More Sam Please

It's the middle of the afternoon and the Samster is asleep and I'm wishing I was asleep too but instead I'm trying to use this tiny little window of "free" time to check my email and maybe write a little here to keep my brain from atrophying (which seems to be a side-effect of stay at home parenting). I'm probably a little too tired to be responding to emails and definitely too tired to be attempting to blog. But, this is the time I've got and I feel the need to redeem myself after my mild ranting about nature and it's creepy, crawly progeny in yesterday's post. I may have overstepped there and I'm planning to make nice with the outdoors as soon as the temperature has lowered itself to less than 97 degrees fahrenheit.

Sam and I are a bit weary from a day of gawking at slinky jellyfish, toothy sharks and baby alligators behind thick glass walls. We were tourists in our own town this morning with Matt's mom and stepdad and cousins Nicholas and Braden at the Chattanooga Aquarium. It was a good time but something about winding our way through all those other visitors with strollers and motorized chairs and excited small people pressing themselves up against the glass of every exhibit was enough to make those of who stay at home by ourselves (and our non-talking small people) most of the time a wee bit tired. Sam was pushed beyond his limit of 2.5 hours past his naptime and was weaving and wobbling like a little sailor just off his recently harboured boat.

So, he and I made our way back up the mountain to get a nap in before we'd passed the point of no return (i.e. no nap = super grumpy baby monster). Heaving his nearly 25 pound little frame out of the warm car and feeling the dead weight of his sleeping self against my shoulder as I carried him into the house reminded me again of how much I adore this sweet fella. Sometimes I find myself stunned by the weight of my heart's affection for this boy who makes us a family instead of merely a couple. And, in light of these emotions, all the thoughts of my toy-full house and the mounds of laundry and the recently emerging self-will of a soon to be toddler all fade into the background and I think quietly to myself, there should be another one of these in my small house.

Perhaps one shouldn't admit this sort of thing out loud and especially not on a blog for crying out loud. And yet, despite my fears and hesitations about what may or may not happen, I can't help but acknowledge that one little person in our family is not enough. To be honest, lately I've wondered if that's such a brilliant idea considering my slight tendency to be neurotic, anxious and mildly particular (read: OCD). But, all those bents aside, something about it feels necessary, imperative and right.

I say all this with a hopeful heart and yet there's such a huge part of me that's afraid that it won't be possible for some reason without an explanation. It's hard not to hope for something without letting fear creep in from some corner or another.

For now, the thought of another little someone being crafted by the Creator to expand our family's borders is something I can't get out of my head. A little butterfly of excitement twinges in my middle when I let myself imagine who that someone might be. Despite my fears, the hope keeps pushing through and I can't help but wonder who may be around the next bend of our family's road.

Basically, to sum up, all those posts I've written over the last year about the crazy, laundry-heavy, mom-brain, memory-loss-inducing, food-on-the-wall, yoga pant-wearing angst of motherhood: it's all been worth it.

Nature VS. Me

Nature and I are in a fight. I haven't admitted this situation to anyone until this moment, but it needs to be said out loud and so I'm saying it. I'm more than a little hesitant to acknowledge the present rift in my relationship with the natural world, but there's currently a spider in my bathroom and no else is here to kill it and it's only the twentieth insect/arachnid I've spied in my house in the last two days, so I'm a little on edge and nature is to blame. There, I said it.

Cicadas have descended on our house this summer like a plague of Moses-era proportions and I'm starting to wonder when they're planning to take over the world and eat all of our belongings. (In related news, I keep reading that Nashvillians are eating them as pizza toppings and dunking them in chocolate. This makes my skin crawl and gives me bad dreams at night.) And yet, those red-eyed, winged monsters are small potatoes compared to the freakishly large wolf spiders Matt so cavalierly dismisses when I point one out and subsequently run away shrieking as he shakes his head and maybe even rolls his eyes a little. He doesn't understand this response of mine to eight-legged creatures, but it's as instinctive a reaction as a knee jerk at the doctor's office. However, he has yet to see it as normal or acceptable.

Speaking of my nature-loving husband, I should tell you that he's overly fond of sleeping on the ground and tasting leaves of edible trees and buying three-day underwear (really?) at the local outdoor store. Before we fell in love, I unwittingly caused him to assume that I, too, was of the sort who loves subzero sleeping bags and climbing things in my spare time and would choose a hike through the woods over a trip to the mall 500 times to zero. And, I'll admit that I do have a soft place in my heart for a good hike through the woods that ends with a nice view on a crisp fall day full of pretty leaves and no mosquitos. BUT, let it be known that although I can strap on a pair of Chacos with the best of them, I love air conditioning and the smell of Starbucks in my hair and the feel of legs that have been shaved within the last 24 hours. So sue me.

But, I'm getting off track. These little differences between my husband and I regarding our hobbies and interests doesn't really have anything to do with the fact that nature and I are in a fight.

I am the proud parent of an 18 month old son who loves dirt under his fingernails and the taste of sand and the feel of bugs and rocks and anything else that has to do with what's outside my air-conditioned house, I am under contract as a mother to a son to be outside more than I would choose to be under normal circumstances. I've noticed of late that I've become increasingly and inconveniently nervous about spending time in the Great Outdoors (i.e. my yard). I find myself scanning our little grassy space for possible lurking reptiles or hairy spiders or kamikaze cicadas. It's nervewracking and I realize that confessing this to you will likely relegate me to the "Lame" category in your slam book. I know that loving nature is cool and relevant and fashionable and "in." And, yet, with each spider in my bathroom and every empty cicada shell on my front stoop, I dream of fumigating this little quarter of an acre we live on.

Perhaps I'm exaggerating here. A little. A very little bit. I fear I am becoming less appealing as a human being as I type this post and so I should wrap this up before I fall off the edge of your list of people you want to hang out with. To sum up, yes, I love God's creation. But, I could really do with a few less cicadas and I'm also considering commissioning a task force to kill all the spiders within a 5 mile vicinity of my house. Is that so wrong?

Don't tell Matt I said that.