Category Archives: Parenting

Patience, I’mma get me some.

Posted on August 28, 2012 | 8 comments

Home Depot in our pajamas at 8:45 this morning.

Said woman take it slow, It’ll work itself out fine.  All we need is just a little patience. Said sugar make it slow and we’ll come together fine. All we need is just a little patience. 

I try not to take a lot of Life advice from Axl Rose.  But I could seriously stand to get a little patience.   I don’t have a lot of that. But then again I’m not terribly virtuous by plenty  of people’s standards either.

I have a laundry list of faults  and my lack of patience is to blame for most of them.  My inability to stay with a long term plan, my need to just keep talking… these things all stem from my lack of patience.

In an effort to showcase my growth as a human being I thought I’d share a picture or two of my half finished bathroom. Half finished?  WHAT?! How can I possibly be sitting in front of my computer if I have a half finished project?! The delightful Karen’s husband, Zeke, said “Better to be done right than to be done right now” and since I am neither related nor married to Zeke I did not want to punch him in the face.  I just had to admit that he was right.  

Sigh.  This weekend’s fiasco that resulted in my teary tantrum was largely due to the fact that I just couldn’t stand to let some glue dry.  For 24 hours.  24 hours is a long time in DIY world.  I wanna be done.  One afternoon.  Finished.

Sigh.  I picked off my molding.  I chucked it.  At 55 cents a foot I decided I was starting over.  New wood,  new paint,  new glue, new attitude.

Without further ado…. my freshly painted bathroom and the bathroom mirror frame that will be finished sometime tomorrow come hell or high water.

I hate my light fixture.  A project for another day.

I am practicing having patience after all.

 

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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.

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Posted in Bad Mood, Family, Parenting

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Simple

Posted on August 26, 2012 | 2 comments

Some days are easy. And Time stands still. And the hours last for days and you just roll around on the floor on the last day of summer vacation. You laugh and you laugh.

I am so proud of my big girl. But the days will stand still while she is gone. I am not the only one that will be missing her. Someone else will be waiting by the door, too,

I suspect.

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The Time Machine

Posted on August 23, 2012 | 6 comments

There is an exhibit, an installation, a magic space machine at the Museum of Life & Science in Durham.  It is upstairs  as soon as you get off the elevator.  If there were 20somethings in wrinkled tuxedo shirts offering  plastic glasses of cheap wine I would feel like I had been transported back in time to an art opening at the Muscarelle Museum on campus.   Only I would be wearing black thigh highs and combat boots and chasing boys.

Instead I am wearing a baby.  And chasing six year olds.  This afternoon I watched the “sand” made by shadows in the projected light pile up on my body.  I watched for longer than I have ever watched before.  I have stood in the path of these lights at least a dozen times and never did I see myself like I did today .


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My hand on her head.  Her body jutting out from my lower abdomen.  I stood like this for months before I ever got to hold her.  She is asleep.  I can hear her breathing.  We are exactly the same temperature.  She can smell me.

Almost a year ago now I took this picture below.  I wish I’d had the sense to include the rest of me.  I remember snapping more than a few, I couldn’t seem to get an angle that didn’t make me look like the back end of a truck.  Funny the things I worried about.

My pregnancy, Lucy’s beginnings are more than documented, both here and privately.  I imagine I could make a flipbook if I lined up every bathroom belly shot I took.  But it is not enough to just look at these old pictures.  I won’t ever have her back so close again.
My big girl will be in the first grade in three days.  After dinner tonight she climbed in my lap and I pressed my face in to the nape of her neck.  Her fresh, back to school hair cut gives me free access.  I inhaled her.  She is still there.  My first baby.

My little one, I can still hold her close.  I can still breathe her in while she sleeps.  Today as I watched the “sand” pile up on her as she slept against my chest I knew that I would come back again to this exact same spot.  I would take another picture.  First I will see the shadows pile on her back  as she crawls.  Then I will see the shadows pile on her head and her feet as she walks.

And one day we will get off the elevator and I will walk towards the light and she will not follow me.  Instead she will head towards another exhibit, hot on the heels of the big kids.  And I will chase her.  And I will pick her up and smell her and she will be my baby again for a moment.

 

 

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Posted in Family, Parenting, Pregnancy

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Ups and Downs

Posted on August 23, 2012 | 3 comments

It has been a long time since I sat in the driveway thinking “How in the fuck did I manage to do that?” Perhaps you remember the morning I put my car in the ditch.   Maybe you even remember that I couldn’t figure what to do while I waited for AAA because it was so cold outside.  My patient husband suggested I go INSIDE the house.

So, today while I sat in the driveway wondering how in the hell I managed to lock myself and two kids out of the house I kept thinking fuck it, we can just go inside and wait.   Yeah.  No, I can’t.

We cleaned out the car.  We organized my purse, suspiciously devoid of keys.  We took funny pictures.  And we waited for Dad.

Eventually the funny picture taking began to wear thin and I started to sweat.  I do not care so much for sweating unless that is an activity I have planned on.  I love to get sweaty.  Exercise and get sweaty.  Go to the beach and get sweaty.  Get it on and get sweaty.  Sweaty is an integral part of many activities I love.  Sit in the driveway and get sweaty.  It wasn’t doing it for me.

I started to get annoyed.  “Emily, today might be a shitty day.  I might swear a lot today.  A lot, like more than normal.  I need you to just hang tough.”

Eventually we got our keys.  We headed to the museum for the afternoon.  We ate ice cream BEFORE our lunch.  I was trying to rally.  Really, I was.  But I had showered.  I had on cute shoes.  And now I was fucking sweaty.

We ran our errands.  We checked the teacher lists at school.  Em got a haircut and the teacher she wanted. Things were looking up.  But it’s not easy for me to turn a day around.

So when the nice woman with the baby said “How old is she?” I could  feel myself start to sigh inside.  I can be aloof.  I know it is hard to imagine but I can.  “Just shy of seven months.” I thought I was making the “Don’t talk to me, I was fucking sweating today, god dammit!!” face.  But I must have misfired.

“He is, too.  And she is six months and she is eight.”  I have no idea how it happened.  Have you ever walked in to a bar with a royal hangover  in your flannel pants just to get your credit card that you left there the night before and forty minutes later you are smashed and getting hit on and it is the middle of the day?  No?  That was just me?

All of a sudden I was sitting on the floor with one, two, three other mothers and FOUR babies and it was … fun.  And one of them took my phone number!! And we were Facebook friends within twenty minutes of her leaving.  These people had ruined my bad mood.

And I don’t think I ever said anything about “my job.”  The job I don’t really have anymore.   I just said “Yeah, I will have tons of time when Em starts school next week.”  And I didn’t apologize.  Or explain that I am terribly busy Mod Podging my shoes (I am still so in love with my freakin’ shoes!!!!) and making homemade granola bars and becoming Queen of the PTA.  I just said “Yeah, here’s my number.”

And it felt good.

So, today kind of Sucked.  But then it turned Awesome.

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Where’s Waldo?

Posted on August 19, 2012 | 9 comments

There might be fifty shades of Grey but there are only four shades of Kelly.

1. Being hilarious
2. Laughing about hilarious I just was
3. Trying to pull it together and get a grip on my aforementioned hilarity
4. Reenacting my hilarity for my own amusement
I was in the middle of step four when the unsuspecting woman walked in to the bathroom to see my husband in his bowtie snapping pictures on his phone.  Flustered she said quickly something to the effect of  ”I can come back later!”
Excitedly we tried to explain that my dress matched the wallpaper.  It was a photo op we could not pass up.  She walked past us and entered a stall as I tried to excuse our behavior “We have a seven month old!  We haven’t left our house in a year!”
But we did last night.  And we had fun.  And both kids lived to tell the tale.  We should try it again.  In a few months.  No need to rush in to anything.
We are now accepting social invitations for the holiday season. With advance notice I will dress to match the wallpaper in your bathroom.  Your guests will have a chance to play live action Where’s Waldo?  Now that is a good time.  Take my word for it.

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Everything you need to know about Parenting you can learn in AA

Posted on August 17, 2012 | 8 comments

Time and again I chuckle about the similarities.  This business of raising children is not too dissimilar to that of being a recovering alcoholic.

Yesterday morning  I allowed myself to be overwhelmed with the changes that are happening too rapidly for my tastes. But later in the afternoon I pulled it together and reminded myself that I needed to live today, “one day at a time.”  And furthermore, I needed to accept the things I cannot change.

With the Serenity Prayer going around and around in my head I set off to the store.  If my tiny little baby insisted upon crawling it was time for a gate at the bottom of the stairs.  My compulsion to keep all things kid and baby out of the adult living spaces at night is challenged by the baby gate’s addition.  However I think I succeeded in making it not stick out like a sore thumb.  With the addition of a square baluster I stained to match my hand railing and a round piece of wood I painted to match my trim I was able to get around the uneven surface issues presented by my trim molding and my handrail.  I am available via email for How To Make My Baby Gate Less Ugly consulting services.  I can be reached at IHaveTooMuchFreeTime@stayathomemom.com.

It’s hard to swallow.  This tiny little baby is almost seven months old and army crawling all over the place.  She will be standing at the gate hollering for her sister in a matter of moments.  But today, today is she is still my baby.  Because today I woke to a nursling in footie pajamas.

Years from now you will be able to spot her in a group picture from middle school.  “Which one is Lucy?” someone will ask. “She is the one in the footie pajamas” another mom will answer. And she will lower her voice to a whisper and mouth “Last baby, the poor mother, she has issues…”  You think I am kidding?

GFunkified

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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.

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There is one born every minute…

Posted on August 12, 2012 | 8 comments

I saw him as soon as we pulled in to the parking lot.  Immediately I was drawn towards him and I knew it was virtually impossible for me to pass up this opportunity.  I don’t exactly get out that often these days.  Even with two kids in tow I knew that he would see me, too.  All it would take was a single “Hey…” and I’d crumble.

MQD has been gone for three days.  He is the sensible one.  He keeps me in check.  This guy would never talk to me if MQD was with me.  I suppose I just wouldn’t be putting off the same “I’ll totally buy whatever you’re selling” vibe.

As we walked towards the co-operative grocery store in town I immediately remembered that I was still wearing workout clothes.  Maybe he won’t know that I am his type.  Maybe he won’t speak to me.  With Lucy in a carrier on my chest, I took Emily’s hand and thought maybe if I just avert my eyes he won’t see me.

“Hey…” he shuffled on over to me.  “I am selling these tie-dyes…”

And I crumbled.  I was his.  I saw some people I know.  I took this as an opportunity to try and escape.  “Lemme get some dinner in my kiddos and if you’re still here when we leave…” He gave me those eyes.  The hippie boy in a parking lot eyes… the you never know if you’ll see me again but I hope you do eyes.

Em and I split some sushi.  Lucy had some honeydew and a cucumber and a piece of Akmak.  We ate outside.  I watched person after person pass him by.  My heart ached.  Because I am a sucker.

We were walking towards the car.  I had a ten dollar bill burning a red hot hole in my pocket.  “Mom, I really do want a tie dye.”  Until that moment in time it hadn’t really dawned on me to buy one for Emily!! I could get my Buy Crap From A Cute Hippie Boy on and I could blame it all on her!  Genius.  It would be a tough sell convincing MQD that the adult size large tshirt was for Emily, however.

“So, you’re selling t-shirts.  And I’m a sucker.  But you need to give me your sales pitch.  Are you planning on saving the world?”

He smiled.  He laughed.  The Dazed and Confused style snicker that I adore.  I took this to be a no. In that single giggle I knew he was not saving the world – unless the world would be saved by a twelve pack of Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout or some glass beads that he planned to weave in to some hemp necklaces.

“I have this small hoodie tshirt?”  SOLD!  The hoodie tshirt is an elusive and grand item.  It would be my absolute pleasure to share this with my first born.

Best of luck to you, Cute Parking Lot Boy (CPLB).  If there was any doubt in my mind that you were not CPBL but actually Terribly Lost Tour Kid (TLTK) you sealed the deal when I asked if could take your picture.  CPLB let his arm hover over my six year old’s shoulders, like I might freak out if he touched her.  TLTK would have hugged her and let her take a bite of his half eaten falafel.

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Falling on my head like a memory

Posted on August 11, 2012 | 4 comments

I think I must be  pre-menstrual. I am a do-er, a mover and a shaker. And I am still in my pajamas. So is Lucy. Emily is only on her fourth outfit. MQD is out of town and I am trying to RELAX. I am not particularly good at relaxing.

We had chocolate milkshakes for breakfast. There will be no exercise in this house today, I don’t think. It is pouring down rain. I am itching to paint our bedroom but I am relaxing, dammit.

A movie. We will watch a movie. A movie will keep the constant “Mom, do you know why…” questions at bay, right? And Lucy will eventually nap if I sit in the rocking chair with my boobs out long enough. And then I will definitely start relaxing…

A League of Their Own. Great movie, great message, not starring a single Disney star…. a perfect afternoon. “Mom, why do they have to wear a dress? Those girls are playing baseball but they don’t have to wear a dress, do they, Mom?”

“No, honey, they don’t have to now. But remember this movie is about the first women’s baseball team, and a long time ago, remember everything wasn’t very fair.”

“Ohhh, so Martin Luther King Jr said girls can wear shorts when they play baseball?”

Not exactly. Every injustice in the world that has been righted was due to MLK in her mind. “Em, if it is still raining after this movie is over maybe we can watch a documentary about Martin Luther King, Jr? There is one on Netflix,” I said.

She smiles and hugs her sister. I start to get a little misty and think about how I am maybe too hard on myself. We are raising these girls up just right.

“Or we can paint my nails?”

Yeah. I almost forgot we were relaxing today. The nice thing about a history lesson is you can always do it tomorrow.  I mean, it’s history.  It will still be there.

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