The "Crazies"

Around our house, we have a few hours in the day I like to call “the crazies.” I used to call this time of day “the witching hour,” but then the one hour became two, then three, and now it’s sometimes even four, thanks in large part to Nana’s stellar bedtime routine, in which she reads approximately 500 pages of princess/cowboy/fairy tales to Rachel then Rachel feels the need to poke Nana in the eye repeatedly until Nana finally snaps and calls it a night. But I digress.

I’m sure we are not the only ones who have the crazies. For us it hits full force around 4pm, but the mental breakdown starts somewhere around 3:30, when I realize it’s almost 4:00 and begin sweating profusely. It goes something like this:

Collin texts: “what’s for dinner? If you’re not cooking I’ll pick something up, so I need to know ASAP if you’re cooking or not. I may or may not be home. It may or may not be around 5:30 if I do come home. But I need to know.”

About 5 seconds before or after that text, give or take, my mom starts feeling really good because she’s had at least 10 cups of coffee and watched a couple of old movies. For her, 4pm is work time and she starts “finishing” all the unfinished projects we have around the house. I start reminding her, in dripping-faucet fashion, that 4:30 is Rachel’s dinner time (yes, really), and that I would love it if she could help with Aaron while I wind Rachel down. This does not sit well with my mom, who has just dragged out all her various tools and is really hitting her groove.

I’m still ignoring Collin’s text, because frankly, I don’t know what we’re going to do for dinner despite the meat thawing in the sink. This is a “how the kids behave” thing, not a “I forgot to think about dinner” thing.

4:30pm hits, and I feed Rachel something, anything, as long as she doesn’t paint with it, yell at it, or feed it to the dog. I begin reminding her bedtime is in an hour. She screams, “I don’t want to go to bed!” and I point out that she has a whole additional hour in which to play. Have I mentioned she can’t tell time yet?

She eats, or not, and now it’s time to start dinner for everyone else. Aaron decides he wants a nap, and Nana realizes she’s the go-to mom unless she wants to cook, and trust me, she doesn’t.

So she rocks Aaron, Aaron falls asleep, and 10 minutes later Collin gets home, at which point both the dog and Rachel go insane with joy and begin squealing, barking, and turning in circles. They all three play and I’m helpless to stop them, because really, could YOU stop a 16-year-old from playing with his brother-worshipping 3-year-old sister? It warms the heart. Aaron waking up, however, is not as wonderful.

Now it’s 6pm. In case you’ve lost track, that’s 30 minutes past Rachel’s bedtime and she is a MESS. We swipe a toothbrush across her mouth and call it a win.

She’s carted off to bed by an encyclopedia-wielding Nana, and Aaron and I hit the rocking chair with high hopes that he’ll stay down for the night. Right as the bottle comes to an end and Aaron's eyes close, Collin tiptoes into the nursery to ask if he can go to his girlfriend’s house. Aaron smiles and we head to the living room for another round of "Don't Eat the Dog."

But at least I've made it to 7pm and there are only 3 more hours before Andy gets home, at which point I can collapse into a blubbering mess and hand the reins to him.

Please tell me this is what it’s like at your house. And if not, can I move in?

Rachel looks a bit possessive of her Hatty.

My Son Jeremy

For seventeen years, I have been haunted by the seemingly innocent question, “How many kids do you have?”

I used to say two. Then I said one. Now I say three.

The math gets confusing.

Over the last few days, I’ve read a lot of articles about why Mother’s Day is terrible. Articles written by infertile women. Single women. Women who have miscarried time and time again. I understand. Sometimes the happiest of celebrations, the most innocuous of questions, the most common of conversation fillers can be... torture.

Cruel in the extreme.

Take-it-home-and-cry-in-the-shower painful.

Those of us who bear the pain write about it
or not.

Talk about it
or not.

But we always, always think it, feel it, live it.

My first child, a boy, was born in 1994. His name was Jeremy. When he was 7 ½ months old, he died of SIDS.

Five months later, I became pregnant with my second child, Collin. When my belly began to show during that pregnancy, the questions started.

In the beginning of the long years since, I answered honestly... “I have two children; my first son died.”

That was a tough line for others to hear, especially those like grocery baggers and sales clerks. What were they to do with that big, fat, ugly sentence? In what part of the mind does one put that for processing, and where does the conversation go from there?

Friends. Pregnant women. People who told me I was too young to be Collin’s mom. Conversations flagged. Women cried. Others became embarrassed at their gaffe.

So I lied.

At first I didn’t always lie. Just mostly. Let the dust settle a little on a friendship then dropped the bomb. Resolved to never bring out the truth for those with whom interactions were limited to an exchange of goods or services. It was a “need-to-know” kind of thing.

And then the sometimes lie became an always lie, even with my close mama friends.

Why bring it up? Why deal with the awkwardness, the “I’m so sorry-s?” The fear that clutched their throats for their little ones, or even worse: the questions. Questions borne of living in a society overrun with talk shows and tabloids and gossipmongers.

So. Not. Worth it.

Except that it is.

Over the last few years, since becoming pregnant a third and a fourth time, it has become worth it. Each time I’m asked “how many?” Or, “Is this your first (or second or third) child,” I die a little bit inside. I feel the lie eat away at me. I feel my son in Heaven wonder if I’m not his mama after all.

But I am. I breastfed, co-slept, sling-wore, and mourned, am still mourning, my child who would be 18 now.

I AM HIS MAMA.

I just want that to be.... known. I don’t need to discuss it. I don’t even want to discuss it. But when another mom is referencing her children, I want to be able to make my own reference. To Jeremy. To say, “Oh yes! I remember dealing with that after Jeremy was born,” and have it be okay.

My now-six-month-old son is the last child I will have. And in the time since that fully hit me, I have become fixated on the number that flashes on my mommy resume: 3. 3. 3. Mom of three.

No.

And so over the last year, I have opened up a bit more. One online profile for me says “mom of four.” Another says of “mom of three.” At least one blog post references Jeremy. I’ve been opening the door a little more each day, and today I'm going all the way.

Why? Because of the stirrings and conviction in my heart. Each day I think about it more and more and MORE and some days it’s all I think about. And now with Mother’s Day on Sunday, and the inundation of articles on how infertile women, single women, and women who have miscarried time and time again suffer through Mother’s Day, I felt the time was right to share my story as they have shared theirs.

I may never post this. It would make things awkward. It would open up questions. It would make my friends feel pressured to say the right thing. Question if they should introduce me to a new mama friend as a mother of three or a mother of four. Honestly, I don’t know how they, or even I, should handle that last question.

But I am, and always will be, a mother of four. To not say so ignores so much, I don’t know if I can continue with it any longer. But to say so seems.... attention seeking. Dramatic. But I can’t pick and choose anymore. It’s either/or not neither/nor.

If this ends up on the internet, I guess I’ll have my answer.

Jeremy
May 13, 1995
October 10, 1994--May 22, 1995

 

 

Rachel at the Dog Park (by Andy)

I work nights.

Much like somebody once said that Washington D.C. combines Northern charm with Southern efficiency, working nights combines all the worst parts of involuntary unemployment with the worst parts of involuntary over-employment.  As I continue my now five-month job search, I am faced with the fact that there is much more at stake than simply my vocational happiness.  Because of my current schedule, my family rarely sits down to eat dinner together, for instance.  Studies show that this means my littlest child, Aaron, will probably become a criminal (not that this is surprising given how tough he generally seems...check out that hard-core bib)




Working nights means I never see our teenager, Collin.  When he is at school, I'm at home. When he's on his way home, I'm on my way to work.  When I get home from work, he's downstairs either solving complicated chemistry equations or deftly operating his smartphone.  The two nights I don't work other than Sunday are Friday and Saturday, and despite my repeated assurances that I will allow him to start in South America, Collin continues to decline my invitation to play Risk on those particular evenings.

There's another downside to working nights, too.  People who work 9 to 5 jobs at an office can come home and spend 4 hours watching Game of Thrones while eating pizza and nobody blames them.  But when you work nights, you often find yourself sitting on the couch at 11:30 a.m., wearing sweatpants, eating cereal, and reading Rembert Browne columns on Grantland.  And while I generally keep very busy before I go to work, there is always that occasional time when my wife, who has been awake since 6am doing fourteen million things and crossing them off a to-do list so long that it has an acknowledgements page, will walk into the living room and find me eating cereal and reading Rembert Browne columns, milk dribbling down onto my sweatpants.  Which is great.

But if there's one perk of working nights, it's that I get to spend lots of time with Rachel, our three year-old, who would generally be asleep by the time I got home from work if I worked normal hours.  Every Monday we have Beanie-Daddy day, a fun adventure-filled day that is planned weeks in advance.  Past activities include:

• Taking the subway train all around town!  Did you know they charge you a fee if you get on and off at the same station?
• Taking the ferry boat across the bay.  Did you know there are drunk old men who ride the ferry boat in the middle of the day?
• Being ninja monkeys who surprise grandpa at work with a hand-drawn card
• That one time when we went to a pet store to try to see some animals (cheaper than the zoo!) but the only animal they had was a parakeet, unless you count the store-owner as an animal, which technically she is, but not a friendly one, probably because she realized when I asked about other live animals that we were not there to buy expensive organic dog treats, but then we went to the library but the library was closed and Daddy spent the whole time apologizing for how bad Beanie-Daddy day was on the way home and vowed to spend more time pre-planning the next week, which led to:
• The Dog Park!

See, Rachel is a dog owner, but mostly her experience with our German Shepherd Winston involves chasing him away and yelling at him for trying to eat her food.  Sometimes this is because Winston is trying to eat her food.  Other times this is because Winston is asleep in the next room, possibly dreaming about eating her food.  Regardless, it's not a happy relationship, and given that Winston is a rescue dog with a traumatic past, I felt that maybe this was a relationship that could use some repairing.

So yesterday Rachel and I took Winston to the dog park.  On the ride there he slobbered a lot, and then when I applied the brakes a little too quickly, he slammed against the back of my seat, sending slobber through the hole under the headrest and onto my neck.  Rachel thought this was funny.

At the dog park, Winston ran around a lot, as did Rachel.  Winston went up to lots of other doggies and greeted them, as did Rachel.  Rachel eventually began talking to every person we met, saying "hi, can I pet your doggy?"  Or "hi, I'm Rachel and I'm three.  What's your doggie's name?"  At one point she met a little girl about her age and said "Hi, my name's Rachel, I'm three."  The girl replied by saying her name as well.

Pause.

"I'm Rachel.  I'm three."

She continues to stare at her new friend, who doesn't reply.  Longer pause.

"I'm Rachel.  I'm three."

The great thing was, though, that as we met other people's doggies, they (the people, I mean) invariably asked Rachel what her doggie's name was.

"Pinston," she would reply, because she can't really pronounce it.  But she was acknowledging that this was her dog.  She laughed when he ran around and she petted him when he stopped long enough for her to catch up with him.  Later, when I admonished her for trying to pet a dog without first asking the dog's owner, she said "you're an owner.  I'm an owner."

By the time we got back in the car to head home, I felt like we'd had a breakthrough in toddler-dog relations. That night, I had a job interview with an organization that brings together Palestinian and Israeli youth.

The dog park.  It's kind of like that.

The Difference With Daughters

My daughter is beautiful. Actually, let me rewrite that: my daughter is BEAUTIFUL.

Sometimes I feel an almost physical shock at how adorably precious Rachel is. And while she is far (far!) from all grown up, she is no longer a “baby,” no matter how often I tell her that she is. Everything we do and say to Rachel now will influence who she becomes in the future, and how she perceives herself and her role in this world. Our words and our attitudes will give her the foundation upon which to base all of her worldviews and will create the lens through which she sees herself and others.

I find that I tell Rachel, over and over again, just how beautiful I think she is. I can’t help it—it just spills out before I can stop it. I say, “you’ve got such a pretty smile!” Or, "you are the cutest daughter I have!” (She has yet to think about the fact that she’s the only daughter I have, but we’ll leave that for another day.) I want her to be confident in her appearance (just think Dove commercial, which is a whole other can of worms), but I also am worried about how frequently we comment on how she looks. Lately I’ve tried to follow every involuntary blurt of “your curls are so gorgeous!” with, “Are you going to be an engineer or an architect when you grow up?” (because I want her to recognize and value her intelligence), or, “Do you know how much we love you just for being you?” (because I want her to know that neither beauty nor brains are what make her special).

We don’t use negative adjectives such as  “fat,” or “ugly,” or even say overly positive things about other people in front of Rachel, in part because we don’t want her to fixate on looks or think that other people will be critiquing her in the same way. In my house growing up, intelligence, kindness, and independence were revered, but so too was a person’s appearance. And when that is combined with society’s emphasis on beauty, bad things can happen.

So I’m worried. Collin is almost grown, so you might think I’ve had to address this issue before and have come to am enlightened viewpoint. Nope! I think Collin is as handsome as Rachel is beautiful, but I don’t worry about him in the same way. Why? Because society isn’t fixated with how men look or dress in the same way it is with women. It’s also understood that even if a man is outrageously handsome, his worth is in his personhood. His job. His intelligence. Good looks are just the icing on the cake. With women, the opposite is true... Beautiful AND smart? Intelligence becomes the icing. And of course, both of those cakes neglect to note that a person’s true worth is found in neither brawn nor brains.

How do we teach Rachel otherwise? She is beautiful. She is smart. She can create intricate machines out of Legos, a stroller, and random bits of paper and tape. She can organize three-hundred and thirty-seven toys into a symmetrical repeating pattern that spans the entirety of our main floor. She also makes my bed, feeds the baby, begs me to use the iron (don’t worry, I don’t let her). And after she does all these things we smile at her in her princess dress and tiara and tell her how lovely she is. How precious she is in piggy-tails. And she parrots back when she feels especially needy, “Look how cute I am!” And darn it, it both scares me and angers me. We should be able to enjoy all of who Rachel is without fear of repercussion. Without fear that she will not only be objectified in the future, but will objectify herself because she thinks that’s where her value is.

How many times in a row should I compliment Rachel about things other than her appearance so she will get the point that there is so much more to life? So much more to who she is?

As a woman, I know all too well the internal struggles Rachel will face in junior high. In high school. In college. And even into adulthood, when just as she is sure she is finally where and who she wants to be, something will happen to make her question herself all over again. And when that happens, I don’t want her to demand, “Look how cute I am!” but rather to say, “I am loved and special.” Period. No justification or explanation needed. 

Only she knows what she built, but it's impressive.

Rachel feeding Aaron.

My Supergirl can do it all!

Rachel's Revenge

Aaron’s bedroom is right across the hall from the main floor bathroom. When I’m the only adult home with the little kids, I leave Aaron’s bedroom door open when I'm putting him to sleep so I can keep an ear on Rachel. Unfortunately, it is always during the most difficult putting-to-sleep times that something resembling the following occurs:

From the quiet calm of the nursery, I hear

pitterpatter pitterpatter pitterpatter

(water goes on) (water goes off)

pitterpatter pitterpatter pitterpatter

1 minute passes.

pitterpatter pitterpatter pitterpatter

(water goes on) (water goes off)

pitterpatter pitterpatter pitterpatter

2 minutes pass and I start to relax. Aaron’s eyes start drifting shut....

pitterpatter pitterpatter pitterpatter

(water goes on) (water goes off) (toilet flushes. Flushes again.)

pitterpatter pitterpatter pitterpatter

I can feel myself getting desperate during these times. If it’s an apocalyptic day when Aaron is mostly refusing to sleep, there’s nothing I can do but pray the mess isn’t too big. If it’s a good day and Aaron is taking nicely spaced, lengthy naps, I might risk sticking my head into the hall. When that happens I get a big grin, and Rachel runs into Aaron’s room:

“CANIHELPPUTHIMTOSLEEPCANI?”

What I think: “NO, dear Rachel. You may NOT. Pitterpatter yourself on out of here before my head EXPLODES.”

What I say: “Sure. Can you please hand me that binkie?”

She hands me the binkie. Then a book. Then another book. Then the boppy and the My Breast Friend and the baby wipes. Then Aaron opens his eyes.

“Rachel, help mommy by watching cartoons. Please. Now.”

Her face falls, her shoulders slump. I hear her drag herself to the playroom and I know I’m in trouble.

She will get back at me for hurting her feelings. She will paint herself. She will cover herself in ketchup and mustard. She will make a “fruit salad” with random bits of food, dog treats, and personal items she pulls off the kitchen counter.

Today she got revenge by filling up a toy house—a PAPER toy house—with toy measuring cup after toy measuring cup of water. It was sitting 2 inches from my laptop.

She also made a “fruit salad” consisting of Smarties, blackberries, flower petals, water, and packets of sugar.

She also covered herself from top to bottom with honey yogurt. The day after I washed her hair.

I'm sort of proud.

Rachel's favorite color.

Nana's Coming Home! (Or, "Why I'm the World's Biggest Wimp.")

Tax day has come and gone, which means....

Nana’s coming home!

My mom (AKA Nana) splits her time between California and Arkansas, which is where my sister lives and owns an accounting firm with her husband. During the tax season, my sister and BIL almost never make it home. Instead they camp out at one of those extended stay hotels and live on coffee and Starbucks oatmeal. So my mom takes care of their kids and dog while my sister and BIL are off earning enough money to have an awesome house with a pool (complete with waterfall) and to buy me expensive Christmas gifts like KitchenAid stand mixers and gift certificates to Chez Panisse.

But now that April 15th has come and gone, it’s our turn to have Nana. She heads back first thing tomorrow morning, which, in Nana-time, means she’ll hit the road around 2pm.

At the same time my mom will be driving her pickup truck full of hand-me-down top-of-the-line baby gear halfway across the country, Andy and Collin will be flying to Boston for Collin’s last college tour. I, on the other hand, will be at home with two precious munchkins, one of whom was just re-diagnosed with some kind of lingering RSV horribleness and doesn’t sleep. And the other is Rachel. I imagine I will have 2 to 3 days of solo parenting, and I am overcome with parental cowardice at the thought.

Which brings me to my next point: I am the world’s biggest wimp.

Let’s compare:

1996 to 2009: Attended college as a single parent, graduated magna cum laude, double major. Attended law school as a single parent (did NOT graduate magna cum laude, but hey, it’s Boalt. We don’t put stock in such things). Worked days, nights, weekends, exercised all the time, ate well, had a spotless house, and never slept. Had lots of energy leftover for fun.

2009 to present: Co-parenting three children along with one part-time live-in Grandma who will get night shifts if necessary, babysits at the drop of a hat, and (almost) never says “no” to any halfway reasonable request. Other Grandma lives about 3 blocks away, has Rachel at least one day a week, often more. I work sometimes, seldom get exercise, have chocolate cake for breakfast, and I won’t even tell you who cleans my house. Have no energy leftover for fun.

Even if not technically a “wimp,” I have, at the very least, gotten soft. And this really bugs me. Okay, sure, I was in my teens and twenties between 1996 and 2007. And I had fewer children. And I had the built-in fun of college and law school classmates. But really? I’ve been reduced to a mom who, after finding out she would be solo parenting for a handful of days, begins blowing up her mom’s cell phone to confirm just exactly when she would arrive into town, and inquiring whether the other grandma could possibly fit in a sleepover with Rachel?

Part of the problem is my new inability to drink coffee after about 1pm. That drastically decreases my quality of life and mothering abilities. Another part of my problem is having a husband who will let me be wimpy. If he’s in Boston, who will split night wakings with me? Who will make the bottles? Who will take out the trash Sunday night? (Oh, wait. My mom will be here by Sunday.) The list could go on and on. So really, it’s all Andy’s fault. In fact, it’s gotten so bad that the baby will go to Andy as happily and readily as he will to me. I think that’s a problem we need to fix.

My new experiment will be to see if letting Andy sit on the couch, watching baseball and drinking chocolate milk, will bring back my old energy. The experiment will last until approximately mid-summer, which is when Nana will head back to Arkansas.

Cool mom who can do it all!

And... not so much.

So (faulty logic aside), let's have less of this....

....and more of this.

Collin Bought a Jaguar

We've been sick. Really, really sick. All of February, all of March, and by the looks of it, all of April. I'm a bit at my wits end, by which I mean please just leave me alone to die in peace.

So forgive me if I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention when Collin put his iPhone in front of me the other night and said, "Look at this car! It's only $xxxx! I could buy that!"

Andy, I think, was paying a bit more attention, but he'd had a bad day so his reaction wasn't really the best, either. He hit disbelieving dad lecture mode in about two seconds.

In my mind, I was thinking. "Let's not get upset over this fictional-to-us car. That would be like arguing over what to name our eighth child!"

In the connection between my mind and Andy's, I was saying, "It's okay.... Let him think about it. Let him even go and look at it.... he got his current car less than a year ago. He won't sell it!" Andy apparently agreed and began making "cool car!" comments, and I felt we had completed yet another successful Hanauer evening.

"If you start really thinking about it, sweetie, let us know and we can discuss it. Now I'm off to bed!"

Or something like that.

The very next day, Collin came home with a Jaguar.

A 2003, shiny black and chrome, Grey Poupon Jaguar. It looks like Collin borrowed it from his grandfather or is being paid by the old guy next door to run it through the car wash. It is beautiful.

For years I've wanted a Jaguar. Collin and Andy laugh at me for this. They say Jaguars are for old people. I disagree. I think they are just.... pretty. So I've told them both that when we finally toss the minivan, we're bringing home a Jaguar. Well, we have a Jaguar now, but it's Collin's.

"Are you mad at me because I have a Jaguar and you don't?"

"Er, no.... But can I drive it?"

Picture of the Jag forthcoming.

UPDATE! Pictures now added here.

Sleep Training

Being the parents of a 5-month-old, my husband and I argue a lot about sleep. Some of these arguments are exactly what you would expect:

"I am sooo tired. I've been up since 5am!"

"No, it was 5:15. I know because I was awake, too, and I looked at the clock and then couldn't fall back asleep for at least 10 minutes."

or

"I am sooo tired. I only got 4 hours of sleep last night!"

"You got 4.5 hours! How could you possibly think you only got 4 hours? You went to bed in the 7th inning!"

But other arguments probably aren't at all what you'd expect:

"No, seriously Andy, I really, really, REALLY want to be the one to get up with Aaron. If my eyes start bleeding or if I drop the baby, I'll get you. But otherwise it needs to be me. Besides, if you get up you'll be cranky."

"No, no, no. It needs to be me. You are home with the kids all day so you need your rest. I'll be fine if I'm tired; after all, I only work 10 hours a day. Besides, if you get up you'll be cranky."

But then after Aaron wakes for the second (or third) time in one night, our arguments sound more like this:

"I have to get up at 6am with Rachel. It's 4am now. If I get up I'll have to stay up and that's not cool. Plus, you can go back to sleep and I can't."

"Well, I picked Collin up from a party at 1am and it's 4am now, so I've only had 3 hours of sleep and you've had four!"

This goes on for so long that even though we don't follow the cry it out method, Aaron has practically cried himself to sleep by the time we figure out who's getting up.

Truth be told, we're mostly still arguing over who should or should not have gotten up with Rachel. We're still angry at the 2 years of sleep we lost, not because of Rachel, but because we stayed up late so many nights "discussing" who should be doing what at 3am.

We're really pretty lucky. Aaron does a decent  job at staying asleep most nights. Because I mostly stay home, and because Andy works nights plus has a superhuman ability to fall back asleep at any time during the day, we manage to piece together enough rest to keep us from say, backing the minivan into trees, which is what I did a lot of when I was pregnant.

But still.

Rachel has a 5:30pm bedtime. Aaron has a 7pm bedtime. Collin has an I-forgot-to-go-to-sleep-last-night bedtime.

Rachel gets up at 6am. Aaron gets up at 5am. Collin gets up at whatever time will make him only 15 minutes late to class instead of missing it altogether.

So we are tired. And a lot less smart than we'd otherwise be. The other night I asked Andy to "turn off the rain" when the oven timer was beeping. And Andy, poor Andy watches more 3am reruns of Sports Center on mute than anyone I know.

So our mantra, my mantra, really, has become "It's a season. It will pass. It's a season. It will pass."

I think Andy is more focused on hoping for better On-Demand free movie options, preferably with sub-titles.

Do I look tired to you?

I've Never Even Used Instagram

Why is it so difficult to both count your blessings and be “real” about life? While I wholeheartedly believe it’s important to be grateful for what one has, I also believe there are times when it may be equally as important to acknowledge the stages and seasons we all go through, even the unhappy and trying ones.

My husband and I grumble about this pretty frequently when discussing one particular set of “couple friends.” For this family, everything is always perfect. Now, this is a very Christ-centered family, so I understand they are simply trying to express their gratitude for all they have (for what it’s worth, my NY’s resolution was to put a little Phil. 4:11 in my life). But I often wonder what kind of help they could be to other families if they would simply acknowledge life’s little (or big) imperfections? For instance, when my husband and I ask them questions about life experiences they’ve had and we haven’t, it could probably do us a lot of good to hear an in-depth “real” answer instead of “it’s all good!” Or maybe for this family things really are all good?

I’m thinking of this today both because of the blog post going around—Stop Instagramming Your Perfect Life—and because today is a root canal day.

I woke up to a beautifully clear sky. As I poured my coffee, I took in the view of the Bay and the San Francisco skyline that I am blessed enough to have in not only my living room, but in my playroom and breakfast nook as well. I also woke to Rachel screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs.

This was not a real scream, but instead the scream she uses when she wants “Mama, not Daddy,” to get her out of bed in the morning. The second I walk through her door, she immediately smiles and says “good morning!” But nonetheless, it is very difficult to wake up to, especially when the baby is still soundly sleeping across the hall from her, and her screams could wake him at any second.

Then I check my husband’s schedule: he’s gone today from 9:15am to 9:15pm, which means another night of putting two little ones to bed solo.

And I’m sick. After a full month+ of the baby having RSV and being stuck in the house because of that, I get hit by the cold of all colds and can’t even go out and enjoy the sunshine. At least we were all healthy for Easter... If I didn’t know better, I would swear it was the egg hunt in the rain that did me in.

So I’m grumpy. And snappy. And ticked off that my world is less than perfect and especially that I couldn’t enjoy my coffee in peace, but instead had to cut yarn into a million pieces so that Rachel could decorate for Unicorn’s birthday (again).

Yesterday morning I didn’t feel this way. In fact, my oldest son had a life victory over something we’ve been worried about for 6 months. It was a glorious time of thankfulness and rejoicing. I was on a high I thought would last for days—it lasted until roughly 2pm, at which point my living room was “decorated” with toilet paper, my daughter was yelling at the dog from her undies-only position atop the dining room table, and my husband was still feeling frustrated by his job situation.  

How can I put all that on FB? And should I? Probably not. Although it isn’t the 140-characters-or-less world of Twitter, it’s definitely not the place to bemoan all my first-world problems for close friends and old co-workers alike to take in. But there is (or should be) a place for it. Why? I guess it’s because I feel a mom duty to express mom truths to counter the Instagram/Facebook perfection myth. Also, it feels really good to take a break and write down the thoughts in my head, although I’m still terrible at journaling (too much pressure). And although I would much rather count my blessings, sometimes it’s a blessing to others to hear the nitty-gritty, Unicorn-party truth, so that they can think how lucky they are that their living room isn’t covered in toilet paper.

The Child I've Grown Up With

As I attempt to write about Collin, I am struck by how important it is to me that I get it right. When a mother and child spend 12 years alone together, there is a bond so deep, baggage in such excess, love so mature, that each sentence must be weighed for its truth and implication: with Collin there can be no poetic license, no embellishment, no attribution of emotions unfelt. My love is so deep and so strong, so overwhelming, changing emotions to words is a near impossible task.

My thoughts are bittersweet—the uniqueness of a relationship that can never be replicated with any of my other children; the fact that, from this point forward, Collin will be experiencing things by himself that I can only see through the lens of having done them with him in my own life's journey; that eventually “coming home” will instead be “visiting home.”

Collin will spend the next 4 weeks trying to figure out which college he will attend. As we prepare for our road trips and flights across the county, I am also preparing my heart for the emptiness it will feel when he no longer lives solely under my roof. He is only 16—just a baby when you think about it.

I have often felt a bit guilty that Collin's place in the structuring of my world as "mom" is not easily defined. Collin was neither my first child nor my last child, and there is a 13-year and 16-year gap between him and his little sister and brother, respectively. Since he is not first, middle, or last, there is no study that can determine what his personality will be or how he will relate to others based on his birth order. Similarly, there is no study that can define how I have raised him. There is no first-child over-protectedness, no last child leniency, no middle child "neglect." As I have thought about this I have realized—as I said to him tearfully several months ago when it fully hit me that he would soon be gone—he is the child, the only child, I have grown up with.

I gave birth to Collin on July 17, 1996, when I was 17 years old. The "adulthood" I received from his birth was far greater than that I received one week later, on July 25th, when I turned 18 and became a legal adult.

While a child makes a parent an adult far faster than any legal definition ever could, childbirth does not negate the selfish inward-focus of an 18-year-old, nor the growth that must still occur within the parent who, no matter how grown-up she may think she is, is really still just a child as well.

Our status as child and child-mother is not unique; teenagers become parents every day. And when they do, an odd thing occurs: the child sees its parent grow, change, seek, even as the child is doing the same. And though neither realizes it at the time—the child because it's a child, the parent because she already *thinks* she's an adult—this is an amazing thing, for good or for bad, that cannot be replicated.

While we prepare to make a decision about where Collin will go to college, my mind turns, with child-mom selfishness, to the past, and what can never be again in the future.

Collin was with me when I went through my goth phase, my hardcore punk phase, even my short-lived ska phase, and was with me still when I settled comfortably into Billy Bragg, old country, rockabilly, and K-Love.

Collin and I have gotten lost innumerable times together: on Arkansas dirt roads and Texas highways; in Virginia suburbs, Maryland slums, DC proper, and, finally, Berkeley hills, in each instance singing at the top of our lungs, playing "Guess That Band," as I regaled him with stories or forced him to listen to Prairie Home Companion until he finally thought it was funny.

Collin was with me when I worked as a maid, cleaning houses and hotel rooms for $3.15 an hour. When I worked graveyard as a fry cook and when I ironed clothes in 120-degree heat at a dry cleaners. He even helped me roll silverware at the Thai place where I waitressed under the table and got free fried rice in return for his efforts. He was with me when I interned at the White House, when I wrote law articles and Lexis Nexis how-to manuals, when I published my first poem, when I won my first trial, and when I put all that aside to stay home with him and his siblings.

He celebrated his big brother's birthdays with me, went through 8.5 years of school with me, suffered through break-ups and wedding planning with me.

Collin learned to separate whites from colors from delicates, how to bake bread, how to wash dishes the right way, and how to properly IRAC and study for the Bar, all by the age of 10.

Collin went to classes with me, work with me, parties with me, on dates with me. House hunted, apartment searched, church-hopped, and suit-shopped with me. Stood in front of 100+ people and gave me his blessing to marry his baseball coach and, a short while later, welcomed with me his new sister and brother into our home.

And now he is leaving.

I am not old, I know that. But I am grown. I have a few gray hairs, and the only sticker on my car is for church parking. In July, a few short months from now, Collin will turn the age I was when I gave birth to him. And a month after that, he will go to college and begin his deepest search yet for identity and place in this world.

Although neither of us may talk about it now, for years we were each other’s (relative) calm in the eye of a storm. And when the storm ended, we became adventurers, chasing storms instead of hiding from them, grabbing what we could where we could and enjoying every moment of it.

Collin has not yet chosen his school; we will use the next 4 weekends to visit campuses so he can make his decision. Two choices are very far away, two are very close. I know that no matter which he chooses, he will live his new life to the fullest. I know he will relish every moment of his new freedom, the academic challenge, the new things in a new town with new people and new things to see. I know he will do this because that's what we spent the last 16 years doing together.

So he will go, with my blessing, but the teenaged selfishness I was full of when he was born still exists somewhere within me, and I must admit that my blessing will be tempered by my own sadness at seeing him go on this new adventure without me.

I wrote the following poem over a decade ago for Collin, and I am amazed at how true the emotions behind the words still are today:

Shape Changer

My sleeping son’s legs dangle,
precarious, from a spaceship/cowboy bed.
He exhales boy-breath from
spaghetti o’ lips—
steady, strong, and sweet. 

Upon waking, my son—poet-mathematician, burgeoning gymnast—
does handstands, quotes Poe, adds large sums
inside a calculator mind. 

A John Wayne swagger now, holster strapped to sturdy hips,
Spiderman Underoos crawl from tough-guy
faded-black Wranglers, belie Vesuvius image as my son becomes

a mourner of fish, questioner of death,
one-half vegetarian and preacher
of karma breathing breakfast prayers.

Walking Wednesdays for ritual ice cream,
he laughs too loud, asks about my day, claims
to have forgotten his. We discuss
important things: Root, leaf, stem, limb,
the flavor we will buy. 

After bath, teeth, ears, prayers,
I perch, precarious, on a spaceship/cowboy bed, and watch
my sleeping son’s legs dangle. 

(as published in The Allegheny Review)

 

Baby Collin, 1996

16th birthday, 2012