Honey and water

It has been so, so long since I've written about my kids. Truly written about them. I feel panicked when I realize this. All of these moments, all of this time that just keeps plowing forward...it baffles me and breaks my heart. I am so overwhelmed by the everything-ness of them. Watching them grow is like trying to cup water in my hands - no matter how tightly I press my fingers together, it somehow still slips through and falls away.

I am sometimes guilty of rushing bedtime for the boys. That last leg of the day before becoming an adult again, anxious to savor the indulgent few quiet hours where nobody is pulling on me or asking for juice, where Kyle and I hungrily soak up every luxurious moment of just being. I do love our evenings. But. Toddlers, teetering on the edge of sleep, slow down to the pace of honey rather than water. At bedtime I can't help but give them a hundred kisses, all over their still-round faces, their downy skin and deliciously fat cheeks, their soft jaws and little rubber noses.

The boys are not babies any more. They are tiny people as certain and forceful as the tides. They have gentle souls that pour out into everything they do and touch. They are the best of friends. I am endlessly amazed by the extent to which they are entirely individual in their beings. Rhys is independent, deeply sensitive, and has a remarkable assuredness. He becomes fully immersed in his play and his curiosity of the world, making his way through tasks at a pace he refuses to alter for any agenda other than his own. This is one of my favorite things about him. Getting him dressed or walking up a flight of stairs could easily take ten minutes. He is unapologetically true to himself. He has an incredible imagination and a deep, nurturing love for his toys and the stories he invents for them. Tonight, he is sleeping with a tiny rubber frog nestled into an egg carton. This is very typical. In the mornings, he crawls into bed with me and pushes his face against mine. "I wuv you mama. I wuv you the moon and stars."

Quin is funny, charming, and empathetic. He is boldly inquisitive and is the child who just last week, while in line at the fabric store, turned to me while pointing at the woman behind us to ask, "why she got purple hair?"  He loves music and dancing and piggy backs. His laugh is infectious and wild. He is a dutiful helper, and will often slip out the back door while telling me, "stay there. I be right back. I just getting a log for the fire." He'll then pull on Kyle's size 14 sandals and venture naked into the cold November air to pull a log half his size off  the wood pile. My efforts to stop this are entirely futile, so I've given up. I cannot keep clothes on him for more than twenty minutes at a time. His propensity for empathy and thoughtfulness are moving. Rhys was feeling sad at bedtime tonight. While I rubbed his back, Quin climbed out of bed but quickly returned, carrying a stuffed musical giraffe. He pulled the string. "I play music for Rhys," he explained, "and now he will not be sad."

Anwen's name means beautiful and pure; she is both of those things. She is an easy baby, full of joy and mischief. She loves her brothers and has every intention of keeping up with them. She has a head full of fuzzy wisps and big round eyes with heavy lashes and a beautifully bowed little mouth. Her birth and early infancy helped to bring me back from the trauma and sadness that surrounded the early days with the boys. She has renewed my faith in myself as a mother to a young infant by helping me to feel calm and confident, just as my pregnancy with her renewed my faith in my body's ability to nurture life. She is the answer to questions I hadn't yet acknowledged asking.

These first days since I've left my job have been bliss. The pace of our life has slowed to a crawl. I just feel happy. And peaceful. Incredibly, foolishly lucky. Every day. I feel like I'm looking at my children for the first time in months. I have nowhere to rush off to. No conference call. No email I need to get to. I'm just here. With them. I never expected motherhood to be a forceful lesson in mindfulness. It doesn't have to be. But what a tragedy to not allow it to be.

Home

So I mentioned I left my job. Life had gotten so chaotic. I stopped being the mother I know I can be. We all have days when we're 'less than' mothers. Less than we know we could be. Less than we know we should be. Less than we'd hoped and dreamed of being. It's normal. But my 'less than' days were becoming my norm.  Something had to give.

We'd wanted me to stay home from the time the boys were born. But god. Life is expensive. So I went back to work. The first six months I was back at work were completely heartbreaking. I hated leaving them. At first I just worked a little. A small position. Eighteen hours. Mostly from home. I got used to it, and it was okay. Within a year, I somehow found myself back in my old position, except instead of doing the job in forty hours, I was trying to cram it into twenty five. It was stressful. I was struggling to maintain balance, but we made it work. Then Anwen was born. My game changer. I had a three month maternity leave. It was Spring and beautiful, and although I was adjusting to three under three, life was peaceful. Near the end of my three months, I started to panic. I didn't want to go back. Anwen wouldn't take a bottle, and I didn't want to leave her. When the day came for me to return, I brought her with me. I promised I'd work to get her to take a bottle. Week after week, she refused, and week after week I showed up at work with my baby wrapped cozily on my chest.  When Anwen was five months old, my boss asked me to bump my hours up to thirty per week. I was falling behind. I felt like a 'less than' mother at home and a 'less than' employee at work. Somewhere in between ear infections and twin two year old's who loved to murmur "I wuv you" in my ear, I had lost my passion for the work I was being paid to do. But I was scared to leave. I said yes to the thirty hours. It was the best mistake I've ever made.

For two months, I struggled to work thirty hours a week. My employers were so flexible with me. I was lucky. Although I worked mostly from home, I went in to the office about once a week. Each time, I'd show up with Anwen, who by now was crawling and making her presence known with loud exclamations of "AHHH!" throughout the day. I'd work at home at night when the kids were sleeping. During nap times. Our home life became total chaos. My time home with the kids was spent trying to frantically play catch up. Instead of playing with the boys, I was stripping beds and throwing in loads of laundry. Folding baskets full of clean clothes that had become wrinkled from sitting ignored for days, while the boys sat and watched tv. I was miserable and bitter. I resented everything.

Finally, it was clear Anwen couldn't come in to the office with me any more. She'd outstayed her welcome. I knew this day would come, but I had made no arrangements. She still wouldn't take a bottle. I had no desire to put her in any form of child care.

In the background, Kyle and I had been planning and restructuring our finances. For two and a half years, we chipped away at getting things in order. We sat down and looked at the numbers. It would be tight, but we thought we could make it work.

I gave my notice. Two and a half weeks.

Our house was a revolving door of sickness for those last eighteen days, culminating with my catching pneumonia just in time for my last week. I missed more than half the week, sick at home, feeling depressed and feverish. My last day came. I hobbled into the office, wearing a sick and cranky Anwen. It was completely anti-climatic, overshadowed by my seventh day of totally untreated pneumonia. (Which in itself could be another post entirely, but I'll spare you. Let's just say two doctors who told me "Just a cold!" three days apart were quite off the mark.)

That was Thursday.

Today it's Monday. My system is heavy with antibiotics for which I couldn't be more grateful. But more than that, the relief has set in. I've never felt more complete. I have over ten loads of laundry to fold. Several projects...several...waiting to be finished. All in good time. I took the kids to a nearby park with my mother. We had a picnic lunch. We played on the playground. It was the happiest I've felt since my last days of maternity leave. We came home and I tucked my sleepy boys into their beds. I picked up some toys.
I'm happy. I'm so, so happy.

I'm home.

And about those changes...

I've had thoughts of starting a new blog. The idea of a clean slate, a fresh format, incorporating fancy new features...all are appealing to me. But this jumbled mess of my history from the last four years has me kind of attached. A lot has happened on this blog.

I read other blogs and am inspired by the focus. The clarity. The soundness and consistency of voice. My blog has none of these things. It is what I am from day to day. It is my evolution, and I'm not ready to let it go. I'm still evolving.

I'm going to meet myself half way, though. I won't abandon ship here, but I am going to try and spruce it up a bit. A little clarity of voice would be helpful. And features...I'm going to try some. There are things I want to weigh in on and examine, conversations I want to add my voice to. Parenting choices and style are a big one.  As a feminist, I'm offended by and concerned about much of the parenting advice and philosophy that is becoming predominant. So much of it seems to come with the underlying assertion that relying on one's inner voice and wisdom isn't enough...that we need to read philosophical books on children to understand the beings we have created. Regardless of one's personal parenting decisions, I think any philosophy that praises its followers and condemns others is cause for concern. I'm going to begin blogging somewhat regularly on my own evolution as a parent and how I'm sorting through the rhetoric to find what feels right for our family.

I'll be reintroducing the cast of characters that make up my family...somewhere in the craziness I stopped capturing the growth and craziness of our joint life together. I miss that.

I'm toying with the possibility of introducing some posts on cooking. I love to cook and love to read about cooking. If I can find a way to harmonize with some posts on what I'm whipping up, I will.

Also in consideration...some posts on thriftiness. I began couponing (don't gag yet) a couple of months ago to try and save some money so that my staying home with the kids would be more affordable. In no way do I ever want to become a couponing blog, (though there are some fantastic ones out there) but I do think there is space to highlight the fact that couponing and living a holistic lifestyle are not mutually exclusive.

I definitely plan to work in ongoing posts on mastering the art of domestic goddess-hood. Leaving my seven year career in non-profits, I am coming home with a lot of skills that I plan to maintain and keep entirely relevant in the homestead. I'm a kick-ass planner and an even more kick-ass time manager. Life with three little ones may be chaotic, but it doesn't mean I can't implement some crazy underlying organizational structure to help keep the peace. I know what I'm talking about...at least a little bit. In the past two years and ten months since I became a mother, I've spent seven months exclusively at home (maternity leaves), and the remainder as a working mom, working between eighteen and thirty hours a week, most of those hours from home. Balancing chaos has become an art form in our house.

So we'll see how this all unfolds, It will be a growing process as I figure out what works and what doesn't...at home and for my blog.

I hope you'll still follow along. (And comment, to let me know what is working and what is painfully boring!)

There's Gonna Be Some Changes Made.

I quit my job.

My last day is Thursday.

Life was too chaotic. I was unhappy.

Three beautiful babies, a kick-ass husband, and I was unhappy. Stretched far too thin for far too long.

My writing is rusty, and terribly neglected.

That had best change, because I think I'm going to have a lot to write about on this next leg of my journey, where I throw myself into the role of domestic goddess.

Except instead of wearing heels and an apron, I'll probably be in sweats and a nursing tank. With spaghetti sauce in my hair.

I can't wait.

It's a good thing I'm not famous with swarms of zealous paparazzi around me. (But also, it's a little bit too bad that I'm not, because I really think Jennifer Aniston and I would get along swimmingly and might look really cute having our picture taken together poolside in a very luxurious location sipping extremely sophisticated beverages.)

Because if I were famous, these events would have been widely publicized.

Scenario 1. Zumba.
I went to Zumba class.  By myself.  Apparently, I am no longer a 19 year old cheerleader who can shake my sugar 'til the sun goes down.  Apparently, in fact, I am 30, and eleven weeks postpartum, and I do not know how to Zumba.  I tried following the woman in front of me.  If you've ever been to an organized exercise class, you KNOW this woman.  The over-zealous, takes it all too serious, where does she buy spandex in that color? one.  She looked like she was strapped onto the back of a cracked out bumble-bee trying to whip it into submission while simultaneously gyrating her hips with reckless and wild abandon.

So I settle for quick glimpses of the instructor through the sea of hip-shaking, booty-wagging, breast-shimmying women, and end up following about six beats behind everyone else, turning right when they're turning left, shaking when they're shimmying, honking when they're tonking, and gyrating when they're...oh whoops...cooling down.  I was far too confused to work up any form of sweat, but at one point I accidentally started lactating and that was exciting.  Everyone else's shirt was damp in all those exercise-appropriate areas, but I seemed to be the only one with large wet nipple stains.

And although most days I'm seven to fourteen percent disappointed that I'm not crazy famous with swarms of paparazzi, this was one day where I thanked my lucky heavens that no cameras were in pursuit.  TMZ would have squashed my entire career in thirty four recorded seconds of rhythm-less, lactational gyrations.  Then I would have to stage a divorce from Kyle and go on the Millionaire Matchmaker in a last-ditch attempt to resurrect my celebrity and make a quirky yet alluringly sexy appearance as the Millionaire-ess and Patti and I would have it set up ahead of time that Kyle would be one of the potential suitors, and we'd re-marry in a very publicized and lavish affair with Rhys and Quin and Anwen in our wedding and suddenly I'd be America's darling once again.

But it seems like a lot of work to go through for one lousy Zumba class.

***

Scenario 2: Where I pump gas in my bathing suit.
Most people would have made some serious mental notations about no longer being a nineteen year old cheerleader after the Zumba incident.  Ironically, the last time I was in a bathing suit at a gas station, I WAS a nineteen year old cheerleader, trying to raise money for my team by parading around half naked like a prostitute washing cars at the local Citgo station.

So how, and why, was it that I, at eleven weeks postpartum, found myself in my bathing suit pumping gas?  On a very busy road in a very busy town, mind you?  With three children in my car?

Let's just say that this was far less intentional than my college days, and came about through the perfect storm of a gas light, a screaming newborn in the back seat, and a day at the beach that left us all exhausted and sandy.  And my pants conveniently tucked into our massive beach bag which was tucked under our massive stroller in the back of my Forester.  When I realized that accessing my pants would require me to get out of the car and dig through all our gear in my swim-ready state, I decided it would be easier and less embarrassing to just pump in my ruffle-butt tankini.

You're welcome, City of Portsmouth.  Your teen pregnancy rate just went down by 28 percent.

***

But in closing, let me make one thing clear.  I WILL learn how to Zumba.  I will gyrate my way to EXTREME SEXINESS, and then?  Once I've accomplished that?  I will head straight for the nearest gas station and pump gas in my string bikini while slowly shaking my long golden locks of hair like one of the poor role models in a beer commercial.  And then teenagers everywhere will think that pregnancy is a good idea because LOOK AT HER!  it most definitely does not ruin your body forever.

A postpartum montage of sexiness.

You're out in public, a few weeks after having your third baby in less than three years.  Feeling slightly exhausted, slightly frumpy, and just a teensy, weensy bit hormonal.  But you notice several passers-by checking out your robustly perky breasts, and for just a moment you mentally shout out "HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH!  YOU'VE STILL GOT IT, YOU SEXY BITCH!"

A moment later, you feel a sticky warmth against your belly.  You look down, only to be overtaken by the horrendous realization that while your cleavage might be swell, those passers-by were more likely checking out the massive and rapidly growing milk stains running down the front of your shirt and pooling attractively in your postpartum pooch.

***

Grocery store.  You've brought along your 16 year old mother's helper, because for the love of god, you learned your lesson the last time you tried to navigate the grocery store as the solo adult responsible for ensuring that nobody was left in the cereal aisle and now you're fairly certain that the store management is considering banning you for life.  So now you've brought reinforcements, and the travelling shit-show circus you run with has made it into the produce aisle.  You have two overflowing carts and the kale keeps falling on the floor and suddenly you've got company in the form of a creepishly swanky thirty-something.  He circles, and then circles again, and just as you're about to let loose on him a small tirade to the likes of FOR GOODNESS SAKE HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO WAVE MY WEDDING BAND IN YOUR FACE YOU CREEPY PRICK...you're saved by the realization that the wagon he's circling belongs not to you, but to the sitter.  And then he's asking her out in an eerily "To Catch a Predator" sort of way, and you casually fluff your sensibly short mom-hair and shoot him a look that he TOTALLY will know means, "I FIT THIS ASS INTO SIZE FOUR JEANS THIS MORNING AFTER KNOCKING OUT A BABY SEVEN WEEKS AGO, YOU SICK PEDOPHILE."

***

So you decide that an upcoming wedding will be your chance to get your swagger back.  You order a flirty little number online and buy some killer heels.  You buy spanx.  Gulp.  Cringe.  Spanx.

You try it all on.  You smile.  Hoooooooo yeah.

You slink down the hall to the kitchen to show your husband.  You spin around and ask, totally casually, "do you think this outfit will be okay for the wedding?"

You await and envision his response.  "WOW."  "You're stunning."  "HEY SEXY MAMA!"  "HOOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH!"

He cocks his head to the side.  "Yeah.  That should work."  He turns back around to the sink.  

He will spend the next six weeks wondering why the OB suddenly "called" to advise that things are not healing well from the birth and will probably take at least another month or two.

***

You develop a new mantra, to cover all your bases:

I will embrace my maternal womanhood!  Hoooooo yeah!

I will age gracefully and no matter how tempting, I will not bleach my hair, tuck my tummy, or resort to pink lip gloss!  Hooooooooo yeah!

I will have my ass inappropriately pinched by a stranger at least once more in my life, even if I have to pay somebody to do it!  Hooooooooo yeah!

I will not say "Hoooooooooooooooo yeah!" out loud even though I use it in my writing to emphasize points, because it makes me sound like I'm seventy!  Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo yeah!