Eden

It's too late to be writing this. Too late to be getting home from work and not going immediately to sleep. I will regret this in the morning, absolutely. But with a grainy bright gray projection on the screen of our monitor showing that rambunctious boy sleeping soundly still I have to take this moment in. It's after midnight, my God. I've thought each day of logging an entry and have failed. These kids are reeking havoc on ability to have a personal moment of reflection. But what do I do with that moment? I reflect on them. What do I do when I go to work? When I finally, after days and days, get out of the house? I talk about them. Every single chance I get. I'll leap through that door if you open it. Have a kid? Oh yeah! Me too! Two wonderfully quirky, weird, inquisitive kids that light up my life like the fourth of July. Seriously, as exhausted as I am lately I've been having such a wonderful time with them. Today, for example, we walked in the rain. Tessa found an orange salamander and vowed to keep it safe forever. Till she let it go in our garden. Thatcher let me know when it was time for a nap by pointing to the bed. We all got in a nap together. I couldn't sleep (for a while at least). Lying there in a perfect lovey baby sandwich. Cuddling, breathing, living. My mantra lately is "live". Just live life the way it's supposed to be lived. Lightly and with love. I want to stop carrying around guilt and exhaustion and irritability. Anger of any kind is useless (my dad used to say). Don't worry, be happy. Cliche yes, but oh so right. Tomorrow (today I guess) we'll play in puddles, catch salamanders, eat whatevers in the house and nap. Sounds like Eden.

Amen

I don't even know my name. I know my role and that is a happy, happy place to be. I know where the blackberries grow wild hidden in our yard, how to get my boy to give me a big, wide, growling kiss, how to get my girl to laugh and trust me to hold her head above water. Who knew I would know these things like my own heart? Who knew my life would be so full of wonder and beauty. Of simple, perfect moments. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I just wanna bang on my drum all day...

tomorrow's just a day away....

Every day I go to bed thinking tomorrow I'll be a better mom. I'll be more patient. I'll sit down for longer and play a game with more concentration. I'll try harder. I'll be a better friend to my children. It's not that I don't think I try hard every day. I know I do. It's what I try hard to do that weighs on me. Is trying hard to keep the house clean important? Is trying hard to keep food stocked worth driving every other day the 40 minutes to the grocery store? Is trying to figure out naps worth the tears and the fits produced in my sensitive, clingy, changeling daughter?
Is being exhausted in the morning worth the only alone time I get by staying up too late at night? What's worth what?
I suppose everything has it's price. The house, the garden, my sanity, the kid's happiness. I'd like to think all of those things tend to eachother. But of course I've written a few sentences and my newly cribbed son is waking for the third time tonight already. I guess this blog is not worth the tears. Good night.

Sweet Space

For the past let's see nearly four years I've had to defend my staunch stance opposing the cry it out method. To be fair we tried a whole two nights with Tessa when she was about 8 months old but I think both nights lasted about 20 minutes when neither Jason nor I could take her shrieking, scared, lonely, confused cries anymore. I try and not judge anyone else's child raising tactics since we all do what we feel is best for our own children and our own sanity. Last week I couldn't take it anymore. After an entire day of a cranky fussing toddler clinging to my legs to be picked up and then squirming out of my arms to be let down over and over I brought him into the guest room downstairs, gently (and truly not out of anger but somewhat sadly and with more than a touch of resignation) I placed my dear boy in his un-used crib, kissed him on his forehead and walked out of the room.

Needless to say he cried. But he did not wail. He cried for a good 25 minutes until I once again lost my nerve and returned to him whereupon he cried louder and more angrily than he had the entire time he was alone. He was exhausted and bitter but he clung to me, scratching my face and pulling my hair. Drenching me in tears and snot and guilt. We tried again the next night for another 20 minutes and collectively decided as a family that this was not for us. Tessa was more than a bit relieved I think. She was very anxious to be of help to her traumatized brother.

So how is it 9:53 pm and I am alone upstairs watching a peacefully slumbering baby on a monitor and writing this all? A few nights of compromise. A little nursing, a little crying but with mama in the room holding on from the other side of the crib rail, turns rocking and then battery operated sounds of a recorded wave breaking over and over onto that static-y beach.

This space is so new, it's empty too but open and full of fresh air. A kind of peaceful air that comes with knowing I have time to myself to type a few words. To step into my own head and then go back to bed with them. Sweet dreams...

Trying

Tomorrow is Minnow's first birthday. A whole year has passed since he launched himself out of my body with the kind of determination that's becoming more and more apparent in his personality by the day. He's gone from a shrieking infant to a shrieking toddler in twelve short but exhausting months. As he runs the length of the kitchen and living room, legs still stout and stiff, mouth wide, two charging fists leading his way yelling a continual yell till he gets to you and guffaws. So proud of himself. So certain in what it is that he wants and when I fail to understand immediately what that thing is he shouts it out, twists and turns, trying with every inch of his body to communicate. I love it. I love his fierceness, his stubbornness, his undoubtable character. I love that he is already so much an individual and that I get to experience his making of himself. I get to be witness to his life. I am so blessed.

At the Celebration of Kristin's life saturday her mother spoke so eloquently of the blessing that Kristin bestowed upon her. To have been so lucky to have carried such a soul in her womb, to have grown with her, to have been given the chance to love and be loved by someone so special was such a blessing to her. In the middle of what will be her life's tragedy Maria spoke of being blessed. She was the strongest I've ever seen anyone and it shook me. It scared me that I may not be that strong. That I can't seem to find a way to lighten my heart. The idea of celebrating anything right now seems so difficult. I should be planning what kind of cake to make tomorrow, I should be wrapping a gift I've yet to buy, I should be humming happy birthday and remembering the beautiful moment I laid eyes on my Thatcher for the first time. And yet every thought I have is tainted with sorrow, with regret, with fear. I'm trying, I really am. I'm trying to be strong like Maria because I do recognize how lucky and blessed and fortunate I am to have these children to love. But death is hanging on my heart, it's strangling me every time I try to smile.

So I add guilt to this mourning mix. I'm sorry Minnow that your first birthday is singed with my sadness. I'm sorry Bean that I can't give you the attention you deserve, my mind is a million miles away but this love doesn't leave you for an instant.

My Soul Mama

This week I lost one of the most deeply loving people in my life. I can't write it or say it without feeling such a deep ache it makes a hole inside and threatens to drag me in. I can't look at my kids without thinking they'll never know her. I can't think about anything at all except her. I've been obsessively checking facebook for other people's pictures of her. It's the only place I can keep seeing her. We've been friends for something like 15 years now, half of which we haven't spent much time in eachother's physical presence. Although she always managed to be there for the important moments; my babyshower, my wedding party. That never stopped us from constantly texting and emailing "love you mama" or "miss you soooo much". Kristin was a hard girl to pin down. She always had lots going on in her life and I know I've been guilty of the same procrastination. Of course I always just felt like she would be there. That there'd be time to catch up. Last wednesday, April 6th, the day before she began to get sick, she wrote to me. Before she threw up over and over and her insulin got out of hand. Two days before her sugar shot up to 1000. Before she collapsed on the floor in front of her mother and father and boyfriend. Before her mother performed cpr for 10 minutes while the ambulance raced not fast enough towards her house. She wrote "MISSYOUSISTER>>LOVE YOU SO MUCH". I never wrote back. I read it and I didn't respond because there was no urgency to. Because I could write the next day or the day after that. Because I could text her the next week that I was coming down for Easter. And probably because I was upset she hadn't shown up two weeks before for dinner with me and Kelly. She had had to work. Last friday when I got home from doing god knows what I got a message from her sister that she was in the hospital and to call. She told me the morning's events and though I cried in immediate fear I really believed she'd be ok. Jason got home and I walked a few miles to the chapel up the street. I lit a candle and I prayed. The bible was open to Isaiah 50:9 "awake, awake". Kristin was unconscious but from what I could gather I thought it was from being so heavily sedated. The next day I drove to Connecticut, deposited the babes into my mother's care and drove to the hospital. Her mother, Maria, her father, Tim, and her sister, Karin, comforted me. They held me and told me it would be ok. I gathered myself in and said of course it would. When Maria and Tim led me into her room I was unprepared. Kristin lay on a raised hospital bed, no blanket, just a gown and tubes and wires everywhere. Her body moved with the bleeps and blips of machines. Her eyes were forced from her head. I held her hand, kissed it and then collapsed into it. Her parents stood by her, her mother talking to a tactless social worker. Later, I left the hospital, the world where people stay in limbo for an eternity. Waiting for results they'll wish they never recieved. Wanting it all to end but clinging to the pain of life and it's simple threadbare balance. Outside it was sunny, and cool. A dream world where people put money into parking meters and made tuna sandwiches. Where Kristin was supposed to be lying in the grass somewhere smiling or driving with the windows down singing to some old school Jeff Buckley or some new up and coming band she was reveiwing for work. I didn't want to be out of the hospital. I resented the world without her and I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt being in it. I returned to the hospital the next day and the day after. Every time there was worse news. The cat scans were bad. She had undergone hypothermic therapy to basically freeze her brain to prevent further damage and now they were warming her up. Her body had a hard time maintaining it's temperature. She couldn't breathe on her own. When Karin called me to tell me it looked like she suffered severe brain injury my mother had to hold me like a child. I couldn't breathe. It was the beginning of the end of hope. Monday I arrived back and was for the first time able to spend time alone with Kristin. I whispered to her as I stroked her black straw hair that I wanted to cuddle in a bed with her and my babies. I wanted so badly to hear her voice. Her laugh. I wanted her to grab me towards her and hug me like she always did, so fiercley loving. I held her hand and then rubbed her feet and legs. I tried to lay down beside her a little but there were too many tubes. The neurologist was giving her parents and boyfriend the news that the last mri came back and there was nothing left of hope. They had promised we'd have till friday but now... Her parents went to the chapel and I comforted Eric. Covered in blood from a nose bleed he got from crying too hard. I held his hand and felt his world just disappear. That night was Kristin's last in this world. I give thanks I was able to say goodbye, to tell her how much I loved her, to be a little bit more of her life's story. I hope she heard it all, I hope she still does. I've been reeling these days with pain like I've never felt and whoever said time heals all wounds never new Kristin Anderson. The passing of these minutes makes me ill. It feels like I'm being swallowed by a tide that taking me farther and farther away from her. There's no lesson here. No satisfying end to this. Just another way to make me face this loss and process it. All I can keep saying is I love you mama. I love you and I miss you soooo much.