The Old Days (i.e. May): A Lost Post

I'm a little light-headed due to the inconsistent eating schedule/menu that is motherhood. So, I hope you'll pardon me if this post rambles and if I perchance wander down a rabbit trail. It's also possible that I could say something awkward and if so, pardon me.

It's another Monday and I'm still trying to figure out how to spend this day productively. It's 1:30 in the afternoon, which means I'm a little behind in the productive department. Sam's been asleep for approximately one hour. I'm hoping for one more. I realized today that these two or so hours a day that he naps find me feeling pressured to make them count. I mean, they're the only two hours of the day that kind of belong to me and only me. However, I'm also discovering that the pressure to accomplish something (i.e. read a book, write a book, catch up with a friend, learn something, wash 8 loads of laundry, write a manifesto, etc.)usually backfires on me and I end up doing something completely the opposite of productive. Like reading People magazine. Or painting my toenails. Or looking up unnecessary information on Wikipedia.

Sigh.

I love motherhood, but I find myself a little uncomfortable in it's confines and boundaries of sorts. And by uncomfortable, I just mean that it's against my nature to be at home for long periods of the day, to occasionally not have a real conversation for more than two days in a row, to accomplish so little in so much time. I feel myself straining against the time constraints of a small person's schedule. I'd also like to confess that I'm not very good at playing. I get bored with blocks and trains sometimes and wish that I was at Barnes and Noble. Isn't that terrible?

But, in light of all these ways that I am so obviously wrestling with the colorful realities of mothering, I want to do this. I want to do this with Sam and with any other little people God decides to entrust to us. It's so hard, but in the very same breath, so good.

Sam and I were reading Sandra Boynton's book Opposites this morning and when we got to the "short" and "tall" page, Sam pointed at the tall giraffe and said "towl," which if you don't have your baby translator handy, is "tall." He said it a couple more times until it sounded like "tow" and then as if a lightbulb had gone off in his little head, he pointed to his toe and said "toe." Seriously, people. He's a genius. He got a big squeeze for that accomplishment, which he quickly wrestled his way out of.

I love that kid. Things like that happen all day long and if I'm being honest with myself, I know that those moments are worth a billion trips to Barnes and Noble.

This Quiet Life

It's Thursday, which I just figured out this morning. I've been a day behind all week for some reason, so if I was supposed to meet you somewhere in the last 24 hours, this is why I wasn't there. Additionally, I'm also unsure as to what the actual date is today. But, what I do know is that it's naptime for the little guy and so I'm sitting by the kitchen window letting the spring air in, after a few days of having the house shut up for a brief stint of blackberry winter.

Maybe I should explain that I'm unaware of dates and times and such because I'm at home a lot, away from memos and newsflashes and watercooler conversations. In light of the somewhat hermit-ish season that I've entered into, I've found myself pondering this life at home that Sam and I spend together these days, how quiet it is (in a larger sense, not to mislead you into thinking that there aren't pots and pans being beaten with spoons at various times during the day). I don't realize how small our little world is until I turn on the television or rev up the computer and find that there are all sorts of things going on out there that I am completely out of touch with. Some days, this really bothers me. Today, however, I can't help but look around at the overturned trucks in the den and the errant cheerios under the table and think that this quiet life with Sam is good. Hard, but good.

While I was putting on my make-up yesterday, which I economically wore again today, Sam entertained himself by tossing various items into our bathtub. He also found time to unload a shelf, dump out a large container of blocks and sort through some envelopes I had tucked away, presumably out of his reach. I couldn't help but think that raising this little guy feels a bit like a three-ring circus going on around me at all times. I haven't decided yet if I'm the ringmaster, or if Sam is. It's moments like those when I can't help but shake my head and laugh. And then Sam laughs with me.

I think that I've spent more time complaining about this season that I'm in than being thankful for it. If my younger self could see me now, I would sit myself down and remind me how much I wanted to be here ten years ago, married and raising children at home. I would probably kick myself in the shins for my forgetfulness and ingratitude. I have exactly what I wanted all those years of singleness and still I pine for some of that somewhat lonely freedom I had in spades and didn't want at all.

So, this is me confessing to being a selfish woman whose dreams of having children are currently coming true in the little person of Sam. The mall and the movie theater and the restaurants without high chairs can wait until I'm fifty. This season belongs to Sam, and I want to embrace with joy all the trucks and sandboxes and stuffed farm animals it has to offer.

*If you could remind me of this next time I tell you about the tantrum he threw at the grocery store, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

The Edge of Crazy

Have I mentioned that I have a seventeen month old boy? My sweet little bundle of baby turned into a two foot whirlwind who has very nearly pushed me to the edge of crazy town. It's hard to explain this sort of crazy if you don't have a toddler of the male persuasion. I find that I can barely put into words the mind-numbing tiredness, the loss of memory, the inability to put more than three words into a sentence that I'm experiencing these days. Basically, my whole day is spent trying to keep this little person alive, which means saving him from self-destruction and death-defying acts about once every twelve minutes. I am severely underpaid.

Lately, Sam has learned some new things. Things like climbing up onto the sofa, climbing up into a chair, how to stand on unstable things like small coolers and plastic firetrucks, and how to open and shut heavy sliding doors. Grandparents have declared all of these things, among others, to be evidence of an obvious budding genius. I have other ideas about this, some might even call them concerns. Like, how long will it take for my son to figure out how to climb onto the roof? start the car? open an email account? thumb a ride? I can't help but worry that while my brain seems to be slowing down, his is developing at such a rate that by next month, he may be writing this blog for me or possibly building a bomb.

No one told me that having a seventeen month old could actually cause me to lose my mind. I understand a little better that old saying about people in difficult circumstances (i.e. banished to Siberia, kidnapped by pygmies, living undercover in the witness protection program, etc.) being "driven to drink." I've been driven to a bag of chocolate chips more times than I care to confess. (On Saturday I bought two more bags just for emergencies. It's Monday and I have one bag left.)

Some symptoms of my very possible loss of sanity: I frequently find myself to be on the edge of tears and laughter at the same time. I imagine going on vacation all by myself. I daydream about how much free time I'll have when I'm in my sixties. I constantly make the same to-do lists over and over and then subsequently lose those lists. I enjoy staring into space. ETC.

I do find a small measure of comfort in knowing that seventeen month olds become eighteen month olds and those eventually become two year olds and they go to school at some point and they all graduate one day and move out and start their own little families. I don't want to wish these days away but I am more than a little relieved that I won't always have a seventeen month old. In fact, my sanity depends on it.

This past weekend, just in time for Mothers' Day, I saw a card with J.D. Salinger's quote "Mothers are all slightly insane." I enjoyed the cleverness of his pithy little saying that was so obviously just J.D. being silly. And, then, after half a bag of chocolate chips and some serious wall-staring, I decided that J.D. was right. Only now I'm wondering if "slightly" really covers it.

Danger, Will Robinson!

Now that my earlier adrenaline rush has settled back to normal levels, I can calmly recount to you my mid-morning freak out, that is, if you're interested.

After a normal morning routine of diaper changing, breakfast for the men in my house, catching up with Matt, Meredith, Al and Ann, doing some laundry, diaper changing (did I mention that?), I had just leaned down to pick something up from the floor that had been tossed aside by a certain small person when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Within a split second, all my muscles had tensed up and I entered the Land of "No Reasoning Whatsoever." Outside, just beyond my car, there was a red Jeep Wrangler parked on the other side of our driveway. Aaaand, a man was sitting inside staring straight ahead, wearing a ball cap and what looked like some kind of barn jacket. I felt myself quickly sizing up the situation like I was on some sort of mountain version of a seriously dramatic crime show. Perhaps here is where I'll toss out the idea for Law & Order: Chattanooga, because obviously they need atleast one more spin off of L&O.

I hunched down and grabbed my phone. A quick phone call to the husband at work and all would be well. He'd come storming back home to confront this guy and then nimbly toss him off "our" property (we're renters). I waited calmly for him to answer and then launched into full "I am freaking out" mode. The husband did not, however, freak out. Nor did he offer to drive home. Rather, he suggested I hop in the car, drive by the man and roll down my window to politely ask what he was doing there. What?!?

And then, my friend Amy called, who was supposed to meet me for coffee down the mountain in just a bit. I filled her in on The Situation and told her I'd be at the bakery in 0.5 (aka 30) minutes. Unlike the husband, Amy was sympathetic to my plight. Let it be known that I will bring this up later when the aforementioned husband comes home tonight.

I quickly dressed Sam and I in our finest sweatsuit apparel and then, with beating heart and visions of villains dancing in my head, I bravely swung open the door.

Would he jump out of his Jeep and rush us? Would he grab Sam and make a run for it? Would he burn our house down with us in it? Would I have to fight him??? Luckily, I had done a few handstands in the den last night just to see if I could still do one and that little exercise made me confident that I was still limber enough to possibly wrestle this guy to the ground if it came to that.

And then he was getting out of his Jeep. (Insert suspenseful music here). I was rushing to our car to tuck Sam into his carseat so that my hands were free for fisticuffs. I glanced up to see this guy walking slightly toward us. I think he could tell that I wasn't going to be an easy target. He may have even been a little afraid of me (this is probably not true). But, then (DRAMATIC PAUSE) he said "Hi, Sam!" in a friendly voice. I stared at him awkwardly and then made even more awkward conversation while busily getting Sam buckled in and then hopping in myself.

Well, it turns out that my driveway interloper was, in fact, a foreman on the neverending construction project going on just past our front yard. He was overseeing his worker-men (an official term used by four-year olds everywhere) from the front seat of his Jeep (which, to be honest, still seems a little odd). Apparently, while my uber-extroverted mother in law was visiting yesterday, she had walked Sam down to meet the guys digging up our ditch and apparently made friends with this dude, thus his familiar greeting to my son.

All in all, it took about thirty minutes for my knees to stop shaking, but a latte and a Will-and-Kate-worthy scone (currant) from Niedlov's with Amy (who managed to look lovely even with semi-wet hair) was the perfect remedy for a minor nervous breakdown on my front stoop.

And so, all's well that end's well. But, seriously, all you worker-men out there need to drive something a teensy bit more official if you're going to hang out in my driveway. I'm not scared to fight you.

The Late, Late, Late Show

It's late (11:24 pm) and by some miracle, I'm still awake. Maybe 11:24 pm doesn't sound like late to you, but to this mom-with-a-tornado-for-a-child, it is waaaaaay past bedtime. So, you may be asking the question, why are you still up? Well, to be honest, I'm not sure. It could have something to do with the few (understatement) handfuls of chocolate chips I've recently consumed (hello, caffeinated sugar bomb). But, I think it has more to do with the fact that my time alone is rare, like Humpback Whale rare, and I'm trying to stretch it out as long as I can. So, now I'm up past my bedtime perusing websites that feature elaborate handmade pillows and framed fabric swatches with pithy sayings crocheted on them. Oh, and I'm also doing laundry, but that's nothing new (see blog sub-title). Basically, I'm wasting time. But, the important part here is that I'm wasting time all by my lonesome.

The husband is snoozing upstairs and I imagine the little guy is dreaming about cookies and The Backyardigans and endless sippy cup-fulls of Juicy Juice right about now. And so the house is quiet except for the sound of the dryer tossing around my last load of laundry for the night.

The house is mine for the moment and I find that I'm not even sure how to be this alone anymore. It used to be the norm most evenings (before the boys upstairs showed up) and now I find that I'm pretty unfamiliar with my own company. It's a curious thing to look into the mirror some mornings and realize that I don't know the person looking back at me as well as I used to.

Seven years of lovely/terrible singleness after college afforded me lots and lots of time to ponder my self, my personal dramas and heartaches, my plans and my hopes and the plethora of things under the category "my." And now, most everything about me revolves around none of those things anymore. And, in most ways, that's a really good thing. I've filled whole (seriously dramatic) journals about silly boys, detailing inevitable break-ups that I was nonetheless stunned by. I've spent hours and hours on the phone with friends dissecting relationships and pondering my particularly unique (and yet not so much) path through life ad nauseam.

I miss some of that time to myself, searching out the intricacies of what it meant to be me. But, now that I look back, I realize that a lot of time got wasted on stuff that really didn't matter a whole lot. I could have saved a significant number of trees if I'd volunteered at a soup kitchen instead of chronicling my little romances in dozens (and I mean dozens) of leather-bound journals. Twenty-something angst was quite the fodder for journals I hope I have the good sense to burn before I die.

Now that my life is summed up by laundry and cheerios, I have to admit that, despite its severe lack of personal introspection, it turns out that it's fulfilling in a way that all those years of near total self-focus never could be.

I could probably use a little more time to myself for things like taking a shower that lasts long enough to include shampooing AND conditioning or maybe reading the magazine I bought back in October. But, all in all, I think that the time I'm not spending on myself these days is better spent than any of those self-indulgent hours of journaling my personal dramas or staring out a window wondering when my life would start.

I may have digressed a little here. Obviously, alone time isn't always a slippery slope of narcissism. It's definitely a necessary part of healthy self-awareness, but I think God was on to something when He said "It is not good for man to be alone." I'm pretty sure He knew that community would be the place where we could be our best selves, rather than holing up with a journal (or an iPhone) somewhere.

Pause. I think I hear my bed calling me.

Well, if you made it this far, you may feel that you've just wasted some of your own precious time and I might agree with you. Late night blog posts are usually something I'd suggest you avoid. Now that I've done my share of rambling, I suppose it's time to hit the hay. Only seven more hours until the whirling dervish wakes up and demands a sippy cup. Sigh.

Goodnight, quiet house.

And Then She Got Old...

It's Thursday afternoon and I've just consumed more than my fair share of Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies (you can find that recipe here: vivagood.wordpress.com). And after this poor dietary choice (the quantity, not the quality), I found myself perusing People magazine's exhaustive list of 2011's "Hottest Twenty-Five Year Olds." This is the sort of thing that happens when Sam goes down for a nap and I am suddenly left alone for more than thirty seconds at a time. I usually spend approximately three minutes considering what sort of productive things I could do while Sam snoozes and then thirty minutes later I look up from People.com and wonder where the last half hour of my life went. I realize you're probably questioning my ability to make good decisions right now. And you should be.

Anyhoo, back to those twenty-five year old freaks of nature with their zero percent body fat and creamy complexions. I'm fine with them being so beautiful. Really, I am. I applaud them for their perfect genetic makeups, but I must admit that it irks me that they were awkward middle-schoolers (read: 14 years old) when I was busy graduating from college. You may be asking, Why does it even matter? Well, it doesn't. But, for the first time in my life I'm suddenly a bit skittish about an impending birthday and it's making me a teensy bit envious of all those twenty-somethings out there. I realize this means that I am jealous of a number. I want to be twenty-five again. Is that so wrong?

Hm. This is turning into a bit of an embarrassing confessional post here and I'm a little ashamed that it's come to this. I mean, I should leave the overly personal revelations to people who frequent Twitter, but, I currently need an outlet for my thirty-something angst and so, I apologize for any awkwardness you might be feeling for me right about now.

Thirty-three. It looms. It haunts my dreams. It laughs at me when I remember how I used to think that age was no big deal. Who cares that I'm thirty? It's no big thing. I still look twenty eight. Right? But, then along came THIRTY THREE with it's crows' feet and post baby stretch marks (I realize how TMI this is and I'll ask for forgiveness later). Thirty three is mid-thirties for crying out loud. MID-THIRTIES.

Sigh. Another bite of a cookie. Sighhhhhhh.

OK. I feel a little better. However, you probably don't. And so, as an apology for dumping on you like that, I'll leave you with this, a product of my thirties...

Ode to Florence Nightingale

A mere forty-eight hours ago, Matt called to let me know he was on his way home from work (early) and he didn't sound so hot. In fact, he sounded like he might be feeling a teensy bit nauseated. My heart began to beat a little faster, but I tried to stay calm. If you know me you know that, not only am I a bit OCD, I'm also a card-carrying, Purell-lovin', certified germophobe. So, you can imagine my concern when I hear that a potentially infectious disease might be making it's way to my house harbored by my dearly beloved husband.

Soon after the foreboding phone call, he came in and quickly ducked into the laundry room bathroom just inside the back door. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say, the plague had just entered my house. (ominous music score here).

May I point out a couple of milestones before we go on? Firstly, I have never known my husband to (ahem) lose his lunch since we've been been together. Secondly, we're almost never sick at the same time, which has meant that someone has always been there to take care of the other or take care of the little guy. Thirdly, I haven't tossed my cookies since I was SEVEN YEARS OLD. You may not have known this because a. I don't usually discuss these things and b. I never say this out loud for fear that I'll jinx my good luck.

The husband was promptly sent to bed with the computer and a copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel (not only is he handsome, he's literary too). I proceeded to have a small freak out and then decided to lysol (yes, it's a verb) everything. I didn't make it far before I too was feeling a little odd. However, due to a long and colorful history of hypochondria, I dismissed the minor stomach cramps and pounding headache.

One hour later and I was desperately calling for back-up (i.e. mom/grandma/florence nightingale).

While waiting for said back-up, I laid on the couch while my husband languished upstairs and Sam went from standing in front of the Veggie Tales I'd managed to turn on and back over to the couch to pat my head (seriously, how sweet is that?).

And then, after poor Sam had been put to bed with only milk for dinner and still in his playclothes and Matt and I laid on either end of the couch watching a movie we were less than interested in, our very own personal superhero arrived bearing two flavors of powerade and some major get-well know how. Huzzah!

Despite the unfortunate catalyst for our little family slumber party, the last twenty-four hours have managed to be a pretty darn good time: John Wayne movies, fun times with Sam (who hasn't caught the plague yet and we're PRAYING that he doesn't), cookie-baking (only after all nausea had passed), chatting over hot tea, etc.

And so, it turns out that the very best medicine of all is a rescue visit from MOM (imagine this word bedazzled). It was almost worth the getting sick part...almost.

Now that mom/grandma/florence nightingale/superhero is on her way back to where she swooped in from, I'm off to make up for all those calories I lost over the past two days. Hello, half-full bag of chocolate chips. Let's reacquaint ourselves.