“Be quiet!”
“Shhh, you’ll wake the baby.”
We grow up with family.
We mature in school.
We share rooms and apartments with college friends.
Then a home with our children.
How often are we ever alone?
And what do we do when we are?
I wonder, what if we live a LOUD life?
Unafraid of our noise disturbing others.
How do we teach our students to be quiet in the classroom
But LOUD in life?
There are no sick days for mothers.
A day of rest guarantees a day’s worth of extra work for the future.
Never was this any clearer than when Elizabeth was six months old.
My body had given up.
I had spent the summer with all four girls at home while Emmett was at work.
They were ages 6, 4, 2 and newborn.
Elizabeth was “failure-to-thrive”. Not gaining weight, vomiting and crying constantly with eczema covering her body and we couldn’t figure out why.
I was down twenty pounds, eliminating foods in a desperate attempt to continue breast feeding my last baby, only to find out later that the avocado I was surviving on was one of her FPIES (Food Protein-Induced Entercolitis) triggers.
My back completely gave out and I was incapacitated in a chair watching friends and family trying to substitute for me: Laundry, meals, diapers, playtime, housework.
It was laughable to think I had attempted to manage all of that on my own.
I finally agreed to hire the help my husband had been encouraging me to get for months.
I felt foolish staying at home and hiring someone to help complete my unpaid job but once she arrived, I was free to be a more present mother and enjoy my children rather than just survive them.
Six years have passed and the nanny days are long over but mothering isn’t and I’m realizing, never will be.
What happens when mom gets sick?
It’s a lonely feeling.
As a mom, I’m always anticipating my family’s needs but when sick, I’m still having to direct the show from bed. Appointment reminders, meal tips, boo-boo kisses and bedtime tuck-ins.
Things only a mom knows of her own kids.
I suppose that is what led me to pray to my heavenly father tonight.
To ask him to take care of me when I’m feeling overwhelmed and neglected.
No, there are no sick days for mothers.
But it’s nice to know there’s someone always ready to embrace me.
My God.
I was 21 when he broke my jaw.
And honestly, I’d been waiting for it as a reason to leave.
Never mind the years of emotional abuse.
A broken jaw was a concrete, valid excuse to leave.
I packed my bags and got a new apartment assigned, while he was in class.
The police arrived as he tore my belongings from my car.
All I’d ever wanted was for someone to promise me forever.
But I quickly realized the commitment wasn’t worth the cost.
Today, I visited the dentist for another cavity on the other side of my mouth.
The one I’ve learned to chew on, the last twenty years.
Gone, but not forgotten.
Gone, but never the same.
It’s a well-known fact that we have a tendency to over-correct.
I just wonder how many of us recognize when we are doing it.
I did when it came time to create the annual “Gift of Time” envelopes for my girls.
A few years ago, in an effort to guarantee one-on-one time with mom or dad, I gifted each girl a stack of 12 envelopes- one for each month. Inside, a card with an activity they could choose to do with just mom or dad- no sisters.
We were drowning with the responsibility of caring for our health-challenged youngest, not to mention juggling four young kids. The Gift of Time ensured we got that one-on-one time with each daughter.
But, year-after-year, it turned into expectation.
When they opened the envelope and it was a trip to the library or a bike ride, instead of the bowling alley or putt-putt, they were crestfallen.
I realized I was creating presumptuous monsters, instead of appreciated moments.
So, I’ve paused. Reevaluating.
Sure, I want that precious time but at what cost?
I spent my adulthood wishing I’d had a closer relationship with my mother, when I was a child.
But what if my children rely too much on their parents to feel satiated?
Is it possible that I’m setting them up for failure? A childhood so idyllic, it’s difficult to replicate? Is that a crime?
I’ve parented long enough to become comfortable in the gray- the not knowing the next step.
Instead of forcing my choice, I watch and wait.
The Gift of Time.
You prepare for the pregnancy, the birth, even the baby.
Then, the child is revealed.
She graduates towards adulthood as you wonder,
Who was I before this and who am I still becoming?
Yes, I am a mother.
But above and beyond that I am an intellect.
Worthy of deep conversation and consideration.
How do we procreate the next generation and still remain relevant?
“Sit down, it’s Sunday.” My husband encouraged.
“But if I do,” I explained “things won’t get done.”
“There’s always something to do.”
I looked around at the smudges on the walls I’d been meaning to scrub, the tiny toys under the living room furniture and that dead moth that’s been trapped inside our family picture frame for literal years.
I’d changed five sets of sheets, scrubbed two bathrooms and vacuumed but the list never ends.
One of my friends shared a photo of her rewriting worn recipe cards and I remarked, “How do you find the time?” She suggested that perhaps it was the two less kids.
Maybe so.
Or maybe I just need to slow down.
Life in perpetual motion is never dull but also exhausting.
Where’s the time to appreciate the exquisiteness of nothingness?
So I sat and ate my new box of girl scout cookies wondering all-the-while if that moth would fully decompose before I took the time to remove it.
Maybe so.
Clearly, I have more important nothingness to do.
12.
Here you are, baby girl.
On the precipice of teenage-hood and totally not looking forward to it.
I get it.
You were 11 days overdue and never wanting to leave has been your MO.
I have a recording of you crying about going to college when you were just 6 so it’s nothing new.
You are a creature of comfort.
Your bed, your hair, your charisma, the softest.
In addition to a slew of Taylor Swift themed gifts, I also presented you with a copy of articles I’ve written in your honor over the last eight years.
You wept in my arms over the article I wrote about my own mom, What I Want You to Know
Because you felt the same about me.
And it dawned on me.
Mothers and Daughters are forever.
You may be 12,
But we are forever.
Everyone warned me of teenage daughters.
Maybe they forgot that I used to be one.
I’m not afraid of the road I’ve already traveled,
Even if it looks different, these days.
It’s hard,
But our needs are the same.
Recognition, empathy and encouragement.
I love that my tweenage daughter appreciates music and novels.
I love that my tweenage daughter cares about matters outside of herself.
I love my tweenage daughter’s courage and fearlessness.
And yes, I love knowing I fostered that.
She’s a badass.
It’s been five months since I started meeting my students for 15-30 min daily.
Piece-by-piece I unravel their stories.
Sleeping in cars, hotels or disappearing one day.
Sometimes for a month, sometimes for . . . .
That is their life.
Unknown.
And I meet them where they are.
Together, we read.
Piece-by-piece.
At first a sound, then a syllable and next, a word.
Piece-by-piece we make sentences.
“We spend just xx minutes together. The rest is up to you. Do you want to read? People like me will come and go, but you’ll always have you.”
I look them in the face and remind them that ultimately,
It’s their story.
I’m just a chapter.
“Do we need a holiday to celebrate motherhood and friendship?” she asked.
Our friendship group had spent weeks back and forth, trying to find a date to connect.
“Not at all,” I explained “just a good excuse to force us to make plans!”
And here I am tonight.
Six months since my last date with my husband.
It seems silly to leave the house when we spend the majority of each day with one other.
Why pay a sitter and restaurant when we can cook at home for less?
But tonight, when we passed the new Wave Park development at the oceanfront, I gasped at the change.
Then, we guffawed at a palm tree clearly reaching for the sunlight.
I settled and exhaled.
So this is what it was like to fall in love.
17 years this May we bonded over beach volleyball and fish tacos at this very dive bar.
I remembered.
And I felt alive.
No, we don’t need a holiday.
But it sure is a good excuse to make plans.
New Leaf Parenting 