Tag Archives: motherhood

Shouting From The Internet (instead of rooftops).

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Today is an important day because I zipped myself into my favorite old pair of jeans without feeling nauseous because they were so tight. They are snug but wearable, and when I realized I got into them without sucking in I ran into the living room and demanded that Robbie take a picture so I could document this blessed event … which I am shouting from the internet because running around my neighborhood yelling, “OH MY GOD MY PANTS FIT!!” in these jeans would be difficult.

I’m self-conscious just like any other woman, and this is a big, exciting milestone.

BUT.

As soon as I looked in the mirror, I noticed that my stomach still pokes out a lot more than it used to (before I had three children), and instantly thought ahead to the next goal (clothes from forever ago when I first got married). And then I got MAD. Why is it that I’m never completely happy with myself? There is always something else to work on, and I feel like I’ve spent my whole adult life working on something. I need a respite.

Today I just want to revel in the fact that I put on these pants, wore them to Target, and didn’t pass out.

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I decided it’s time to let myself be proud of how far I’ve come, and just enjoy it. Tomorrow I can go back to worrying about how I look in a bathing suit when skin tight denim isn’t holding everything in. But as my friend Elizabeth said, and I quote:

“I think this stage of our lives calls for a more forgiving view of ourselves. You have three small children, you manage the majority of your household duties, you take good care of your husband. You need food to fuel you. Exercise is great, too, to help you be strong enough to fulfill your responsibilities and to feel good. But I think the idea that we need to be chiseled and toned at this point in our lives is just silly. Your body is beautiful and it is nurturing people all day, every day.”

Elizabeth is one of my internet friends. I’ve never met her, but I think we might be kindred spirits. She has a way of bringing us all back down to what matters. I wish we could all remember and internalize exactly what she said, because she’s so, so right.

So YES, Elizabeth, I will be forgiving of myself. Today. Next weekend when I’m at the beach, I may need another pep talk.

365 Days And I’m Still Here.

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Meeting Penelope Rose.

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Brothers meeting sister for the first time.

One year.

I don’t know how I did this without antidepressants. I thought caring for three kids would make me eat them like candy, but here I stand, exactly one year later, and nary a prescription. This surprises me more than anything.

We made it. The first birthday of our last child. I don’t know what I thought this year would be like — it was HARD, so, so hard — but it was also absolutely amazing. Like in the kind of way that makes you feel like you need a very long, kid-free vacation.

I woke up every day and gave all of myself that I had. I thought I knew how much I had to give and I gave that and more that I didn’t realize was there. Where did that extra me come from? All that work was worth every single dinner thrown and bottle spit up and rectal temperature taken and whatever other weird mom thing I had to deal with while two rowdy boys rocketed around as the baby blinked at me with this look:

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All worth it. I’d do it again, but Robbie fires blanks now. I kind of mentioned how I regret that and wish we could have a fourth, and he yelled “YOU’RE CRAZY!!!!” and stormed out of the house. He’s probably right.

Now, all I want to do is cry — from tiredness, from gratitude, and from the amazing feeling of getting over a big mountain no one else can see.

It’s called The First Year With Three Kids, and I made it my bitch.

 

Almost One.

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This girl is turning one on Saturday, and I have so many questions. How did a year pass by so quickly? How did we manage to survive it?

I was terrified each time I gave birth. Of dying, of something going wrong, but mostly of surviving the day-to-day of managing the newborn in addition to whatever else was going on in our house. I worried myself sick before I had each of the boys, but by the time Penelope Rose was born I was beginning to learn the art of low expectations.

This year, I have started to fine-tune it.

Somehow all of the sudden my baby won’t sit still; I find her looking longingly at the living room cabinet that her brothers hide in, wishing she could hide in it too. She copies their monster sounds and dragon roars. When they cry, she cries. When they yell, she yells.

When she smiles, we all do.

Victory.

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This is the first week of the first summer that I will spend with all three of my children home with me, all day, every day.

I am 34 years old.

All day long, I count the hours until the next hurdle is reached, and at night, when I’m reflecting, I think about years. Next summer I will be 35. Thinking about this is what made me decide to start weight training and getting serious about eye cream. I’m almost halfway to 70, and shit’s getting real.

Last summer I had a baby, and because I know my limits, we shipped our oldest off to day camp. It was a sound decision, worth every penny of the $1,000 that I had to scrounge up for it. One thousand dollars is a lot of money to us. Sometimes I feel like people assume that if someone is staying home with the kids, it’s because you have so much money that you simply don’t know what to do with it all. In such a case, according to those who are assuming, OBVIOUSLY the thing to do is to quit your job and space out in pajamas while infants and toddlers teethe on your fancy wares.

I do not fall into this category.

I’m home with the kids because I know in my gut it is what I am to do. I’ve tried to go against my gut before, and it never goes well. I feel like I needed to mention that, maybe more for my sake than for yours, because this week I have found myself asking myself WHAT I AM DOING trying to take care of all these children. Where did they come from!? How did this happen?! These are the questions I ask myself when I am standing in my kitchen surrounded by wailing, tiny people who throw things when they are angry.

I don’t have the time or the energy to fabricate lies. I’m going to tell it to you straight. If I make it through this summer without doing something absolutely bat shit crazy, it will be a miracle.

Things that qualify as “bat shit crazy:”

  • Leaving my home in a state of undress, noticing, and not caring.
  • Seeing my kid(s) drink my coffee, noticing, and not caring.
  • Breaking any number of laws, noticing, and not caring.

Yesterday, it became apparent that they boys were going to tear apart the house — no, I’m totally serious. Tear. It. Up. — if I didn’t do something to snap them out of it. A walk, I thought. A family walk will calm them down. To clarify, “family” walk consists of me and three kids, because it was Wednesday and Robbie was at work. So after dinner, out we went.

We got three streets over and Asher tripped and fell, skinning up both knees and his hands. Two minutes later, Maverick tripped and fell, bloodying one knee so badly that it was running down his leg into his rain boot. Both boys were limping and bleeding and crying, and the baby started crying too, just because. I hyper-focused on getting us home, but little did I know that getting there was the easy part. The hard part was trying to triage two bleeding boys, plus a teething, cranky, crawling baby. The bathroom looked like a crime scene when I was done, bloody hand prints on the wall included.

Today brought a whole new set of totally weird and unprecedented experiences that I didn’t have time to dwell on until now. For example, the baby ate a ball of dirt at the indoor playground. I’m not sure if Maverick drank any water. I had pie for dinner.

I was supposed to be saving it for Robbie, but I ate it because I HAD TO. But you know, as long as I’m not eating a handful of crack because I HAD TO, I consider the day to be a success.

See how we all have our arms raised up in victory in the family portrait below? That’s because we just made it through another day where none of us ate a handful of crack.

Our family, drawn by Maverick, age 5

Our family, drawn by Maverick, age 5

We look like we did … but trust me, we didn’t.

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y.

Mom Suit Monday.

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Yesterday I tried on my new bathing suit so Robbie could see it.

He studied me for what seemed like forever before he said, and I quote, “Hmmm.”

I then explained why THAT is why women get frustrated with men. If I walk out in a bathing suit, whether I look God-awful or not-too-awful, you absolutely cannot say “Hmmm.” You must find one thing that you like about what you see, and say that thing out loud. For example, “I like your shoulders in that bathing suit. You look nice.”

ONLY THEN MAY YOU SAY “Hmmm.”

He said the reason why he didn’t say anything is because he wasn’t thinking anything. How can this be?! I will never understand. Just like he will never understand how I think about five different things all at the same time. It must be nice to look at someone wearing a dresskini and think absolutely nothing. How can someone not think anything when faced with that?! IT’S CALLED A DRESSKINI, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

I submit that he is lying.

He wanted to know why I can’t just wear a bikini. My facial expression must have led him to follow up with, “You could always get one of those see-through cover up thingies.” And you know, he might be onto something. Is it better to wear a total mom suit, or just rock it in a bikini with some sort of cover up? It’s not like I’m going to look like a fitness model either way, and trying to use the bathroom with a one-piece on really sucks.

As I stood there in gripped in spandex ruffles, I told him I’m trying to be practical. As far as wrangling kids in the pool, I don’t think a bikini’s going to work. Someone, somewhere, would see something they would never be able to un-see. But if he takes me on a vacation … or sends me to a magical spa where a thousand tiny hands can beat the cellulite off me … or to a surgeon to make miracles happen … I will consider it.

Until then, a mom suit it is. And possibly a wide-brimmed hat.

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Welcome To Hell.

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Today I kinda snapped in the swimsuit section of Kohl’s.

Consider this my public apology to the kind lady who happened to walk up at the exact time of my snappage. I just made that word up, I think. I’ll add that to my Dictionary of Words I Say That Aren’t Really Words, right next to my other fave, “yellisper.”

Anyway, all I remember about the lady is that she had on a family reunion t-shirt and she looked a little surprised when I looked at her and yelled, “WELCOME TO HELL!” but she didn’t seem to judge me.

I tried to reign it in. I silently shopped in several other stores before I got to this one, the frustration building with each problem I encountered. The tankini top was perfect but the bottoms were made for someone with a tiny rear end. The mix-and-match section didn’t have anything in my size. Bikinis are out of the question. One-pieces are frumpy. Swim skirts just drew attention to what I was trying to cover up, and rather than look like I was smuggling potatoes to the beach I WILL JUST OWN MY THIGHS, THANK YOU.

By the time I yelled “WELCOME TO HELL!” I was so angry that I wanted to throw every ill-fitting shred of spandex/poly blend on the floor and stomp. Hard. And I really think I would have, except that I also wanted to hide in the car and cry.

There are a million blog posts and articles out there talking about bathing suit shopping, and they can all be condensed into one sentence.

Shopping for a bathing suit blows.

It would really make me happy if every article titled “Find Your Perfect Suit!” ended with something like, “Here are some tips to guide you, but overall, it’s going to blow. Godspeed.”

I came home and ate a healthy salad followed by Oreos, and thought about the torture women go through that straight men will never understand. Robbie does not realize that I spent the majority of my day self-loathing under florescent lights because I needed something to wear when I take the kids to the pool. He probably thinks I should wear one of the bathing suits I already have, and if he said that to me I would irrationally scream at him that I WOULD LOVE TO WEAR ONE OF THE CUTE ONES IN MY CLOSET BUT THREE DAMN PREGNANCIES MADE THAT IMPOSSIBLE, ROBBIE. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE NOW, SO LET’S JUST BURN THEM.

Happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone. I’m ready to get my tan on, in my very sensible one-piece with a ruffle around the bottom.

 

Behold ... it is hell.

Behold … it is hell.

 

A Beautiful Mess.

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Today almost got the best of me. 

I have three snot-nosed children who spent the entire day covering me in sneezes. I didn’t get a break from wiping noses and squashing catastrophes, aside from the hour I spent in Zumba class. If anyone wants to know why I am always grinning from ear-to-ear in Zumba, it’s because I am so happy to be there. No one snots on me and we dance to Michael Jackson. It’s pretty much heaven.

By the time this evening rolled around, I could feel myself LOSING IT. The snot, the slobber, the mess, the screaming … it was too much. Pepper was crying, popcorn was all over the floor, Asher was ripping into our mail and Maverick was refusing to do his homework. The whole situation was an absolute mess. And so I looked around, took a deep breath, decided locking myself in the bathroom was not an option, and dove right in. 

By the time I wrestled the toddler into bed, I was furious at Husband for not being here to help me. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed and exhausted that I don’t know what else to do but to get pissed off. That’s when I start sending angry text messages to him like “THIS IS NOT A ONE-PERSON JOB,” just in case he’s forgotten how hard I’m working.

I envision him sitting in his office with his feet propped up on his desk, enjoying silence and stillness and perhaps an uninterrupted snack, and then I get angrier. Because HE gets to poop in peace. HE gets to listen to normal music without worrying that his 5-year-old will learn the lyrics to Blurred Lines.

It’s so easy for me to fall into the trap of thinking that he has it easier, when in reality, he doesn’t. He has a stressful job too, and while he is stuck there he probably imagines an idyllic scene at home like this one below. Boys playing nicely, sun setting, a perfectly-makeup-ed wife holding a jolly baby as we all eat ice cream sandwiches.

 

Yeah, right.

And then, Asher snapped me out of my anger. I had him on my lap, singing Silent Night which is just what I do no matter the season — because all Mommy wants is a silent night, and I always hope the lyrics sink into his little head and make him sleep well — and he looked up, put his hands on either side of my face and whispered reverently “Gentle. Gentle.” Like he was touching something holy. And all of the sudden I realized I was. 

When it feels like I can’t pour any more of myself into them or I will disappear, one of my three angels reminds me that what I am doing is worth something much more than I can see or imagine right now. Man, my life is such a mess. A beautiful, beautiful mess.

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