liking the carrot stick and lunch meat dinner they were currently eating.
In some ways I think it's been good for them.
They'll appreciate me a little more, I think.
They'll realize that there IS a value to parting your hair well while it's wet so it doesn't dry funny because of those weird callicks.
They'll now see that it's nice to have someone around who contemplates balancing a meal and making sure not all four things on the plate are orange.
Justin's totally stepped up his game.
He went to the grocery for me. He's been bathing the girls and getting them in bed. He's made phone calls and totally taken care of business.
It's making me realize I can relax a little bit.
They ARE capable.
Imagine that.
When I finally came downstairs after almost days spent only in my room, I realized there is some damage control that needs to happen.
There was a Costco sized pan of Cinnamon rolls on the counter accompanied by a VERY large bag of Reeses Pieces.
And though I realize that the "CLEARANCE" sticker on them must have made them EVER so appealing, they are still something I'd never allow to enter our home if I was lucid.
The cabinet now holds a bag of Golden Puff cereal.
The kind in a bag.
I have a general rule just to never buy cereal in a bag in the first place. It scares me, just by nature.
The very first ingredient is sugar.
FIRST INGREDIENT.
And if you don't recognize Golden Puff cereal, that is because you probably didn't grow up in a house that would buy something like that.
Or Kool-Aid. Or Tang. Or Spam.
Or any of the other accompanying "side dishes" that go with this childhood memory delicacy like Justin did.
He unpacked it from the grocery bag almost as carefully as he pulled Paige out of her car seat the very first time we brought her home.
Justin Green. The Golden Puff Gollum.
It was clear that Tessa had been on a candy free-for-all. Possibly for days. She feels about 8 pounds heavier.
She keeps repeating, "Candy is NOT a snack" as if she's trying to remind herself. Not sure THAT'S working.
And I'm pretty sure I heard some weird chirping sound coming from the direction of Chloe's hair.
I'm scared to stick my hand in there.
Today was the first day I've gone outside.
The wind felt strange on my face.
I had to fight the urge to not lay down on the park bench. I just sort of caressed it like a creeper while the girls ate snacks and fidgeted with their shoes.
I guess it all has taught me a lesson as well, though. That maybe I DON'T want to always be sleeping and have quite as much quiet as I thought.
I missed making the girls lunch and putting them to bed.
I missed the daily routine that can seem so repetitive at times.
Those kids are wild beasts, but MAN it's boring when you don't have them and you're listening to your 6th loop of the Relaxing Guitar cd you bought at Target while you wait to take more Advil.
A childless life seems so boring now.
It's why I HAD kids, actually. So I wouldn't wind up one day alone on my death bed with nothing to do but write my medication schedule on my mirror with eyeliner so I don't overdose.
The week long nap was OK, but now,
I'm bringing Kerri back.
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