On Mommying

My friend Katie over at Look! I Can Grow People told me something yesterday that her mom has been telling her: motherhood is all about sacrifice and giving up your expectations to face the unexpected. That resonated with me because it's a lesson I'm trying to learn myself and quite possibly the most true words I've ever read. Since she shared it with me, I've been using it as kind of an over-and-over-again mantra to myself. So far, I've learned just how true these words are. Motherhood is most definitely about giving up your expectations and facing the unexpected. No matter how much you've read, researched, prepared, stocked up or memorized, motherhood will always be ultimately learn-as-you-go. Things will happen that you never planned for. I thought being diagnosed with preeclampsia and being put on bedrest was the biggest of my worries at the time. After all, delivery is the only cure for preeclampsia and so I imagined my perfect c-section which would result in my baby being handed straight to me, a perfect and instantaneous breastfeeding relationship and a pain-free recovery at home with my perfect new family. Then my water broke. Then I learned that there really is such a thing as birth trauma and this is where Katie's mom's quote began to really make sense to me.

And then I learned, too, that being a mommy means having to heal quickly. You can't lay in bed and cry with the blinds pulled shut for days on end when your plans are thrown off course. You have to heal and face the unexpected and be a strong mommy. I'm 25 years old and I can't recall a single time my mother was out of commission growing up. Even at her sickest, she was in the kitchen making dinner or helping with homework and it really seemed like she was invincible. And she was, because she's a mom. Moms are supposed to cloak themselves in invincibility and convince everyone around them that nothing is too hard or too strong to get them down.

I am a mommy now. I have let go of those preconceived notions I had about motherhood and doing everything by my perfectly-tuned plan. Being a mommy means doing things you never thought you'd do. It means learning to laugh when people who have never had children attempt telling you what is best for your child or learning to turn the other cheek when people who have not been in your shoes offer their unsolicited critiques or disapproval. At the end of the day, there is a beautiful little boy who I call my son and he is surrounded by so much love. Nothing else matters.

I am a mommy now. My sole responsibility is to care for my son and love him (and maybe spoil him just a bit) and give him the absolute world and beyond. Nothing else matters but his happiness and well-being. When his daddy and I watch him sleeping in his bassinet at night, nothing else matters in the world. When there are piles of dishes in the sink and even taller piles of laundry attacking your hamper, being a mommy means knowing that holding your son and rocking in his glider is what you make time for. Dishes and laundry can wait.

I'm in the process of healing both mentally and physically and have to say that I'm proud of my success on both accounts. I'm sure without my iron pills and red-meat diet (which I am growing so sick of, you can only imagine) the anemia might sneak up on me again but with the supplemental assistance, I'm feeling awesome these days. I've learned that there is no time to wallow in pain or misery or self-pity or frustration when life throws you a curveball when you have a beautiful little boy who falls asleep in your arms as you sing the "Mommy and Ethan are rocking in the chair" song (my husband would like it noted that I'm not a lyricist and this song makes it frighteningly obvious). There is no time for shame or self-doubt or letting the stinging c-section incision beat you down when your husband is home from work for a month and a half and you have all of this time to spend together as a family. The love permeating through our house is incredible.

And nothing else matters in the world.



These days in addition to healing, my days have consisted of car rides (Ethan's most favorite things and admittedly mine, too, as I can't see anything other than awesomeness about my husband chauffeuring me around to get a cup of coffee) and family walks around the block.




My husband turned 26 years old on the 2nd. It's crazy to me that when we first met, he was celebrating his 16th birthday. I've often said that growing up alongside the love of my life is perhaps the greatest thing ever but I want my statement altered to read that watching the love of my life grow into an amazing daddy is by far the greatest thing ever. We sang "happy birthday" and ate gluten-free carrot cake and my husband requested that all he wanted for his birthday was to spend time with his son.



And so I know now that even if my plans get thrown off course, even if things don't go exactly as how I rehearsed them in my head, life will end up okay. That's guaranteed thanks in part to the beautiful, perfect little boy who I am so lucky and proud to call my son. In just a couple of days he will be two weeks old and, already, he has become the greatest source of my inspiration.

Weekend With Teenager

I grew up in one of those lived-in houses. We didn't have a separate living room filled with white carpeting and furniture that wasn't allowed to be sat in. Every inch of the house was constantly being utilized by not just us as kids, but by all of our friends who seemed to live at our house almost as much as we did. There were books, backpacks, crayons, toys never far from sight. More than anything, though, there was the wonderful sound of life and happiness and love and laughter! There was noise! "Want to do something this weekend?" as a teenager translated to do "want to come over this weekend?" We never didn't have people over at our house. My mom was never not in the kitchen making meals for our friends or schlepping us from point A to point B (and C, D, E and F) in her car. My mom's car almost served as a charter bus taking us from lesson to class to friends house to wherever-we-needed-to-go. This wonderful kind of chaos became a strangely comforting feeling and one that I missed immensely when I moved away for college.

Needless to say, when my parents asked me to "babysit" (is that term even still applicable?) my 14 year old sister from Friday through Sunday while they went away on one of my dad's business trips together, it seemed like a challenge I could definitely be up for. What I totally neglected to think about, or fully grasp, was the fact that as chaotically busy as I was as a teenager, it was nothing compared to how busy my sister is. What do I mean? Well, for starters, she dances on two (not one, but two!) hip-hop companies, takes a teen hip-hop class, takes acro, jazz, tap and stretching, has a math tutor and gets picked up early from school due to a PE exemption for all of the dancing that she does. That in itself is a lot to throw into a day where school takes up a great deal already, but factor in meals and homework and you've got yourself one busy day. (Understand my sister is 14 so you're also throwing in hair, make-up and an intense wardrobe selection and you've got yourself one heck of a busy day.) Suddenly I found myself behind the wheel of my mom's car, chauffeuring my sister from point A to point B with that same frantic behavior I knew so well. Suddenly I understood what my mom would freak out about when it was 6:00 and dinner wasn't on the table and we had to be somewhere in fifteen minutes, oh my god. (And suddenly it wasn't very comforting. Suddenly it felt like a nap came before food on the priority list.)

I lost track of how many relatives or friends called to say "how are you liking it?" or "enjoying life running around with a kid?" or otherwise laughing at the crazy fiasco that I found myself in when my parents called to say dad's car broke down, he got sick and they'd be returning a day late. Really? The answer was yes. I loved the chaos. I loved fighting the exhaustion that took over my eyelids as I begged her to please just get ready for bed, tomorrow is school. I loved the meatloaf cupcakes and the guess-what-happened-in-school-today and the taking her and her friend for ceramics painting and Mexican food. I loved the history homework and the teenage freak-outs in the grocery store over popcorn chicken. (The only part I didn't love were the torrential downpours we had here on Monday evening, though that is no fault of anyone other than the cruel weather gods.) It was busy, frantic, fun and a few times frustrating -- but at the end of the day, as I was laying in bed, she called out, "thank you for everything!"

...And suddenly it got a lot less frustrating. Suddenly it got a lot less tiring. Suddenly I didn't care that we didn't eat dinner until 8:00 at night or I wasn't able to get to the grocery store before round 500 of dance class.

Now I find myself back in my own quiet house, with four quiet kitties and a husband still at work (we'll save that for another entry called Why I Hate Being Married To An Accountant This Time Of Year) and it's back to being eerie. There's no one to drive to four thousand dance lessons. There's no one to fight with about taking a shower and getting into pajamas. There's no one asking me to help her decide what elaborate outfit she should wear to school the next day or to straighten her hair over breakfast.

Then that little baby in my tummy rumbles around and delivers a swift kick and I know that it won't be this eerily quiet for long. Those days of familiar chaos really, really aren't that far away.

(And I'm glad. Even after my sister asks me where we left the container of ice-cream that didn't wind up back in the freezer, I'm glad.)