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I washed my hair and shaved my legs. As if doing things that make me feel refreshed would lead to the ultimate refreshment, the long-awaited milestone: sleeping through the night. Asher had gone to bed at 8, and i fed him and put him right back to bed when he woke up at 11.
I stayed up till 12:30 Googling “baby sleep” and ultimately decided that what we need to do is mostly more of the same old: consistency, don’t let him get overtired, establish routine and let him work it out during those night wakings. If i had known Ash was going to sleep straight through till 7 a.m., and wake up smiling and baby-talking to me, i’d have saved myself the trouble and gone on to sleep when he did!
At least i got a good hair day out of it. And a good day in general– a much-needed taste of spring, a reminder of what days are like spent playing with friends in the wide-open park and how everything tastes better when we it’s a picnic.
When we got home today from a morning out and about, there was a flyer hanging from our doorknob. The kind advertising current specials for a pizza place. The kind you throw away without thinking about.
Later, we were out for a walk in the neighborhood, Bri and I walking and the kids in strollers. Stella notices another flyer on a door and pipes up, “Oh, Dad! We got a paper on our door. The people from the pizza parlor brought it. They invited us to dinner! Can we go Dad?” Oh, to have that sweet, innocent perspective of the world forever!
Stella on her fourth Birthday
It was a big weekend in our house: Stella turned four. To say that it feels like she has been in our lives for far longer than those four years seems to imply that the past four years have been somehow unpleasant… like the days have dragged on. But what i mean is that it’s hard to recall life before she was in it.
I was relating the story of her birth day to her. She loved it, of course. Classic first-born, i think, or four-year-old, “tell me more about me!” About how she was born olive-complected and wide-eyed, how she stared up into her Daddy’s eyes for the longest time, a 18.5 inch, 7 pound little bundle, sizing him up and taking him in.
We’d been stunned to find out I was pregnant the day before Father’s Day, a month before our first anniversary. “Are you going to keep it?” a friend asked (a comment he immediately regretted,) thinking as if we were high-school kids; as if we’d give the baby to our parents to raise until we were old enough to handle it. “Sometimes, abortion is a good thing,” a co-worker of mine commented with breathtaking tactlessness, this unsolicited advice her only reaction to my news. “I mean, do you even have insurance? And you’re still in school too.” I’d have preferred a slap in the face.
Though we were completely surprised, it was apparent that God planned perfectly, even in our realm of tangible circumstances: The pregnancy being discovered within weeks of Brian going from part- to full-time at his ‘real job,” the birth just weeks after my college graduation, the hand-me down crib and clothes we were delighted to receive. The knowledge that He considered us ready for parenthood sobering, snapping us out of our selfish mentalities in a concrete and very good way.
It’s not that we were not excited. It just that we didn’t have babies on our radar. We weren’t the kind who babysat, or had friends with kids– we were so clueless. And scared. Attending our last week of childbirth-preparation courses, the instructor asked if anyone still had questions. I raised my hand, “Um, well, what do we do with the baby once it’s born?”
February 20th, two days before her due date, there we were in the hospital. We’d been up all night, having checked in somewhere around 4 a.m; she was born at 12:56 p.m. The doctor had told me it was time to push, and I’d blurted my gut response, “Holy crap, i’m really going to have a baby!” Of course she was early, she is always ready to go. That’s our girl. And she was beautiful. Big round brown eyes, perfectly healthy. A little angel baby.
Till we got home, at least. That first night she cried non-stop from two to four a.m. We are so not ready for this, i’d thought fuzzily, through a haze of pain meds and severe sleep-deprivation. The first month solid felt like i was on drugs. It was exhausting, being completely responsible for someone else. Someone very small and very helpless and very needy. And who woke up several times a night needing food and diaper changes.
I remember Brian getting up with Stella after her first morning feeding, sitting at our kitchen table and holding her in the crook of one arm as he studied the Word, dreamy early-morning light filtering through the trees outside the window. One afternoon, we set her on the changing table in full sunlight undressed, the pediatrician’s home remedy to combat jaundice, then were afraid she’d gotten sunburned. I remember sobbing on the couch one night when she was three months old, Our baby is getting so big! Brian thought i was joking– three months is not so big– but i was not. I remember spreading out a big blanket when she was eight months old and nervously handing her a graham cracker square– the book said she should be able to feed herself, but i was almost certain she’d choke. I watched her like a hawk as she gummed that cracker to mush, grinning and proud.
The days she’d crawl up to our front storm-door, watching the neighbors, or for her Daddy to come home. The Tuesday nights, late after Overflow when we’d bring her into our bed to snuggle, since Brian didn’t’ get to see her much on Tuesdays. The words, phrases, song lyrics she picked up like a little sponge. The way she never got much separation anxiety, but loved meeting friends everywhere; she thought of my grown-up friends as her friends (still does.) The ease with which she switched from crib to big-girl bed, from diapers to big-girl pants, and from only child to big sister. The sharp sense of humor, even as a baby she ‘got’ jokes; the love for words and music. The way she forgets to look where she’s going, and usually falls or runs into something at least once a day. The strong will she’s always had, a deep drive for independence. The tantrums she started throwing at 13 months when anyone (usually me) crossed that will.
And how do these fragments, these memories, this story and all that i can’t fit into this writing or into words at all span only four years? Where did my little bald, brown-eyed baby go, and the soft and tumbly toddler girl who took her place? This long-legged, articulate four-year-old girl who is my daughter loves Barbies and all things princess, asks each day when it will be time for her to start school, and tells me that when she grows up she will be a mommy. “Just one kid. See, if you have three kids, like you do,” she says, pointing to me, “You have to deal with too much disobedience. So I’m just going to have one kid. One little girl.” She is a girl with a plan, my Stella, no doubt about that. And Thank God He planned her just the way he did.
This week has been a whirlwind. Tomorrow is Stella’s 4th birthday, so one of my major focuses for this week was to prepare everything for her party. Monday was, well, a Monday. You would think that for a stay-at-home mom, Mondays would feel the same as every other day, but Monday still feels like it did when was a member of the outside-world workforce. Maybe there is something deeply ingrained in my head making me feel that way; i know it also has something to do with sending my sweet husband back to work while i (wo)man the helm solo whilst undoing all the mess we tend to make over the weekend (we turn a blind eye to the piles of laundry and empty fridge on Saturdays or Sundays, in favor of doing fun stuff instead.)
Tuesday, i woke up excited that Asher had slept quite well in spite of a nasty cough, but was soon distracted by an itchy spot on my neck. When it spread down my back and arms, i thought we might have bedbugs. Negative (whew!). No new detergents, clothes, food… what is going on? By lunch, my entire body itched, hives covered random patches of my skin, and my fingers had begun to swell. And that’s when i got a little freaked out. I called the Vitaline (thank you, New Hanover Regional Medical, for the free health-problem answers!). The nurse who fielded the call suggested i go directly to Urgent Care, as it could be a viral infection (!), but to go straight to the emergency room if i experienced nausea, vomiting or difficulty breathing. (!!) This was not comforting advice. I called Brian, who was working, to get home ASAP so i could high-tail to it Medac while the kids napped.
The Medac doc was thourough and helpful, and concluded my situation was a)a reaction to a course of antibiotics i’d just finished, b) the first sign of a virus (probably the cold the kids just had), or c) a reaction caused by stress. (“Are you under a lot of stress?” She’d asked. I didn’t know how to answer, other than, “well, i have three kids under four… and i don’t sleep much.) The only remedy is a low dose of Benadryl, low because it will put me to sleep and also because it’s not terribly good for breast-feeding mothers, which will control the itching until the whole thing passes.
The day procedes, i go home to the kids and try to not get stressed when Oliver dumps a full water bottle on the couch and then jumps off the couch onto Asher (who was not hurt, but amused), as i try to hastily prepare myself for Overflow. The high points of Tuesday: Overflow was great and I did not die in my sleep (y’know, the whole ‘viral infection’ thing, which i couldn’t quite ignore after i’d heard it.)
Wednesday brings another itchy day, but this time it’s my foot that swells. Small doses Benadryl around the clock make me feel a little foggy, but it works. En route to my small group in the morning, i call the pediatrician about Asher’s cough. “If you can get here pretty quickly, we can fit you in,” the nurse says, and we call our small-group friends to say we’ll be pretty late, but we’ll be there. After an hour and a half in the exam room, Asher’s been given a breathing treatment (which didn’t actually help him to breathe) and diagnosed with Bronchiolitis– viral, so there’s nothing to do but ride it out. We make our way, in and out of the car again and again in the rain, to small group, where i plop onto the couch, soggy and foggy and craving conversation with my friends there.
Wednesday is the kind of day where i wind up eating lunch over the kitchen counter, holding a pitiful and fussy Asher, while Oliver clings to my legs, yelling “Hold me, Mom!” at volume 11. After nap time, everyone was sufficiently refreshed, and the afternoon and evening were rather nice.
Today, still itchy, and still no resolution. I don’t know if i’m tired from the cumulative effects of 6 months of sleeping poorly, or if the Medac doctor was right and i’m getting a cold. Thank God for Brian, who took the big kids out for a walk this morning while i went back to bed with Asher (who still shows no signs of getting better, but is, at least not getting any worse), for friends who love and who love to lend a helping hand, for my family who listen to, and care about, my daily updates, and for a sense of humor about days and weeks like this.
So i filled out this viral “25 Random Things About Me” thing that’s all over Facebook. I suspect you may have read it, because we are probably already facebook friends. So anyway, it felt weird writing so many things all about me. Kind of ego-centric.
I thought it would be hard. I dragged my feet, because i like to procrastinate and hate to commit. But lo and behold, i typed up 25, (thing #26, by the way should be that i have a true affinity for long (but not run-on) sentences) and found that my mind seemed to have switched into random thing mode. For days I kept thinking of random things all about myself, and having a strange compulsion to broadcast them to the world. “I used to run competitively in college. Did you know that about me?” “I so wish i had a really great and cool-looking hair style but i just have no idea how to do that!” “I’m a decent cook, but a more-than-decent maker of baked goods. Oh, and i just learned to make croissants from scratch. How bout that?”
I considered altering my ‘official list,’ in case the world really needed to know just a few (dozen) more fascinating facts about me. Who knew there were so many? And i started to get kinda of weirded out, because thinking about me, about promoting me is, well, it is kinda weird. Am i turning narcissistic? I wondered. Am i becoming more self-centered by accident? Quick, someone tell me how to flip the switch back the other way! Cause that’s not what i’m aiming for here. Yet there is that innate drive to know and to be known… thus the reason i love reading everyone else’s 25 (not to mention the blogs).*
My hypothesis is this: (maybe it doesn’t count as a hypothesis because i have no plan to test the theory. Nevertheless…) is that the feeling of sharing these ‘randoms’ makes us feel a little freer inside… like we’re editing ourselves less, becoming more comfortable in our own respective skin (s?) by blurting out these little facets of ourselves not visible from the angles from which we are usually seen. Like you will have a clearer picture of me now that you know things about me that you didn’t before.
Then also there’s the thing about how exposing more of ourselves (i mean what’s inside, of course) enables other people to be more open. Kir just wrote a great blog about this kind of thing– about doing less editing, being more grounded. Also, the message from Overflow last night hits some of this pretty powerfully– where our identity is found… and some very important things for those who follow Christ. Deep, heavy, wonderful things.
*I am glad to know, at least, that i am not alone in my love of the reading of random things, or in the notion that 25 is just not quite enough.
Since Brian had to leave town over the weekend, i took the kids up to Charlotte for a weekend away with the grandparents and sweet aunties. I welcome any chance to hang out with them, and especially as an alternative to spending the weekend with my three three-and-under single-handed. I do sort of wonder sometimes if i’m just a wimpy mom because of that, but also, I figure why not? It’s hard to tell who a weekend with the grandparent benefits the most; basically everybody wins.
So, yesterday we returned and seized the remaining daylight hours playing outside with Daddy. Then B and i spent the evening at our couples’ Small Group, because one of the most important things after being out of town is seeing your friends again. And later, I ran out to the grocery for just enough to keep us fed until i have time for a ‘real’ grocery trip.
Today me and the three were out the door early for a Physical Therapy appointment (for me, which, by the way, has been changing my life by finally offering some relief from four years of pregnancy-related back pain and tension headaches. Amen!), where the kids play with exercise equipment and laugh as i do my exercises, then on to the park to run and jump and soak up more glorious sunshine, and a stop at Costco, made all the merrier (and more possible) by our (accidental but convenient) lunch-time shopping and the accompanying snack samples.
After naptime for the kids, which I spent feeding and changing Asher and then organizing an email chain (and what would probably be simple for someone more Type A felt like no small feat to me), we swiftly departed to a playdate with good friends, which, though it was mostly great fun, ended in bitter tears for both threeish-year-old girls involved (a dress-up related drama, which you i do not doubt you will understand if you spend any time with little girls). Next up, a date with Daddy to walk the Loop, a chance for us to hold a conversation and get our own version of playing outside.
And suddenly, we were back in the car and it was nearly 7 o’clock, and i felt like a terrible mom. My kids need dinner and a bath, and it’s already almost bedtime! How can this be?
Swiftly we were settled in at the dinner table with our deliciously greasy take-out Five Guys (Thank you, God, and thank you coupon book,) but my mind remained unsettled. All at once i saw the still-packed bags, the laundry pile, the little odds and ends strewn about the house on top of the routine cleaning needing to be done. I remembered the follow-up to the emails i need to do, the blog i’d started earlier that I really wanted to do, the pile of papers i need to organize, the other groceries i still need to make a list for and find a time to shop for. Oh, and a shower would be nice, too.
And just like that, the weight began to overtake me. Comparing myself with the other friends of mine who I just know would be able to get it all done and look good doing it, i slump into myself and walk from room to room, unsure which mess to tackle first. And then i just said NO. I am not fighting this battle tonight, dangit.
Today, i spent the day saying yes: Yes to what i felt was best for my kids, for our family. To fun with them, and without stressing it, to the playing outside and with friends that always do our souls good. Choosing to ignore the mess that will always find a way into my life, and to embrace this day for just what it is.
Now, i look square in the face of the feelings of inadequacy that mock me, the undone to-dos that tempt me to feel overwhelmed, and say Nope. I’m not going that route. Tonight I’ll spend a moment with my Savior, asking for His eyes for my priorities, and a moment with my planner, to prepare for tomorrow. And i will not undo a sweet day of living in the moment, in my calling, by succumbing to the voice that tells me I’m never good enough.
Usually if this problem of mine comes up in conversation, the other person says something like, “Well you have three small children. You have a lot on your mind.” Well, that person is entirely correct and while i appreciate that person thinking the best of me, i’m afraid i was like this before i had any kids. I can’t be sure, though, because of course, i can’t remember.
Brian insists the problem is that i need to use my planner. “Write things down,” he suggests, in the practical and problem-solving way husbands do. I do have a very nice daily planner that i use as much as possible. What i lack are the free hands to write with.
What i need, as I’ve explained to him time after time, is an assistant. Someone to be on hand for those times i’m up to my elbows in dishes and suddenly remember all the emails i meant to send. For when i’m in the middle of heinous diaper change and realize i need to make an additon to the to-so list. When I’m wiping peanut-butter-and-jellied hands and faces can’t get to my phone when it rings, and need to remember to call the caller back. And for the unfortunate times I get all the way into the middle of a story or anecdote that i was sharing for some important reason and wonder “what am i talking about here?”
I won’t lie, i’m far more concerned with three decent meals (and intermittent snacks,) creative play times, scheduled playdates (and grown-up conversations!) and teaching all the important stuff (which is quite a lot of stuff, actually) to my kids than I am with whether or not i look perhaps a bit flighty or forgetful to the rest of the world while doing it. But I am learning a lot about embracing order, structure and even– brace yourself– planning as tools to do my best with what i’ve been entrusted with. So i will persevere in trying to learn how to remember, remembering to write things down because i know i won’t remember, setting systems in place to help me get the important stuff done, and even asking for help when i need it. All in the name of exellence in what responsibilities God’s given me. And perhaps being a little less like a goldfish.
of the keys when typing on my macbook
of my babes yawning
and then, of all three sweetly sleeping
of birds outside the window
of my brothers and sisters all around me singing loudly to our God
and of a crazy dance party in the living room with my littles, singing loudly to our God
of the fan in my bedroom, softly whirrrrrrrring me to sleep.
