12.1.07

Four years ago, tomorrow, I became a mother.  Four years ago, you, The Eldest, made our twosome into a family.  We will raise our glasses to toast you; lean in with anticipation as you blow out your candles; recount stories of you so little, all in celebration of you.

They say that how you enter this world can foreshadow a bit of who you will be:  Dear Eldest, you arrived on your due date, after an intensely quiet and awe-filled labor.  This desire for predictability is one of your trademarks.  We left the birth center a mere 12 hours after you were born. Though I didn’t much believe in us yet, they waved us away with such confidence, in our ability to care for, to nourish, to tenderly love you.  And those early moments are tender, and raw.  I learned early to ditch all else, but to lean into you, my babe, and listen to your heart, and mine.  Trust your gut, know your mama instinct.  We did that together, you and I.

It can be hard for me to reflect on you, because you and I are so wrapped up in each other.  Your four years here have been my four years as a mother, and it is with you that I am figuring so much of that out.  You haven’t always been the most resilient or buoyant, and there is much of this mothering business you have challenged me with, but our love is more than the stars, deeper and wider and stronger for it.  As first borns, we share a simpatico.  Our strengths can be our weaknesses.  For this, too, it can be hard for me to see where you start and I end.

You are deeply tender.  You love without boundaries, without fear.  You give, and you give, and you give.  You inspire me to be as selfless as you are without worry. You teach me about the big nouns: Grace, Love, Forgiveness, Strength, Peace.  You give me such hope about the future — your future, the future of the world, knowing you will make your very own mark in this place.  You are smart — too smart, mostly, and you can be humble, too.  (Though in a battle of wits and words, locked heads with me, your pride and arrogance can match mine.  I apologize for this inheritance).  You are polite in ways that make me smile:  ”It’s my pleasure,” you responded the other day, after being thanked for helping with the dishes. Your sense of humor is strange, eeking out in unexpected places.  You approach each day with enthusiasm and energy.  Though a peanut next to your peers, your agile athleticism is already strongly evident, and you stand taller and more proud with each accomplishment.

Your independence grows, and as it does your dependence on me wanes.  Or is this true?  I see you, this extension of me, with your friends, your teachers, your family, and I am wildly proud — proud of you, all who are, and proud of me, too.  Though I take very little credit, and shoot all glory straight to God, I know somewhere in all of that, there is this fierce love that I have for you that burns in your heart, giving you a place to call home, to cry “Mommy.”  You take great risks, and are beginning to know the fall; I only hope to always offer you a place to dust it all off, and begin again.

As a big brother, you lead your sister well, and you are so excited to teach her how to be a “big.”  Your excitement about our new babe is contagious.  When I become anxious about how we will all handle this transition, I only need to look to you, and remember how we’ve done this before.

Sometimes it seems as though tomorrow is just as much my day as it is yours.  It is, after all, my four year anniversary of becoming a mother.  But I will quietly take the corner, and let you take the pomp and circumstance.  I will smile, looking on, and know, that like you, each day I am becoming.

Four seems like such a little person, such a little man. I am amazingly thankful for these four years — eager to celebrate all that you are tomorrow, and to pause all time for a moment to take it in.  I love you, dear Eldest of mine. Happy fourth birthday.

locked out

The Littlest and I had ourselves quite an adventure this past Friday morning.  In what was going to be the time and space of a normal morning, anticipating the coming weekend, and moving through the bustle of our routines, I was again stretched, reminded to breathe and thankful for my blessings, especially the blessing of community.

Three days a week, our mornings can be a little hectic.  The Eldest attends school at our church, a program run by a friend of ours and staffed by familiar faces.  It is because we adore these folks and the loving work of Jesus that happens here that I make the sometimes forty minute drive, side by side business professionals commuting to work.  Though with the change from Daylight Savings, the Little Ones have been rising earlier, and our movements through getting dressed, teeth brushed, bellies full, bags packed and ready to go have been flowing together with less haste.

Friday mornings are an especially nice time for the Littlest and I.  After walking The Eldest to his classroom and giving enthusiastic hugs and kisses, she challenges me to chase her up the ramp as we slowly make our way back to the car.  Here there is no hustle: we have some time to pass before we share our music class together.  This class has been a sweet time, just the two of us together.  She glows with the undivided attention, and I am eager to lavish it on her. Today was our last class of the session, made more sad by the fact that the program is closing at the end of 2011.

After chatting with some friends on our way out, I casually plunked the Littlest into her car seat, buckled her in, and gave no thought at all as I tossed my keys, as I so often do, onto the drivers seat before closing her door.  It was less than a breath later as I tugged on the handle of my door, a moment of clarity falling sharply: locked.  All of the doors: locked.  While I had been carelessly sharing details of my upcoming weekend with a friend, the Littlest had been entertaining herself with the buttons on my key fob: locked.  There she was, on one side of the door, smiling wide at me from her seat; here was I, on the other.  My keys set mocking me on my seat.

I didn’t panic, yet.  There were two women chatting in the parking lot.  I approached them with my situation, and both hugely sympathetic, offered themselves to me.  With these moms smiling and giggling at my Littlest, I went in search of help. My cell phone and wallet were among the other important things also inside my car.  Inside the church, I found the sexton, another familiar face, and he preached the love of Christ to me in his actions for the next 45 minutes while he lay aside his other tasks and patiently tried to break into my car.  It was as I was trotting back to my car (my 32-weeks-pregnant-body trying not to pee my pants) that I quietly let some tears slide down my cheeks.  By the time I returned to my car, I was buttressed by the encouraging, and normalizing, words of these two moms, who until this morning were complete strangers to me.

The Littlest chirped cheerfully to herself in the car.  She could reach her books and was content waving to me every few minutes.  The weather was temperate: 40 degrees and overcast, alleviating much of my fear for her inside the car.  It became clear that my car needed a professional to get into it; the moms stayed by the Littlest so that I could run into the school office to find the right phone numbers and make the right calls.  All along the way, I was met with the blessings of unknown community, offering a kind smile or a similar story.

AAA came 30 minutes after I had called.  He was here for less than one minute, using his professional tools and experience to make light work of our predicament.  The sexton, though he knew that more knowledgeable help was coming, never gave up on me.  Saying he never was one to quit a job, he wiggled his slim jim with such patience and vigor that I felt so sure that any moment he would pop the door open.   The two moms laid aside their morning plans to make sure that we were safe and OK.  The door opened, I unbuckled the Littlest from her seat, where she had been safe and contained the whole time, and we paraded through the school, making sure that all who had helped us along the way knew that we were rescued and fine.

I was back in my car, keys in the ignition, cell phone and coffee in hand, debriefing the morning, with the dawning realization that we had missed our last music class.  A dear friend, knowing what I needed more than I did, after a quick text or two, invited the Littlest and I to interrupt her plans, a working coffee, and join her for a hug and comfort.

Throughout this whole thing we were all fine:  the Littlest was fine inside the car, I was fine rising to the challenge of doing what was necessary.  But what was more than fine was the blessing that I received:  the blessing of familiar faces, and of strangers.  The blessing of moms who’ve been there, and moms who haven’t.  The blessings of care, and love, and community.  The blessing of seeing others step up to help a panicked pregnant mom in need.  My needs were small this morning, really.  But they were real, and they were answered in real ways.

It’s experiences like this one that I need to cause me to confront the borders of my own little world.  It’s easy to operate as the one-woman-show I think I am.  But I’m not.  It’s easy to carry on, not noticing those who I share life with, however small  of a piece it may be.  I need these adventures to teach me to roll with the punches, to continue to breath when sometimes it seems hard, to see with real eyes what is around me, and be thankful for it all.  Sometimes it just takes being locked out.

{this moment}

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. ~inspired by SouleMama

November’s Call: on seasons, ritual and hibernation

It is with a sigh, of relief, almost, or more accurately surrender, which I see this November sky.  It is familiar: gray and haunting, threatening snow from the formless clouds, curlicues of wind blowing crunchy leaves skyward.  This makes more sense.  Yesterday’s rain storm brought down what was left of October’s regal color: hues of burnt sienna traded for shadows of heather gray. This is the weather that, though I don’t long for, I do sink into because it is just so November.  Unlike the days we’ve had recently, full of sunshiney surprises.  But the truth is that I need these authentic November days to remind me of where we are.  This sky acts as a compass, pointing me away from October’s harvest, towards November’s feast.

We’ve turned our clocks back, tucked into the darkness as it creeps closer to our living space.  In college, once that change took place we would even eat our dinner meal earlier, longing for the shelter of the warm dorm against the blistering reality of winter in upstate New York, swapping clothes for PJs, microwaving  hot chocolate to nestle in for studying.  There is something about the gray, the dark, the barrenness of this landscape, that feels like a natural reprieve: a calling towards hibernation.  I, for one, am thankful for the call to stillness, especially to ready myself for the jubilation of the holidays.

There is rhythm to the seasons, ritual that has been integrated in the lives of generations past, as we mimic this change.  It is one thing that I yearn to teach my little ones: the sacredness of each season.  The new growth and promise of Spring means little without the desolate underbelly of a dark Winter.  The harvest celebrated throughout Fall is not possible without the sweat-drenched long days of Summer.  Though our lives are more about this metaphoric rhythm than the literal dependence of previous generations, I feel it is still important to stay connected to these rituals.

This sense of rhythm, of ritual, of time moving forward but with repitition and familiarity, is something that I want to incorporate in our family life.  I want my Little Ones to be influenced, as I am, by the movement of the sun, the moon, the earth around its axis.  I want them to know this air to feel different in their lungs, recognize it’s perfume in their noses.  Just like I crave this hibernation and stillness in these November moments, I want to give this gift of season to my Little Ones.  I want them to feel freedom in the unfettered glory of sitting before a fireplace and peace in those places where only piles of books in pajamas will suffice.  I want them to know the way a mug of hot tea feels on these cool days, just like a cold lemonade quenches July’s blistering heat.  I want them to lean into the full days in the kitchen baking up pumpkins and apples, knowing that it will one day, not too long from now, be time again to return to the simple meals of grilling outside.

Of course, the school calendar and curriculum dictates some of this seasonality, and the commerical consumerism we see every where supposedly taps into some sort of change.  And it is easy to see one day bleed into the next, and forget to even notice the changes until all of a sudden it’s dark at 4:30pm and we have a long list of Christmas goodies to shop for.  I guess that is why I so strongly want to root myself in what I feel is more natural: to choose our own rhythm and ritual, to emphasize what we already hold sacred instead of glumly swallowing the mock values around us.  It takes intent: to choose how we see this season, how we live into this Fall, this Winter.

I will put on my pajamas after dinner tonight — a dinner, set with candles,  a bit earlier than our summer meals.

fresh starts

I don’t know how we got here: tears glistening in the corner of both of our eyes, misunderstood and at the end of our ropes.  My Eldest and I have tripped into a pattern this morning, an order from which we are having a hard time unsticking ourselves.  My body aches in it’s third trimester weariness; my mind aches from having to orchestrate this time, feeling like I can’t find harmony or melody with him, and I’m pierced to admit that I, too, am contributing to this discord.  He is my mirror:  his pride, his arrogance, his tongue, his wit.  It is uncomfortable to see myself so reflected, and he watches me wiggle.

We tried, and we try, to have new moments of grace: these fresh starts.  Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t: I cannot hide my frustration from the moments prior; he cannot see things as separate.  We both fall prey to exhaustions and lack of patience builds.  We hug, and cry, and continue to ask for new love and forgiveness, together.

I can get twisted up about these days.  I know that we all have our moments, our days, and family life is no different.  We shine, and then we all need space to lose our glitter.  I get that.  We had an amazing weekend, where I asked a lot of my little ones.  We were stuck in the car, road tripping to family and friends, and I heard nary a complaint (“I didn’t even ask once if we were there yet!” He bragged the next day).  He was gracious, and charming; funny and friendly; smart and calm.  Even tired at dinner, he concentrated on writing his letters on napkins with crayons instead of complaining.  I smiled broadly as I tucked him in to bed that night, and he knew the praises he earned.

Even yesterday, the beginning of the week, with Daddy back off to work and less to look forward to, still tired from the weekend, I could have understood a moment to fall apart.  But instead, we followed the sunshine outside again, and ran and played at the Gardens.  Again, another stolen golden November day.  With charm and gratitude we began our week together.

But today is a day of drudgery:  I sat paying bills at 8:30am, drinking down my coffee, throwing another load of laundry in.  The bickering began, and I pulled out my referee whistle.  The clouds are fierce in the sky, pulling us back to November’s reality.  An outing to the grocery store loomed as both a threat and the highlight of today’s activities.  The Littlest struggles less on days like today.  She delights in open space for play, and happily cooked up her own plans.  But the Eldest sometimes doesn’t know how to make heads or tails of it.  As much as it is one of our core family values that we carve out intentional space of nothing, and that I long for and encourage my children to confront their boredom with wit and wisdom, with creativity and imagination, he sometimes can’t get past the struggle.

It is quiet in the house now.  We are all taking time and space to ourselves, and I know that this will help rejuvenate our day.  It may not make everything peaceful and copacetic, but it is a start.  Here is what else I know: a day full of chores and tasks makes me grumpy, too.  I need to keep my own grumpiness in check, so that I’m not feeding his.  I will put on the kettle, then with hot tea snuggle in to read a bit before naptime is over.  Yes, the dishwasher needs to be emptied, but I’m choosing to nourish myself for the sake of the little ones.  When I asked him about our struggles today he told me simply that he wanted me to pay more attention to him.  While this is not always possible, and he does need to adjust his meter a bit, I know that I can turn my attention toward him in positive ways this afternoon.  Maybe I’ll help him start a castle out of blocks; maybe I’ll sit and read books with him for a bit.  I forget how simply setting time out for his needs, even in the middle of our struggles, can forge a connection that will set things straight.  I also know that some fresh air will be good for all of us, so though it is cloudy and we’ll miss the essence of sunshine, we will head outside for a bit of play before it gets too dark.

I have not had my finest moments as a mother today.  I am thankful for the chance to pause, reflect and begin again, in each moment.  I am thankful for my tender little boy, arms wrapped tightly around my neck, who knows of my deep and aching love for him.  He forgives quickly, and with grace.  I am thankful for fresh starts.