Long Overdue Because We Keep Writing About Other Stuff: An Update

Lately Andy and I have been spending a lot of time writing in places other than here, about things other than family. So today, while I'm supposed to be collating judicial council forms and arranging for personal service of a guy who's AWOL (have I mentioned how much I miss having a secretary?), I think I'll do a little check-in here instead.
____________________________________________________________

On Saturdays Rachel goes to "pre-ballet" class. I'm not quite sure what "pre-ballet" means, but Rachel seems to enjoy it so we keep taking her.

Today when I was rounding the corner to pick her up, I heard her teacher say, "This is Rachel. She's from my last dance class, but we're waiting on her mommy to pick her up."

Crap.

"Wait, I'm early!" I looked at my watch and sure enough it was 11:29, a whole minute early.

The red-headed, freckle-faced, too-cute teacher who spends her day jumping up and down with little kids, exerting an energy I haven't felt in at least three years was totally chill, bless her. "Oh, it's okay! We're over at 11:20, not 11:30. I know it's an oddly-timed class, and parents forget that a lot." She kept talking, telling me what a joy Rachel is, and how it truly didn't matter, and all the while Rachel is chattering away while putting on her shoes.

"My mommy didn't come get me. Why, Mommy, didn't you get me? I was here for a long, long time and you still didn't get me. This is the next class not my class and all my friends left and these aren't my friends I know. Why didn't you get me?" Plunks tiara on her head and relishes the moment.

And this only two hours after Rachel asks the perpetual teenaged question ten years too early: "Why isn't there any food in this house?"

Argh. We talk, she's fine, and we head for the 12-minute walk down one flight of steps. There are cute 3- and 4-year-old girls in ballerina clothes running around everywhere, and Rachel sees one she knows.

"That's my best friend! Her name is Clarissa.Unicorn's mama's name is Clarissa."

"I thought Unicorn's mom's name is Jamie?"

"No, it's Clarissa. She's my best friend." Spies another leotard-clad girl. "She's my best friend, too!"

"Wow, Rachel. You have a lot of best friends!"

And now she's in the groove. Anyone under 4'5 is her best friend. We walk down the steps, through the lobby, halfway down the handicap ramp. She has pronounced, loudly, each 4'5-or-less person we've encountered along the way as her best friend. Some parents smile, others look at us like we're nuts, and the rest, who I just don't understand, remain stony-faced, like they're speed-walking in downtown New York.

On the elevator with another little girl: "She's my best friend!"

Two steps off the elevator, forlornly: "I really miss her."

In the car: "Rachel, can mommy be your best friend?" (I know, I'm pathetic.)

Rachel, thinking. "Ummm.... no. Reilly is my best friend. But those other kids can't be my best friend because they don't go to my class but everyone else is my best friend and why didn't you come get me and left me there for a longlong time?"

Thankfully she moves on from best friends, not best friends, and how I screwed up. She segues with three-year-old aplomb into a story. A story about a butterfly that went up her nose, tickled her tummy, then went all the way into her bottom.

I, of course, inquire about the origins of this story. She tells me it happened in dance class. I vow never to be late again.

We get home and Rachel makes me buckle and unbuckle her a dozen times until she's happy with the results. We walk in and Andy asks, "How was dance class, Rachel?" I know exactly what's going to happen next. Rachel, gleefully, yet somehow with sad longing for a good mommy in her voice, "Mommy left me for a long time she didn't get me and then a butterfly went up my nose!"

In other news, Aaron is pretty much a perfect baby, thank goodness, and Collin is enjoying his Florida prep purchases, which I am secretly hoping will result in a new couch for us.

Rachel and .... best friends? Not best friends? Who knows.

Eight months old, already standing independently, took half-step yesterday. Calls us all Dadadadadada and loves penguins. Well, one penguin. If you notice, it's curled up against him in this picture.

Awwww.....

Doing the Unstuck

Today I took down the streamers.

The balloons have become my daughter's weapons of war.

The flights from California to Florida, we're finding, cost more than we feared.

For at least a year after my son quit playing baseball, I cried, just a little, every time I drove by the ball field. I never wanted to stop hating the grass stains.

For four years, I've waited for high school to end. To be rid of open campus lunches and rules that don't work for kids mature beyond their years who are too smart for their own good.

And now, it's done.

Hallelujah?

Yes, of course. But there is also a grief I never expected to feel in leaving behind an institution that has brought 6am wake-up calls, 6pm-like-clockwork auto-dialers, and more missed back-to-school nights than I care to admit. Grief in unrealized things and the messiness of life and that odd, ridiculously unnerving feeling that comes when you realize there are no do-overs.

When a part of your life for so long is simply... gone.

A few things remain. We still need to pick up the diploma. Still need the final grade to come in.

Because my son skipped a grade, because he is leaving home for college just three weeks after he turns 17, I feel unnerved. That feeling of knowing you've forgotten something but not remembering what. It's a vague unease, an incompleteness.

I suspect it will soon pass. Soon we will be mired in packing and planning and cross-country trips and U-Hauls. Soon I will be crying and rejoicing for the future, not the past.

For now, I will try my best to learn from yet another unexpected mom-moment, take hope in the power of prayer, the technology of Skype, and a calling plan that includes unlimited texting. Rejoice that my youngest two have more than a decade to go before we head down this messy, surprising, absurdly difficult path all over again.

Pictures of the Jag!

Okay, yes, it's been a couple of months, but surely these are pictures worth waiting for! (The Jag story can be found here.)

Collin's College Choice: Who, What, When, Where, and Why

We have a decision!

In case you're wondering why, or how, a full month after decision day Collin is finally choosing a college, here you go: Collin was accepted at over half of the schools he applied to, which is great! But, after visiting, re-visiting, or re-re-visiting them, Collin felt that they all seemed to be lacking... something. So, we reserved a spot at the school closest to home but continued to apply to late-decision schools. And thank goodness we did!

In that process, we came across a great private school in St. Augustine, Florida, that seemed to very much suit Collin's college wishlist. He applied, was accepted, and yesterday I sent the check to reserve his spot. Collin will now, barring major catastrophe, be going to Flagler College. Flagler is a private liberal arts college, with slightly less than 3,000 students total. It is absolutely beautiful, highly ranked, and has a strong business major, which is Collin's chosen area of study.

We are too busy right now for me to focus on the fact that Collin will be 3,000 miles away; I will have to process that later, as well as worry about how we are going to get Rachel to understand (without non-stop tears) that Hatty doesn't "live downstairs," but rather across the country. As for now, we're just trying to survive making it through prom, graduation, finals, visiting Florida, finishing all the paperwork and logistics, and purchasing a whole new wardrobe for Collin that is light on sweaters and heavy on Bermuda shorts. Thankfully, I already spent some time grieving my empty-Collin-nest-ness a while back, the details of which can be found here.

I don't think Collin can fully feel it either, as he is even busier than we are in some ways. He is, after all, the one who has to go through the high school exiting process, which is very similar to when I left my internship at the White House a few short months after 9/11. Speaking of which, although I certainly can't speak for Collin, I can say that Andy and I will be happy to leave high school behind. Elementary school is amazingly fun and junior high is still a fairly good time for parents, but (listen up you parents of little ones!) high school is a whole new ballgame where, despite your best pitching, you lose every game by one run. Or at least it feels that way.

There are many good aspects of Collin being in Florida: some of Andy's cousins live very near to where Collin will be, and my aunt Lucy and cousin Graham also live in Florida. And have I mentioned that Collin will be 3 hours from where Karen (Collin's girlfriend of over a year) will be attending college?

In late June or early July, Andy, Collin, and I will visit St. Augustine and check out the area and the housing situation so we'll know what to throw into the U-Haul that will not be pulled by Collin's Jaguar, but rather by one of our (much) lesser cars. Unless we're in too much of a hurry (and when aren't we in a hurry?), the road trip should be a great opportunity to see some people along the way.

When the time comes for the the actual move to Florida, we will have to beg (or bribe) my sister to let us borrow Nana, as Nana will be on Katie-time then, and we will very much need Nana's moving-in skills to keep Collin, Andy, and me from arguing over the best place to hold on to a dresser to move it up 12 flights of stairs or who gets to walk backwards up all those steps.

But in the meantime, tomorrow is prom. I will flood your Facebook news feeds with pictures, so you may want to block my status updates for a while.

A Day Like Any Other

Despite the fact that I have had 364 days to prepare, today still caught me by surprise.

The hours passed, chasing fairy wings, crying over mismatched clothes and sand-filled shoes. Knowingknowingknowing that I should enjoy every bit of the 45 minutes it took to walk 10 feet, remove every “hurry” from my mouth.

The fairy princess waltzed across the grass, owned the world around her, asked to walk up the big stairs by herself.



I thought of the day they’ll all be gone. Because they will.



I yearned for a bigger pocket, a bigger purse, a bigger heart to carry them in.



I shattered when the little one patted my hair, my face. Placed sticky fingers against my cheeks, hugged me with spit-up covered arms.

Shattered again at bad news from my oldest, and again when listening to Oklahoma funeral plans.

Put myself back together with shoestrings and Silly-Putty when the fairy princess belted out the blessing for the entire restaurant to hear:

God is great.
God is good.

A ketchup-covered french fry halfway to her mouth.

Let us thank Him
For our food.

So be it.

I'm Not Coming Out and You Can't Make Me

My family knows that my shower- and getting ready time is “my” time. They know that, unless I am absolutely forced to, I will not open the bathroom door during the entire 45-60 minutes it takes me to shower and apply makeup, which is something I do every single day, unless I am so sick I can barely stand. Like the Fly Lady needs her shoes, I need my shower and eyeliner.

This doesn’t mean that in particular life seasons I don’t have someone either in the bathroom with me or banging on the door, screaming, from the outside. In fact, with a teen, toddler, and infant in the house, this happens more often than not. And my husband and I are often forced to plan an entire day’s schedule by shouting through the bathroom door. Nonetheless, the fundamental rule remains the same: if mama is in the bathroom getting ready, you better leave her alone or be prepared to face the consequences.

Sometimes I hear major chaos going on beyond the locked door of my sanctuary. Loud thumps and bumps followed by cries, phones ringing, dogs barking, teen requests intermingled with toddler tantrums and an infant’s demand to be feed. In these moments, I sigh, hastily apply 8-minutes worth of make-up in two, and head out the door to sort it all out.

The other day I heard all those things at once. My husband and mom were surviving, but they certainly could have used more (wo)manpower to ease the hurt.

As I listened to my husband try to make a phone call for our sixteen-year-old while the little ones’ battles raged around him and my mom pleaded with Rachel to stop poking her in the eye, I sighed a sigh of resignation and started to go into getting-ready overdrive.

But then... I didn’t.

I thought, “I am not coming out of here and you can’t make me.” If I could have locked the door even tighter, I would have.

No one knows what’s going on behind the bathroom door, and they aren’t going to ask. And if they do, I’ll tell them that mama’s getting-ready bathroom time is like Vegas—what goes on in there stays in there.

This was a particularly empowering moment, but don’t worry. I have no intention of abusing my loved ones by hiding out in the bathroom during the morning crazies. But you know what? Despite the cries and chaos coming from beyond the door, despite the stress and frustration I heard in the outnumbered grown-up voices, everything turned out just fine. My oldest son’s car got to the shop, the phone call was made, the baby was fed, and my mom’s eye remained in tact. And all of this was done just fine without me. Can you believe it?

Why We Cancelled Mother's Day

Now that Mother’s Day has come and gone, my household can finally celebrate it.

(The official) Mother’s Day dawned bright and early in our house and quickly became a mad scramble to get 6 people out the door for brunch. Mad scramble + emotional overload (see below) caused me to have a migraine. Migraine + necessity of being present at my own brunch caused me to take slightly more migraine medicine than normal, which worked just a teensy bit too well: Andy asked me at one point if he should wear jeans or pants; I believe my response was “shorts.” So the baby and I stayed home while everyone else went to brunch.

I think this alone suffices to explain why we decided not to celebrate, so I will leave out the parts about tetherball injuries, last-minute school projects, tantruming 3-year-olds, missing church, and arguments over the perfect family photo. But really, this is all pretty normal stuff. I think the real reason that Mother's Day weekend was a bust was the even heavier than normal emotional load that came with it this year.

On Friday I wrote a piece about my son, Jeremy. I wasn’t sure if I would actually post it or not, but I knew I had to write it. As my husband wisely said, “writing it is at least 50% of the importance.” But then I decided, after much prayer, to actually post what I had written. The outpouring of love and support in response was phenomenal. With this outpouring, my entire world shifted: it became larger, better, less lonely than it was before. This is a good thing, of course, but sometimes even good emotions can be... exhausting.

But time moves on, emotional tides recede, and mothers must be celebrated. So, this Sunday, we will try a redo. I expect presents, quiet time, and coffee. These things will, of course, have to be sandwiched between tuxedo shopping for prom and getting six people out the door for church, but I am so, so excited to do those things in a world with less sadness, less pain, and much, much more love.

My lovely babies and I just couldn't get it quite right. But they are still cute. : )

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.