Easter

I thought about recycling my Easter post from last year. Because, really, it's Easter. What could possibly change?

But then I had some time to think--a rare occurrence these days--and I realized that, while Easter may not have changed, a few other things have.

Easter egg hunts for one. When I was a child, Easter egg hunts were actually about well, hunting for Easter eggs. We went to a small local park, and hunted for eggs. Because, you know, it was an Easter egg hunt. We didn't have an option of which Easter egg hunt we were going to, because there was one park in our town that had an Easter egg hunt, and that's where you went.

To hunt for Easter eggs.

I took the kids to two Easter egg hunts today (not including the incredibly fun party hosted by my friend Teri and her hubby, where there was also an Easter egg hunt). The first one could have actually been an Easter egg hunt, because I think people did actually hunt for eggs. I'm not really sure though, because we had to leave after ten minutes. Yup, we did. Because unlike the Easter egg hunts of my childhood, this one also had crafts. Lots of them. In a very small room. With many small children. Many, many small children. I love small children. I love crafts. I do not, however, love very small rooms with many small children and many crafts. Especially after one of my sweet children dumped an entire bottle of Elmer's glue on the table, as another one of my sweet children attempted to break dance across the floor, between people's feet.

In the very small room, with many small children, and lots of crafts.

Then I found out about the three separate Easter egg hunt times, for my three separate children, and well, we had to go.

I did have some guilt about this. Mainly because this Easter egg hunt was at our church, and I thought it would be good to participate in more activities that our church youth ministry works so hard to organize. But the thing is, we're Catholic. Catholic churches are great at bingo. I hear the St Patrick's Day dinners are pretty good, too.

Basically, anything that allows the church to serve beer and wine is pretty much a hit.

But Easter egg hunts?

They're just not our thing.

So we snuck away from our Catholic church sponsored Easter egg hunt, and went down the street to the one the Baptist church sponsored instead.

And there was an actual Easter egg hunt there, too. An incredibly large, amazingly well organized Easter egg hunt. But this was more than just an Easter egg hunt. This was a huge, EASTER PRODUCTION. There weren't just eggs to find, in various locations in and around the building. There were games to play, and faces to paint, and moon bounces to wait in line for and eventually even briefly bounce on. There were raffles, and food concessions, and even pony rides.

When it come to Easter egg hunts, the Baptists definitely have it.

(Don't be jealous, Methodists. You guys always have the better signs outside your churches).

But it just doesn't feel right calling it an Easter egg hunt, since hunting for eggs was such a minuscule, insignificant part of the whole PRODUCTION.

It was more like an Easter EVENT.

Which, on one hand, just seems so incredibly over the top, and makes me nostalgic for the simple Easter egg hunt in the small park in the town in which I grew up.

But on the other hand, whey shouldn't it be an EVENT?

Because, after all, it's Easter.

Which is, you know, kind of a big event.

Unlike the Easter egg hunts, Easter was always a  big deal when I was growing up. Because it was Easter. There would be family visiting. And a big meal. And candy. Of course, I knew that Easter was all about Jesus. But, really, as a child, it was just as much--if not more-- about all the other stuff.

Holy week, leading up to Easter, was also a big deal, though mainly because we were off school, and there were a few Holy Days thrown in there.

Holy Days growing up were days that you had to go to church.

Because the church said so.

Recently, though, I haven't found myself thinking of Holy Days in quite the same way.

As I sat in Mass on Palm Sunday and truly listened.

As I watched my seven year old daughter during mass on Holy Thursday, as she sat, mesmerized, when the church filled with the sounds of bells.

And when she asked me, later, how Good Friday got its name, when it wasn't really such a good day.

And as I heard myself struggling to explain that sometimes, things don't seem very good at all. But that later, we find out that it was all part of something amazing.

Something that allows us to experience things like grace, and forgiveness, and peace, and redemption, and joy.

These are Holy Days.

But more than that, these are holy days.

Easter egg hunts aren't what they used to be.

But then again, neither is Easter.

At least, not for me.

Time Outs...Not Just for Kids...

The kids are on spring break this week. You notice I said the kids are on spring break. It seems that, for the past several weeks, I had mistakenly thought that we all got spring break.

But then spring break started, and no one showed up to do my laundry.

Or the dishes either.

Rude.

So I guess I'm not really on break.

It's more like a time out.

But at least I don't have to rush to get everyone out of the house in the mornings. And for one week, I'm out of the school-activities-homework-work-bedtime daily rush. And maybe, since we're not on anyone's schedule but our own, and since it's almost Easter, I will have time to put the Christmas village away.

Truth.

Believe me, I thought long and hard before admitting that one. But then I thought, some poor mom is reading this as she thinking about how chaotic her life is, and how overwhelmed she is, and how she can never manage to keep up with everything.

And I've just made her feel immensely better.

It's funny the things you notice when you step out of rush mode. I mean, not only did I notice that the Christmas village, which I took down off the table several weeks  months ago, was not yet neatly stacked in the basement, but I've noticed a few other things, too.

I've noticed how incredibly cute O is, when I am drying him off after a bath, and he starts to cry as he says "Please Mom, don't take my belly button!"

And how equally cute he was when, as we swam together in the freezing cold indoor pool today, he said, "Please Mommy, I want to hug you. Because I am fffrrrrrreeezing". (And yes, nice lady who works at the desk, of course he is potty trained. I mean, he is almost three, after all. And no, of course he's not wearing a swim diaper. And yes, we will absolutely use the very small, one room family changing room that doesn't even have a bench to sit on so that my four year old won't make anyone uncomfortable in the ladies room. Even though there are five of us, including another seven year old girl who is not related to us. Sure we will. Oh look! I think someone just took their non-potty-trained swim-diaper-wearing two year old into the pool!"

I also noticed how sincerely B looks at me when I tuck him in at night as he says, "I love you mom. I will love you forever".

And I know that he means it. So I'm writing it down now so that I will always remember it. And so I can remind him one day, when his future wife tries to tell him that Thanksgiving should always be with her family.

I also noticed that, to a seven year old girl, a good friend and an ice cream sundae are really all you need.

Funny how some things never change.

Maybe time outs aren't so bad after all.

Why Thank You...I Think

It had not been a good morning. In fact, it's possible that I had just texted my sister and told her that I thought I had the worse case of PMS ever, and I was trying to find a way to go home and go back to bed for a few days  hours.

No, in case you're wondering, I'm not delusional enough to think that I really could go back to bed. I mean, I guess I could.Theoretically. If I was willing to take a chance on waking up to a house with different colored walls than it had when I went to bed. Or to a bathtub filled with yogurt and/or toothpaste. Or to the neighbors knocking on the door, telling me to come.get.these.naked.children. out.of.their.cars yards.

Since that didn't seem like the best option, I decided that I would settle for no one talking to me, looking at me, or breathing my air.

You can probably guess how that one went.

I had decided, however, that I was not going to let a rough morning get in the way of the plans I'd made. Especially since these plans involved taking care of me. Even though taking care of me used to mean things like pedicures, and hair cuts, and buying myself a new outfit.

And now it means going to the dermatologist to get stuff frozen off my face.

And my neck.

And my legs.

(My dermatologist kindly informed me that these are "age related" something or others. Which I already kind of figured, since the moment I blew out the candles on my fortieth birthday cake, I  started sprouting stuff).

Anyway, I had decided that I was keeping this appointment.

PMS or no PMS.

Wild boys, or no wild boys.

But I was still hopeful that no one would actually try to talk to me.

We had been in the office for a few minutes, and the boys were playing mostly quietly in the corner next to me, stopping only occasionally to ask me questions about God only knows what, when I could feel the stares of a woman sitting a few chairs away.

She looked friendly, in a middle aged hippie kind of way. Birkenstocks. Braided gray hair. Laugh lines that I was pretty sure she wasn't there to getting filled.

"You are such a great mom," she told me, as she smiled.

Oh.my.gosh.

Someone is talking to me. Don't they see the PMS sign on my forehead?

"Thank you," I smiled back, thinking how nice and yet absolutely random this was.

"Listen to their questions!" she beamed. "All their questions! And your answers! You're answering all their questions!"

OK, so this part, quite frankly, just pissed me off.

Because I have been under the impression, all this time, that I have to answer all their questions. I mean, isn't that my job, to answer at least 95 % of their sometimes adorable, often annoying, unbelievably exhausting, incredibly repetitive questions?

Isn't it?

Because here this woman is, implying that maybe I don't have to answer all their questions. Like, maybe I could only answer 50% and still be a good enough mom.

And yet, no one ever told me.

I think of all the brain cells I've wasted over the years, thinking of ridiculous answers to ridiculous questions that I thought I had to answer.

Oh, I know, I know. There are no ridiculous questions. That's what we tell our kids, right?

Right. I tell my kids that, too. Ask any question you want. I will answer it. Even if I don't know the answer, I will answer it.

With some made up crap.

And I will smile brightly and say "Good question!", as inside I am thinking "This is just ridiculous".

In any case, in this woman's eyes, the fact that I answered my sons' questions made me a a great mom.

So I thanked her again, and I went back to watching them play, and answering questions, and feeling incredibly self conscious now that I knew that everything I said was being scrutinized.

And a few moments later, as the nice lady in the Birkenstocks still sat near us, looking up every once in a while to smile at us, B said "O, did you like Burger King today?"

And O said "No. I like Taco Bell better".

And B said "What about McDonald's? Do you like McDonald's?"

And O said "I like cheeseburgers. And chicken nuggets. Chicken nuggets are my favorite."

I'm pretty sure the nice lady in the Birkenstocks stopped looking at us at that point, which saved me from having to make up something about the broccoli and wheat grass smoothies we had for breakfast.

And then B and O decided to stop talking about fast food.

And started talking about video games instead.

Like whether they liked Angry Birds or Stick Man better.

And what color bird was the angriest.

And who had reached a higher level in Where's My Water.

Yes, my two and four year olds started comparing their video game skills.

I'm not sure why the nice Birkenstock lady didn't find that impressive, but if she did, she didn't feel a need to speak up about it.

For the record, the reason they brought up Burger King was because today was probably the second time they have ever been there. And in spite of talking about Taco Bell, they have never been there at all.

As for the video games, guilty.

But at least they just play the same three kids' games on the kindle over and over again for about half an hour fifteen minutes a day.

Fortunately, I really wasn't too worried about what the nice lady in the Birkenstocks thought about all of this. In fact, while I was very appreciative of her kindness, I hadn't given much thought at all to her comments about my parenting.

How could I?

She doesn't know me at all.

If I put faith in what she says, what happens when I encounter someone who's not quite as kind, and who only overhears our fast food and video game conversations, and decides to tell me that I'm a horrible mother?

Do I then have to give credence to what they say?

What if, next time, I encounter someone who thinks that my kids ask too many damn questions, and I really should have taught my children to be seen and not heard, because after all, that's the way it was done in their generation?

(Right. Is it any coincident that the generation of parents who say they taught their kids to be seen and not heard is the same generation for whom it was acceptable to down five gin gimlets before dinner? I think not).

In any case, it was very nice of this woman to reach out to us, and I was having the kind of day where her kindness really was appreciated.

The words themselves, though, well, they didn't really mean anything to me.

Fortunately, it was our turn before the people around us could hear about the toy weapons the kids got for Christmas (Oh I'm kidding. Maybe).

The boys sat quietly in the exam room while the doctor froze crap off my face, and my neck, and my legs. So quiet, in fact, that my dermatologist--who happens to be a mother of seven--referred to them as little darlings.

They smiled sweetly at her. I laughed.

Then I wondered if she ever took her own seven little darlings to Burger King.

Or if she let them play video games.

As she left, she smiled and said, "Good bye little darlings!" and closed the door.

Which B then opened, and screamed after her down the hallway, "We are NOT little darlings!"

As O, apparently intent on proving it, ran out of the room, and down the hall into another exam room.

And then another.

I stood frozen in the hallway, grateful that this was not a visit that requited a paper gown.

I knew I couldn't go in there and get him. What about HIPPA?

And yet, what about the poor person who was quite possibly half naked and being terrorized by my two year old at that very moment?

Fortunately, O came out, but then decided to run into one of the doctor's offices.

My dermatologist followed him in, and guided him out, "Oh no, honey, we can't go in there. Time to go back to Mommy".

She wasn't calling him a little darling anymore.

And I couldn't help but notice that no one, at this particular moment,was  telling me what a great mom I was.

Eventually we left with some shred of our dignity in tact. Well, OK, that's not entirely true.

But we did leave.

After we picked up N, we went to the grocery store. An elderly man that I recognized from the grocery store, or church, or well, somewhere, was in front of us in line. He looked at us and smiled and said "I love watching children here."

I smiled and said, "Yeah, cause you know you're not the one taking them home, right?"

He shook his head and said, "Oh some of them you almost want to take home". He looked at the kids and back at me. "Are they all yours?"

I tell him they are.

He looks again

"How many do you have?"

I look at the kids, making sure I haven't lost any.

Or gained any.

"Three".

"Three!" He shakes his head, "Three!" For some reason, this man who obviously grew up in a time when much larger families were quite common, thinks that having three children is something amazing.

He shakes his head again. "My, that is wonderful."

He turns to leave, his son leading him out, but turns around and adds "God Bless You".

I thank him, and tell him that I need it, which is the absolute truth.

But then I wish that I had told him the rest of the truth.

That He already has.

Just a Moment...

It started when I came across another mom's blog.

I don't know her or her family in real life, but her pregnancy announcement was so cute that I could barely stand it.

No part of that statement is an exaggeration.

Sonogram pictures followed the pregnancy announcement. Followed by pictures of her older child
s incredibly crafty birthday party. Followed by talk of an absolutely ingenious idea for a gender reveal party.

I had to stop reading. Not only was I was afraid that I was going to click on the next link and see live video streaming of the birth, but I had started to feel rather...inadequate.

But although I had stopped reading, the seed of doubt had already been planted.

Jimmy and I weren't very clever when it came to announcing our pregnancies. In fact, with at least two of them, I waited until I was big enough that people were probably talking about how fat I had gotten. Then I casually slipped it into conversation.

We didn't share our sonogram pictures with anyone other than..well, whoever happened to see it on our fridge. And sadly, a gender reveal party never even occurred to us. I mean, how great would that have been, to have two separate pre-baby parties that were all about us?

Of course, we have had lots of birthday parties at this point. And yet, I have not made the cake for a single one of them. Nor have I ever rented a hall bigger than the one where we had our wedding reception for a child's birthday party.

What is wrong with me?

Obviously, in addition to feeding, clothing, bathing, entertaining, educating, loving, protecting, and stimulating my children, there is a whole lot more that I'm supposed to be doing.

But I'm failing miserably.

Because I suck.

I mean, even on a good day--or at least on what I thought was a good day--it only takes a glance at the wrong Facebook or blog post (no, of course I'm not talking about your Facebook or blog post) to start me second guessing aspects of my parenting.

Who knew I was supposed to take pictures the first time they used the potty?

Or that a house where three or four kids live could look so immaculate in pictures?

Pictures of their first trip to the dentist?

Who knew I was supposed to do that, too?

I was thinking about all of this recently--these perfect parenting moments that seem to be everywhere--as I left the grocery store.

I have never, ever, had a perfect parenting moment at the grocery store.

And probably not anywhere else, either.

This particular day, B was running and screaming through the produce department, as O loudly cheered him on from inside the car cart, which I was struggling to navigate around several large crates of apples. N was walking next to me, trying not to laugh at the chaos that we seem to bring almost everywhere we go these days.

I was trying not to lose my mind.

B almost ran into several people. As I made my way toward him, O screamed for him to run. B screamed back. From across the produce department. I finally grabbed him and turned around just in time to see O pull several apples onto the floor, which of course, to a two year old and his four year old brother, is incredibly funny.

N was trying hard to help me maintain my sanity, and started helping me pick up apples, but she wasn't very successful at hiding her laughter, which of course is contagious. So as N and I picked up apples and began to laugh loudly and inappropriately in the middle of the produce department, B saw his opportunity and took off running--and screaming--once more, with O as his faithful cheerleader.

I couldn't help but think of Jimmy's recent assessment that "One boy is a boy, but more than one boy is a pack of wild animals."

Truer words were never spoken.

Eventually, I got myself together, attempted to ignore the stares of our fellow customers, grabbed B and explained in my very nicest Mean Mommy voice that if he didn't stay with me, hold onto the cart, and keep his mouth closed, there was going to be really big trouble when we got home.

(For the record, I have no idea what that really big trouble would have entailed. But he doesn't know that.).

I was apparently so clear and/or terrifying in my directives that all three of my children immediately lapsed into complete and utter silence, as O sat and stared straight ahead in the car cart, and N and B held onto the cart and walked in perfect time next to me.

We rounded the corner that way, and headed silently to the register as we passed a woman who was issuing her own mommy directives at her four or five year old. She stopped and looked at me, with my three silent, immaculately behaved children holding onto the cart, and said, "Wow. That is impressive".

I laughed maniacally for a moment, before composing myself and saying, "Please don't be impressed. You should have seen us ten seconds ago. You're just seeing a moment."

I started to walk away and added "Really, You have no idea".

One moment.

It doesn't tell us much at all.

How Small is Small?

I took the boys mattress shopping today. I knew this was likely not a good idea, especially in light of the fact that it was during what should have been nap time (or, in the case of B, play-on-the-couch-quietly-while-Mommy-tries-to regain-some-of-her-sanity time).

The thing I didn't realize is that the people who work in the department store that rhymes with Tears also have a nap time. At least, I'm assuming that's what they were doing since there was not a salesperson to be found. Or maybe it's a sign of the economy, and they've all been laid off. Or furloughed. Or maybe Tears is having its own sequester, and they no longer work on Thursdays.

Whatever is to blame, I remember the days when a trip to a store like Tears meant an instant swarm of salespeople at your side, eager to make a sale. So eager, in fact, that they often wouldn't leave your side, even after you had asked them to. They were hungry.

Today, however, no one was hungry. Or, if they were, they had already gone out to lunch. I couldn't find a salesperson anywhere. I figured one would come along soon, so I decided to test out a few mattresses while I was waiting. I laid down on one and closed my eyes to get the full effect. I swear it was only for a minute. And then I heard B yell, "Mom? Are you sleeping?"

Uh, NO.

Silly boy. Who would fall asleep in the mattress department at Tears? Please.

I looked around again for a salesperson. Not a soul anywhere. I gave up and walked through the mall with the boys, thinking that surely naptime/lunchtime/the sequester would be over by the time we came back.

Apparently, I was wrong.

I asked a cashier if someone could help me in the mattress department. She looked at me for a minute and said "Now I know Gladys is there".

I nicely explained that No, Gladys really wasn't there. Cause I'd looked. Repeatedly.

The cashier glanced toward the mattresses and said "Well, she might be by the back wall. She's really small. So you may not have seen her".

She's really small?

So I may not have seen her?

I assured her that I had looked everywhere, and that Gladys really was not there. She shrugged and called for a salesperson over the intercom, and then told me to look again, since she was pretty sure that Gladys was there.

I went back to the mattresses again. I glanced around for Gladys, wondering how small is really small, anyway? I mean, are we talking short? Or little person?

Or maybe leprechaun?

Or maybe Gladys is just freakin invisible because she is nowhere to be seen.

After a few more minutes, B and O were getting quite restless. So restless, in fact, that they began to strip off their clothing, and dance between the mattresses.

(And no, in case you're wondering, they have never witnessed this type of behavior at home).

B asked me what would happen if someone who worked there saw them. I told him it didn't matter, since no one really worked there.

That was enough to convince him to continue dancing topless among the mattresses.

Eventually, a saleswoman walked by and I asked her if she worked in the mattress department.

"No, But I'll find someone for you", and then she added, "What did you need?"

"Straightjacket's for the children?" I said with my best I'm-clinging to-the-very-last-shreds-of-my-sanity smile.

She didn't smile back.

"Or just a mattress, " I said

I heard her call a salesperson over the intercom.

We waited some more.

I imagined the nasty letter I was going to write to Tears about their crappy customer service, not to mention their invisible sales clerks, but then realized that no one would read it since they're all sequestered.

Eventually, a woman walked up to us holding an Arbys' bag.

Gladys!

She wasn't that small.

And she wasn't sequestered after all.

She was just out to lunch.

I'm so happy you're here, Gladys. Now sell me a damn mattress.

Don't mind the half naked boys dancing on the beds.

Just pretend they're invisible.

What Will You Be?

Most days, I feel like I spend too much time yelling, and correcting, and sending people to their room. But then there are conversations like this:


I'm going to be an astronaut, Mom. Can they really go the moon? Or maybe I'll be a firefighter. Cause they're a lot like superheros.

But when I'm done with that, and I retire,  I want to be a swim teacher, or maybe I'll have a job like Dad's. It's fun to build stuff.

And then, I think I'll have an ice cream truck or maybe a van that sells hot dogs.

Hot dogs are good, and a little bit healthy if you don't eat a lot of them, so I could hand them out to people when they're hungry.

I think I might be a doctor, or a teacher, or someone who drives a truck. A really big truck.

I won't drive it too far though, Mom. I'll just drive it around here, so I can still be close.

And I think I'll be a Daddy. That would be a good job, too.

But will you still be my mom? When I'm a grown up?

Always. Always and forever.

That's good, Mom.

Cause I want to be all that other stuff.

But I always want to be yours, too.

The Day That Changed My Life...

 

A few months ago, I entered this is an essay contest--thus the different format. It didn't win. The good news is, now I get to publish it here instead.

 

We disagree on how long it took for them to hand her to me. My husband says it was only ten minutes, but as I laid on the gurney in the recovery room, watching her in the bassinet across the room, I would have sworn it was easily an hour. An hour, of course, was nothing compared to the three years we had waited for this baby, but I still say that hour—or ten minutes-- felt every bit as long as those three years.

Eventually, they did hand her to me. She was no longer purple, as she had been when she was whisked away from me in the operating room. She was now pink, and chubby, and staring at me as if to say “I was waiting for you, too”.  We stared at each other for a minute, as my husband stood at my side, both of us in awe that there, in my arms, was an actual baby.

And then, for some reason I didn’t quite understand, there seemed to be a race to get her to nurse. She was repositioned. I was repositioned. And in my groggy, nauseous, hormonal, post C-section haze, I suddenly realized with an overwhelming certainty that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Eventually, they moved us up to our room, where we got to stare at each other some more. The bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, and the whitest hair, though some mistook this for baldness.  We counted her fingers and toes, as if it would have made any difference to us if she was missing a few of one of the other. Then, more nausea, followed by more attempts at nursing, followed again by more nausea.

Followed by my hormonal musings that I was way out of my league here and maybe it would have been a good idea to hire a baby nurse after all.

My husband looked at me. “A what?”

Oh. Maybe we had never actually discussed the baby nurse idea out loud.

The lactation consultants became my best friends. And my worst enemies. I had no idea it was possible for so many different people to handle my breasts in a three day time frame. They told me it would take time. They told me she was tongue tied. That she would need surgery. That she may not nurse. That if I gave her formula, I would ruin any chance she had of nursing, which would apparently, in turn, ruin her life. Eventually, they told me that I needed to pump breast milk, and then tape a syringe to my breast, and have her drink through that. Every two hours.

Then they told me to relax.

When one of the lactation consultants showed up when I was in the shower for the first time in three days, and told me she would wait for me so we could practice some more, I told her I was going to be in there a while.

And then I cried.

Soon after that, we went home without knowing how nursing was going to go. But I knew enough to trust my instincts, and at that moment, my instincts told me that if one more person touched my breasts, I was likely to throw a breast pump at their head.

They say a routine is important with a new baby, and we had one from the beginning. Some people do eat-sleep-play; others do play-eat-sleep. Ours was pump-feed-sob, as I cried that no one told me this would be so hard. Repeated every two hours.

And then, one day, my milk came in, and she nursed. Just fine.

Thank you very much.

We had opted not to have anyone stay and help us. I was feeling pretty independent. I was thinking that, after three years of waiting, we wanted to do this thing ourselves. I was thinking that it would be good for my husband and I to get used to parenting together.

 I was absolutely, incredibly oblivious as to what was involved with caring for an actual baby.

On our fourth night at home with this baby who seemed determined not to sleep, I wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. This was nothing like the diaper commercials, where everyone was always smiling, if not downright blissful. I suddenly realized that now would be a really good time to have help. Unfortunately it was three AM.

But we survived. And eventually, we even realized that if we laid her down instead of holding her all night, she would sleep. I won’t tell you at what point we realized this, because it would be incredibly embarrassing to admit, for example, that it wasn’t until she was seven months old.

The point is that eventually, we slept. And we relaxed. And we learned. As we marveled at this beautiful, amazing child who actually slept through the night. After a while, we realized that maybe this parenting thing wasn’t so hard after all, and we should do it again. Three years and four miscarriages later, he finally arrived, a blue eyed boy with mischief in his eyes from the start.

This time, nursing was easy. The sleep thing was easier, too, mainly because this time, we were under no delusions that we would actually get any sleep. Going from one child to two wasn’t so easy. Our daughter loved her little brother, but she could have done without his frequent crying, and going from two parents dealing with one child to two parents dealing with two children was an adjustment in itself.

One morning I left the baby on a mat on the floor and got in the shower, thinking my husband would be home for a few more minutes. I came out to find that he, thinking that I was just upstairs getting dressed, had left for work while I was still in the shower. The baby was laying on the mat, red faced and screaming, while his three year old sister apparently tried to placate him by repeatedly screaming ”Just.Stop.Crying!”, as she kneeled over him,  inches from his face.

I made a mental note to write my shower times—or days-- on the calendar for my husband’s future reference.

Once again, we did adjust. So much, in fact, that two years later, we had a third child. I was told that my pregnancy with him would likely result in another miscarriage, that it didn’t seem possible that this could be a viable pregnancy.

And yet, thankfully, it was.

And now there are three. Our days are a whirlwind of school, and play dates, and homework, and dishes, and laundry, and diapers. And, of course, the grocery store. Where everyone knows my name. Or, at least my moniker, which I’m pretty sure is “That lady with those screaming kids”.

That chubby pink baby has grown into a long legged seven year old with a slight lisp thanks to two missing bottom teeth. She does her homework without being asked, and writes poetry, and does perfect cartwheels, and believes that she is a fairy.

She even sleeps through the night.

Her four year old brother, whose headstrong ways kept us quite frazzled for a few years, swore that he was never going to use the potty, or go to school, or make friends.

Now he does all three. Amazingly well, in fact.

Our two year old keeps me running, and laughing, and frustrated, as he gets into the dog food, and the peanut butter, and the toothpaste. And yet, I will cherish these moments. Not every one of them. But enough of them.  Because I know they won’t last forever.

Most people seem to agree that motherhood is not for the weak of heart. But we don’t talk much about who it is for. It’s apparently for those who don’t mind not showering for days at a time, who don’t mind wearing the same sweatpants three days in a row, and who accept that some days, adequate nutrition consists of four cups of coffee, two glasses of wine, cold mashed potatoes eaten while standing over the kitchen sink, and the crust from a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Not necessarily in that order.

It’s for those who know that their body is no longer their own. Who know that it’s possible for seven people to fondle your breasts in a three day period.  And not one of them is your husband. Who know that your body will not only nourish a baby through pregnancy and infancy, but that it will become a playground for a three year old who is fascinated with your “jelly belly”.  At least someone likes it.

It’s for those who know that with absolutely no effort on your part, you are forever emotionally connected to this other person. Their tears are your tears, and their triumphs your triumphs.  It’s also for those who know that a house you spent three hours cleaning can be trashed in under three minutes. For those who know that the dishes never end, and the laundry never ends, and the homework never ends. But the fleeting moments of childhood? They end all too soon.

It’s for those who know that you will take your first child to the doctor because she has a fever for two days (apparently 99.9 isn’t even really a fever), or because she smells like syrup (they laughed at me), or because you think she has worms (don’t ask),  but that your second child will be given Tylenol and watched for three days before the doctor is even called, and your third will be lucky to get to his well-child visits once a year.

It’s for those who know firsthand that motherhood, in all of its frustrating, mind numbing, exhausting glory, is not at all like the diaper commercials would have us believe. After all, they only show the baby after he’s been changed, with a woman who is obviously not his mother, since she has clearly had time to shower, brush her hair, apply make-up, and put on something besides her husband’s old t-shirt. (Which is probably dirty anyway, since no one has had time to do laundry in a week).

Motherhood is for those who know that some days, we still second guess ourselves.  And wonder what we have gotten ourselves into.  It’s for those who know that we’re not perfect. And that we’re just doing the best that we can. It’s for those who know that in a day, or a week, or a year, life can change in ways we never imagined, and rarely does it turn out exactly as we thought it would.  It’s for those who know that “miracle” is not the same as “perfection”.  And yet, that doesn’t make it any less of a miracle.

And it doesn’t make perfection any less of a myth.

It’s for those who now accept the peanut butter hand prints on the walls and puddles of syrup on the kitchen floor as part of the decor, in a house cluttered with broken crayons, and toys, and mismatched shoes. It’s for those who would like their house a little cleaner, their kids a little better behaved, and their bank account a little larger, but who know that none of these things will happen anytime soon.  And that they will happen all too soon.

It’s for those who look into their children’s eyes and wonder where the time has gone, as they realize with gratitude that most of their parenting mistakes so far have somehow gone unnoticed, or at least unpunished.  And hopefully, undocumented.

Mostly, though, motherhood is for those who know that you don’t always have to know what you’re doing. You just have to keep doing it.  You don’t have to do it perfectly. Just the best you know how. You don’t have to love every moment.

You just have to find the moments that you love.

And cling to them.