Category Archives: Parenting

Dear Emily,

I have been writing you letters since before you were born, knowing all the while that someday I would write the “So. Now you are 18” letter and strangely, I still am not exactly sure what to say. I suppose that this moment of parenting will shake out just like the last eighteen years – I will just fake it until I make it.

I told you last night that you wouldn’t get the “Birthday Letter That Makes You Cry” until today. So, here goes.

When I found out I was pregnant with you I didn’t know what to expect. I was a twenty-nine year old woman that was quickly growing tired of being in my twenties and not really having a Life Plan. Your father and I had been married for nearly two and a half years, the restaurant was doing well, we had good health insurance. It was time to Have A Baby. Being pregnant was weird and wonderful. I had quit smoking just nine days before I found out I was pregnant with you. And even though I had quit a million times before, this time it was easy. It seems the Body had turned me into a Responsible Mother before my Brain got the memo.

I painted bedrooms and bathrooms and organized and got “ready to get ready,” a concept taught to me by my boss at the hospital. (Kathy probably is to credit for talking me off the ledge more times during my pregnancy than almost anyone.) I was as ready as I could be but everyone tells you that nothing prepares you, and it is most certainly true.

I had big shoes to fill in the role of Mom. I have been so lucky in that department. Your grandmother is the kind of mom I wanted to be. Even as a teenager I trusted her. We talked about almost everything. She makes me laugh harder than anyone. I have a Good Mom. So, surely I would be one, too, right? As I grew older and my relationship with my mom shifted and grew we often spoke about how things could have been different. She told me that if she had one regret it was that she had been my friend perhaps more than she she should have been. I always brushed that off because I’d not been able to imagine it any other way. And I loved that we were friends.

When I found myself in Chapel Hill with you, me fresh from a divorce and you just two years old and whip-smart and funny – I knew what she meant. I couldn’t let you become my best friend, my world, my sidekick, my everything. It would have been so easy. You were my reason. My reason for finding the courage to start over, my reason to seek a happiness that I often questioned if I deserved. (And the reason I made a vegetable with every meal.) I could look at my own life and ask “Is this what I want for Em?” and act accordingly. Decisions were simple then. I wanted everything for you. And for me, too.

We built a life that we deserved. It was filled with love and joy and laughter and soon the Single Mom and the Little Girl story was ancient history. You had a dad (Mike,) a sister (Lucy,) a Daddy (Jeremy) and me. We had a big, messy, beautiful family. In your eighteen years of living it was just you and me against the world for only about two of those years. But what it cemented in us is something that is a forever kind of thing. You and me. We were a tiny, little two person family there for a short while. And somehow it was enough. I think because we both love so big. You were more than enough.

And there it is. I figured out what to tell you on your birthday. The sage piece of wisdom you’ve been waiting for. You are more than enough, just exactly as you are. The very thing about you that sometimes makes it so hard to be you is exactly what will make you thrive once you just let it be. You love so big. Your heart is wide open. You feel all the things. Don’t fight it. It’s the most precious thing about you, your vulnerability.

I don’t really know how you fit that big heart in that tiny body. But I can’t imagine you any other way. Navigating life with a vulnerable heart is like keeping your head above the water in a raucous ocean. You can’t fight against it, you will never win and you will be tired before you get anywhere. But if you just lean back and let your feet float even the scariest sea isn’t but so wild. Ride the waves, baby girl.

There is a needlepoint I made when you were small. The letter on the back can be found here. In it I mention that “I want to keep my love for you in action.” The hardest part about you being so grown up is that the actions of loving you are fewer and farther between. You don’t need me to hold you or drive you (although you still want me to make you a sandwich.) So now I must just trust that quietly loving you is enough. It won’t be the first or last time that something I thought I was teaching you was actually teaching me something, too. If I believe it when I tell you that you are enough – I must also believe it that I am, too.

I don’t know if I have done any of this right. But I am absolutely certain that I loved you as hard as I could and that I will forever. I don’t know if I have ever actually said this to you but I say it fairly often. I hope that both of you girls know how much I love you. On the eve of your birthday you gave me the greatest gift you’ve ever given to me. In response to my schmaltzy text you replied “I feel so loved by all of you.” So. I got that part right.

I am not sure how to be the parent to a big kid. I am just going to keep loving you. Because so far, that has been enough.

Happy Birthday, baby girl. My teeny, tiny little girl that perches like a bird when she sits. You don’t have to leave the nest just yet. And you will always, always have a safe place to land here at home.

I love you.

Mom

Dear Lucy,

There is a not particularly funny joke about how only the oldest child in a family has a baby book. In our house this is pretty true. The other day I was talking to some people about how you didn’t get a baby book (or a billion blog posts) about every First Step, First Day of School, Birthday… but there is certainly a record of your recent life because we let you have a phone long before your sister got one. So, rest assured there are plenty of pictures.

Today seems important. The Baby goes to Middle School. Big Lu, off to sixth grade. Are you ready for some pearls of wisdom? For as long as I can remember you would shrug off any kind of hug when you were feeling blue. You’d put a quick end to my “pep talks,” as you call them. I have been asking you for years if you will always be my baby. Until recently you would snuggle up next to me and promise me that you would always, always be the baby. Now you’re quick to point out that at least I have the dogs. And then offer to tuck me into bed.

In so many ways, Lucy, you have grown up so quickly. You watch terrifying movies with your dad. You overhear salacious gossip among your sister and her friends (ands me, if I am honest.) You have a filthy mouth and we let it ride. You can hold your own. Because baby or not, you’ve always been pretty easy-going. You’ve always been the youngest one in the crew, whether it was at home or at cheerleading. And your sense of humor and your sassy little attitude has just carried you along. And I think that because you talk the talk I was under the impression that I was letting you grow up. I think this might be the year that we both have to let go a little bit.

You are growing up, Lucy Q. Whether we like it or not. Middle school is that weird in between time when you are independent and angry about it. You don’t want any help but I’d better answer when you call me to tell me you forgot your laptop. We joke that you are always smiling like a Disney kid with those perfect freckles. But I know that sometime in the near future you will get angry at me. Or your heart will break. Or your team will lose. And you will deny me a chance to hold onto you. And it won’t feel like it did when my strong, fierce little girl was adorably independent. Because in your face I won’t see my baby. I will see the young woman you are becoming. And, like it or not, this time around I know just exactly how fast the next part will go.

I will try not to hold on tighter. Just because I know now that this part is fleeting…. Because you’re the peacemaker. You are always looking out for everyone in the house and you make cheerful chatter at some of our most tense dinners. Because you don’t like it when things get hard. And you’re a worrier. But I need you to listen. It will be hard for me to let you grow up, you’re the baby. It is my job to hold on, to cherish the last days of the little kid part of motherhood. But it is your job to grow up.

So, go. Lu Magoo, Big Lu, Lucy Q, the littlest of The Littles. You made it to Middle School, kiddo. So, go. And if you turn back to check on me and I am crying, remember that I cry when our little birdies leave the nest, too. And they’re only around for a couple of weeks! I get attached. But I am a tough old girl. Ask your grandmother how often I let her hug me as a teenager. You didn’t get it from nowhere. I’ll be ok.

And you are so much more than ok. You are absolutely extraordinary. So, off you go, Lu. Go get ’em.

I love you.

Love,

Mom

Dear Emily,

Today was the first day of the long, slow year of the last of the firsts.

On your first day in elementary school you went in for a short open house. We waited for you to turn back. You were nervous. It was a new school. You didn’t know anybody. There had been a lot of big changes in our house. A wedding. A baby on the way. You were to start at one school and transfer to another in only a few weeks time. There had been tears. (Most of them were mine.)

You took a few tentative steps and then you took off. Because you were ready.

And you’re ready once again. To start that long year that is all at once too fast and far too slow. You’ve been waiting for this year for so long. You are a Senior. We have started college visits and boxing up pots and pans that will some day be in an apartment. We just got you a new laptop because “it will be the one you take to college.” Somewhere in your room is a sweatshirt that you might still be wearing when you turn thirty because the life that is happening now is the foundation for the life you will build. And there is a very good chance that life will be made up of hooded sweatshirts at this point.

Emily June, when you were tiny you were always so brave. In recent years you’ve let that brave face down a bit and you’ve let your life feel a little messier. Believe it or not, this is the very thing about which I am the most proud. You have already learned to ask for help, a skill that took me well into my thirties to even attempt. You feel the feelings, big and small. This year will be made up of big, obvious Last First Times. But there will be so many more moments that slip right past you because the unfortunate truth is that this year you’ve been waiting for… the big Senior year… it won’t be all that different than last year. You will have classes to attend, work that you may or may not feel like going to, meals that are less than impressive, eaten quickly at the kitchen counter. And all of a sudden it will be next summer.

And when next summer rolls around and the tears are flowing even more than this morning… let us both remember that you will always be my baby girl. When your nose starts to tingle and you feel a little cry-y, text your mom. There’s a good chance that I am already crying. I’m one step ahead of you, Em.

xoxo,

Mom

Yesterday I posted a picture and mentioned my forehead wrinkles and my crinkly neck.  Lots of you kindly reminded me not to shit on myself for aging.  

I want to be more clear.  It was an observation.  I am aging.  And I don’t give a shit.  I can’t do anything about it.  And in fact, I am kind of proud of it.  Because it beats the alternative, right?  

We age. Right up until the moment we take our last breath we are hurtling towards our imminent death.  People tell me pretty often “I am dying!” when I ask them how they are doing in the gym.  I always answer the same, “we are all dying, it’s a matter of when.”  Sometimes I point out that I am not much of a gambler but I would put money on the likelihood that it isn’t looking like we are going to die today. I suppose that is my own little way of practicing gratitude. I am really setting the bar high, huh? Gonna give it everything I have to live all damn day!

This is a picture of two packages that I need to return.  This I really give a shit about it. 

It annoys me to no end because it is within my control. 

I hate that I don’t ever put the top all the way back on things and regularly spill shit everywhere when I pick it back up.  I wish I was a person that used everything in my fridge and didn’t throw stuff away.  There is a little shame involved in each fridge clean out.  Every time a dentist asks me about my flossing I just smile weakly and say “not often enough.”  I buy athletic equipment when I am not training enough. I swear a lot in front of my kids and I wonder if I am fucking them up.

Before you think that my aging gracefully is a sign of some kind of radical self-acceptance – rest assured that I have a laundry list of things about myself that need work. I am going to take those returns to the appropriate drop off points today. I will probably not screw all the tops on everything that I put back in the refrigerator. (Sorry, MQD.) I might make a list of things that I can cook with the stuff I have in my fridge and I might even cook them. But I might not.

And I am not going to kick the shit out of myself about any of these things. Because in the end I always come back to the same truth. If I really cared about it, I could change it. And if I haven’t? Well, then I guess it just doesn’t bother me that much. There is tremendous peace in that.

I hope that everything on your Give a Shit list is something you can do something about. If something has been on that list for a long time and you haven’t done anything about it take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself if you actually give a shit or if you just think that you should. There is freedom in erasing things from the list not because they are finished or changed but because you decided you just don’t actually give a shit.

I suppose this is my own version of The Serenity Prayer, huh? Only in my version I grant myself the serenity and there is a little more swearing.

Edited to add: I just took “Swearing in front of my kids” off the list. I do not, in fact, give a shit about that after all. See how easy this is?!

It’s been more than a year since I wrote something down. Plenty has happened in the last year, some of it has even been worth remembering. Here’s a snapshot.

I stopped into Emily’s room last night and said “Hey. There’s a song that makes me think of you. Can I play it for you?” Miraculously, she turned off her tunes and gave me the aux. Aux cord privileges are the modern day chance to pick the radio station. I started to play the song and I could feel the tears well up behind my eyes. Before we got to the chorus I was a wreck.

“I’ve got time, I’ve got love
Got confidence you’ll rise above
Give me a minute to hold my girl
Give me a minute to hold my girl” – George Ezra, Hold My Girl

I looked up at her as the chorus repeated. She walked towards me and was a sniffling mess. “Oh, sweet girl, you are so my girl….” She let me wrap my arms around her. As grown up as she may become I have been given the good fortune of a kid that remains shorter than me. I can still smell her head as my arms wrap around her and for that I am grateful.

She was crying. I was crying. Lucy pops in as she is always in fear of being left out of breaking news “Guys, are you ok? What happened?”

“Just a song, Lu. I was telling Emily that this song makes me think about how quickly you guys are growing up and sometimes I just want a minute to hug it out.”

This is my kid that actually refuses what she has come to call my “pep talks.” I didn’t think I was going to get very far with her but I was on a “hug the kids” roll so I tried…. Sat down next to her on Emily’s bed and asked “Isn’t it about time for you to go to bed?

“You mean it’s time for YOU to go to bed.”

She had me there. I scrambled for a reason to put her to bed that was not “I am tired and ready to go to sleep and before I do I would like to lie down in the dark with my arms around you, please.”

Emily interrupted my thought process and simply stated “I can put her to bed. She is helping me pick out what to wear to school tomorrow.”

Before I could argue I was being escorted out of Emily’s room amidst conversation of exactly when Lucy could ride in the front seat of a car that Emily would be driving and the places they would go.

You frequently hear a parent lament that they wish time would slow down, their kids are growing up too fast. I don’t need things to slow down. I just wish they would stop right here, just for a few days. This moment. Emily and Lucy are joyful in one another’s presence, tolerant of my schmaltz. MQD is enjoying his work, even in the midst of a tedious day. My people are healthy today. The sun is shining in February for the second day in a row.

Nine years and one month and about a week ago Emily said “It’s a sister!!!” as Lucy was placed on my chest. Emily crawled into the bed with me and MQD. Lucy became Lucy instead of Baby D. And we became the four of us. And last night looked just exactly the way I imagined it would be.

This morning I told Em that last night was an almost perfect evning for a couple of sisters. Or so I would think. I don’t have one. She sent me these pictures. I am glad that I have them. The pictures and the girls.

Dear Em,

I used to write you letters so that you could look back someday and remember what you were like when you were little…. as I sit down now to write to you, I realize that perhaps you should write a letter to me.  I wonder if years from now I could accurately describe the Emily June that is fourteen.  Could you even describe yourself these days?

Baby, I look at that long body asleep on the couch on a Saturday afternoon and I wonder if I even know her.  You breeze through the kitchen with sports bags and lunch boxes and backpacks, a whirlwind of mess and things and homework and hungry and I wish we could just stop and look at one another.  I can see the little girl you once were.  And sometimes I can see the fully grown Emily June you will someday be…. but that teenage girl that you are this very minute, sometimes I wonder if I know her at all.

Trust.  That is what we are building right now.  Sometimes I barely see you for days on end and I trust that you will holler if you need me.  I am certain you will text me when you need cash or forgotten softball cleats.  But I must trust that if you need me…. you will climb back into my bed.  You will curl up under my arm and let me hold you once more.  I must trust that my smart, savvy teenager will use her big, beautiful mind and “make good choices.”

Trust.  I don’t get to hug you very often but when I do I bury my face against the top of your head and I inhale and I trust that you will still smell like you.

Trust.  I give you boundaries and tools instead of hard and fast rules and I trust that you will find your own way.  It may not always look like my way or the path that I’d have chosen but I must trust that you are finding your way, the only way you know how.

Trust.  I must trust that in these short years that we have left together, in one house, we will solidify this family unit.  We will be the safe place to which you return.  Forever.

You will be fine.  You are smart and kind and confident.  You will not choose to eat Bojangles for every meal some day and you will eventually hang up a wet towel without being reminded.  You are doing a pretty damn fine job of growing up.

Baby, I trust you.  Know that.  Remember it.  My trust is not something I give freely.  I love you with my whole heart and I trust that these next few years might be a little messy.  And you know what? When I tell you “No” or dig around behind your back for more information, it is not that I do not trust you.  I trust that you are turning out to be a perfectly imperfect teenager.  You’re going to screw up, you’re going to get back up and try again.  My wish for you is that you fail spectacularly from time to time.  Why?  It will mean that you set yourself some big, fat, audacious (look it up) goals and you tried.

Now is the time for you to trust me.  I have your back.  Look.  And then leap, Baby Girl.  We just get this one life.  Get after it, Em.  Your dad and I are here for you when you fall.  Trust that.

As a side note, may I say that I am simply SHOCKED to hear that you did not wear this adorable birthday hat to school!! Last time your sister and I pick out a darling birthday hat clip on hair piece for you at Party City, harrruumph!!

I love you.  Happy Birthday, baby.

Love,

Momma (I still do not know why you insist on calling me this or spelling it this way, but after fourteen years, I give up.)

And here are your birthday letters from the past….

2006

2007

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2016

It is the eve of Lucky Number Seven.  It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that I was trying to figure out exactly how a person can be so certain that another person is “right.”

And yet today, seven years after we were married, I sat across a table from MQD and laughed.  And I looked at him and I thought simply,   “We’re gonna make it.”

We went to lunch today.  We had a cocktail at the bar where we tend to end up.  I wore my wedding dress because I like to get it out every year for our  anniversary date.  We did the things that we always do.  Because we have at long last been together long enough to have things that we always do.

Good grief, I love this man. After seven years, that’s all I’ve got.  I just do.  No need to elaborate on it, really.  Because he knows.  And I have never felt so sure of anything.

It feels good to do the things you always do.  I’ve got big plans to keep on loving this man.  And maybe, just maybe I will write again soon.  It was a thing I always did once.

Like many of you I have spent the last week wondering about the many, many people in this country that I do not understand.  I have reached out privately to a handful of people to ask simply “Help me to understand.”

No matter which side of the aisle you call home it is quite likely that you have recently become painfully aware that there is a huge population of people that think, act, feel differently than you.  We live in a world where we can carefully cultivate our social media feeds and our friendships.  Through the simple act of sharing time with people with whom we have mutual interests we insulate ourselves from those that are different.

This morning I took the girls to see a bit of the Central Carolina Synchro Classic before church.  I was sitting on the floor of the ice rink looking around before the skaters performed.  Hundreds of families gathering to watch their kids perform feats of synchronized figure skating.  The makeup, the hair, the costumes, the anticipation.  Judges and banners and accessories that I had never seen before.  It was like I was inside a scene that I didn’t even know existed before this morning.

And then the kids “took the ice.” (See?  That’s a phrase, take the ice, that I didn’t even know until this morning.) It was amazing.  I had no idea what I was watching. It was like watching football games when I was young.  It was exciting. All of those people, the music, the uniforms, and the equipment and the cheering.  I had not a clue what I was looking at. So they were spinning in a circle and holding hands and I started wondering “Is this good?  Are these kids really great? Is this impressive?  I have no idea.”  The only figure skating I see regularly is the Olympic skating on television.  The only skating I have seen in person is the Ice Capades.  I really had no frame of reference.

This morning’s trip to see the skaters didn’t start out as a political statement.  I was not crossing  a great divide to mingle among the skaters.  I was simply indulging my little one’s interests because she will be skating as a mouse in our local Nutcracker on Ice this year. Before I volunteer to help out I figured I had better get an idea of what this stuff is all about.  But all of a sudden I realized I was sitting in a large room with hundreds of people that I didn’t understand.  I had no idea what it takes to be doing what they’re doing.  But I could admire it.

It was wonderful.  And sparkly.

I am going to try so very hard in coming weeks to put myself into groups of people that I don’t understand, groups of which I am not a part.  Because I don’t know what I might find.  As I was leaving this morning I ran into an old friend from high school.  Haven’t seen her since probably 1993ish?  I wouldn’t have run into her if I just stayed in my box where I belong.

I triple dog dare you to go out into the world and seek out some people that are different than you.  It doesn’t have to be a different political ideology or an ethnicity that is different than yours to start.  Just open your eyes and see if there is something right in front of you that you don’t usually see.  For me – there is a synchronized ice skating team that practices at the gym.  And I have never really seen them until today.  And it turns out that they’re wonderful.  And sparkly.