Messy and Blessed

Recently, my husband and I finally admitted that we can't do everything. (Shocking, I know.)
Completely overwhelmed by full-time jobs, two kids who deposit toys, shoes, and occasionally bodily fluids in every corner of our house, and the growing realization that as hard as we will it, the universe will never randomly supply us with more hours in a day, we hired a cleaning lady.

What? I like him, he licks me. No problem.

But that's not really what this post is about. As awesome as it is to walk into the house once every other week and breathe in the aroma of industrial strength cleaner - because yes, the first time she came to clean, she texted me to say that she wasn't satisfied with my tub and would need to bring something stronger next time - and feel like Ceci can roll around on the living room carpet without collecting a layer of dog hair, let's be honest: It takes about five minutes for the mess to resurface.

It's weird; I don't think I ever used to be anal, but at this point in my life, there's not a whole lot I can control. I spend my days with hormonal 7th graders and my time away from work with two of the most temperamental people I've ever encountered, plus a baby. (Did you catch that one? What a zinger. I got my husband good!) Consequently, I end up focusing a lot of my attention on the mess. Sometimes it feels like if I can put everything back in its proper place, I'll feel a little bit saner. God knows I don't feel sane when I walk into my home feeling like an alpaca carrying bags full of school work, lunches, gym clothes, and bottles that need to be washed, plus a baby carrier that weighs about 87 pounds, and I immediately have to get people fed and try to find a place for all of the crap that I just brought into my house.

But anyway. I have spent countless hours wandering around my house trying to clean up, getting distracted in each messy room that I enter, while Maggie tugs at my sleeve asking me to play with her and Ceci tries to eat some unidentifiable item she just found on the floor. And still, even when I know that my kids need me, it's hard to just let the mess go.

I'm aware enough to know what this whole issue is really about. I realize that my life will probably never be orderly again, if it ever was. I know that I am fighting a losing battle, yet the impulse to clean up never really leaves me. So what is there to do? Feel forever unsatisfied with my environment? Get the cleaning lady to come more often? Once a week? Every day? Would I feel saner then?

And this is why we don't use our tupperware for storing food.

Acceptance, I find, is a difficult step to take, especially when it comes to our own imperfections. I will never be able to do it all. I will always fall short in some respect. But even people in my situation, who often question their soundness of mind, (and I'm talking about parents, in case anyone didn't pick up on that), have enough sense to ask themselves, "What is going to define me? My failure to vacuum under the kitchen table after my child eats graham crackers, or the way my daughter uses her manners to ask for another bowl of cereal? My inability to keep track of dirty socks, or the fact that I've figured out how to get the baby to fall asleep without crying?"

The mess will always be there, but let's face it, parenthood is a messy business. So what if Ceci's butt always has a film of dirt on it, since she refuses to crawl and drags her bottom across the floor like a human Swiffer? That's what we have daily loads of laundry for. So what if there are Maggie-prints on every window in our home? At least she cares about the world outside.  It's sometimes hard to see the mess as a blessing, but when I think about who made it, well, what else would it be?

It's Only Temporary

Disclaimer: Since giving birth to Cecilia Marie on July 3rd, almost seven weeks ago, my brain has turned to mush. I've wanted so badly to put my first post-baby-number-two blog out into the world, but every time I sit down to write I realize that every word on the screen sounds like someone who is trying desperately not to come off as a sleep-deprived maniac. Therefore, I give up. I embrace my temporary dumbness and ask you to please forgive me if my train of thought well, derails. I assure you that I will soon reclaim my ability to think clearly and write sensibly, although the copious amounts of "Say Yes to the Dress" I've been watching while on maternity leave with Ceci probably aren't helping with that.

Now. Remember how I was really, really freaked out about having another baby? Trying to figure out how she would fit into the family dynamic, how her arrival would affect Maggie, how my husband and I, whose time is stretched too thin as it is, would ever arrange our lives to accommodate one more person's schedule? In some ways, waiting for the second baby was even scarier than the first - it kind of felt like something I was bracing myself for.

So, when Ceci came after a long but relatively easy induction (and an early epidural), and we had introduced her to her big sister, who was faintly suspicious at first but fell quickly in love with "her baby", and Matt and I were left with this precious, sleeping angel in a quiet hospital room, feeling so much more confident and at peace than we had the first time around, I was surprised, to say the least. During the first few days, I kept waiting for things to feel hard or overwhelming. Then, weeks had passed, and we were doing just fine. I recovered from the delivery much faster than I had with Maggie, mostly because having a two-year-old prevented me from loafing. We went for walks around the neighborhood with Maggie helping push the stroller, and Matt watched Ceci in between feedings so Maggie and I could occasionally get out and spend some time together alone. Anytime a friend or family member would call and sympathetically ask how I was doing, my honest answer was always, "We're actually doing great." Having done it all - the diapers, the crying, the nursing, the late hours - once before, it was like riding a bike, minus the anxiety and fear of failure that we had experienced the first time around.

Some of the hardest moments, but also in a way the most beautiful, have been the times when deja vu takes over. An example: very early on, when Ceci was only a couple weeks old, I found myself holding Ceci's tiny hand while she was nursing. It was a simple gesture of connection with my new baby, but in that moment I was completely and suddenly transported back to a time when I did the same thing with a two-week-old Maggie. She was right there in my arms, my first, the little person who changed my life. Then it passed, and it wasn't Maggie but Cecilia I was holding, and Maggie was again the big girl she has become: smart, funny, stubborn, and sometimes naughty, but never again all mine the way she was when she was a baby.

It happens this way from time to time, and as the days go by faster and I find myself returning to work in two weeks, I try to remind myself that it's all temporary. Before Ceci was born I wanted to rush through the newborn stage and the sleeplessness and fogginess that comes with it. But this stage, every stage, is over before you know it. There will always be something worth missing, which means that there is always something, more than you realize, worth enjoying.

#1 Fan

During my six years as a teacher, one issue I've run into fairly often is the child whose parents are utterly convinced that their son or daughter is incapable of being mean, lazy, disrespectful, or inattentive.  If they make a grade below an A, it must be the teacher's fault. This is the child who fails to take responsibility for forgetting to complete an assignment and who responds, "Well, I wasn't the only one talking," when you ask him or her to be quiet. Naturally, most teachers blame this student's shortcomings on the parents' belief that their child can do no wrong. At some point, a parent has to do society a favor and realize that no one, not even their sweet little reason for existing, is perfect. They need to stop being their child's number-one fan and start taking on the role of coach, which has its share of high-fives but can also get downright ugly at times. With that said...

Now that I'm a parent, I can almost see where these people are coming from.  I think Maggie is God's most amazing creation. She is hilarious, beautiful, a budding genius. 90% of the time when I'm not with her, I want to be talking about her. I've taken thousands of pictures, hours of video, and I don't really ever get sick of looking at or watching them.

I love that she doesn't known how to lie to me yet. Here's one exchange that occurred a couple of months ago when I picked her up from daycare:
Me: "What did you do today?"
Maggie: "Went to Ann's office." (Ann is the director of the daycare.)
Me: "Why did you go to Ann's office?"
Maggie: "I bite people."
Another example, this one from her "art show" at daycare:
Me: "Is that your firetruck? Did you make it?"
Maggie: "Betty made it." (Betty is her teacher.)
Me: "But you helped, right?"
Maggie: "Not really..."

I love the way she pronounces "music" moogit. I love when she gets our attention by saying, "my mama" or "my daddy" instead of just mama or daddy. I love that everywhere she goes - Sunday school, the Y, daycare, the library - people comment on how much she loves books. I love how she picks up phrases she hears around her and surprises us with them, like examining my earrings and asking me, "They from Target?" I love how excited she is to be a big sister. It completely melted my heart when she was sitting on my lap reading stories one night. "Do you feel the baby kicking you?" I asked. "It not kicking me," she said. "It giving me a hug!"

I admit it: I am obsessed with my daughter. And I have no doubt that I will be equally obsessed with the new baby as soon as he or she arrives (two weeks, people!). So I kind of get it. For most parents, kids are the best thing that ever happened to them. They seem to undo all the dumb things we've done in our lives and give us something pure to focus our energy on. But just because my babies are perfect to me, does that mean they'll never have anything to learn? Or never say something nasty that they shouldn't say? Or never "bite people"? Adoring my daughter is important, but the time is approaching even now when it will be even more important to teach her that she is not the only person in the world, not more special or deserving than anyone else-- even if my warped parental sensibilities are screaming the opposite every step of the way.

Number Two

First off, this post title does not refer to poop, though admittedly that is what I have been feeling like lately. The school year is winding down (six full days and two half-days to go!), and I am TIRED. I remember being tired when I was pregnant with Maggie, particularly at the beginning, but this type of exhaustion is new to me. During my planning periods I have to fight the urge to put my head on my desk and use the stack of papers waiting to be graded as a pillow. When I get home after picking up Maggie, I manage to get her something to eat and then sit at the kitchen table with her for as long as humanly possible while Matt gets home and cleans up after me. I feel like a perfect example of the law, "An object at rest stays at rest." Motion of any kind is rough these days.

Meanwhile, I have been racking my brain for subjects to blog about, but my brain is pretty much on the same page as my body. It doesn't follow basic commands. Coherent thoughts get sucked into the vortex of fatigue. The fact that I'm currently stringing words into sentences is a miracle. However, I don't want to lose the momentum I gained when I first started writing, so what follows is the best I can come up with:

Number Two. The second pregnancy. The second child. It's a topic I've been meaning to write about for quite some time, but devoting a blog post to it is admitting that it's actually happening. Just saying it kind of gives me a panic attack. As of today, I am five weeks and one day from my due date. Clearly, it IS happening. Change is imminent. And I am freaking out.

I don't mean to alarm anyone with my mental state. My children, my husband, and I will get through this transition unscathed. There's no need to alert the authorities that a crazy lady is about to give birth. I absolutely want this child, and chances are good that I'll go through this all yet another time after this. If  it were possible to pour out all of my anxieties about number two and sift through them, there's definitely excitement mixed in there as well. I am dying to meet this little person and see who he or she is going to be.

That said, this second time around I know what lies ahead of me in the coming weeks and months, and only a truly crazy person would look forward to it. Labor? Seriously, does anyone WANT to do that again? My first time around I was dead-set against getting an epidural. I recall my words sounding something like this: "This is what my body was made for. I can do this on my own." We bought scented oils and a back massager and made a labor playlist for my iPod. After about 24 hours of hard labor at home, though, my beautiful feminist sentiments had crumbled and an epidural became my new best friend. I still smile wistfully when I think about that needle entering my back, and I look forward to greeting my old friend again this time around.

Then there's the whole newborn stage. When I was pregnant with Maggie, I attended a school holiday party where I oohed and ahhed over a colleague's five-week-old son. "Yeah..." she said, in response to my gushing. "It's not my favorite stage." At the time, I thought it was a slightly awful thing to say, but now, comparing my articulate, relatively independent, mobile two-year-old to the emotionally unreachable yet completely dependent blob she was as a newborn, how can I blame her? Up until Maggie was at least six months old, I was covered in pee, poop, or spit-up often enough that I stopped bothering with a change of clothes in between and just waited until bedtime. Am I particularly excited about returning to that state of being?

Yes, there are certain things that I can count on experiencing as the mother of a newborn, but some of my panic also comes from the unknowns of adding another human being to my family. As awesome as Maggie is, she can be a handful- really, two hands full. How am I going to handle a tantrum with a baby hanging from me? How am I going to get both kids to go to sleep and still leave time for me and Matt?

The answer, obviously, is that I'll figure it out. People generally do. But one piece of advice for you, reader: When it's three in the morning and I'm calling or texting or posting in complete desperation and sleep deprivation, it's probably best not to tell me that. Crazy people don't usually respond well to sound logic.

Guilty as Charged

Is it just me, or does guilt instantly become your default emotion the minute you become a parent?

Things I have felt guilty about since becoming a parent:

1. Not spending enough time with my daughter
2. Not spending enough time with my husband
3. Not spending enough time becoming a better teacher
4. Not taking enough "me" time
5. Not working out or eating healthy enough
6. Not reading enough books
7. Not staying up-to-date on current events
8. Not volunteering 
9. Not being a good enough friend. Sometimes I'm too absorbed in my own family and daughter to really pay attention to my friends' needs and problems. Then there's the issue of not being able to be at every wedding shower, bachelorette, wedding, birthday, etc. 
10. Not calling my grandma often enough
11. Not keeping my house clean enough
12. Not being the mom that my mom is. I can't make an apple pie, sew, or french braid hair.
13. Not telling my mom often enough how much I admire the mom she is
14. Letting Maggie watch TV
15. Letting Maggie snack too much
16. Telling Maggie, "Just one minute" when what I really mean is, "I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing until I can't take your harassment anymore and have to see what you want."
17. Giving Maggie what she wants when she probably should get a time out
18. Totally neglecting my poor dog, who just wants someone to snuggle with
19. Thinking about what I have to do while I'm in the middle of a conversation with another person
20. Going days without checking anything off of my to-do list

Ok, so that's twenty, and honestly I could keep going. I do have two and half years of guilt to catalog. In fact, let me be even more specific by doing a quick run-down of the guilt I've felt just today.

1. Maggie climbed into bed with us at 7:00 this morning and I tried to pawn her off on Matt so I could keep sleeping, even though I went to bed before him. So, I felt guilty about trying to get him to do the work AND I felt guilty about wanting to be in bed rather than spending that time with her.
2. I felt guilty about having two cups of half-caf coffee and another small cup of regular this morning. Doctor said it was okay, but what if I'm giving this kid a super-dose of ADHD while in utero?
3. While Maggie and I were getting ready for church, she continually ignored instructions I gave her. Despite a clear warning, Supernanny-style, she still refused to listen, so I took away the one privilege she was really looking forward to: Sunday School. What kind of a mother punishes her child by not letting her go to church? Matt totally backed me up on this one, but I still felt like this was a dubious victory on my part.
4. Throughout the entire church service, I couldn't get my brain to focus. Weekends have been crazy lately and I've barely been to church, and there I was, glancing at my phone, thinking about the week to come, and still fretting about the Sunday School decision.
5. I let the kid eat macaroni for lunch. AGAIN. 
6. My students' state test for my subject is on Friday, and they still have some major review to do. I had wanted to hand out a review sheet in class tomorrow, but guess what? It's not ready. Worked on it for a little while just to decide that I'd finish it tomorrow and email it to them. 
7. Decided that I'd rather be blogging. The good news? This is something I don't need to feel guilty about.

Fun? Define "Fun"...

My husband Matt and I are trying hard to make sure that parenthood doesn't turn us into complete losers. We had a very active social life back in the St. Louis area, where we met and got married. We had a great group of friends on both sides of the Mississippi and were constantly involved in something, whether it was floating on a friend's pontoon with a cooler of beer, meeting up with our trivia team, "The Cream Puff Party", every Thursday night, or getting together with other couples for "Wine and Cheese Club", which turned into "Scotch and Cigar Club" for the boys. We were spontaneous: if it was a gorgeous afternoon and we felt like driving up the River Road to spend it at a winery overlooking the Mississippi, well, school work and studying could wait.

Clearly, that all changed when we had a baby.

"Fun" doesn't mean the same thing that it used to. Even if I could "spontaneously" get a babysitter, I wouldn't want to stay out late, because my daughter gets up at 6:00 every morning, no matter what. I wouldn't want to   get drunk, because a lot of times someone has to drive that sitter home. And even if she could drive herself, my daughter gets up at 6 A.M. Every. Morning.

Cramming myself into a small Syracuse
shirt was probably not the best idea

Recently, Matt and I went to see the NCAA Final Four. A year ago, we were sitting on the couch watching the tournament and saw that the 2013 final round would be held in Atlanta, only two hours away. We said to each other, "Hey, that would be fun," and entered our names into a lottery for tickets. By the time we found out we were going, I was pregnant and we had basically completely forgotten about the lottery. Still, it was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity. And it did sound fun. So, Maggie went to spend the night with her grandparents and Matt and I headed down to Atlanta to check out some free concerts taking place near the Georgia Dome before the main event got started. Whereas a few years ago we would have been right up in the crowd drinking $8.00 Bud Lights, we stood toward the back with our bottles of water and bopped along to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis before deciding that it was getting too hot out to stick around for Ludacris. Besides, all that standing up was making me sleepy.

The bottom line is, the Final Four was a nice experience. Despite the crowds, and the insane lines for food, and the nosebleed seats, and the obnoxious older couple sitting behind us, and the fact that Syracuse lost, and the long drive home after midnight, I was still glad that we had done something together for ourselves. But fun? Like we used to have? Not exactly.

A few days after the Final Four, still exhausted from the whole experience, Matt had a meeting after work and I was too tired to cook a real dinner, so Maggie and I settled for quesadillas and an ice cream cone on the back deck. As she ran around chasing bumblebees in her diaper, with pink ice cream rivers coursing down her little arms, and we basked in the beautiful warm evening until Matt got home, I realized that this is what fun has become. My daughter reminds me that fun used to be a lot simpler and more joyful than what I've been missing.

This is the face she made when I asked her to "look happy"

I could stop here, with that message: appreciate the fun times that your children give you, because if you spend your time wishing for the old times then you'll miss the happiness that's right in front of you. It's a lovely message, but the fact is that a lot of parenthood isn't fun at all. Am I having fun when my daughter is pulling shoeboxes off the shelves at Kohls while I'm attempting to buy one thing for myself? No. How about when she is kicking and biting me because I told her that she can't watch another episode of Sesame Street? Nope. Is it fun when, after a day surrounded by 7th-graders, completely worn out and brain dead from their questions, with a bag full of grading that I'd like to get done in order to avoid more of the same questions tomorrow, I pick Maggie up from daycare only to find that she is just as cranky as I am? Negative. Is vomit in the car seat fun? What about worrying about her ALL the time? Is that fun?

No, a lot of parenting is just really, really hard. Earlier this week, I heard an interview from the CEO of the Life is Good Corporation in which he said, "Our motto isn't 'Life is Easy'." It's true, life, especially as a parent, isn't easy. But when I think about my daughter, or describe her to others, she's not a burden or a stumbling block. She makes me laugh or smile 100 times a day. She's this bright, wonderful gift, and I can't imagine ever going back to my life before her (obviously, because I'm about to do this all over again).

I sure hope to again have the kind of spontaneous fun that made my husband and I who we were when we met and fell in love. For now, I guess I'll keep working my butt off to raise a child responsible enough to trust at home while we go party it up somewhere in Europe- and I'll try to have a little fun while I'm at it.

The Way Things Change

I feel a little more sane since my last post. Part of that was the therapy of writing about it, part of it the amazing and heartfelt comments, and a lot of it is the fact that this week is spring break. For me, this is a week to actually pull my weight around the house. I can clean. I can cook. I can check things off of my mile-long to-do list. I can meet my husband for lunch, and after dinner we can have a conversation without a half-graded stack of papers between us. It's not exactly a relaxing week, even when I drop Maggie off at daycare for a few hours, but sometimes a sense of accomplishment is so much more satisfying. (Though I have to admit, I'll be disappointed if I can't fit a pedicure in somewhere.)

However, this post isn't meant to be about spring break. It's supposed to be about family- not the one I've chosen to build with Matt, Maggie, and the new baby, but the one I didn't choose- the one I was born into. You see, this past weekend we took a quick trip to see my sisters, brother-in-law, and nephew in Brooklyn. My parents also arranged to drive down from upstate New York, so we were all together again- seven adults and two children happy and cozy in a 900 (or so) square-foot apartment.

Cousin bath time!
(Taking advantage while it lasts)

These get-togethers are becoming more and more precious. In fact, with a ten to thirteen-hour drive between us, we are lucky to see each other as often as we do. It helps that my sisters, father and I are all educators, so we can count on regular breaks for travel time. But even as having children makes it more difficult to make the trip, it also makes it that much more important for Maggie to see and get to know her family.

There's a song by The Head and the Heart called "Rivers and Roads", and one of the lyrics has really been hitting me lately. It says: "Been talkin' bout the way things change/My family lives in a different state." I grew up within twenty miles of both sets of grandparents and the vast majority of my 8,000 cousins (a slight exaggeration...it could be more like 6,732). My husband had a totally different experience. His parents met in college and chose to settle down in Illinois because it was a mid-point between their two families, who were located in Iowa and Indiana. Because he knew what it was like growing up with no family nearby, we thought quite a bit about where to set up a home and raise a family. As much as we loved St. Louis, where we met, it simply wasn't an option. Family was the number one priority, so it was decided: we were going to upstate New York or following his parents to South Carolina, where they had built a house and would retire. When we found out that Matt's dental license transferred to South Carolina with no additional tests or residencies, that was it. We were moving south.

I feel confident that we made the right decision. Everything has fallen into place here in Anderson. We are about a 35-minute drive from both Matt's parents and his sister, who moved here last year to be closer to us. That means built-in babysitters (not a privilege to be abused, for sure) and family holidays that we don't need to pack for. Matt's dental practice couldn't have been a better fit, and he has quickly become a familiar name around town because of his involvement in church, Rotary, and numerous other volunteer organizations. I FINALLY got a teaching job close to home, at an amazing arts magnet school. We love our house, our neighborhood, and our church, where we have made many friends that we will have for life.



Rare time with two grandmas



There's only one thing missing, and that is my dear family. It doesn't matter that I'll be turning thirty this year, or that I have my own family now. I want my parents to be close enough to drop in just because (but not so close that they'll never leave...) and for Maggie to be able to call her cousin Howie to come over for a swim. I want to have a glass of wine with my sisters on the back porch while the kids chase fireflies. It's a selfish desire, because while I want Maggie and Baby #2 to be surrounded by all that love and joy, I know that they already are. They have one set of grandparents, a doting aunt, and their mommy and

daddy, who clearly worship them, right here at their fingertips. Plus, at two and a half, it's impressive how well Maggie already knows her "New York" family. We Google Chat and Face Time frequently, and she loves looking at pictures from the holidays and trips we have taken together.

My mom is just barely holding
it together before she has to
get in the car and leave.

Whether we are reverting to our childhood selves back at my parents' house, walking the kids to the park in Brooklyn, watching Maggie and Howie dance around my living room, or catching up on the phone for five minutes in between school, subways, and daycare pickup, my family makes me feel a little bit more like myself. (A side note: I also have them to thank for my husband's sudden change of heart about how many kids to have. Apparently, he likes how chaotic my family is wants to replicate that in our household. Good luck to future us, and stay tuned for how Baby #2 changes that opinion!) I guess all I can do is keep badgering my parents about moving down here for retirement and sending my sisters pictures of what their rent/mortgage could get them in South Carolina. Besides, who needs New York City culture when you can have Sonic and Chick-fil-a?