As a child, I didn't play with dolls. I did, however, have a beloved teddy bear, for whom my grandmother and mother made clothes.
As a teen, I didn't love babysitting. There was one family, however, for whom I actually enjoyed it. I watched their three children every week for a year.
As an adult, I determined that since I didn't really have an affinity for small children, I probably shouldn't have any of my own. Gratefully, however, my o adwn personal Jiminey Cricket told me otherwise.
I adore being a mom. Today I am grateful not just for my kids but for everything being a mother allows me to feel, to be, to say, to experience.
I love being a mom for the excuses it gives me to relive favorite parts of my childhood without having to explain why.
I love being a mom for the fact that my daughters think I am the greatest human being (next to their daddy) on the planet ... and don't care that the world thinks otherwise. Somehow it makes having a lumpy stomach, chronic dark circles under my eyes and a cheering section in the bathroom when I pee all worth it.
I love being a mom for the excuses it gives me to learn or ponder about subjects in which I haven't been interested since childhood - what kind of bird makes a home in our backyard (a mocking bird), what kind of noises giraffes make (turns out they are mute - thanks to Erin for that!) or which monster on Sesame Street is my favorite (Grover).
I also love being a mom for how close it brings me to divinity. Some say that women are the scorned lot of Christianity in those religions that don't "allow" women to hold the highest levels of authority. I counter that my place as a co-creator and bearer of children is as close to divinity as a flawed human being can get. Through being a mother I've learned about unconditional love, about truly voluntarily bearing the pain and burdens of others, of wanting to be better than you already are, of true sacrifice - the kind that you take on without making big sighing noises and rolling your eyes.
Most of all, I love being a mom for the moments when Pebbles sighs and snuggles into me after her tummy is full or for the times when, like last night, Woodstock pipes up from the back seat and says, "I'm so happy mom!"
This week of Thanksgiving, I am grateful that I have the opportunity to be a mom, I realize it is truly a gift not to be taken for granted.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
A Week of Thanksgiving, Part I
Seeing that his wife was teetering on the brink of catastrophic insanity - pushed even closer by a weekend ER visit and a few days of a puking toddler who had the directional sense of a deaf bat in a paper bag - Himself decided celebrating our anniversary early was in order. He booked a hotel, decided on a place to eat, conned (er, persuaded) our sitter to keep both girls overnight (Pebbles is still not reliably sleeping through the night yet - though she does about 75% of the time) and lavished me with little gifts in true Himself fashion (should it be any surprise that his love language is "GIFTS" in all capital letters?!).
It was HEAVENLY. It would have been heavenly to sleep anywhere but my chronically neglected house, but Himself got a room at The Anniversary Inn - a quaint historic home-turned-hotel downtown with themed rooms. Ours was Egyptian themed - complete with cobra snake shower head, sphinxes and "stone" interior. It felt rather like sleeping inside a pyramid (not that I've ever done that). We had sushi. And sparkling cider. And we ate breakfast in bed. And told funny Woodstock stories.
Today, he surprised me with my early Christmas present ... the new Google phone, Droid. I've long had just the cheapest phone on the market because I've had a job that paid for a "cool" phone. However, now that I work for The Company the cool phone perk has gone. I hate my phone. I haven't liked it for the entire almost 2 years I've had it. But at my very core, I'm cheap. Himself isn't (today, it is a good thing, many days it is not). Of course, he was excited to give it to me because it's cool. I was excited to get it because now, effectively, I could do my ENTIRE JOB on my phone. Which makes me wonder why I need to even go into the office, but that's an entirely different story.
Back to Himself. Like all relationships, we have our moments. Sometimes more than others. Especially when one half of the relationship is chronically exhausted, on the brink of having a total anxiety meltdown and the sole food source for a constantly hungry baby and the "go to" person for a toddler who truly believe the entire universe is at her beck and call. There is sometimes weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth - real or imagined.
And yet ... Himself is still the person I run to with all of the latest news - glad, sad or otherwise. He is still my biggest champion in motherhood and my job. He is a wonderful dad to the girls and doesn't seem to mind that what once resided on my thighs migrated to my mid-section this past pregnancy or that said mid-section is covered in unsightly marks.
Best of all - he loves me enough to re-propose with the engagement ring I (er, Woodstock) lost 9 weeks ago during the new baby frenzy. Of course, we won't talk about putting your wife through 9 weeks of emotional torture and frenetic worry over the fact that she lost an irreplaceable ring. Nor will we discuss the irritation she's had about explaining to the masses that no, she did not in fact exchange her husband for a new baby even though she is sporting a naked finger. He found the ring, mere days after it went missing, had it cleaned, recoated, put in a jeweler's box and gave it to me last night.
Falling asleep with my ring back on my finger made me one of the happiest wives on the planet.
Waking up to sunshine, silence and Himself next to me did it all over again.
During this week of Thanksgiving, I'm grateful to have a partner, a lover, a friend and a father to my girls.
It was HEAVENLY. It would have been heavenly to sleep anywhere but my chronically neglected house, but Himself got a room at The Anniversary Inn - a quaint historic home-turned-hotel downtown with themed rooms. Ours was Egyptian themed - complete with cobra snake shower head, sphinxes and "stone" interior. It felt rather like sleeping inside a pyramid (not that I've ever done that). We had sushi. And sparkling cider. And we ate breakfast in bed. And told funny Woodstock stories.
Today, he surprised me with my early Christmas present ... the new Google phone, Droid. I've long had just the cheapest phone on the market because I've had a job that paid for a "cool" phone. However, now that I work for The Company the cool phone perk has gone. I hate my phone. I haven't liked it for the entire almost 2 years I've had it. But at my very core, I'm cheap. Himself isn't (today, it is a good thing, many days it is not). Of course, he was excited to give it to me because it's cool. I was excited to get it because now, effectively, I could do my ENTIRE JOB on my phone. Which makes me wonder why I need to even go into the office, but that's an entirely different story.
Back to Himself. Like all relationships, we have our moments. Sometimes more than others. Especially when one half of the relationship is chronically exhausted, on the brink of having a total anxiety meltdown and the sole food source for a constantly hungry baby and the "go to" person for a toddler who truly believe the entire universe is at her beck and call. There is sometimes weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth - real or imagined.
And yet ... Himself is still the person I run to with all of the latest news - glad, sad or otherwise. He is still my biggest champion in motherhood and my job. He is a wonderful dad to the girls and doesn't seem to mind that what once resided on my thighs migrated to my mid-section this past pregnancy or that said mid-section is covered in unsightly marks.
Best of all - he loves me enough to re-propose with the engagement ring I (er, Woodstock) lost 9 weeks ago during the new baby frenzy. Of course, we won't talk about putting your wife through 9 weeks of emotional torture and frenetic worry over the fact that she lost an irreplaceable ring. Nor will we discuss the irritation she's had about explaining to the masses that no, she did not in fact exchange her husband for a new baby even though she is sporting a naked finger. He found the ring, mere days after it went missing, had it cleaned, recoated, put in a jeweler's box and gave it to me last night.
Falling asleep with my ring back on my finger made me one of the happiest wives on the planet.
Waking up to sunshine, silence and Himself next to me did it all over again.
During this week of Thanksgiving, I'm grateful to have a partner, a lover, a friend and a father to my girls.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Perspectives
The Sunday before last the speakers were a young (very young) couple who had recently moved into the congregation. It was immediately apparent how young they really were (before they even revealed their ages - further highlighting how very young they are - no one else reveals how old they actually are!) when they began using exclusively stories from high school to illustrate the doctrinal points they were trying to make.
I feel terrible - I don't exactly remember what doctrinal points those were because Himself leaned over at some point and said, "Do you realize she was born AFTER I graduated from high school?!" To which I responded, "But you're OLD!"
It was then I realized that she was 7 when I graduated from high school. That made ME feel old.
And then, one of them (can't remember which one) revealed that the wife is pregnant.
For some reason, that made me just want to leap up and hug her and cry and say, "I'm so sorry," which is an utterly ridiculous sentiment to have because a) she's an adult b) she's married and c) the birth (or pending birth) of a child should ALWAYS be a celebration.
It's hard to see the world through someone else's lens. All I could do was see her life - only 2 years out of high school, no college, young, newlywed, pregnant, and her husband in much the same position (minus the pregnancy, obviously!) - through my lens.
I turned 20 days before I set off on the grandest adventure of my life - a year-long stint in Washington, D.C., which radically altered the course of my life in more ways than one. When I married, I was a college graduate (and had been for a couple of years)and lived in my own apartment 2,500+ miles from home. When I had my first baby, I was well out of the honeymoon stage of married life.
So looking at her life through my lens made me want to cry, because there is no way I would trade what I did and who I became in the nearly 11.5 years between graduating from high school and giving birth to Woodstock. I needed that time to develop who I was, become stronger in some areas and less insistent in others. I needed to develop a sense of self, needed to experience certain things.
That doesn't mean everyone needs to, I keep reminding myself. And yet, it also made me compose a mental list of things I want my girls to want for themselves - an education beyond high school, time on their own as their own people, opportunities to know themselves and their spouses, enough income to cover the basics.
It doesn't have to take 11.5 years beyond high school. In fact, I wouldn't even recommend it (though it worked for me). I just hope it takes more than 2.
I feel terrible - I don't exactly remember what doctrinal points those were because Himself leaned over at some point and said, "Do you realize she was born AFTER I graduated from high school?!" To which I responded, "But you're OLD!"
It was then I realized that she was 7 when I graduated from high school. That made ME feel old.
And then, one of them (can't remember which one) revealed that the wife is pregnant.
For some reason, that made me just want to leap up and hug her and cry and say, "I'm so sorry," which is an utterly ridiculous sentiment to have because a) she's an adult b) she's married and c) the birth (or pending birth) of a child should ALWAYS be a celebration.
It's hard to see the world through someone else's lens. All I could do was see her life - only 2 years out of high school, no college, young, newlywed, pregnant, and her husband in much the same position (minus the pregnancy, obviously!) - through my lens.
I turned 20 days before I set off on the grandest adventure of my life - a year-long stint in Washington, D.C., which radically altered the course of my life in more ways than one. When I married, I was a college graduate (and had been for a couple of years)and lived in my own apartment 2,500+ miles from home. When I had my first baby, I was well out of the honeymoon stage of married life.
So looking at her life through my lens made me want to cry, because there is no way I would trade what I did and who I became in the nearly 11.5 years between graduating from high school and giving birth to Woodstock. I needed that time to develop who I was, become stronger in some areas and less insistent in others. I needed to develop a sense of self, needed to experience certain things.
That doesn't mean everyone needs to, I keep reminding myself. And yet, it also made me compose a mental list of things I want my girls to want for themselves - an education beyond high school, time on their own as their own people, opportunities to know themselves and their spouses, enough income to cover the basics.
It doesn't have to take 11.5 years beyond high school. In fact, I wouldn't even recommend it (though it worked for me). I just hope it takes more than 2.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
If I Have to Ask
For a couple of weeks now, I've been listening to a relationships seminar by a fairly well-known communications expert and family therapist in The Frontier.
My sister gave it to me several years ago, and I listened to it during my long commutes over the river and through the woods between Virginia and Maryland. That time was also a transitory time - as I anticipated the transition from "married, no kids" to "married, with child." Just as now I am transitioning from "married, one kid" to "married, two kids" - which is a fairly large mental adjustment for me, whatever the reason.
Anyway, long-winded intro aside, there are several key things the seminar highlights that have struck me (they struck me nearly 3 years ago as well, but this time they fairly pounded me over the head). One of those is the speaker's comment that too many of us live our lives thinking:
The obvious problem is that neither I, nor anyone else that I know of, can read minds. And yet, I, and probably a lot of others, go through life assuming that if someone loves us he/she should just know what I need or want. And if, heaven forbid, I actually have to vocalize those needs/wants/expectations to get someone to recognize them, it is null and void.
Put that way it sounds so obvious. Apparently it's not obvious enough, however, since I can still hear that childhood refrain, "I shouldn't have to tell you, you should just know."
I'm working on replacing it with vocal expectations, prefaced with, "I would appreciate it if..." or "It would mean a lot if..." or "I could use some help with ..."
Of course, on day one I caught myself thinking, "Himself should know I'm trying to be better at verbalizing things ... after all the CD has been playing over and over for days."
Ooops.
My sister gave it to me several years ago, and I listened to it during my long commutes over the river and through the woods between Virginia and Maryland. That time was also a transitory time - as I anticipated the transition from "married, no kids" to "married, with child." Just as now I am transitioning from "married, one kid" to "married, two kids" - which is a fairly large mental adjustment for me, whatever the reason.
Anyway, long-winded intro aside, there are several key things the seminar highlights that have struck me (they struck me nearly 3 years ago as well, but this time they fairly pounded me over the head). One of those is the speaker's comment that too many of us live our lives thinking:
If I have to ask, it doesn't mean anything (or as much). I shouldn't have to ask if he/she loves me.It struck me hard, because I was raised in a home (lovingly, to be sure), where that sentiment was oft repeated. "I shouldn't have to tell you, you should just know." Of course, it was probably uttered in relation to the fact that I hadn't gotten around to doing the chores that were clearly explained/posted/expected. However, I internalized it as, "Because you are a part of this family, you should just know what is expected."
The obvious problem is that neither I, nor anyone else that I know of, can read minds. And yet, I, and probably a lot of others, go through life assuming that if someone loves us he/she should just know what I need or want. And if, heaven forbid, I actually have to vocalize those needs/wants/expectations to get someone to recognize them, it is null and void.
Put that way it sounds so obvious. Apparently it's not obvious enough, however, since I can still hear that childhood refrain, "I shouldn't have to tell you, you should just know."
I'm working on replacing it with vocal expectations, prefaced with, "I would appreciate it if..." or "It would mean a lot if..." or "I could use some help with ..."
Of course, on day one I caught myself thinking, "Himself should know I'm trying to be better at verbalizing things ... after all the CD has been playing over and over for days."
Ooops.
Monday, November 02, 2009
The Magic 120 Minutes
I was beginning to wonder how long someone can go about accomplishing everything for everyone else, but getting nothing done on one's personal "to do" list. I vowed I'd not become one of those women who devoted 100% of herself to everyone else and spent nothing of value (time, money or reflection) on herself.
Somewhere about the 3rd month of pregnancy with Pebbles, that happened. Which is how I found myself in my stylist's chair on Saturday for the first time in exactly 10 months. For perspective, the last time I had my hair cut was 3 days before I found out I was pregnant, and I now have a 2-month-old baby.
It is amazing what transformation a hair cut and some highlights can do to a person. I felt a little more like myself and less like the haggard lady in the frumpy mommy costume. Although, if you look too close and the rest of the lumps and bumps on me ... well, there is a ways to go.
It almost seems like the haircut translated into energy. (That and the time change - about which, no one told the kiddos, but it means I got to put both of them to bed early, so I gained an hour last night instead of Saturday night). I washed, dried, folded and PUT AWAY (key phrase here) NINE batches of laundry this weekend. I brought in the winter clothes, put away the summer clothes and my maternity clothes. This morning I deboned chicken for tonight's meal, put the bones/skin/other bits to boil with seasonings, carrots and onions for chicken soup base, which will be a meal later in the week, made scrambled eggs and veggies for Woodstock (she'll eat anything you put in eggs!), dressed and fed myself and both kids, prepped the zucchini for roasted zucchini tonight and got us all out of the house only 5 minutes late.
Maybe I need to get my hair cut every few days ...?
Somewhere about the 3rd month of pregnancy with Pebbles, that happened. Which is how I found myself in my stylist's chair on Saturday for the first time in exactly 10 months. For perspective, the last time I had my hair cut was 3 days before I found out I was pregnant, and I now have a 2-month-old baby.
It is amazing what transformation a hair cut and some highlights can do to a person. I felt a little more like myself and less like the haggard lady in the frumpy mommy costume. Although, if you look too close and the rest of the lumps and bumps on me ... well, there is a ways to go.
It almost seems like the haircut translated into energy. (That and the time change - about which, no one told the kiddos, but it means I got to put both of them to bed early, so I gained an hour last night instead of Saturday night). I washed, dried, folded and PUT AWAY (key phrase here) NINE batches of laundry this weekend. I brought in the winter clothes, put away the summer clothes and my maternity clothes. This morning I deboned chicken for tonight's meal, put the bones/skin/other bits to boil with seasonings, carrots and onions for chicken soup base, which will be a meal later in the week, made scrambled eggs and veggies for Woodstock (she'll eat anything you put in eggs!), dressed and fed myself and both kids, prepped the zucchini for roasted zucchini tonight and got us all out of the house only 5 minutes late.
Maybe I need to get my hair cut every few days ...?
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