Tag Archives: motherhood

Motherhood Can Be Jarring.

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Tonight I got really sad all of a sudden because my children are getting SO big, SO fast, that it’s jarring. It takes a substantial amount of something to truly jar me. I stood in our darkened living room, watching my boys, and tears spilled onto my cheeks as I whispered to my husband, “Asher doesn’t need his blanket anymore.”

He used to need it.

I am jarred.

I know that a lot of mothers who are also writers seem to go on and on about the beauty and sadness that comes with seeing your children grow up. This post is just one among thousands like it. In fact, I wrote one almost exactly like this one, almost exactly one year ago, and it still makes me cry when I read it. (If you want to read it, click here.)

Except that, as I pulled my toddler into my lap tonight to rock and sing to her before I tucked her into bed, her legs dragged farther down than last week. And as I stroked her hair and talked to her softly, she talked to me back. She answered my questions, my mindless questions, the ones I apparently ask every night without thinking.

“Pepper, are you sleepy?”

“No. Pepper not sweepy.”

“Do you want to sing a song?”

“Yes! Sing a song! Siiiiiiiilent night, hoooooooly night … “

She used to be so tiny. Now she could climb out of her crib, if she wanted to. She climbed out of the bath tub today. I walked away for a minute, heard a THUMP, and there she was, dripping wet in the hallway.

“I get out?” she said.

“Yep … you got out.” Bath time was over.

8-month-old Penelope. Back when she was tiny.

8-month-old Penelope. Back when she was tiny.

My oldest child is going to be taller than me one day. Much taller. I know this because he is 6 years old and the top of his head is boob-high already. He is all arms and legs.

He can read. I catch him peeking over my shoulder trying to catch a glimpse of what I’m working on.

He gets my jokes.

He used to scream unintelligibly when I asked him to put his pajamas on, and now he’s talking about the anatomy of bugs and asking me questions about space travel.

I used to know the answers to all of his questions.

I don’t anymore.

This photo was taken in 2012 when we announced that I was pregnant with baby #3!

This photo was taken in 2012 when we announced that I was pregnant with baby #3!

My middle child was so attached to his green blanket that he wore it to pieces and we had to replace it with a brown one. We fretted over how long he would drag it around.

Then, suddenly, he stopped. And I cried. I CRIED ABOUT MY CHILD GROWING OUT OF A HABIT THAT DROVE THE WHOLE FAMILY CRAZY.

When my babies were babies.

21-month-old Asher with his blanket and brand-new baby sister.

It’s so weird, this motherhood thing. The things that cause me pain can also bring me great joy, and the things that irritate the ever-loving shit out of me are also sorely missed when they stop.

I stepped over my children to make my way out of the living room tonight, wiping the tears from my cheeks. I stopped for a moment and leaned down to tell Asher goodnight. He smiled up at me, dimples cracking.

We whispered back and forth for a moment, saying our good-nights, and then he paused.

“Mommy? Can you get me my blanket?”

Yes.

Yes, I most certainly can.

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Toddler Raises Hell Without Apology, Mother In Tears.

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Today at a local indoor playground, video surveillance picked up footage of this two-year-old girl standing next to a toy car, actively preventing other children from playing with it.

surveillance footage of toddler

“She looks like she’s going to cut a bitch,” a bystander remarked.

“Look at that side eye,” said the mother of an unnamed victim. “I told my kids to stay away from her! She’s dangerous.”

“I’ve always bragged about how sweet she is,” her mother wailed. “But clearly those days are over.”

The perpetrator allegedly dragged another child out of the play vehicle while screaming “MY CAR!” The victim ran away in tears.

Later, she terrorized a group of children playing in a pretend grocery store, taking plastic bananas and apples from their toy shopping carts without apology.

In her final act of abomination, the toddler climbed up the slides until her mother finally lured her away with promises of Goldfish crackers.

kids2

The perp with her siblings.

If you or someone you know has been affected by this tiny tyrant, please call the Save Me From This Toddler hotline at 888-888-HELL.

Pepper

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Things I’m Not Afraid To Admit.

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Life is fucking hard, man.

People don’t say that often enough. Maybe because they think they will sound weak or whiny. Maybe because they’re afraid of judgement. Maybe because they are worried that it’s not hard for other people. Maybe it’s just hard for them.

Maybe they’re afraid that if they open their mouths and admit to someone else that life is hard, it will mean that they just aren’t religious enough. Maybe they aren’t good enough for God to make it easier.

Maybe He can’t hear them. Maybe He isn’t even there.

I don’t believe any of that.

I long for Robbie and I to go back in time approximately 10-12 years, back to our previous life when our biggest concerns were as follows:

1. Where everyone was going to go that night,

2. What I was going to wear,

3. And how much sex was too much sex. Wait … never mind. That wasn’t a concern. So really we only had two things to worry about.

Throw in a fear of pregnancy and not having enough money to pay my $350/month rent, and that pretty much covers my early twenties. I want to go back to that time, not because I don’t want my kids or the life that I have now, but because I want to remember what it felt like to be less exhausted than I currently am. Right now, I’m close to being exhausted enough to stop showering, and if you know me, you know that this is MAJOR.

This thought hit me the other night when I was engrossed in watching a YouTube video of someone extracting impacted earwax from a man’s ear. I looked up to show Robbie, but he had fallen asleep listening to an audio book of Game of Thrones.

When I yelled, “What is happening to us?! WHO ARE WE?!?” it made him jump.

The next night, I sidled up to him and purred seductively, “Are you going to watch the rest of this baseball game?” He said, “I don’t know … I might fall asleep.”

I gathered my pillows and went to the couch, wishing for things to be less mid-thirties and more mid-twenties.

This morning I was passive-aggressively flipping through a magazine, feeling angry that I am so tired, that three-year-old children are so irrational, that my husband is just as tired as I am, that I don’t ever have time to write, and that people constantly need something from me.

Most of all, I was angry that I am becoming everything that I said I would never be.

I’m resentful, unkempt, and irritable. I yell. A lot.

I recoil when my husband touches me. I am touched out, talked out, cleaned out and incredibly tired of going to the grocery store. I’m exhausted of feeding people and cleaning up messes and hearing complaints from at least one person at all times, because there are five people in this house and no one is ever happy all at the same time and that includes me.

I’m a jerk.

I was gone for 4 days and it didn’t help. It just made me want more time away. It was a tiny drop in my dried-out bucket. I do my best to care for myself, but I still come up short. I’m being pulled in so many different directions, every day. I am asked to give more, even when I don’t have anything left, every day.

I am a frazzled mom.

That makes me wish that I could travel back in time to when life was simpler. Look how smooth our faces were. Look how close we are standing to each other. His hand is practically on my ass, and who could blame him? No one was squeezing in between us, yelling “MY Daddy!!!”

I want to warp-speed myself back to THIS.

I want to warp-speed myself back to THIS.

This is why people tell you not to rush your life — because you never know what the next season might bring. It might be really fucking hard.

You might have children stuck to you like agitated starfish for 12 hours a day.

You might have to unclog toilets and wipe up pee and chase small people who are surprisingly fast.

You might tear your hamstring in Kickboxing class because you’re getting old and you didn’t warm up properly.

As I mulled this over today in a brief moment of peace, during which I spaced out and sat completely motionless because no one needed me, I heard a sound coming from the bathroom.

“I bwush my teef.”

That’s what she was saying to me as she held up her toothbrush, smiling that double-dimpled smile that exposes her perfect toddler teeth.

I want to travel back in time.My baby just turned two and can hold full conversations.

“I bwush my teef.”

I stood there and stared at her. It was like I couldn’t breathe.

She’s so beautiful. So smart, so sweet. So cuddly and funny. She isn’t just beautiful because she’s pretty. She’s beautiful because she glows.

I am so grateful.

She held up her toothbrush. “MOUF!!!!” (That’s “mouth” in toddler-speak.)

The thing about seasons is that even on the darkest night, when the wind is howling at your door, there is still a moon in the sky. It’s not all bad, even when it’s fucking hard.

And I’m not afraid to admit that out loud, either.

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What It Means To Be Seen.

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I have struggled with other people’s assumptions my entire life.

I remember being in the principal’s office at the public school we were zoned for when we lived in the country, and her leaning in and asking me “Are you an only child?”

I was in her office because a boy had run up to me and grabbed me between my legs when our Spanish teacher was out of the room. I was so embarrassed — it had been a dare, I think, from the way his friends were laughing — and would never have spoken a word about it to our teacher. But my friend was appalled and dragged me to the principal and now there I was, sitting in front of her, mortified and sweating and wishing I wouldn’t have let my friend shove me into her office.

“Are you an only child?” She asked me again.

“Yes.”

“Well, that explains it. You’re probably spoiled.”

The number of siblings I did or did not have had nothing to do with the fact that I was minding my own business, sitting on a windowsill talking about whatever 5th grade girls talk about, when someone shoved his hand in a place it never should have gone. But I was a white girl who was dressed nicely and got good grades, and now it was out that I was also an only child too, with parents who worked in the city.

HOW DARE I.

This is when my shame began: the apologetic feeling. The I’m sorry for being who I am. The let me work really hard to make you feel okay about dealing with me.

I have spent almost my entire life dealing with a compulsive need to prove to others that I’m not an airhead because I smile a lot. I’M JUST A HAPPY PERSON, DAMN IT.

I have worked tirelessly for far too long to prove that I’m not bitchy because I’m a confident woman, that I’m not racist because I happen to be white, that I’m not closed-minded because I was raised in a Conservative Christian bubble, and that I’m not judgy because my house is clean.

I’ve spent my life feeling afraid of offending others with my presence, even when they were the ones offending me.

Fuck. That. Noise.

I don’t want to apologize anymore and I don’t feel like I have to, because I have experienced the elation of being immersed in a situation where everyone is just as screwed up and weird and talented as I am and it was AMAZING. It was such a moving experience to go to the Blog U Conference last weekend and feel completely accepted into a group of people who are not at all like me, but yet somehow completely like me.

We swept the Notre Dame of Maryland University campus with a quirky, maladjusted wave of awesomeness. The nuns probably all rolled over in their graves or crossed their chests or something.

I can’t wait to go back.

Somehow these people who I have never met in real life know and understand me better than people who have known me for 35 years. I don’t know how or why and I don’t understand any of it, but apparently this is what it feels like when you find your people.

This is what it feels like to not have to explain or apologize for being yourself.

This is what it feels like to be seen.

Being seen for who you are.

Before the “Middle School To The Max” party.

I never would have had this experience without the support of my amazing husband, who raised the funds for me to go, and without the support of my bomb ass friends and family who keep pushing me, reading my work, encouraging me and telling me I need to shut up and stop apologizing for the love of holy hot dog buns.

Go find your people.

It is so, so worth the wait.

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The World Needs More Kind People.

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I’m an imperfect, mess of a person who married an imperfect, mess of a person. Together we have spawned three imperfect, messy people.

Robbie and I recognized early on that we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. That became clear 7 years ago in our Intro To Parenting class when the instructor said “Raise your hand if you’ve never changed a diaper!” and we were the only two people in the room with our hands in the air.

Our unborn child was screwed. We knew it, the instructor knew it, and the 15 other couples in the class knew it.

Because of our apparent lack of knowledge, we have made it our practice to set the bar of achievement at a reasonable level. We encourage our children to do their best and we are proud when they succeed, but more than that, it is important to us that we raise them to be kind.

I don’t just want my kids to be kind to people who look and act like they do. I want them to be kind to everyone. Yes, black people. Yes, brown people. Yes, yellow people. Yes, gay people. Yes, strange people — and don’t call them strange, because we’re strange too.

Yes, homeless people. Yes, punk rock people. Yes, baby people. Yes, old church people.

Yes, even your own brother and sister.

PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE. BE KIND TO THEM. This is our family motto.

The thing about parenting is that you never really know if what you’re doing is working. You just do the best you can, and as days stretch into weeks you keep trudging along until something happens that lets you know that you have either failed miserably or done something right. Recently something happened that let me know we’re doing something right.

My 6-year-old’s teacher sent me a text letting me know that she selected him to receive the “Good Citizenship” award because of how kind, helpful, and patient he’s been with a boy named Gabriel in their class.

“Who is Gabriel?” I asked. She replied that Gabriel is a little boy with autism.

“Maverick is so patient with him,” she said. “He’s made such a huge difference.”

Maverick has mentioned to us a handful of times that there is a really funny boy who does silly things and I had no idea what he was talking about. We have friends who have kids with autism, so Maverick may not even realize there is anything different going on with his friend.

The next morning at breakfast, we asked about Gabriel. “OH!” he said, “Gabriel is my friend. He has a disability. I know all about disabilities. Gabriel’s disability is that he just can’t stop being funny!”

As I turned away to hide my face, because I was doing that ugly cry thing that moms do when they are moved by something, I heard Maverick say “His favorite color is rainbow! Isn’t that awesome?!” before shoveling more cereal into his mouth.

Several days later, I found myself standing in a sea of other proud parents. My son sat quietly through the awards ceremony; he had no idea that his name was going to be called, and certainly didn’t know the reason why.

I watched him, feeling the condensation drip from my iced coffee, wondering when the transformation happened. Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, he’s changed. A year ago he would have had trouble sitting there quietly. And now, just look at him.

Raising a kind child.

Me and my kid.

Later, I arrived at his classroom for the end of year party. “HI, MOMMY!” he yelled, in typical exuberant fashion. He was sitting outside next to a little boy I’d never seen before.

“Hi! Who’s your friend?” I asked.

“Oh! This is Gabriel!”

“Hi, Gabriel! I’m Maverick’s mom.”

Gabriel smiled. I liked him already.

The world doesn’t need three more assholes. The world needs three more kind people.

I hope my children can be those three kind people.

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My Wife Bonus.

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I survived my first real week of Summer.

The boys played tug o’ war with the water hose. They pulled and pulled with all their might, but the other end was stuck to the house. In the end, the house won.

My middle child walked around for most of the week with a large human bite mark on his face — big, purple, teeth-shaped marks on his cheek and eyebrow. I told myself it looked like dirt and tried not to worry about it.

They're pretty darn cute.

They’re pretty darn cute when they aren’t raising hell.

Our washing machine stopped spinning properly, so I have to wash tiny loads instead of normal-sized ones … which means my laundry pile seriously never ends. Robbie doesn’t seem to understand the enormity of this problem. He shrugged and said (and I quote), “Just stick your hand in there and get it going by doing this” and modeled how to jump-start the spin cycle.

I don’t have time for that kind of bullshit. I’m too busy screaming at the boys to stop drinking muddy water and keeping our youngest from hurtling herself through a window. I NEED THE WASHING MACHINE TO FUNCTION. I do not want to spin the washing machine by hand. I’m not that kind of woman. I don’t even enjoy camping without a real bathroom.

You know what kind of woman I am?

The kind who likes to get her hair done. The kind who dislikes broken things.

I went to the Beehive Salon this week, and I love what they did so much that it doesn’t matter that I had to pay for overpriced childcare in order to make it to my appointment. It was worth every penny, and I consider it my “wife bonus” for keeping everyone alive. (Have you read this ridiculous article in the New York Post about the “wife bonus?” Not that I’m against wives getting a bonus. I’m not. I just can’t imagine living that kind of lifestyle. Probably because instead of a $1,500 Burberry trench coat, I own a Nike zip-up hoodie.)

I leave for the BlogU Conference next week (!!!) and I simply could not meet all of these exciting people with two inches of roots showing. I also got my eyebrows waxed for the first time since my wedding almost a decade ago.

It is my hope that everyone I meet will be so mesmerized by flawless brows and smooth upper lip that they will want to work with me on projects that pay in real money, and magically my children will have childcare arrangements … and little blue birds will carry my laptop to me every morning while the mice make my coffee.

PicMonkey CollageI left my pride all over town this week. I injured myself in Kickboxing class. I had to jump into the kiddie pool and drag my defiant, screaming three-year-old out by his puddle jumper.

I bought something that I thought was a shirt, but it’s actually a dress.

I feel my age.

But my hair looks damn good.

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Summer Begins and To-Do Lists End.

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I spent the weekend with my family and a long to-do list nagging at the back of my brain.

I’ve allowed myself to get run down in body, mind, and spirit. I’m spent. I have nothing left to give anyone, and every time I look at the mountain of laundry or face another meal time, I just want to cry.

It never ends. None of it ends. It is unending.

It’s hard for me to enjoy my family when I get like this, and I know that to prevent going into this bad place I have to take care of myself. I have to sleep enough and exercise. I have to write. But sometimes, I can’t do those things simply because I’m a mother and the thing about motherhood is that you tend to sacrifice your needs for everyone else.

I never understood it before I found myself holding a painfully full bladder while I helped my son pull his pants up and down and waited as the endless seconds ticked by until he was finished.

The End of the To-Do List (the beginning of Summer 2015.)

“Pretend you are a grown-up. What would you do for the day? First I would wake up and make coffee. I would go to work. Next I would go investigate science. I would show my family. Then I would get my pj’s on and go to sleep.”

Mothers begin a long journey in selflessness the moment they realize that their body is housing another human being, and that human being is going to have thoughts and opinions and will want to eat at inopportune times and will become very upset when you don’t serve him pancakes on the red plate.

That human being might learn how to screech “MOMMY!!!” at frightening volumes and cause you to spend the entire day in fight-or-flight mode.

She might bite.

He might have a temper.

You, the mother, will be forced to adapt. To care for and shape these humans into people of character is no small task. It’s very tiring.

I’ll say it again: IT’S VERY TIRING.

Right now my kids are small and their needs are immediate, so finding time for myself is hard. My days are a constant struggle to cope with it all, still enjoy life, and arrive at the end of the day not hating anyone … including myself.

Tonight I was staring at their uneaten bowls of dinner and thinking about the to-do list I still haven’t started when I realized that the baby was crying in her crib. It took everything in me to stand up. I didn’t want to be needed anymore. I wanted to clock out for the day. And, in yet another act of being a mother, I walked into my daughter’s room anyway.

I didn’t feel like it, but I’m still her mother.

She was relieved to see me. I took a deep breath and picked her up. As we sat in the rocking chair in her room, she laid her head right over my heart and rested against me as I badly sang — half because I really can’t sing, and half because I was trying not to cry.

I never want to forget how it feels to hold my youngest child when she wants to be held. She leans into my body, wrapping her tiny arms around me and tucking herself in. I’ve already forgotten what it felt like to hold the boys when they were this small, and it hasn’t even been that long. OMG, WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

We rocked for an unknown period, and for the umpteenth time since becoming a mother in 2008 I realized that my children give back more to me than I give to them — to-do list be damned.

Which is fitting, since I won’t get much accomplished for the next 2.5 months.

What To-Do List? (Or, the beginning of Summer 2015.)(If you liked this post, then you will LOVE I Still Just Want To Pee Alone! Click here to find out more!)

A Very Short Story.

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The next time someone comments that I am wound too tight or that I “just need to relax,” I’m going to remind them of the time that Robbie and our oldest child went on a camping trip and left me home with our two younger children, and I decided that the best way for me to power through a weekend with a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old is to stay as busy as possible by doing things like going swimming at my parent’s house where I forgot to lock the deadbolt behind us when we returned and my youngest child escaped without anyone noticing and made it almost to the parking lot before I came running and screaming after her.

The end.

(Guzzles wine.)

20150516_173852(If you liked this post, then you will LOVE I Still Just Want To Pee Alone! Click here to find out more!)