Archive for the ‘life’ Tag
May 14 2010 ·
32 CommentsPosted in:
The Kids · Tags:
Abby,
Buzz,
Jedi,
life I am participating in Momalom‘s Five for Ten. Today’s topic is about Memory.
One: A boy, 6 and a half years old. Dirt under his fingernails. He wore camouflage pajama pants with a hole in the knee. His shirt wound up with a chocolate streak down the front. One more loose tooth in a body that seems far too large for the little baby I could have swore he still was. He is constantly in wonder, his life these days a perpetual question. Today, as we fed ducks, “Are ducks birds? Why do ducks like bread? Do birds like bread? Why do birds lay eggs?” This went on for awhile.
Two: His brother, just turned 4. The brightest smile I’ve ever come across and mischief in Transformer shoes. Yet when he’s on, I know what a great kid he can be. “Make a face”, he says in the morning when the bathroom mirror is foggy. He worked so hard to maintain his concentration at class today, putting together puzzles and picking up the pieces to put in a bin. A Buzz Lightyear sticker that he wore on his arm. We held hands and laughed as the wind tried to blow us away.
Three: A girl, on her way to 2. How could that be possible? Knows exactly what she wants and doesn’t accept any substitutes. The fiercest temper. Curls forming at the sides of her hair, long wisps sticking out from behind her ears. I could hear her calling for “Mommy!” before I ever opened the door today. She makes my heart melt and cry at the same time. She skipped her nap and fell asleep on daddy’s chest, barely waking as I tucked her under her soft covers.
The narrations of today are tomorrow’s memories of yesterday.
Time is a funny thing. We try so hard for it to speed up and then wonder why it won’t slow down. Day in and day out is easy to forget. That’s why I write, here. So that I can remember, at least partial pieces. Before it’s all nothing more than a blur in a disjointed memory.
I am participating in Momalom‘s Five for Ten. Today’s topic is about Happiness.
As a little kid, there seemed like so much I couldn’t do. I’d watch in awe as my brother, who is 6 years older, went on teenage adventures that I wasn’t a part of. When you’re young you can’t help but believe those older share a secret that makes them happier.
Then I got to high school and was miserable. I was quiet, too afraid of what everyone else thought yet trying too hard to be different. I spent the majority of my days blending into a desk, willing the clock to tick faster. I couldn’t wait to graduate. To get out. Happiness has to be waiting somewhere else.
Mere months after graduating high school I met J. A few months later, we moved in together. Away. We didn’t have much at the time. It was a small apartment with creaky wood floors. There were respites of happiness, but it was exhausted by a dead-end job that I abhorred. And so began a search for a better career to make me happy.
Eventually I was awarded my own desk, where I twiddled my thumbs for hours on end. It wasn’t the best job, but it was good. I liked having someplace to go, a reason to dress up. Yet it was so quiet when I came home at the end of the day, even with J in an adjacent room. I needed whatever was missing to make me happy.
And along came my son, my first born. Eventually, my world shifted focus to bottles and diapers. When Abby and Buzz arrived, my days turned from quiet and steady to hectic and onerous. It’s not easy. Having children in and of itself did not make me happy.
But there are flashes. Like lightening cutting through the night sky. When my 4 year old, who is speech delayed, tries to sing along with a song or says “Mommy, I love you”. When my daughter cusps my face in her hands and squeals “Hi!” or peek-a-boos around a corner. The ridiculous stories my oldest shares and how he’s always trying to make me laugh. In finding them, I found true moments of happiness.
May 09 2010 ·
5 CommentsPosted in:
Daily · Tags:
holiday,
life,
motherhood I tried to write an entry on Saturday honoring Mother’s Day and what it means to me. I wanted it to be sweet and sentimental, full of positive emotion and light. I wanted to share tender moments of the past 6 and a half years with these bright little souls. How different my life might be if they weren’t in it. Because of them, my life is full. My kids are the best, kind of thing.
Except my kids were not the best. They were monsters that day. They screamed, they yelled, they cried. My son hid in the bathtub, after sticking his foot in urine-filled toilet water, while my daughter tried to empty all the q-tips out of the drawer. This after everyone made so much noise that she woke from her nap early. It was this sequence of events multiplied by a hundred all day long.
It was nonstop.
Isn’t it always?
I couldn’t wait for bedtime.
Then, at the end of the day, I looked in on my peaceful children sleeping blissfully against their pillows. And I smiled. Partly because the day was finally over and it was quiet at last and I actually made it through without throwing myself off a bridge, but mostly because these moments. This is it, in a nutshell. This is motherhood. Loud and crazy and chaotic. Up, down, and everywhere in between. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows or how I thought it would be.
But it’s beautiful.
Especially when they’re sleeping.
My parents live in a secluded area. It’s not the country, exactly, but they have a huge yard with an area of overgrown woods we used to explore as kids. Naturally, there were all kinds of bugs and animals hiding in its midst. And spiders.
We came upon one of these spiders when hiking through with my brother. It was a tarantula, I’m pretty sure. Though we didn’t stick around long enough for a personal examination. We quickly darted off as fast as we could run and never looked back. If my nightmares serve correctly, I actually think it jumped at us.
Not long after, I was busy listening to music in my room when I hear a rustling. My wall was covered with posters and I thought maybe one had fallen down. I look around, though, and nothing. So I turn the radio back on, but I hear it again. At this point, my interest is peaked. What in the world…?
When a tarantula crawls down my wall. From behind one of my posters.
I screamed. Like a girl. And ran. Like a bat out of hell. Leaving my bumbling parents to take care of it.
I’ve never felt the same about spiders since.
So even though the spider that Jedi pointed to as it crawled across my bedroom was small and black and probably harmless, they all resemble a hairy tarantula poised to attack now. I had to take care of it, though, when I would have preferred to run and scream. Because being a parent means doing things you really don’t want to do. Even when it involves giant (tiny) hairy (or not) arachnids.
April 29 2010 ·
11 CommentsPosted in:
Daily · Tags:
Buzz,
life Some days, life can be a sitcom. Then others, it’s more like a commercial. In this case, a paper towel commercial.
The need for super absorbency, I should clarify. Not the beefy guy in a lumberjack shirt.
This isn’t a metaphor, unfortunately. Kids can make a heck of a mess.
My youngest two like to help any way they can. And by help, I mean make things worse but it’s well-intentioned. I realize that sometime in the foreseeable future I’ll be hard-pressed to get anyone to lift a finger. Like my oldest son now. Getting him to assist in chores is like prying a monkey from a tree.
As I was saying, J was bringing in groceries last night. It becomes a mini-tag team effort, with Buzz carrying a light bag absent of eggs or a sturdy gallon of milk by the handle. This time, though, I took the task a bit further by asking if he’d like to place the plastic jug of milk on the top shelf of the refrigerator. And that’s when it slipped out of his hands, hitting the ground like a bomb.
It was a vitamin A and D fortified crime scene. The floor was a sheen of opaque white, liquid splatters everywhere. Then, as I’m soaking up the evidence, I could swear I hear a stoic voice overhead narrating, “So soft and absorbent, these paper towels will pick up even the toughest of messes! It’s the quicker picker upper!”.
My cat probably thought he had gone to heaven.
As for me, I think I might watch too much TV.
