Category Archives: Bad Mood

Dear Universe, You can suck it. Love, Kelly

Posted on December 30, 2012 | 15 comments

I don’t remember getting an email notification that the Universe started following my blog.  But that is the only possible explanation.  Because it happens without fail.  I say it out loud, that everything is peachy, and then Blamm-o I get knocked on my ass.  I wrote last night that all was well.  The girls were sick but on the mend. I had felt crummy briefly but I was on the up and up.  And then I went to bed.

I was in tears about fifteen minutes after I woke up.  Nothing and everything was bothering me.  The long and short of it – I have been slacking on the exercise this month and it makes me mental.  I need it.  On top of that Lucy is nearly a year old and I might be ready for a night out.  And by ready I mean I will likely cry and come home early and worry and obsess and call home a hundred times but if I don’t go soon it could get even uglier.  Oh, and I am so tired, so very tired.  Now you are all caught up.

The Universe saw me send up the “Life is Super, thanks for asking!” flare and so it kicked me in the stomach as soon as I woke up.  In my bed with swollen eyes I said “No, I don’t want coffee, I just need ten minutes to myself.” I flopped back in my bed for a bit and then I hopped in the shower to shake it off.

Shower.  Clean clothes.  Polka dot knee socks and boots.  Eyeliner and lipgloss that  tastes like peppermint bark.  I was calm and cool.  I was approaching collected.  But only approaching.  We would take two cars to church.  I wasn’t ready to go exactly and the pressure of everyone waiting on me was too much. “Just go, I will meet you there.” I might have yelled.  I don’t remember.  I know I was angsty by the time I got in the car.

20121230-174957.jpgAnd, well, by the time I was calling AAA to get my car out of the ditch (the ditch I have not backed my car in to since January 4th, 2012, thankyouverymuch) I was beyond angsty and full blown crying again.

Fuck it, Universe.  You win.

I gave up.  I took a pillow from the bed and made a spot on the couch.  Lucy and I were going down for the count.  I needed a nap.  Not an in the chair cat nap and not a full blown fake sick and stay in the bedroom nap, but a bed pillow on the couch nap.

20121230-174944.jpg

I am afraid to say that my nap fixed everything.  But things have started to turn around.

MQD made a pile of things for the thrift store. It was in the corner of our bedroom.  (Since this girl’s husband was very tolerant of her big, fat whiney freakout this morning I will not make any comment about how long it might have stayed there had I not put it in a bag.)  When the chips are down I clean. I put the duvet cover in the washing machine and stripped the sheets.  When you sleep with a dog and a baby a totally clean bed deserves a totally clean bedroom so you can slip between your cold sheets and feel like you are in a hotel once a week.  So, the sheets were nearly done, I had to get rid of the pile of stuff.

In the pile was a pair of Levi’s.  I don’t know why I dropped my pajama pants to the floor.  But I did.  And on they went.  “Good butt or bad butt,” I asked.  MQD deferred to Emily.  Em said she liked them.  So did MQD.  “They are yours,” I said.

“Mine? They are too small.  We used to be the same size,” he said.

20121230-174939.jpg

Well, not really.  I used to pour myself in to his pants.  It was a squeeze.  My 25-year-old boyfriend was a lot smaller than me but I tried not to let it  bother me. How could it?  I was 33 and I had a 25-year-old boyfriend.

Just when I though that the Universe hated me it threw me a bone.  A bone in the form of a pair of Levi’s.

Universe, you tried to fuck with me today but it seems like you changed your mind.  The good news is that my ass might have been bigger than my 25-year-old boyfriend’s but it is smaller than my 29-year-old husband’s.  So, take that, Universe.

20121230-174949.jpg

I just parked my ass in my chair with a big, fat glass of pinot noir.  I snapped a quick picture but it didn’t really show my feeling of ahhh.  So, I took another one. Universe, I am going to drink a glass of wine and go to bed. And when I wake up in my clean sheets there will still be vacuum marks on my rug.  And as long as I can still button my husband’s jeans I will not be in tears before breakfast.  Nope.  I sure won’t.

Tomorrow is the last day of 2012. I was awake more this calendar year than any other.  2012, I put my car in the ditch four days in.  And I put my car in the ditch again just two days before you were over.  But all in all, when I wasn’t in the ditch, it was unfuckingbelievable.

15 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood, Family, Nonsense, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , ,

We are four.

Posted on December 17, 2012 | 26 comments

“A table for four?” the hostess asks me.

More than a decade in the restaurant business and I can not resist the urge to smile and say “Three and a half!” while gesturing to the baby.  It’s not particularly funny.  It wasn’t the first time I said it and it won’t be the next hundred times.  We get a high chair and we head to our table.  A table for four.

There are four stockings hanging.

When I fold laundry I make a square in my mind, sorting things in to the invisible quadrants: Mom, Dad, Emily & Lucy.

I set the table and in the past few weeks I have begun to pull out four plates (even if the fourth remains far away from the smallest dining companion in an effort to keep her from pitching it to the floor.)

There are four spots in a booth.  Four spaces in an average vehicle.  Three spots on the couch plus the chair in the living room make four spots to sit.

Four means a family to me.  I was raised in a family of four.  Four means parenting is never zone defense by design.  Man-to-man is my preferred style and two adults and two kids lends itself nicely to this.

Friday afternoon Lucy fell asleep in the car.  I pulled in the driveway with forty minutes or so to spare before Emily was to get off of the bus.  I thought I would read, goof off on my phone and let her sleep.  I rolled the windows down in my car and grabbed a blanket and my laptop from inside. With Lucy tucked in to the backseat and a cool breeze on my face I started to write about how we have four people in our family and that fact brings me a great sense of calm, a feeling of being complete.

Lucy started to wake and I quickly turned my car on, hoping the vibration of the engine would put her back to sleep. In twenty minutes Emily would be getting off of the bus.  The radio was on and the news of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary filled my car.

I was waiting for my child to get off the bus.  There were twenty families whose children would not come home from school.  I had twenty minutes to wait until I could hold my oldest in my arms.  School had let out already, I couldn’t go pick her up.  So, I waited.  With fat tears rolling down my face I waited.

My heart skips a beat when I see her face every day after school.  There is nothing so care-free as a child as they toss their backpack to the ground and run up the driveway.  I dropped to my knees and buried my face in her neck, breathing in her scent of sweaty kid and cold winter day and cherry chapstick.  “Mom, are you ok?”

“Yep.  I am. I am ok.”

“You can keep hugging me, but can I just grab a snack?”

We are four.  Four is our little family.  To the families that woke up a four on Friday and became three, woke up three and became two, whatever your number is now know that Americans will keep setting a place at their table for your children.  We will hang a stocking or make a space on our couch.  Your children will not be forgotten.

 

26 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood, Family, Parenting

Tagged , , , ,

GTFO, Sad!

Posted on December 6, 2012 | 27 comments

Sometimes I feel inside out.  Like the parts that are supposed to be on the inside are on the outside.  When I was 18 I got the cartilage in my ear pierced and it didn’t hurt when the needle went through.  It didn’t hurt when he put the earring in.  But when I went outside it stung.  Maybe it was the chill in the Boston air.  But the way I explained it to myself is that a little bit of my insides were exposed to the air.  And it stung.

I live with my insides on the outside.  Lucy called me Mama this week and I wept.  Emily realized that I want every single extra minute she will give me and I held her hand tight and tried not to cry.  The littlest moments make my heart sing.  These moments don’t have to wind their way down deep in to my heart and soul to touch me because my heart and soul is right underneath my skin.  Sometimes it is even on the outside of my skin holding itself together with nothing but sheer will.

When there is this much good, this much joy, this much Christmas spirit and this much love in your day to day it is harder to reconcile when the Sad rolls through.  Usually I exercise the Sad away.  Bicep curls make me feel like a bad bitch.  Even if I do those bicep curls in my living room while I watch Rikki Lake and listen to Katy Perry somehow I still walk away feeling strong.  Because I made the time.  For me.  Because I am important.

I have been busy.  I have run errands.  I have made Christmas ornaments and cooked holiday meals and wrapped gifts. I have not exercised much at all in ten days.  And I have cried.  Holy shit, I have cried.  And I have lied by omission.  “How was your day?” he asks me when he gets home from work.

“It was great! I hung the stockings!”

But it was not great.  It is hard to throw yourself a Pity Party when you are married to a realist.  This morning I gave up the act.  I tried to tell him this morning about my bad case of the Sad and without forethought I blurted out “I don’t feel special.” Before I could stop myself I pointed out that he will surely tell me that no one is special and we will all be eaten by the worms some day.

Sometimes when you lean on the people you love they give you what you need.  The last time I felt paralyzed with fear MQD gave me just what I needed.  He gave me strength.  I was trying to mentally wrap my mind around having a baby last January.  I was in labor and I was scared.  “You’re a bad ass, Kelly. You just can’t be too much of a pussy today to be a bad ass.” 

This morning I was wallowing.  “But the worms will never have had a meal JUST LIKE YOU,” he said.

He’s right.  Pink toes

Hey, Sad! Yeah, you with the swollen eyes and the runny nose and the bad mood, I’m talking to you, Sad.  I have seasonally inappropriate toenails now and I am taking back the reins.  You can kiss my ass, Sad, my sweaty ass while I do a million jump squats in my living room and evict you.

Even if it is sixty-some degrees outside it is Christmastime, Sad.  I have a sweet, sweet husband and a big girl that makes me laugh.  My baby girl has started saying mama and she kisses with tongue. Things around here actually pretty great.  You gotta roll out, Sad.

27 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood, Exercise, Family, Nonsense, Parenting

Tagged , , ,

I’m so complicated. Really. I am.

Posted on November 26, 2012 | 28 comments

I can’t recall who started it. It was trending not just in my twitter feed and on facebook. It was in my house, too. Em didn’t want to go back to school after her long break. MQD was not particularly interested in going back to work. It seemed like no one wanted to “go back.”

I have adopted a silence when people start hemming and hawing on Sunday in the late afternoon about “going back to work.” When you stay home you don’t have much to add to that conversation. Either you crack a joke at your own expense quickly or you start pointing out that you don’t get days off at all.

I usually just fall quiet. I am not trying to get pelted with bon bons from the stay at home mom crowd for saying this out loud. But staying home with my kids is so far the best job I have ever had. I make my own hours. I love the people that I work for. And I wear whatever I want. The same things that make it awful are the things that make it wonderful. I spend all my time with my co-workers. All of it.

This particular Monday I had a tougher time falling back in to the swing of things. My house is clean. My refrigerator is full of left overs. My laundry is done. A long weekend with family and  I had plenty of extra hands on deck. Christmas is more than a month away. I am not ready to start that. So, what exactly am I to do?

Lucy and I had a lazy morning. We stayed in our pajamas. We did some yoga. We chatted with a friend when she stopped by with our eggs. Late morning became afternoon and before I knew it Emily’s bus was going to be home and we weren’t even dressed. For all intents and purposes I did not “go to work” today. Sure, I kept the kiddo alive and happy all day. And on a good day that is enough for me. She is my “primary job.” But on the days when I sit back and watch her and I disengage and I wonder if “this” is “enough” – it makes my heart hurt.

Sitting on the floor in our bedroom by the window I could feel the lonely settling down in to my bones. I was trying to be light hearted when I called him. “Every one is back to work and school and I am just here. It’s so quiet. It’s like I don’t know what to do.”

He was joking.    “You should clean something.”

I wanted to hang up.  I wanted to not cry.  I wanted to not make mountains out of molehills and rail against the Universe that cleaning things is a waste of time when it will all be a mess again tomorrow.  He was kidding.

But damn that man of mine.  Even his jokes can see through me.  Surely he could hear the blue.  I don’t wear it well.

 

Not even ten minutes had passed before I ripped the covers off of the couch and put them in the washing machine.  He might have been joking, but I feel pretty fantastic. Sometimes I do need to feel like I “did” something.  And by sometimes I mean all of the time.  The washing machine will be done in four minutes.  In a little over an hour I will pull clean cushion covers out of my dryer and wrestle them back on to the couch.  And I will feel like I conquered the world.  Or at the very least I will feel like I beat back the blue for yet another day.

But it is not just because I cleaned something.  I can’t have you or MQD thinking my life is really that simple.

I also put on lipstick.  And in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due I must thank my mother (presumably) for losing a lipstick in my couch.  Because apparently it takes more than just a shower and a completed chore to make my heart sing.  It takes lipstick, y’all.

 

28 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood, Nonsense, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , , ,

In my kitchen, again.

Posted on November 17, 2012 | 20 comments

No matter how happy you are, no matter how much you live the life you believe in your heart that you want, there are moments that you look at the door and think “I could just walk out. Right now I would like to just walk right out the door.”

Not forever.  Just for the morning.  And not because you aren’t happy, just because occasionally it feels like you live in the movie Groundhog Day  –  “Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today.” I walked in to the kitchen this morning wearing my winter uniform (velour jogging suit and a tank top) just as I did the day before.  And likely just as I will tomorrow.

“I am not making breakfast.  I feel like all I ever do is cook food and clean it up.  All day.”

If you live across the street from your best friend than you can put on a baseball hat, grab a cup of coffee and walk out the door.  Thirty seconds later I was standing in a different kitchen with only one of my children, drinking coffee and bullshitting about absolutely  nothing in the way that only women can.

Sitting at her kitchen table I can just sit.  I don’t have to fold her laundry, though I have. I don’t have to let her dogs in and out ten times, though I can yell at them for barking.   Somehow her kids and their incredible loudness is funny to me, almost entertaining.  It’s a change of scenery and sometimes that is all I need.  I don’t long for a new life, I just want to live it in a different kitchen for an hour.

I walked back in the house feeling good.  “I emptied the dishwasher and I washed out the casserole pan from last night,” sad MQD.  A good man picks up your slack.  I could have thanked him.  Or given him shit for reporting to me like he was a kid deserving of a gold star.

Instead I just smiled and said “That’s it?”

There is a changing of the guard that takes place between parents.  I had been “off duty” and I was clocking back in, I could feel it.  I was getting the full report of the status of things and he was checking out.  When you take away a man’s man cave and make it in to a guest room/baby room you can expect him to lock himself in the bathroom for an hour on Saturday morning.

We listen to Spotify all day from the desktop in the kitchen.  There is always music in our house.  Always.  I was on the couch in the living room, laptop perched on my knees, coffee just out of reach of the little one.  “I found a new artist you might like.  You should listen to them.  When you get your ass back in to the kitchen,” he said.  That smirk of his is going to save his ass a thousand times over.

This morning I had a moment when I thought it was hell on earth to relive the same day over and over again. Two hours later and I am smiling ear to ear.  Bring it on, Winter.  I am going to wear this velour sweatsuit every day.  I am going to wear this hat every day.  I am going to stand in my kitchen and think about what we are going to eat next only moments after cleaning up from the previous meal.  And I am digging the ever-loving shit out of it, yes, I am.

Life isn’t that complicated. Living the same day over and over again gives you the chance to get it right, eventually.  It’s not even 11 o’clock in the morning and I feel like I have this day by the balls.  What’s up, Saturday? Wanna feel my sweat suit? This is what Happy feels like.  Sorry about the coffee breath, you’ll get used to it.

20121117-101539.jpg

Keep: This grey hat that will henceforth be known as The Hat I Wore All Winter While I Grew Out That Shitty Haircut

Trash: A handful of stretched out rubber bands and nasty bobby pins from the bottom of the hair accoutrements  catch all drawer in the bathroom.

Donate: A pile of headbands to Emily June, because this Winter is the Winter of the Hat not the Headband.  I have decided.

 

20 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , ,

One Bad Mamajama

Posted on October 17, 2012 | 19 comments

Sometimes there is a deep, dark truth that can only be set free if I speak it out loud.

No matter how happy my marriage, no matter how strong my sense of self, I want to be seen as a sexually viable woman. I want to be seen as a Woman. And for me that includes being seen as a sexual creature.

Nothing makes me feel more invisible than being a Mother.  The thing that makes me the most proud, that defines me in many respects, it also makes me feel like no one can see me at all.

I don’t want to be hit on by everyone I walk by. I just want to be a player in the game. That silent game that only the very drunk or the very crass admit to playing. If s/he was  the last wo/man on earth would I or wouldn’t I? I am not the only person that does that, right? It is human. Or so I tell myself so I don’t feel like a dirtball while I quietly eyeball the creeps at the gas station and everyone else I walk by.

There is only one man. If you rule out children and men old enough to be my  father, there’s just one man that can speak his mind without bruising my ego. Because I never factored in to his silent game of would I or wouldn’t I?

My brother.

I hope you have a brother. If you get a Mom haircut only your brother can tell you as much and live to see another day.

I am facing my fears today.

I have a mom haircut. I am saying it out loud before someone else has the chance (aside from my brother, of course, who never fails to shoot it to me straight.)

So there. I have Mom hair. P.S. – I have two kids and I probably have puke on my shirt, too. And I own it. I might even attempt to work it. Because it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense that being a mother takes me out of the game. You’re all aware of what I did to end up a parent in the first place, right?

Motherhood really shouldn’t make you un-sexy.  I kind of think keeping humans alive, making three meals a day, having clean underwear on and keeping a smile on my face makes me one bad motherfucker.  And what’s hotter than a bad motherfucker?  (I realize that is a weird choice of words there, but that’s how I feel. Like the Samuel L Jackson of motherhood.)

Last night Emily and I had “the talk.” She was fed up with the vague explanation of part of a woman’s body and part of a man’s body joining together and magically making a baby. So, I asked her. “Do you want me to tell you exactly what happens? Because I will. I will always be honest with you.”

I explained it. Pretty simply. She knew where a baby came from. She damn near saw Lucy being born so it didn’t take a lot of explaining to get the rest of it figured it out. “Do you have any questions? That’s pretty much how babies are made, Em.”

She was quiet for a bit. “But I don’t understand. You and dad had a baby and you don’t ever do that?” I laughed.

“Well, not in front of you.” She just shook her head and smiled, embarrassed .

Last night I told my seven year old that I do the deed. And today I thought I’d tell the rest of you. Me and my Mom hair? We totally have this shit going ON. It’s gonna take more than Mom hair and a nursing bra to knock me out of the game. Justin Timberlake brought sexy back. Tyler Perry told us how Stella got her groove back. Me? Shit, girl, I ain’t never lost it.  It’s gonna take more than mom hair to knock me down.

20121016-151502.jpg

19 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood, Nonsense, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , ,

A Wild Hair

Posted on October 16, 2012 | 29 comments

There are moments in your life you need wisdom.  You need consolation.  You need white wine and M&Ms and flowers and entire pizzas. You call your mother and your girlfriends.  You rally the troops.

I got my hair cut. And I hate it. It’s just hair. It grows back.  An old friend reminded me that life is an adventure and growing your hair back is a wild one.  Let’s not forget how fun it is to watch other people react and say “Oh, wow!  You cut your hair…”

I didn’t mean to cut it all off so short.  But you can’t get a short hair cut fixed without cutting it shorter.  So, here I am.  Brand new Kelly.  Sheesh.

I feel like I am wearing a wig. A wig I don’t actually hate… but a wig.  Eh.  It’ll grow on me  Ha.  My sense of humor is intact.

20121016-084254.jpg

29 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood, Nonsense

Tagged , ,

Don’t give me that look.

Posted on October 8, 2012 | 16 comments

Actually just don’t look at me at all.  I am cranky.

I want to eat all of the food. I want to drink all of the wine. I want to watch all of the TV. I do not particularly want to feed or entertain all of the children. And I want to stop having all of the fucking periods.

I can get a little moody. My colors are red hot rage and white hot fury. There is no blush and bashful.

I wish I had a white noise machine that played Phylicia Rashad’s voice. It soothes me. Evidently so does Alfre Woodard and Queen Latifah. I recognize that claiming the remake of Steel Magnolias with an all African-American cast as white noise is funny. I’m just not in the mood to be amused.

Here’s hoping that a peanut butter sandwich and a cup of coffee will fill me up, that my kids will amuse each other for an hour and that the Lifetime remake of Steel Magnolias and what is bound to be a good cry can get me over the period hump. Because that’s the only hump I am likely to see any time soon and something has got to me cheer me up.

 

16 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood

Tagged , , ,

The not so Simple…

Posted on August 26, 2012 | 16 comments

Yesterday was a SuperMom day. I went to bed in a freshly painted bedroom. I had two happy children. MQD and I squabbled in the morning but as per usual the conversation we had following was productive. I felt good.

The feeling carried over to this morning. I had coffee with Amy. The kids were good. I bought a mitre box and started a new project. I am framing out the mirror in our bathroom before I paint.  I scheduled a post for this afternoon about how perfect the last day of the Summer with your family can be.

I considered posting about my bedroom makeover but I feared it would sound like I was blowing sunshine up my own ass to compensate. For what? I didn’t know. But I worry when my posts tend towards the “Look at me!! Everything is peachy!!” too awful much.

So if you read and make clucking sounds and think “Damn, that chick must be so full of shit. No one is that happy” then pour yourself a drink!! Kick back!! This post is for you.

Lucy will not stop crying. Neither can I. I cut a perfect rectangle of molding to frame out the mirror in our bathroom. But the glue won’t hold and neither will the tape that is supposed to hold it until it is glued. I painted around the perimeter of the mirror with the color I have chosen for the bathroom and I am not sure I don’t hate it.

I want to open a bottle of wine and drink the whole damn thing but I can’t because somehow I managed to totally forget to buy anything to pack for Emily’s lunch tomorrow. And before you think “what the hell, can’t MQD go to the store?” he already offered but I’m such a control freak I want to go myself. God forbid I don’t pick out my own cheese sticks.

I called my mother when the third piece of molding from the mirror fell in to the paint and what came out of my mouth between the sobbing was not  “oh damn my mirror project looks like shit.”

It’s more embarrassing than that.

I don’t want to be home all alone with Lucy.

I love her with all of my heart. I want to feed her and sleep beside her. I want to console her when she is cuttng teeth. I want to see her take her first steps.

But I don’t necessarily want to hear the song that fucking singing glow worm makes again. I am not really that in to playing with stacking cups. Or putting the tupperware back in the cabinet 87 times a day.

With Emily home I had a plan. Get up. Exercise. Do a project. Eat lunch. Pool. Shower. Dad’s home. Dinner. All the while I am with my big girl. The girl that makes me laugh like no other. It was like a sleepover all day, for weeks on end with my favorite pal.

And I’m a little bit scared of the new routine. Wake up. Make breakfast. Kiss Em and Mike goodbye. Nurse Lucy. Change Lucy. Rock Lucy. Play with Lucy. Repeat ad infinitum until the bus gets here and my sidekick returns.

Who’s going to laugh with me?

I can certainly take care of a baby by myself. I’m not afraid to do that. But I’m a little afraid I’ll be bored. To be honest I’m a lot afraid of being bored.

You can save the well meaning advice about mommy and me activities, all the friends I’ll make, volunteering in Emily’s classroom, the walks in the fall leaves, how quickly the time will pass. Or the snarky comments about how I’m getting exactly what I’d wished for. Because I know all of this.

But right now I’m going to pout. It’s the last day of Summer vacation. Since the second day of break I’ve joked that I didn’t know what I was going to do when Em went back to school.

Well the joke’s on me. Turns out I wasn’t kidding. I’m gonna miss the hell out of that kid.

In the time it took to write this on my phone I have stopped crying. So has Lucy. I don’t give a good god damn if the molding holds on the mirror. I sent MQD a text “Get pizza for dinner.” I am sitting here.

My house  looks like this.

I have a tendency towards being a Perfectionist in the Mom category. Pizza for dinner and a blown up house and a half-ass DIY project do not Perfection make. I am gonna call this Progress.  Nobody likes a Perfectionist.

Fuck it. MQD can go to the grocery store. This is Progress, right? No one likes a control freak. Just one glass of wine. One big glass.

20120826-163401.jpg

16 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood, Family, Parenting

Tagged , , , , , ,

Missing it

Posted on August 15, 2012 | 18 comments

There is  hard stuff. The conversations that sneak in between the giggling in bed at night.

He rose up on his forearm and said “I’d have one more if you wanted.” He was watching her sleep, her teeny body taking up half of our king size bed.

My throat got itchy and my nose started tingling. I needed to not cry. I’ve thought this through not just with my heart and my hormones but with my head.

I don’t want to struggle. We are making it now. MQD and me and the girls. And I’m home. Where I know I belong. I don’t want to push Lucy to grow up faster. I want her to have what Emily had, her mom all to herself for years to come.

“I know.” And he kept watching her. “She’s just growing so fast.”

I took his hand in mine. “Another baby would grow up, too. And we can’t just keep having more.”

And he smiled. Looked at me. Took his eyes off of her for a moment. “Sure we could.”

This morning as he left for work I walked to the door and kissed him. Like I did when he would leave my apartment years ago. “Thank you for talking to me. Just because I don’t want more babies doesn’t mean I don’t cry several times a day over how fast this one is growing. There is absolutely nothing like loving a baby. I just want to be present for the one that we have.”

He kissed me back.

She is sleeping in my lap and I have my hand curled around the back of her head. Her bald little head. And I let the tears roll down my face. She has five long hairs right now. In just a couple of years she will get a hair cut and those sweet wispy baby hairs will be gone. Those hairs I soaked in tears, the hair she smeared with avocado.

I let myself cry for a few and then I stopped and took a breath. Emily always says “I wish Lucy could talk to us” or “I wish Lucy could walk” and I tell her “I don’t! I’m not wishing away our baby!! We won’t get it back!”

I think and talk a lot about how much it means to me to be present. To be here so I don’t miss it. But it’s not just wishing it away I need to be wary of. I can’t let myself get consumed with how fast they’re growing up. While I am weeping over the haircut my six month old will have in two years? I’m missing right now.

It’s so hard. To feel every second. In order to be fully present I like to hold on. But if I hold on too tight before I realize it I’m holding on to the past. And these damn kids, their present turns in to ancient history in seconds.

20120815-101126.jpg

18 Comments

Posted in Bad Mood, Family, Parenting, Pregnancy

Tagged , , , , ,