Rejection-once-removed

I can remember as a kid having a conflict with a friend or group of friends from time to time.  It wasn't very often and it was never anything too serious.  I think I always assumed my mom never had a clue as to what was going on.  She’d ask from time to time if I had seen or talked to so-and-so lately and I’d give her a vague response, hoping she wouldn't press for more dirt, not wanting her to know I was feeling sad or rejected by kids I was friends with, or thought I was.  And when the friends started popping up in my tales of school again, or I'd start asking to have them over to our house or go to theirs, she never made a big deal of it.  As the mama of an almost four-year-old that attends pre-school two days a week, I am learning this acquired art form of dealing with rejection-once-removed  and, trust me, it is not nearly easy as she made it look.

Back before our preschool days, Kennedy’s friends consisted of my friends children.  We knew almost everything about them, and their parents, and generally how they are being raised.  They were the kids she spent time with, but it was always with us.

Kennedy is a talker.  She started talking late but once she started, she's never stopped.  She’ll talk to anyone; during hockey practice, in the grocery store, in the dentist’s chair, Target, anywhere. So, when she started school and came home the very first day talking all about the kids and her new friends, we laughed and imagined her bossing everyone around in her helpful little way.  When I’d call on my way home from work so see how school was each Tuesday and Thursday, she’d always talk about the same little girl, how they played together, and ate snack together and played on the seahorse outside (don’t ask me what that is-I have zero clue). “She’s my best friend,” Kennedy would tell anyone that asked.  I loved that; that she, so early, could distinguish a closeness with one person over others.

And then, one afternoon about two weeks ago, she told me she felt sad.  I asked why and she said, “I wasn’t allowed to play with so-and-so because she has a new friend and they told me I couldn't play with them.”  It crushed me, breaking my already fragile heart a little more.  How could they say that to her, to my little girl, who at almost-four is clearly as loyal as they come to her people? Who the f#&! did these little brats think they were?! I was livid, but my mama instincts kicked in and I didn’t tip my hand to Kennedy.  Instead, I calmly said, “I’m sorry baby, why don't you ask them if you can play with them on Thursday?”  She told me it was ok because a little boy in the class asked her to play with him and the new girl and they had fun.  But when I got home Thursday and asked how things went, she told me her friend wouldn't let her talk to her, that she kept running away. 

I was beside myself, thinking that I couldn't believe this kind of shit happens this young-I mean they are practically still babies for goodness-sake.  I asked Sean what we should do, should I call the school?  He, as he always does, calmed me down and told me we couldn't be sure that Kennedy was interpreting what was happening the right way.  It went on like this for another week and I tried to keep reinforcing that it was so nice that she was playing with new friends and that she could tell her teacher if she was feeling sad in school and they would help her.  But would they?  Could I be sure of that?

This past Tuesday, I’d convinced myself that, if she came home from school that day and said it was still going on, I would call and ask what was going on.  It was Pajama Day and she wore her new jammies and armed herself with a big smile.  I worried all day at work how she did, knowing full well (being that I work in a middle school as a counselor) this is how so many kids go through their days at school.  I wondered how their parents feel when I call to let them know that their child is struggling socially.  I dreaded even asking how the day went as I came in the door; I couldn’t bear to see her look anything but happy.  I didn't have to ask though because she came flying at me, yelling, “Mommy they played with me today! We’re friends again!”

You know what I thought: Well the hell with both of them! You don't need a friend that is such a follower; that would treat her friend badly just because someone else tells her to! But instead, swallowing my rejection-once-removed, I said, “Oh lovey, that's such good news! How was pajama day?”

That's the thing about being a parent, you have this crazed urge to slap the face of anyone that wrongs your baby, but you don't.  You model for your kids how to absorb a little disappointment and teach them how to ask for help.  You don't push too hard, and you don't solve every problem for them.  And after all, it could be awkward when the kid whose face you slapped just a week before shows up to play at your house with their best friend!

Once Upon a Time....

Once upon a time I met a boy.  I met a boy and he stole my heart.  This was somewhat of a problem since I had recently decided, with all of my eighteen year old wisdom, that I didn’t need to get married.  I would be content to wander this world solo.  But I met this boy and I knew almost immediately that I to be fully happy, I would need him with me.

That was almost thirteen years ago. 

Sean and I have grown up together.  We have had fun, we’ve argued, we have made plans that were great and others that we laugh at now; we’ve laughed, hard, to the point where we can barely breathe.  And so when he asked me to marry him, at only twenty-three, though no one we knew was getting engaged or really knew what they wanted in life, there was no hesitation. 

That day we were two kids that put on some nice clothes and stood in front of everyone we knew and made promises that, at the time we didn’t realize how deeply we meant them.  I loved him more that day than I thought my heart could hold.  It was a day where the last drop of cynicism melted away; it was like I was in a real life fairy tale.

But you see, in fairy tales, it generally ends at the fantastical wedding.  We are only left to wonder what came next.  Well I will tell you.  There is an adorable apartment, a few months renting my new in-law’s house, there was house hunting and house buying.  And my God, the happiness that was thrown in between those bits would probably be nauseating to read about, but it's there.  Real honest to God happiness.

And then she came.  Kennedy was born and she just fit so perfectly into the life we were carving out.  And I feel deeper in love with him.  The new role of “Daddy” fit him so perfectly.  Watching him come home after work and living for his little naps with her on the couch or chair; it was like pure magic.  I’m smiling now just thinking about it and mentally going through the hundreds of pictures I know I took of them.  And so if you think you love a man before a kid is in the picture, you probably haven’t even scratched the surface.

This boy I fell in love with took such good care of his girls.  He was ever- surrounded by pink, and princesses, wearing crowns if asked, eating play food that was cooked, holding dolls if handed to him; he took it in stride like he was made to do it.  Friends and co-workers would constantly ask me if I knew how lucky I was, how amazing Sean was.  I did, though I downplayed, never wanting to seem obnoxious.  Truthfully, I hadn’t even seen yet just how amazing he really was.

Unfortunately, the way in which I learned that was heart-wrenching.  We learned we were having a baby boy.  And though, for many people, it could seem like the worst thing in the world, when we learned Jack would have Down Syndrome Sean never cried.  He wanted to know everything about it.  He wanted to be ready.  And I loved him even more.  I kept wondering how much love my heart could hold before it reached it’s threshold.

Even in our darkest hour, saying goodbye to our precious boy, I could still see my love for this boy I fallen in love with so many years before.  I wasn’t strong enough to give our boy back, and so this beautiful man did it for me.  And though my heart broke into a million pieces, each piece retained that love.  He put up and loved me through the worst of it; the days I could do nothing more than sit up in bed, he took over my role too.  I could never have made it through this past year without him.  And to look back and remember how I feared our relationship could not withstand something like that, that statistics showed many marriages do not survive the loss of a child, it seems silly because I only love him more.

We play, we joke around and give each other a hard time, we dance,  we argue and God do we still laugh.  I laugh as he runs up and down our narrow hallway, chasing the little girl that has him wrapped around her finger.  I laugh as he argues and jokes with my siblings as if they were really his own.  Six years (or thirteen if you choose to count it all) and I love this boy in a way I can’t really understand.  It is not perfect, nothing ever is, but it’s damn close.  And so when my friends say, “Sean is so amazing, you don’t know how lucky you are,” the thing is, I do.  I really, truly do.

One of my favorite songs by Lady Antebellum has a line in it that goes:

“For me you’ll always be eighteen,

And beautiful, and dancing away

With my heart.”

It is so fitting it is as if I spoke the words myself.  And so, this fairy tale, the story keeps going, the love just keeps coming; it’s imperfect, sometimes sad, sometimes messy,  but that love….

It is a love I wish for my daughter with all of my heart. It is a love I sometimes feel like I haven’t done enough good in this life to deserve.

Happy Anniversary, Sean Patrick.  You are my fairy tale, my happily ever after and, for me, will always be eighteen, and beautiful, and dancing away with my heart.

Utopia, or Something Like it

Sleeping late, savoring a few cups of morning coffee, catching up on shows that are on far too late for this mama to watch live, binge watching shows of my teenage years: these are the things a week off should be made of- in Utopia.  Not that I didn’t get a version of this, it was just had it snippets mixed into busy, fun days.

We had our annual visit from my cousin and his family.  It’s so fun to see how much has changed from year to year, visit to visit.  Last year they were so hesitant to come, nervous that it was too soon after we lost Jack, less than a month, and that we wouldn't want them there.  Seeing them then was probably the best thing that could have happened to Sean and I, they were and have been so incredibly supportive; it has been invaluable.  The kids get such a kick out of each other and the years between them don’t seem so great.  Living away from the extended family that we were close with growing up, my sister and I were afraid our kids would feel disconnected from them; it hasn’t and we love it.

It was a visit we look forward to all year and it was good.

We had a few lazy days mixed in where my girl and I drank in the time we had together.  If she told me I was her best friend once, she told me a dozen times and I ate it up.  I watched this little girl-no traces of a baby left- who somehow, as her little world irrevocably changed, still manages to grow and flourish.  Though she talks of things that no 3-½ year old should have to understand, in ways that could break your heart.  While we were driving in the car she said, “Not everyone’s baby dies.”  While playing with her new, ridiculous collection of Tsum Tsums (“well, they don't do anything, they just stand there,” she answered her bewildered Uncle Dyl) she asked, “Died means your heart stopped working, right Mommy?”  These questions take my breath away.  Every time.  I was steaming Sean’s shirt for the wedding we were going to attend the next day she came into my bedroom and said, “I would have been a good such a nice girl to Jack.  I would have let him play with my toys and play pirates with him,” and the only thing I could choke out was, “I know, baby.”  I often wonder what makes her talk about him in bursts when we could go weeks other times and she never mentions him.  My guess is, seeing her cousins with their little brothers, got her little mind working, thinking about how it would have been for her.  Who knows.  But my hope is that her heart never hurts, for even a moment, the way mine does at times.

This was all her....I swear

We changed gears Friday night, and played grown-up.  We threw on a suit and a gown and celebrated two of our good friends marriage.  It’s a beautiful thing seeing two people so happy as they begin their life together.  The smiles, the kisses prompted by clinking glasses, the dances.  Oh the dances; I’m not much of a crier at weddings but watching my friend’s adorable father stroke her hair and crying as they danced, I looked at Sean and saw the look in his eye and knew he was thinking of his girl and the tears were approaching the surface.  When the groom took the floor with his mama, though, the floodgates opened.  I couldn’t help but think, that though it may not be at his wedding, I lost my own little dance partner; we’re dancers in this house and no doubt Jack would have learned to dance right along with the rest of us.  I dried my eyes as quickly as I could and took the night for what it was meant to be: fun.  And it was.

I love a week off, busy or not.  Utopia may not exist, but you can get close and in my mind the countdown begins for the next one, planning how it will be spent.  As long as it is with the people I love, I’ll take it all.  And thing about a broken heart is, as long as you keep moving forward, it can't help but heal, little by little.