doers and sleepers

Some people use their fury as their fuel to do all of the hard things whereas I use it as inarguable proof that I should take a nap. Do-ers and Sleepers is what I call them. I’m pretty sure a poet or someone of historical significance said that it takes all kinds for the world to go ‘round.

I’m sure this will come as a shock but I am a SLEEPER. I DO a lot, too. Though mostly only out of obligation. Owning a business, marriage, and motherhood are a real buzzkill sometimes. But I am a Sleeper by nature— and, more importantly, by choice.

I have never been one of those time to lean, time to clean fools. I married one of those fools. Joe is a DOER. He is always off in some room of the house wiping some substance off of some surface somewhere or folding some article of kid clothing that he washed earlier in the day— an article of clothing that, I’m nearly positive, wasn’t dirty at all and only thrown in one of the seven hampers we have scattered around this house in an effective effort effort to avoid refolding and placing the single t-shirt or pair of leggings into the drawer it came from because it’s too hard. Obviously, this tactic is quietly appreciated by this Sleeper.

His dedication to productivity sometimes gives me anxiety. I’ll find myself saying “Will you just sit down already? It’s Saturday. You need to relax. I can’t relax until you relax because you’re always standing and buzzing around. It makes me nervous.” To which he responds, “The laundry doesn’t do itself, Queen B. But do feel free to step in and assist…” To which I, the egalitarian that I am, say, “I’m good but thank you so much for asking. Plus, you look like you have it completely under control and you’re so good at it, too. So much better than me. I mean, just look at those crisp folds, Joe! I’ve never been so un-wrinkly and kempt. You should quit your day job and become a professional folder! What a life you would live! Anyway, my t-shirts and underpants thank you in advance for your service.“

Then, just when he’s about to respond with an equally infuriating comeback, I politely excuse myself to go take a nap because it is 11am on a Saturday, after all, and what else does one do at 11am on a Saturday? Joe can list a great number of things to be done on a Saturday but this isn’t about him so we shall ignore him and leave him to his chores. The laundry doesn’t do itself, you know!

Joe will sigh loudly in exasperation because I am an asshole and yet so disarmingly charming and cute. Hearing that audible sigh feels like a victory and comforting because I know that, he is smiling and shaking his head as he does it. He thinks I am impossible and he knows that I know that he thinks I’m impossible but we both appreciate the mutual consistency of each others’ ridiculousness.

Doers and Sleepers. It takes all kinds for the world to go round.

the basics

The holiday season has a unique way of stressing me the fuck out. Sure, it’s (mostly) self-induced and (mostly) unnecessary. But it’s just a lot. Which is why it’s so important for me to take a minute and remind myself of what life is all about. In spite of all of the distractions life throws my way on a daily basis, what matters is actually quite basic.

The three beautifully spirited and complex souls who Joe and I have been given the absolute privilege of guiding through this thing called life are IT. Being given the opportunity to watch our three babes blossom into the humans they were born to be is all that counts at the end of the day, no matter how distracted we are by the rise and grind of our daily lives. No matter how challenging parenting can often be or how long the days frequently seem, I never— not even for a second— forget just how fucking lucky I am to be theirs and for them to be mine.

My kids and my partnership with Joe are what matters. They’re all that matter. The three humans Joe and I managed to create together— Marlo, Edie, and Knox— are the only reason Joe and I believe that all of the blood, sweat, and tears shed in the process of maintaining a family and partnership is worth it. They are our daily dose of perspective and an infallible reminder of why life is so magical, so painfully precious, and so breathtakingly beautiful.

I love you four more than I ever believed I was capable of loving anything.

Thank you for proving me wrong.

Forever yours,

The Mama

little by little, a mom finds herself

I’m sitting at our new table in the dining room of our new home. We’ve lived here for five weeks and it’s safe to say that we’re all still in the throes of adjustment. This new home is slightly bigger than our previous one; meaning, there is enough added space for extra breathing room while also providing slightly too much space that the majority of our previous furniture looks dwarfed or awkwardly placed in their new surroundings. The table I’m currently perched over is over ninety inches long, almost thirty inches longer than our old table. There are three gold hairpins spaced evenly down the center of the slab. And because Knox is Knox, he has already branded it as his own by repeatedly and manically driving the tines of his toddler fork into the wood as he protested the rate of which I was preparing his dinner. After assessing the damage, I turned on my heels and promptly walked away so I wouldn’t implode in front of the girls who were nervously and silently watching me, awaiting my next move. I may have been royally pissed but I be damned if I’d let them see me let a two year old unhinge me. I do have my pride. I fight the urge every few minutes to glance over at the tiny dents my precious heathen son decorated our new table with and all I can do is shake my head instead. On the bright side, at least the pressure is now off of me to not fuck it up.

Before Knox took his aggression out on the furniture tonight, he spent the bulk of the day glued to my lap, laying on my chest with his lovey tucked into a ball between us, occasionally letting out a faint whimper or, if I dare tried to move, an emphatic roar to put me back in my place. Minus an hour in the car, that’s exactly how I spent my entire day. It’s now how I’m continuing to spend my day, sittiing at that very same table only it’s on my own terms and I can use the bathroom at will without being yelled at by a snotty tiny tyrant.

Today was the kind of day that makes me stay up later than I should just to enjoy a few hours of solitude where nobody is touching me, nobody needs me or is yelling from the other side of the house that they went poop and would like me to inspect their wiping skills. It’s a very small pocket of alone time to bliss out and get lost in my thoughts without having them interrupted by a precocious rambling toddler so frequently that I give up on thinking altogether.

Lately, I’ve been intentionally taking frequent stock of the more categorically boring aspects of my life: the schlepping from here to there, the wrangling, the dishwashing, the ass-wiping, the snack-bitching, the following of a routine that doesn’t really even belong to me, the cuddling, the reading, the bathing, the calming, the quieting, the listening, the bargaining, the bribing, the explaining, the worrying, the lack of sleeping, the five-minute showering, the crying (mine and theirs), the bickering, the cooking, the planning, the grocery shopping, the fixing, the apologizing… a daily life compiled of purpose that feels at once decidedly underwhelming and exasperatingly overstimulating.

Some days it can all feel so…. insignificant. But that’s the thing: it’s all significant.

What I’m really trying to change is my willingness to lean into the moments that feel underscored by life’ grind. Those moments are the ones that maybe even matter most in the grand scheme of things because it means I was there. I had a list of twenty other things to do and a client that needed selections sent over but I chose to sit under my sick son and be where and who he needed me to be.

I’ve been a mom for over seven and a half years now and it’s only now that I feel like, little by little, I’m finding myself as a mother. Only now do I feel like I know who I am and who each of them needs me to be. I’ve gotten it so wrong for so long and it’s guaranteed I will continue to leave room for improvement. But today, I embraced the insignificant and found significance in it. It felt like progress— like confirmation that I’m never too broken to be beyond repair. I can always change the way I walk through life no matter what role I’m operating under. I can stop taking my one precious life for granted and looking at my responsibilities as burdens and start showing gratitude for the mere privilege of being the person my babies want to be glued to, of being the person who brings them comfort others can’t provide, and being aware enough to see in those moments it feels particularly unyielding, it’s never not worth it.

today

It wasn't until Knox spit up the full contents of his last bottle down the inside of shirt that I lost it. I stood in the kitchen eating nacho-flavored tortilla chips as Edie sat on the plastic potty for the third consecutive hour yelling at me that she didn't have to go and that she wants to wear diapers forever and I began sobbing. And through the tears, all I could think of was Jim Gaffigan's stand up bit where he talks about what having kids feels like....

"Imagine you're drowning. And then imagine someone throws you a baby..." 

Life feels a lot like that right now. Like I'm drowning in reflux and potty training and weaning and sleep training and sleep depravation and a postpartum identity crisis. I don't want to complain. It feels so ridiculous to complain about such privileged problems, problems I chose to submerge myself in when I CHOSE to stay at home with our children. I want to be able to say that I feel on top of the world and that being a mother is the greatest and that I feel fulfilled by the monotony. But today, I won't say that.

Because, today, I can't say that.

Today, I am going to acknowledge the feelings that nobody wants to talk about because we worry that it makes us look like an ungrateful asshole. And it may make me look like an asshole but today, I don't really give a shit. 

Because today, I don't so much like being a mom.

Today I wish I didn't feel like I'm drowning. Today, I wish my life wasn't ruled by monotony. Today, I wish I had a taste of my old, carefree, childless life. Today, I wish I didn't feel like crying into my tortilla chips was my only option. Today, I wish I didn't always smell like one of their bodily functions or that my clothes weren't always stained by one of them wiping their dirty mouths. Today I wish I didn't only buy clothes that are solely functional and "play-date appropriate". Today, I want to know what it feels like to have an identity outside of my kids. Today, I resent how all-consuming it is. Today, I wish I didn't have the responsibility of keeping it together in front of the three people who are the source of why I am struggling to keep it together. Today, I wish I could go on strike and tell everyone in my house to fuck off.

Today, I wish my hair wasn't falling out and I weighed ten pounds less than I do. Today, I wish my boobs didn't look like sad, empty bags of nothing. Today, I wish my idea of a good time wasn't just a nap that isn't interrupted by a toddler jumping on my face. Today, I envy the boozy brunch crowd. Today, I envy the women who don't have chronic hemorrhoids from pushing out three children. Today, I wish I could drop everything and do whatever I want, whenever I want to do it, and that I didn't have to leave a detailed list of directions for whoever I leave in charge of who I'm running from.

Today, I'm allowing myself to resent my husband. Today, I'm allowing myself to say that it isn't fair that he doesn't have to grow, birth, or feed humans with his body or deal with postpartum hormones. Today, I'm admitting that it isn't fair that he never has to look in the mirror and struggle with not recognizing who he sees staring back at him. Today, I'm letting myself be angry that whether or not I stay at home with our kids, the bulk of the day-to-day responsibility of raising our kids will always fall on me. Today, I'm calling it bullshit that he will never have to know the depth and darkness that I experience battling postpartum hormones nor will he ever fully understand it.

Today, I wish it were me leaving the house each morning to escape the noise, the arguing, the tantrums, the ass-wiping. Today, I wish it were me who could go out of town for a week and and eat a hot meal at a hotel bar by myself while I talk to strangers. Today, I wish it were me who has the important job with an official title; the job you can't wear yoga pants to, the job that allows you to consult other adults about things other than whether or not your charges pooped today. 

Today, I won't preface these feelings with the I love my kids, I really do speech. Today, I wish I didn't feel an ever-present guilt because of a fucked-up culturally engrained myth of the perfect mother. Today, I don't care that there will always be some aspect of motherhood that I could most certainly be doing better at. Today, I'm not going to acknowledge the persistent anxiety that has attached itself to my experience of motherhood like the fucking life-draining leech that anxiety is. Today, I'm going to admit that sometimes, I don't want to fucking cuddle at bedtime. Or ever, actually. Today, I'm going to admit that when my kids yell at me, it takes more self-control that I ever knew I possessed to not scream back even louder and call them an asshole. 

Today, in this very moment, I'm going to admit that I'm struggling.

Today, as I type this, I'm reminding myself that it's okay to not be okay all of the time.

Today, crying into nacho-flavored tortilla chips felt better than eating nacho-flavored tortilla chips.

Today, I will not feel guilty for being human. 

Today, I will validate my feelings in the name of self-care. 

Today, I feel like I'm drowning. 

Today, I'm really looking forward to tomorrow.

five things | Edie fills her quota

1. We've got twenty-one days until we welcome 2017 and, apparently, Edie realized that she's not quite done filling her quota of sicknesses to be contracted by year's end. Clearly, eight ear infections, one surgery, a mysteriously knocked-out tooth, two stomach bugs, and one severe case of Hand, Foot, & Mouth Disease weren't an adequate match for her devout tenacity so she graciously went and got strep throat. "YOLO," she says, "Go big or go home, ma! If you're going to do something, always give it 100 percent." Meanwhile, I'm so tired that my left eye is beginning to uncontrollably twitch so now, when I smile, it appears as though I'm winking. I'm too tired to even blink, let alone exert the amount of effort required to coordinate one-eyed blinking for fun. You won, Edie Cooper. You won. 

A waiting room selfie while Edie exhibits how to adequately express how much she currently hates being such a winner at life.

2. As the temperatures drop, some sort of soup has been simmering away on my stove for at least two days a week for the last six weeks now. Hashtag BUSY BEING BASIC. On Tuesday, I made THIS soup from Nigella Lawson's newest cookbook, Simply Nigella, and, y'all. Let me tell you something: it was one of the best non-traditional chicken soups I've ever made. I substituted 100% buckwheat Soba noodles and I added scallions and Sriracha to finish because I take culinary rebellion quite seriously. I'm also completely incapable of following a recipe exactly as its' written but, hey, at least I'm consistent. 

3. This morning, I attended a Breakfast with Santa even at the girls' school. Santa was there-- who Mo immediately recognized as her Gramps, causing the illusion of a single Santa being shattered forever. (Just kidding, we've been telling her all along that Santa is so busy the month of December that he has helpers everywhere who are responsible for the relaying of vital information to the real Santa. However, she does now think that she's the coolest ever because her Gramps is an official member of the Santa's Helpers Brigade.) Anyway, there was a raffle fundraiser and one of the items was an American Girl Doll. We decided to go all in and put all five of our raffle tickets into the pot. Since Mo has been asking for one from Santa since the day after last Christmas, my hope was that she'd win and "Santa" would conveniently get out of shelling out such an ungodly amount of money for a fucking doll. (Santa isn't bitter, don't worry.) Well, Santa wasn't so lucky. A ten year old little girl was and, for the first time in my adult life, I found myself physically hating a tween and mentally scheming how to take that bitch down... 

4. I've accepted it, yes. But I'm still not over what the results of this election meant. 

5. You see? I wasn't kidding about my eye. The bright side is that flirting with Joe is a whole lot easier now.