normal

"Just a normal day. A normal day? It’s a Jewel! In time of war, in peril of death, people have dug their hands and faces into the earth and remembered this. In time of sickness and pain, people have buried their faces in pillows and wept for this. In times of loneliness and separation, people have stretched themselves taut and waited for this. In time of hunger, homelessness, want, people have raised boney hands to the skies and stayed alive for this.

Normal day — let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may — for it will not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth or bury my face in the pillow,  or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want more then all the world to return to you, normal day."

-Let Me Hold You While I May, Mary Jean Irion

Edie being Edie

I stood in the kitchen one late afternoon last week, emphatically imploring Edie to stop doing whatever it was that she was doing. I can't even remember specifically what she was doing but I know without doubt that it was wearing thin any remaining patience I possessed from another long day in the trenches. 

After bickering back and forth for what felt like a lifetime, Edie sighed, clearly exasperated. She closed her eyes and took in a slow, deep breath. As she opened her eyes, she put her right hand on her hip and, with her tiny chubby finger, pointed to the clock on the wall and said,

"Mom, you see that clock on the wall over dare?!

It says it's time for you to stop and leave me alone!" 

Well played, Edie. Well played. 

keep the babies safe

As a rule of thumb, I keep my list of goals as a parent very simple. The reason behind this is two-fold: For one, I'm realistic. I know I'm going to really fuck it up a time or two. Plus, fewer goals equals fewer opportunities to fail and in twenty or so years, I'd like to be able to actually believe that I didn't suck more than I did. The other reason is that the things I deem goal-worthy-- meaning, the things I will allow myself to lose sleep over-- are few and far between.

Quite frankly, I don't give a shit if my kids drank breastmilk exclusively or formula as a baby or eat kale voluntarily or survive on nothing but Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I don't care if my kid gets straight A's or is labeled "academically gifted" or is an athletic or musical prodigy. Nor do I care about their enthusiasm to do anything other than watch another Barbie movie for the four thousandth time. I mean, I care of course. But I won't allow those things to be the measure of the kind of mother I am or the kind of humans my kids are. Those are all just minor details that, in twenty years, nobody will give a shit about, including me, their mother, the one who currently begs them to eat their god damn kale.

I only devote my parental energy to four things and doing them to the best of my ability with the hope that one day, maybe they'll eat more kale than they eat sugar and treat everyone equally and with love.

Help them stay safe. 

Encourage them to be brave. 

Remind them to have fun. 

Don't be an asshole so they won't be an asshole.

That's what Joe and I focus on every day, some days much more successfully than others, in the hopes that Marlo, Edie, and Knox turn into semi-decent human beings. They are reasonable, doable, and universally appropriate. They are simple to explain and easy for a child to remember. They are the foundation of our family's credo and though we don't always follow them perfectly, for the most part, they guide the way. 

And it used to feel like enough, like if we just remain consistent and stay true to our beliefs, we'd most likely raise well-adjusted humans who we actually like and not just because we share the same genetic make-up. But lately, for so many reasons-- which include but are not limited to the latest tragic school shooting-- it feels like nothing will ever be enough to prepare them for the cruelty of the world they're up against. This world feels brutal, more unpredictable, and full of what the fuck's that I am having a hard time explaining to an inquisitive, precocious almost-six-year-old. I don't have a simple answer for Marlo when she asks me why she has to practice lockdown drills. I don't know what to tell her when she asks me who would be sad enough to come and hurt her and her friends.

This weekend, Marlo told me that if someone were in her school and trying to hurt her friends, she wouldn't hide. Instead, she told me, she'd break the rules and try to protect her friends because "that's the right thing to do and you always tell me to do the right thing." I had to leave the room so she didn't see the silent sobs escaping from me. 

Marlo was recently awarded the Kindness Award from her class. So it makes complete sense to me that she would want to protect her friends. She's an empath and a natural-born advocate therefore I'd expect nothing less from her. And it's admirable, sure. It's a sign that whatever Joe and I are doing may be working towards shaping a woman who radiates goodness. That's our goal, after all. However, as far as I know, most kindergarteners still need the occasional help wiping their own ass so surely protecting each other from foreseeable death needn't be their responsibility? Hell, Marlo isn't even entirely sure what she would be protecting them from. But I do. I'm heartbreakingly aware of what to be afraid of because I spend my nights awake thinking of the children who have died over the last ten years-- children the same age as Mo-- and how their parents didn't get to hold them again at night. I wake up at night haunted with the fear they must have experienced and it shatters me. 

I'm livid that what once felt comforting due to its' simplicity and the inarguable applicability, now feels inadequate. It's no longer as easy as keeping them safe in parking lots and convincing them that the dentist isn't trying to kill them with the water pik or yanking them by their elbows not a second before they jump into the deep-end of the pool without their floaties. It now includes preparing them for how to not get shot at their god damned school. 

Clueing Mo in on just how fucked up our world is feels like an unnecessary robbing of her innocence. She is so blissfully unaware of the big bad world around her and her sweet little shoulders shouldn't bear the weight of it' reality just yet. It's my hope that the reality will morph into one that doesn't need to be feared but I can't make her any promises. As a result, I'm left wondering how I tell my oldest baby that it's okay to not be brave in that moment. I'm forced to now discourage one of the pillars I've built my parenting manifesto on. I don't know how I tell her that what I need is for her to stay alive. 

I've spent the last few days off and on in tears. I'm heartbroken and bitterly angry. I feel helpless knowing that no amount of conscious or intentional parenting of mine or yours will guarantee protection for my own babies because the problem is so much bigger than a few golden rules are capable of handling. I'm sure the parents of the kids who lost their lives in Florida had very similar principles. I'm sure they encouraged their kids to be kind and brave and to not be an asshole, too. But it didn't protect them and it sure as shit isn't comforting the empty arms of the parents who will be burying their children this week.  

I don't know where to go from here. All I know is that we have to work harder to protect our babies so future generations don't grow up accepting that school shootings are inevitable. We have to protect our babies so kids don't think that being brave and doing the right thing means jumping in front of a blaze of bullets. 

We have to keep our babies safe. We have to keep our babies alive. We just have to. 

2018, a year to....

To guide my children more than I direct them. To listen more and yell less. To always give them the benefit of the doubt. To speak like I want to be spoken to. To make more messes. To not worry about the mess. To validate their feelings. To remind myself that we're all learning as we go. To give them more freedom to make mistakes and the grace to try again. To lead by example. To take a step back. To indulge in more treats. To focus on today. To praise even the smallest progress. To not point out every mistake. To cook together more. To embrace the noise. 

today

It wasn't until Knox spit up the full contents of his last bottle down the inside of shirt that I lost it. I stood in the kitchen eating nacho-flavored tortilla chips as Edie sat on the plastic potty for the third consecutive hour yelling at me that she didn't have to go and that she wants to wear diapers forever and I began sobbing. And through the tears, all I could think of was Jim Gaffigan's stand up bit where he talks about what having kids feels like....

"Imagine you're drowning. And then imagine someone throws you a baby..." 

Life feels a lot like that right now. Like I'm drowning in reflux and potty training and weaning and sleep training and sleep depravation and a postpartum identity crisis. I don't want to complain. It feels so ridiculous to complain about such privileged problems, problems I chose to submerge myself in when I CHOSE to stay at home with our children. I want to be able to say that I feel on top of the world and that being a mother is the greatest and that I feel fulfilled by the monotony. But today, I won't say that.

Because, today, I can't say that.

Today, I am going to acknowledge the feelings that nobody wants to talk about because we worry that it makes us look like an ungrateful asshole. And it may make me look like an asshole but today, I don't really give a shit. 

Because today, I don't so much like being a mom.

Today I wish I didn't feel like I'm drowning. Today, I wish my life wasn't ruled by monotony. Today, I wish I had a taste of my old, carefree, childless life. Today, I wish I didn't feel like crying into my tortilla chips was my only option. Today, I wish I didn't always smell like one of their bodily functions or that my clothes weren't always stained by one of them wiping their dirty mouths. Today I wish I didn't only buy clothes that are solely functional and "play-date appropriate". Today, I want to know what it feels like to have an identity outside of my kids. Today, I resent how all-consuming it is. Today, I wish I didn't have the responsibility of keeping it together in front of the three people who are the source of why I am struggling to keep it together. Today, I wish I could go on strike and tell everyone in my house to fuck off.

Today, I wish my hair wasn't falling out and I weighed ten pounds less than I do. Today, I wish my boobs didn't look like sad, empty bags of nothing. Today, I wish my idea of a good time wasn't just a nap that isn't interrupted by a toddler jumping on my face. Today, I envy the boozy brunch crowd. Today, I envy the women who don't have chronic hemorrhoids from pushing out three children. Today, I wish I could drop everything and do whatever I want, whenever I want to do it, and that I didn't have to leave a detailed list of directions for whoever I leave in charge of who I'm running from.

Today, I'm allowing myself to resent my husband. Today, I'm allowing myself to say that it isn't fair that he doesn't have to grow, birth, or feed humans with his body or deal with postpartum hormones. Today, I'm admitting that it isn't fair that he never has to look in the mirror and struggle with not recognizing who he sees staring back at him. Today, I'm letting myself be angry that whether or not I stay at home with our kids, the bulk of the day-to-day responsibility of raising our kids will always fall on me. Today, I'm calling it bullshit that he will never have to know the depth and darkness that I experience battling postpartum hormones nor will he ever fully understand it.

Today, I wish it were me leaving the house each morning to escape the noise, the arguing, the tantrums, the ass-wiping. Today, I wish it were me who could go out of town for a week and and eat a hot meal at a hotel bar by myself while I talk to strangers. Today, I wish it were me who has the important job with an official title; the job you can't wear yoga pants to, the job that allows you to consult other adults about things other than whether or not your charges pooped today. 

Today, I won't preface these feelings with the I love my kids, I really do speech. Today, I wish I didn't feel an ever-present guilt because of a fucked-up culturally engrained myth of the perfect mother. Today, I don't care that there will always be some aspect of motherhood that I could most certainly be doing better at. Today, I'm not going to acknowledge the persistent anxiety that has attached itself to my experience of motherhood like the fucking life-draining leech that anxiety is. Today, I'm going to admit that sometimes, I don't want to fucking cuddle at bedtime. Or ever, actually. Today, I'm going to admit that when my kids yell at me, it takes more self-control that I ever knew I possessed to not scream back even louder and call them an asshole. 

Today, in this very moment, I'm going to admit that I'm struggling.

Today, as I type this, I'm reminding myself that it's okay to not be okay all of the time.

Today, crying into nacho-flavored tortilla chips felt better than eating nacho-flavored tortilla chips.

Today, I will not feel guilty for being human. 

Today, I will validate my feelings in the name of self-care. 

Today, I feel like I'm drowning. 

Today, I'm really looking forward to tomorrow.