Fall and Love

Fall is in the air and we are inhaling it deeply in big, monstrous breaths.  This is my time of year.  I finally stop sweating, the bugs have begun to retreat, and everything begins to take on this gorgeous orange-yellow-red hue.  It’s perfect.  Though life has not slowed down one iota for us over here, we made sure to cram in a good ole’fashioned picking weekend filled to the brim with all that is fall.

 

I’m not a full-blown “PSL” nut but I’m damn close and I flew that flag high last weekend.  We certainly had a fall hangover; complete with cider donut sugar covered fingers and I may still be feeling the effects.   It was a day full of family and fun, and full bellies and all the things that make me yearn for this time of year for the other 276 days of the calendar.

This past week had us planning for Jack’s Herd’s Random Acts of Kindness day, which took place on Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day on October 15^th.  We made and printed cards and brainstormed different ways to spread some kindness through this world in memory of Jack and all of the other angel babies this earth has lost.  So when Saturday rolled around, me and so many of the people I am lucky to call mine, set out to send some good juju out there.  It was amazing in so many ways.  It was like I took a heaping dose of healing love because I felt good and, truth be told, I needed it to prepare me for the weekend I was heading into. 

I had made plans to make our annual trip to Boston to visit our friends, Jen and Andrew, and their new addition, baby Oliver.  As with everything these busy days, I didn’t think to check the calendar and Sean was double-booked so he was out and it became a Mommy and Kennedy visit. I was nervous.  We made plans to stay in their new apartment they recently moved into and I suddenly was terrified I wouldn't be able to handle staying there with a brand new baby overnight and without Sean to top it off.  As we drove, Kennedy excitedly talked about holding the baby and we covered the rules: quiet voices, clean hands, and no wild stuff.  She assured me, clearly annoyed that I had implied anything else would happen, that I didn’t have to tell her that.

The moment we stepped foot into their gorgeous new life, my loving friends that looked like naturals welcoming us with open arms, my nervousness dissolved and it was my bold little lady that clamed-up.  She got incredibly quiet and hid behind my legs, unsure of what to make of a situation that was so foreign to anything she could remember.  She has been around new babies but not in the last year and half where she would have any clear memories.  So while we settled in, washed hands and prepared to meet little Oliver formally, she kept whispering, “Mama, you have to help me.”

 The second she held him though, the big sister buried within her heart showed through with a light that I would only be able to describe as magnificent.  She kissed his amazingly chubby cheeks, patted his bum, and even sang the song, word for word, that I sing her at bed every night.  I’d be lying if I said that this didn’t tear the precariously placed stitches of my broken heart but I held myself together.  That is, until I was in the bathroom and I could hear Kennedy, in her little pixie voice, tell Jen, “We don’t have a baby anymore, he died, but I’m still a big sister,” and my beautiful friend, whose presence soothes me immeasurably, responded, “Yes I know we are all still so sad and yes, you are such a wonderful big sister.”  With that the tears, which I knew would come, flowed freely; I got myself together quickly and from then on it was genuine smiles and happiness and all the love a one-month-old evokes.

We took walks, enjoyed a final meal at a favorite restaurant that would close its door that night for the last night, and passed the little bundle of love around, taking turns with the shushing, bouncing, parent walk that was like riding a bike.  As I rocked this gorgeous little boy to sleep last night, my heart couldn't help but remind me of what could have been.  My empty arms felt as full as my heart and, though there was a definite sadness within me, I mostly felt grateful; grateful to my friends for sharing their baby boy with my little girl and me for a few days.

Sean and our parents sent a lantern up to our boy at the Ohana Foundation’s 2^nd Annual Wave of Light.  I was sad to miss it but my heart knew where it needed to be this weekend and so in my absence this amazing man showed me, yet again, what a wonderful daddy he is.

It is weekends like these past two that show me that even though grief is still very much woven into the fabric that is my life, there is still so much good that shines through. 

Off to eat a slice of Pumpkin Spice Swirl bread…

Tiny Battles

Lately, I feel like everywhere I look on my social media outlets I see moms that are nailing it; happy kids, smile on their faces, loving every minute of what’s taking place.  I hate those mamas.  No, not true- I love most of them very dearly and admire all of them.  Lately though, as a mom, I feel like (excuse my French!) A. F*cking. Mess.  Seriously, I’m a disaster.  I’m in desperate need of that guy that does voice overs for the Johnson & Johnson baby wash commercials to tell me I’m doing a good job (you know the one!).  However I could not star in said commercial with said voiceover, nor could my kid.  For those commercials to do their inspirational duties the people should look like my social media tribe not like it looks in my house lately:  yelling, frazzled, frustrated, sometimes crying mom and pouting, shouting, hands-on-hips, humphing child- no one enjoying the others company very much. 

I’ve gone back to work and the working mom gig is upon me with a vengeance.  I wake up earlier than I need to for the fear of running late, get ready as quietly as I can so I don’t wake Kennedy.  If I wake her, I have to multitask getting ready and attending to her which inevitable leads to me rushing around and running behind, getting frustrated with her when she gets frustrated with me for various reasons.  I leave her with Sean’s mom for the day and unwind on my way into work-just in time to get wound back up at work.  I usually battle some form of traffic, get Kennedy from my mother-in-law’s house, and drive home while she asks me, “What do you want to do fun when we get home?”   Knowing we usually have something to do that she will no doubt think is the exact opposite of fun; I avoid answering her questions and the whining and tears that will follow until we make it through the door.

Then the fun really begins. 

I ask her to do something-put away a toy, sit at the table for dinner, eat just a tiny bit of what we’ve made, take her bath, let me brush her hair- and she loses her mind and then I lose my mind and down we spiral.  It usually ends with her going to her room, but not before I’ve yelled, then remember to count her, but end up yelling when she just counts back at me.  The grand finale is when she tells me she just wants Sean’s mom because all I do is yell at her.  Then I lie in bed and wonder what damage I’ve done with her.  Really.  Long-term memories are now being formed in her little mind and I am really nervous about what will be getting stored and how I will look to her when she remembers.

 I don’t want to battle her.  Not a four anyway.  I know what is coming down the road- that I was preparing for eventually but I grossly underestimated the toddler/preschool years.  

This past Friday, I lost it.  A very good friend and co-worker of mind just happened to ask a small-talk question about my little girl and I just lost it.  I was a crying mess.  I love my kid, like in an I’ve-lost-a-child-and-know-how-precious-they-are kind of way.  But the truth is I am struggling lately.  I feel this immense amount of guilt sometimes because I feel like a mother in my shoes shouldn’t complain about her only surviving child.  My friend, calm and collected as it is, put it very matter-of-factly, “you have to schedule time with her,” she told me.  “Give her ten uninterrupted minutes, no phone, nothing.  It will make a difference.”  And it did.  We played hockey outside, laughed at Snap Chat selfies we took, and read a few books snuggled in her bed.  No tears, no yelling.   And then I felt even worse.  All this kid wanted, no, NEEDED from me was ten minutes and I hadn’t been giving her that?  I mean, COME ON.  And who has to schedule in time for their child in their day?  This lady, right here.   And so I’ll do it.  All of the tears, from both of us, that could have been avoided if I just remembered to put everything else on hold for 10 minutes; work, housework, grieving, Sean, all of it.  Because I have done my best to keep my head above water for my baby girl this past year and a half but I owe her better than I’ve been giving.

I caught a few smiles on our trip to Long Island, but they were few and far between and I was reduced to taking a picture of her sleeping (after she had a melt down and passed out).  Now I know what you are all thinking, People only post pictures of the good times, the smiles.  That’s all fine and well and I know deep down that, for the most part, is true but I need to find a gaggle of hot-mess moms that post pictures of their mom-fails.  Now that’s my tribe.  In fact I may be their long lost chief.

We’ve got some fun planned for the weekend and I’m hoping for a few more smiles from all of us. 

Gotta run….my ten minutes is calling. 

The House That Built Us

I will start this post with an overly sad, sentimental song that has looped through my head for the last few months:

                                          

Any time I think about my parents moving away from the home they have lived in for the last 30 years, literally all of my entire life, I hear these lyrics.  This past weekend we travelled down to Long Island to my childhood, perhaps for the last time, to take some pictures there for my parents. 

Now, last week didn’t end as great as it started and so I was already pretty emotionally drained.  There are certain instances I try to mentally prepare for.  Well, let’s be honest: I’m a planner and so I literally try to plan for EVERYTHING.  It’s unrealistic and ultimately causes a whole lot more stress than it eases but I digress.  A coworker stopped by with her new baby, everyone (totally understandably) went nuts oohing and ahhing, and I lost it, which only made me feel like a bad person for not saying hi or acknowledging her new little muffin, but I just couldn’t hold myself together.  And so, making my way down to sleep at “my” house, maybe one last time, seemed all the more emotional. 

Truly, we had a great time there.  We stayed up late laughing with my parents and woke up early, laughing with each other.  We swam in the pool that was put in far too late for us older kids to fully take advantage of and enjoy but that our kids can’t get enough of.  We put the kiddos down for naps, fingers crossed that they would sleep long enough to ensure there were no meltdowns.  Turns out, there isn’t a nap long enough to make that a guarantee.

By the time everyone had his or her acts together, dressed, groomed, and otherwise presentable it was already exhausting.  We were down one brother and one brother-in-law; you’d have an easier time staging a coup in North Korea than you would trying to organize a time when 6 adult children and their spouses and children can come together at the exact same moment.  As best we could, we made it happen. 

When Sean, Kennedy and I sat down for our family shots my little bug refused to cooperate and sit where she was asked.  I was convinced we wouldn’t get one good picture of us.  Really, the truth is, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I will never have a complete family photo.  Not ever, and it was heartbreaking to think about.  The amazingly patient photographer snapped away, we bickered in between poses as only a family can do; there were tantrums and tears and an abundance of snacks meant to placate cranky toddlers. 

When it was all said and done we were drained- every single one of us.  I watched my parents pose together on the porch of a home they quite literally built to raise their six children in.  I watched my sister sit with her boys on the steps we took her wedding pictures on.  My brother sat with his wife and daughter on the porch he would storm off of angrily years ago and the one he returned to much more put together years later.  I saw boys that used sit and wait for the ice cream man to pass when they swore they may have hear his bell about 12 miles away.  Sean and I sat on the steps he used to pick me up for dates on the summers between semesters of college. 

A house can hold so much history, good and bad.  There is a lot in that house.  The house served it's purpose.  It provided as good a home most people can hope for in life.  Everyone is sad to let it go, no one more than my mom and dad.  A little surprisingly, I believe I am a close second.  This truly is the house that built me.  Maybe not so much the house itself but the life that began there, making me strong enough to be able to attempt to live the life that is now laid before me; a life missing a very big part from it.  

While his little face maybe never be in any our family pictures, Jack’s presence was definitely there that day.  When we got the pictures back, it was like magic.  The sun was incredible, everyone looked so happy, and it was like his big sister knew to leave a space for him; a space between Sean and me that will always be filled with an enormous amount of love and a little sadness mixed in there too.

Happy birthday to the love of my life.  Thank you for taking such good care of your girls.