Butt cheeks!

Somehow the little hummingbird that started this whole adventure into motherhood and led to the creation of this blog, started kindergarten this week.  

It seems impossible.

Regardless of how it seems to me, he is in fact enrolled and attending kindergarten at public school.  I  have watched him get prepared over the last two weeks- counting down the days left at daycare, celebrating with a daycare/preschool graduation, getting a light-up backpack and supplies, and generally morphing into a school-aged kid.

We prepped him on the important things like listening to the teacher, being brave and talking to new friends, and being calm with his voice and body.  He sort of listened and we felt we had done to the due diligence required for the starting school pep talk.

After the first day of school, we asked him a million questions to try to learn all we could about the school routines and skills covered in kindergarten.  He vaguely answered some questions, lots of "I don't know", and lots of changing his original answers.  At this point, it was clear that he had done his best all day and was starting to come unglued.   

First, it was just some bouncing on the couch, then he was standing and jumping on the couch, then he was jumping on the couch yelling, "Butt cheeks!  Butt cheeks!  Butt cheeks!"  He was hysterically laughing as he continued to let loose his string of profanity and jump up and down.  I turned away and felt the tears well up in my eyes as I tried not to laugh.  I couldn't resist- I too started laughing loudly watching him explode into life.

It was clear that he had kept it all together just as long as he possibly could and it was now the time to unwind and let go.  It was funny.  It was Monday.

Tuesday brought additional jumping and also an excessive amount of gas.  Wednesday brought "the worlds most uncooperative dinner attendee" out of him.  Thursday he got some special dad-hang time and we were mostly spared from explosions.  Friday he was deciding how to feel and picked sad- "I am going to be sad because I miss God."  (this was interesting for a variety of reasons).

It is clear that school is a transition unlike any other.  He has been in daycare since he was 10-weeks old, but this is so very different.  He doesn't nap anymore.  His sister is sad every morning because the kindergartener and I leave before she is dropped off at daycare.  I now have a chatterbox along for my morning commute.  We have to do way more laundry (stupid dress code).  All of us are feeling the effect.

But I feel happy about it.  I love seeing the papers that come home demonstrating scissor work.  I like hearing him talk about keeping is choices-tracker on green.  I like hearing about the mean girl and hearing him talk about dealing with her.  I like that he is growing and becoming ever more his own person.  I like knowing that my husband and I managed to get him this far, even though he was once just a bunch of farts on parade.

Three Posts Started in 2017 and Never Finished- A Summary

Below are there titles and summaries of blog posts that I never finished.  I feel like there are little nuggets in each that I care to remember and share for posterity, so I will post them in mini-version here.


Okay, so where did we land?
A 2017 check in, notable changes: baby that walks, a kid in the pre-k lottery, a husband that left his established career to pursue a graduate degree and new road forward, and a me with a diagnosis of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.  It was a summary and reflection on how far we have come and where we are going with extra focus on continual change but an underlying joy.

Attending Funerals with My Children
This was a post about the five funerals I have attended since becoming a mom.  The highlights- at four of those funerals I held an infant in my arms while looking into a open casket (talk about unavoidable self reflection on the matters of life and death), comforting my son as he grapples with loss, and notes about unspoken agreement with my husband about how to support each other in these events. The general vibe? Immeasurable love and a good bit of sadness.

The Name You Carry
This about seeing the first pictures of my daughter's namesake.  Summary- I had only ever heard stories about the woman whose name my daughter carries, but (during a funeral) I saw the first pictures and was reminded of the excitement and weight of naming our children.  There is a feeling of guilt if the chosen name only comes from one side of the family, but that there is also an absoluteness about the name choice upon getting to know your child over time- its like "Of course that is your name!  This is who you are!  You couldn't be anyone else!" I also love looking at my cousins, nieces, and nephews and knowing that their name and identity is directly connected to someone worth honoring with a name.

"Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness"

I have been rewatching The Wonder Years. It is one of my top five favorite shows of all time.  Today I watched the episode called "The Wedding" (S:5, E:22) in which the older sister, Karen, gets married.  I have cried every time I have seen that episode, but in the emotion explosion due to my baby turning one, I really cried.  I have always loved the poem that Karen's mom reads and so I looked up. It is powerful, spot on, and so wonderful I wanted to share it here. Enjoy.

Happy Birthday, Beans.

It is nearly the baby's first birthday and I still haven't written her birth story. 

My girl was born a week after her due date.  I was dilated (to a 5!), fully effaced, and sitting at home not in labor.  My doctor decided to induce me on the 18th of January.  On January 17th, my boys and I ate ice cream and stayed up late to savor the last few moments of "just the three of us".  I was not sad, but I felt something strong about it all. 

We arrived at the hospital at 6:00 AM, ready to get the show on the road, but until I did the paperwork, got put in a room, robed up, and ready, it was nearly 10:00.  My doctor came in and broke my water in an effort to jump start labor without drugs.  For one glorious hour I had great contractions that were gentle rising and bearable in a variety of positions.  I also had a sort of elation that I was going to experience birth as is intended to be.  But alas.  It stalled.

At 12:30 I was put on a Pitocin drip and thus began the familiar rapid and intense contractions that silenced the conversation my husband and I had been sharing, limited my movements to sitting still on the bed, and sucked me deep inside myself and simultaneously outside myself all at once.  Lost in a swirl of waves, the repetition of the word "open" in my mind, and nothing but my husbands hand to ground me, I was suddenly and intensely jolted into my surroundings. Push time.  It had been less than two hours on the Pitocin, but I knew this feeling.  The nurse doubting my rapid progress, checked me and called for the doctor.  He arrived and I got to work.  I knew this work.  I had done it before.  This time I remembered the cues of how I should position myself.  Unlike the time before in its quiet, I let myself be loud.  Never screaming as that wasn't the response I needed.  But loud.  Powerful.  I felt my face curl into an awful grimace, but I allowed it. I did work.  In a few short minutes, I birthed my baby into the world.  I looked down to see that this child I had been carrying was a girl.  My girl.  And as I reached for her, I felt something I never expected to feel.  Fullness. Contentment.  Satisfaction.  Completion.  As she lay crying (and I was crying, too) and wriggling on my chest I felt us begin the transition of being two separate selves-this girl that I had just met and yet always known, and me as a single individual with only one heart inside me.  I felt my soul make the same commitment it made once before-a guarantee to stay connected to this soul for the rest of my life.

The next months were exhausting, hard, and rather dark.  The delay of this birth story is due partly to busyness and partly due to only recently feeling brave enough to recall those early days.  Postpartum anxiety took a deep hold on me.  I was home alone with kids too early.  My grandma died.  My body was weak.  My daughter couldn't feed right.  My son was angry, sad, and confused.  And I was terrified.

Was terrified.  It is important to note that I was terrified.  And even more  important to note that I am no longer terrified.  I am amazed.  Amazed that we made it out the other side ok.  Amazed at the joyous bond between my kids as siblings.  Amazed at the way I love my husband on a new level.  Amazed at the baby girl who has become talkative, active, playful, and funny.  Amazed at the boy who has become a helper, caring, curious, and kind.  Amazed at the way our family still keeps me feeling full. Content.  Satisfied. Complete.

My Mother's Bedside Table

An essay by a four year old

My bed just sits in my room. A wall at the head of the bed and a wall to my left. I have no where to put my toys and reading material other than in my bed with me. My parents do not seem to care that I often awake with toys jabbing me in the side or worse so near my face that they are dampened with condensation from my nightly mouth breathing.

My mother has this magical table right near her bed. It holds books, her phone, and her glasses. This is ideal. I can walk into her room first thing in the morning, grab the phone and demand to watch videos. If I knock her glasses to the floor to some unreachable spot that's too far for her to see, she may collapse in irratitaion and let me watch something on the phone. However, I feel that she is far to stingy with the magic box that plays cartoons, so I often have to resort to books. I have covered her Pulitzer Prize nominated book with the board book of Are You My Mother?- a classic story about a lost bird and snort. You should check it out. I have also crowed the night stand with such treasures as used tissues, a marble that she said I couldn't have, and a sock. My mother seriously does not know how to use her little side table efficiently-her books have no pictures, the little dish of earrings is "too pokey" and the lamp is just green- no animals, no design, nothing! If I had a bedside table I would treat it right. Pile it high with papers, cups, toys, dirty clothes, and even my pet fish, Hula.

So mom, if you're reading this, give up your table. I already covered it in my stuff making it basically already mine. Perhaps you could get dad to go ahead a move it over to my room? Thanks. Oh, and I'll get you the rent check next month- the stick collecting market is flooded right now and isn't paying too well.

Siblings

I really like my siblings.  They are people that I would spend time with, even if I wasn't related to them.  We share a corny sense of humor and an affinity for donuts.  My sister and brother also demonstrate an incredible willingness to be helpful, kind, honest, and supportive.  I really think that they are top notch.


One of my greatest joys has been to watch my children become siblings.  My son was 3.5 when his little sister arrived.  He loved her from the start, but her noise and needs overwhelmed him.  More than once after being told to be gentle or she could get hurt he replied "you can just buy a new baby".  Which is both funny and f-ing terrifying.  For three months I lived on the edge of panic and awe as big brother came to understand his sister.* 


After three months, my daughter was actually eating, making her more sturdy and less grumpy, my 3.5-year-old starting turning into an almost 4-year-old, and after a surprisingly crumby southern winter, the sun came out.  Things started falling into place.


First it was that big brother could make sister smile.
Then it was that she was big enough that brother could hold her (with help from mom or dad).
Then came the laughing.
Then the sitting up.
Then the playing with toys together.
Then it was the rides in the double stroller.
Then the head-to-head nuzzle.
Then it was the bath time together until the water is cold and both of them are all pruney.

They used to be just two kids who happened to live together, but now they are siblings.


Every now and then as I watch them interact on the floor, I get this funny feeling that they are bonding together so as to team up against my husband and me in the future.  I have these little visions of the two of them demanding puppies or trips to amusement parks, and the visions-I always give in. 


I am grateful that they will have each other.  I know that the years of pulling hair, breaking things, arguing, and fighting are yet to come, but someday when they are in their 20's or 30's they'll have each other to complain to about the fact that their mom wrote the intimate details of their lives on an internet blog with a title about flatulence.  But you know what my darling children reading this in the future?  Tough shit.  Also, brush your teeth.  No one likes a stink mouth. XOXO, Mom




*This single paragraph recap is a gross underestimation of the struggle we endured as a family, but this is one of those "light at the end of the tunnel stories".

Two Kids, Five Days, One Bag

I recently traveled with my two kids to visit family six hundred miles away.  While there, my sister saw my luggage and commented on the one bag that contained all that crap that a three-year-old, a five-month-old, and their mama might need for a five day trip.  With her encouraging, I have decided to share what I have learned about efficient packing with children.

This is the bag post-trip.  If you are interested in the bag, it can be found at Large Utility Tote

1: You are going to use less than you think you are.

2: If laundry is an option at the place where you are going, pack even less.

3: If packing diapers, pack them into your travel bag with the clothes.  By putting them in with the clothes, you are constantly freeing up more space in the bag for the things you are surely going to accumulate on your travels

4: Embrace the idea of clothes as pajamas.  A pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt can be used both for sleeping and also as a backup outfit if needed. You can plan for the kid (or yourself) to wear them on the drive home, eliminating an entire outfit from the bag.

5: If a single outfit requires its own special pair of shoes, pick a different outfit.

6: Baby shoes, while cute and a natural cause of "aww", are useless.  If the kid ain't walking, the shoes are just taking up space.

7: Skip the awkward sized toiletry bag. Wrap your toothbrush in a paper towel and throw it in the bag.  Pack just the basics.

8: Duffle bags are a lie.  While unzipped, they seem to fit all your things, then you go to close it and its like putting sausage back in it's casing. Stick to rigid shapes if possible.  It also is easier to get to what you need.

9: Make it multi-purpose: hydrocortisone works on burns, bites, hives, and sores. Skip single purpose items.

10: Accept that you may need to stop at the drugstore.  To pack for all types of possible injuries and ailments is stressful and demands a lot of space.  Pack one type of pain reliever/fever reducer (sans box) and hope for the best.

*I also had a diaper bag with changing mat, bulb syringe, my wallet, phone, etc. and bag that contained my pump and supplies.

**From this trip I learned that I should have packed sunscreen and bandaids.  They were the only two things I needed by did not have.  Next time I will pack only the lotion-style sunscreen (the spray kind leaves a smell on clothes packed nearby) and two bandaids just tossed loosely into the bag.

***If you want specifics, here is what was in the bag.

For me:
1-dress
1-pants
2-shorts
1-gym shorts that were worn as pi's but could be regular shorts if need
1-pair of jeans
5-shirts
1-bra
3-unies
2-socks
1-pair of sandals
1-swimsuit
1-book
1-ipad
1-charger
1-sweatshirt
1-zipoc bag of vitamins
1-small tube of hydrocortisone
1- hair straightener

For the toddler:
3-shorts
1-pair of pants
5-tshirts
4-undies
2-socks
1-pair of shoes
1-swimsuit
1- one cup sized pyrex with medicine
1-sweatshirt

For the baby:
5-outfits
1-pj's
3-socks
1- cardigan
1-pack of diapers
1-pack of wipes
1-swimsuit
1-bottle of infant tylenol
1- container of formula
1-bottle