Tomorrow, for the first time ever, Faith is going to daycare. This is a Big Deal. I'm not quite sure why, since I know she has been begging to go to school, with the playground, and the kids, and the little chairs and the little tables and the story times, and the sing along songs, and everything she has ever heard about it has enchanted her. So she is thrilled.
I, on the other hand, am not so much. It is the whole stranger taking care of my child thing. It is the whole no one can love her like I do thing. It is the whole what if there are too many kids to watch and she gets hurt thing. It's the worry and the loss of control and the fear that maybe she'll just blend in too much and no one will fall absolutely head over heels in love with her, like she deserves.
I wish things were different and I could stay with her every day, but they are not and I'm not going to dwell too much, but yes, my little girl is going to “school” as she says and I just hope that some child will run up and grab her hand and want to play and be best friends forever.
:::
James is not going to daycare and I'm not sure what to think anymore about childcare situations. Just go with the flow, I suppose. It's times like this when I think “what am I, absolutely NUTS for even thinking for a second that I could possibly want another child? What would I DO with it????”
Work is . . .well, work. I know that the eleventh commandment is thou shalt not write about work on thy blog, so I'll try to refrain but oh how I would love to. What with the awkward situations and the sometimes pleasant conversations and the vast difference between a career and a job. Yes, think about that for a moment and then guess on which side I fall. Blah blah economy blah blah poor blah take what you can get blah come home and forget about it.
:::
On a much happier note, this is by far and away the best summer of my adult life. I am not pregnant or nursing or have an infant that can't walk. I can put floaties on both kids and we can all swim. They can play outside for hours, we can all absorb the sun and then all daze around in a blissful sleepiness. There are impromptu cookouts, late night parties, entire days spent floating down the Chattahoochee, and warm days that slowly fade into hazy twilight evenings dotted with fireflies. The kids can both enjoy every moment of the day, from sunup to sundown. I love this summer so much that it makes me sad that July is almost over and want to do a Zack Morris and freeze time.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
June
One of the many things that I should have written about in this space is the fact that my sister-in-law gave birth to a tiny and adorable girl last week. I managed to show up at the hospital in that magical window where modesty is gone and acceptance has taken over so I was able to stay in the room during the birth. Despite all the scandal that an unplanned pregnancy to an unmarried woman not yet 21 caused, I cried when I saw my little sister-in-law choke up with those joyous sobs as she held her baby to her chest for the first time. It doesn't matter when it happens, whether the timing is right or not, it is powerful, that moment when your old life dies and your new one starts.
:::
My sister lost her house, one of my best friends has lost her job of 10 years, my mother-in-law very well could lose her job tomorrow, and Jeff and I have been in a blur of constant moving, relocating all of our possessions again and again. We continue to work on our house, now onto the painting stage, just so thankful that we have something to look forward to when so many around us have lost so much.
:::
Even though the lives of everyone around us seems to have flipped upside down and inside out, our little foursome keep on going on just fine. Work, and the house finishing process, the madness that is taking care of small children, the things we would like to do versus the things that need to be done . . . it's all an often frustrating but comfortably happy storm. I end up staying up late, like tonight, just to listen to music or catch glimpses of shows that I remember liking to watch when I didn't hear shrieking in the background. Or reading – books, YOUR blog, and yours too, and a million others as well. I keep telling myself “Write, Jenny, write now while the babies are asleep, write before that long list of things to write about in your head starts getting faded and lost forever, write” but then I look at the clock and midnight is so close and I have to get up for work in the morning. And slowly, but surely, all the things I want to write about are drifting away into never never land.
So -
Faith, my sweetheart, is at turns wonderfully good and deliberately bad. She tells me that she wants to ask me a question, then asks how an elephant goes through walls, like walls of glass. I am flummoxed, of course, because how DO they? But she has the answer. They just lift up their trunks and knock out a hole of glass and walk through it. Then she runs back off into the other room until she has another question that she already has the answer for. She still likes holding my hand when she falls asleep and still wants to cuddle on my lap and still wants me to “hold her forever” and I don't ever want that to end. She is so proud of herself at the pool, wanting me to watch her jump off the stairs, she is energetically giddy when she's around other kids or when we act like kids by dancing foolishly or running around in circles outside. She reads with me and then tries to repeat all the words that I've just said while cutting her eyes at me, watching to see my reaction to her somewhat flawed reading. I, of course, am enthusiastic, which she adores.
She and James are fighting more now, over toys, over food, over my attention or lap space. He is talking, if you can really call it talking, although I can mostly translate. He's picking up new words every day, finally, but he still has an appointment this week for a consultation on the tongue clipping that he's bound to receive. I could go back and slap, or at least foot stomp, the pediatrician that he had at birth who didn't think that being tongue-tied would bother him and “let's hold off on clipping it until we see if it affects his speech”. Which his pediatrician now, whom I adore, says that it certainly does. He is all boy, reckless and fearless, jumping off of the couch, climbing atop anything he can get a grip on. He is covered in bruises and scrapes and has dirt under his short fingernails and is always pulling off his pants and then his diaper and running laughing through the house and occasionally doing things that should only happen in a diaper then running to me, concerned, and talking his strange James babble. He's got the sweetest smile I've ever seen, the cutest pout, and a surprisingly strong arm when he gets mad and hits.
They both walk into our room at night and climb into bed with us and fall back asleep. They are both doing new things every day, things I want to remember, some I don't, and I am really enjoying them this summer. It is the first time in years when I haven't had an infant or been pregnant, and it's such a simple joy to go next door to the pool and be able to put on their floaties and us all just . . . be. And swim. And soak up the sun. As adorable as my newborn niece is, this is what I've been looking forward to when I wanted to become a mother. To have this, our family, all able to enjoy the same thing at the same time, with each other.
:::
My sister lost her house, one of my best friends has lost her job of 10 years, my mother-in-law very well could lose her job tomorrow, and Jeff and I have been in a blur of constant moving, relocating all of our possessions again and again. We continue to work on our house, now onto the painting stage, just so thankful that we have something to look forward to when so many around us have lost so much.
:::
Even though the lives of everyone around us seems to have flipped upside down and inside out, our little foursome keep on going on just fine. Work, and the house finishing process, the madness that is taking care of small children, the things we would like to do versus the things that need to be done . . . it's all an often frustrating but comfortably happy storm. I end up staying up late, like tonight, just to listen to music or catch glimpses of shows that I remember liking to watch when I didn't hear shrieking in the background. Or reading – books, YOUR blog, and yours too, and a million others as well. I keep telling myself “Write, Jenny, write now while the babies are asleep, write before that long list of things to write about in your head starts getting faded and lost forever, write” but then I look at the clock and midnight is so close and I have to get up for work in the morning. And slowly, but surely, all the things I want to write about are drifting away into never never land.
So -
Faith, my sweetheart, is at turns wonderfully good and deliberately bad. She tells me that she wants to ask me a question, then asks how an elephant goes through walls, like walls of glass. I am flummoxed, of course, because how DO they? But she has the answer. They just lift up their trunks and knock out a hole of glass and walk through it. Then she runs back off into the other room until she has another question that she already has the answer for. She still likes holding my hand when she falls asleep and still wants to cuddle on my lap and still wants me to “hold her forever” and I don't ever want that to end. She is so proud of herself at the pool, wanting me to watch her jump off the stairs, she is energetically giddy when she's around other kids or when we act like kids by dancing foolishly or running around in circles outside. She reads with me and then tries to repeat all the words that I've just said while cutting her eyes at me, watching to see my reaction to her somewhat flawed reading. I, of course, am enthusiastic, which she adores.
She and James are fighting more now, over toys, over food, over my attention or lap space. He is talking, if you can really call it talking, although I can mostly translate. He's picking up new words every day, finally, but he still has an appointment this week for a consultation on the tongue clipping that he's bound to receive. I could go back and slap, or at least foot stomp, the pediatrician that he had at birth who didn't think that being tongue-tied would bother him and “let's hold off on clipping it until we see if it affects his speech”. Which his pediatrician now, whom I adore, says that it certainly does. He is all boy, reckless and fearless, jumping off of the couch, climbing atop anything he can get a grip on. He is covered in bruises and scrapes and has dirt under his short fingernails and is always pulling off his pants and then his diaper and running laughing through the house and occasionally doing things that should only happen in a diaper then running to me, concerned, and talking his strange James babble. He's got the sweetest smile I've ever seen, the cutest pout, and a surprisingly strong arm when he gets mad and hits.
They both walk into our room at night and climb into bed with us and fall back asleep. They are both doing new things every day, things I want to remember, some I don't, and I am really enjoying them this summer. It is the first time in years when I haven't had an infant or been pregnant, and it's such a simple joy to go next door to the pool and be able to put on their floaties and us all just . . . be. And swim. And soak up the sun. As adorable as my newborn niece is, this is what I've been looking forward to when I wanted to become a mother. To have this, our family, all able to enjoy the same thing at the same time, with each other.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Reunited and A Close Call
The children came back from their trip three days early and I was thrilled to see them and at the same time disappointed that I still hadn't shampooed carpets, read entire books while lounging in the bathtub while only rising enough to turn on the hot water occasionally, or, oh I don't know, write another post.
I was so glad to see them though, nearly tripping over my own feet to rush to them, not sure of who to pick up first – Faith, who was energetically telling me about “arts and crafts!” or James, who was stumbling quickly to me yelling “Ma! Ma!”. We've fallen back into our old groove like we never left it and life is happy and chaotic as usual.
:::
On Saturday we took the kids next door to my in-laws' pool and Jeff's cousins joined us with their children. Jeff had to leave to go to work that night (boo) and I was talking with my father-in-law and cousin, while watching the kids, never taking my eyes off of them for more than a couple of seconds. All of the sudden Faith started yelling and us adults all looked towards her and all of us bolted upright because James was in the water, about two feet from the edge and I have no idea how that happened when moments before he has been sitting about two feet AWAY from the edge of the pool. He didn't have his little floaties on because he kept coming to me trying to get me to pull them off and I finally did, figuring we were about to go home and he was done with swimming (he had gotten water in his face about an hour prior and was DONE with the pool) (I thought). So I, foolishly, took off the floaties and let him play with his truck by the pool because I was right there and watching him. And then he's in the water.
I don't remember how, but the next thing I knew I was in the water pulling him out and he just grasped onto my arms, coughed a couple of times into my neck, eyelashes clumped together by the water framing wide eyes. He hadn't lost his breath and just wanted to hold onto me. My father-in-law said he was about to jump in when I pushed him out of the way, and the rest of the family got a chuckle out of that the next day when we recounted the story. But it terrified me. I had just read horrific stories of children drowning and here my own baby was, under the water. It seizes up my chest just writing this.
Without making a bigger deal out of this than it was, suffice to say that I am at danger of becoming one of those parents, you know, the ones that make their teenage children wear life preservers and the such.
I was so glad to see them though, nearly tripping over my own feet to rush to them, not sure of who to pick up first – Faith, who was energetically telling me about “arts and crafts!” or James, who was stumbling quickly to me yelling “Ma! Ma!”. We've fallen back into our old groove like we never left it and life is happy and chaotic as usual.
:::
On Saturday we took the kids next door to my in-laws' pool and Jeff's cousins joined us with their children. Jeff had to leave to go to work that night (boo) and I was talking with my father-in-law and cousin, while watching the kids, never taking my eyes off of them for more than a couple of seconds. All of the sudden Faith started yelling and us adults all looked towards her and all of us bolted upright because James was in the water, about two feet from the edge and I have no idea how that happened when moments before he has been sitting about two feet AWAY from the edge of the pool. He didn't have his little floaties on because he kept coming to me trying to get me to pull them off and I finally did, figuring we were about to go home and he was done with swimming (he had gotten water in his face about an hour prior and was DONE with the pool) (I thought). So I, foolishly, took off the floaties and let him play with his truck by the pool because I was right there and watching him. And then he's in the water.
I don't remember how, but the next thing I knew I was in the water pulling him out and he just grasped onto my arms, coughed a couple of times into my neck, eyelashes clumped together by the water framing wide eyes. He hadn't lost his breath and just wanted to hold onto me. My father-in-law said he was about to jump in when I pushed him out of the way, and the rest of the family got a chuckle out of that the next day when we recounted the story. But it terrified me. I had just read horrific stories of children drowning and here my own baby was, under the water. It seizes up my chest just writing this.
Without making a bigger deal out of this than it was, suffice to say that I am at danger of becoming one of those parents, you know, the ones that make their teenage children wear life preservers and the such.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Without
Awhile ago my mother-in-law decided that she was going to go to camp meeting this year in North Carolina. She used to go all the time, taking my husband and his sisters when they were small and always enjoyed it so much that she's been wanting to go back for years now and something always comes up and she never can. So when she told me that she wanted to go this year and take the kids with her, I just sort of assumed that something would fall through and then on Saturday her and my very pregnant sister-in-law told Jeff and I to have the kids ready by 1:00 the next day because they were going to camp meeting and they were taking the kids with them.
I hemmed and hawed and Jeff eventually talked me into it, telling me how the kids would have such a great time there and so on and so forth and so now the kids are in North Carolina and have been since Sunday and will continue to be until this coming Sunday and I am going absolutely out of my mind.
What on earth did I do before I had kids? I keep wandering around aimlessly, picking up books and turning on the television and browsing through my itunes library and even trying on my own clothes for heaven's sake. We don't have the money to go shopping or get pedicures or whatever other self-indulgent mess I can think of. So I've been eating and lounging and trying to enjoy food without tiny hands creeping onto my plate and uninterrupted reading. But I keep drifting, thinking of the kids, imagining the worst case scenario, thinking that if they were here right now they would be crawling onto my lap or pointing at words on the pages for me to pronounce.
When they are here I am always half-devising a plan in my head to occupy them just so I can have a few precious moments alone, and now I have sweeps of empty moments ahead of me and all I can think is FAITH and JAMES.
I hemmed and hawed and Jeff eventually talked me into it, telling me how the kids would have such a great time there and so on and so forth and so now the kids are in North Carolina and have been since Sunday and will continue to be until this coming Sunday and I am going absolutely out of my mind.
What on earth did I do before I had kids? I keep wandering around aimlessly, picking up books and turning on the television and browsing through my itunes library and even trying on my own clothes for heaven's sake. We don't have the money to go shopping or get pedicures or whatever other self-indulgent mess I can think of. So I've been eating and lounging and trying to enjoy food without tiny hands creeping onto my plate and uninterrupted reading. But I keep drifting, thinking of the kids, imagining the worst case scenario, thinking that if they were here right now they would be crawling onto my lap or pointing at words on the pages for me to pronounce.
When they are here I am always half-devising a plan in my head to occupy them just so I can have a few precious moments alone, and now I have sweeps of empty moments ahead of me and all I can think is FAITH and JAMES.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Shoulda
It is nearing midnight and my three year old daughter is laying sideways on my pillows, arms and legs splayed out, and my one year old son is curled up like a shrimp on the foot of my bed. I am still wearing my bathrobe from the shower I took four hours ago, and I never did comb my hair so I have no idea how I'm going to wear my wavy, cow-licked hair tomorrow.
I know that I should be in bed. I should have drank more water today and eaten less of that drool-worthy sandwich. I should have lined up someone to grade our new yard. I should have made that appointment for the 18 month check-up that James should have gone to last month. I should have exercised. I should have paid the car bill. I should have read more books to the kids and watched less television. I should have not cared so much about the cedar chips that cover the kids every time they play outside. I should have written in my blog in, oh I don't know, maybe the past few weeks?
I wonder if I'll ever get better at this, the prioritizing of time. I know that there are some things that I love to do, and yet, I find myself going two days, a week, a month, without doing them.
However, the house is getting built, the kids are staying fed, relatively clean, and joyously happy. There is money in the bank. I'm healthy, and alive, and growing more peaceful and accepting and, dare I say it, happy every day.
I know that I should be in bed. I should have drank more water today and eaten less of that drool-worthy sandwich. I should have lined up someone to grade our new yard. I should have made that appointment for the 18 month check-up that James should have gone to last month. I should have exercised. I should have paid the car bill. I should have read more books to the kids and watched less television. I should have not cared so much about the cedar chips that cover the kids every time they play outside. I should have written in my blog in, oh I don't know, maybe the past few weeks?
I wonder if I'll ever get better at this, the prioritizing of time. I know that there are some things that I love to do, and yet, I find myself going two days, a week, a month, without doing them.
However, the house is getting built, the kids are staying fed, relatively clean, and joyously happy. There is money in the bank. I'm healthy, and alive, and growing more peaceful and accepting and, dare I say it, happy every day.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Haircut
I should really take this opportunity to talk about my new job and how happily surprised I am with it or maybe I should complain about how long this finishing building a house business is taking, but instead I have urgent and important news.
We cut Jamie's hair.
Poor James. Born with a hair growth pattern that most closely resembles that one Stooge, or perhaps a mad scientist, and as most often commented by others “just like an old man's”. Yes, it is true. It has hardly grown at all on the top and just grown OUT from the back and the sides in a wild curly mane that brings to mind electric shock therapy. When just bathed it is soft curls and I know, gag, boys with curls, but on my baby it was the most beautiful thing on earth. But then it kept growing and finally I realized that it was starting to resemble a mullet and you know what? I already live in a country ass mountain town and I really don't need to add “mullet” to the list of things that I currently have to endure. So I pulled out the scissors and we went outside and I attempted my first little boy's haircut. It didn't turn out as bad as I thought it would, especially when James took off and I had to chase my 18 month old around the yard with scissors in my hands. I know. I should write a child safety manual.
Before picture. See? Mullet. Yikes.
I'm a total hick. I cut my half-naked son's hair on the porch. Realizing I have reached a new low.
It's a little long on top, but that's only because I thought the child should experience longer hair on top like most normal children.
He seems rather taken with it.
We cut Jamie's hair.
Poor James. Born with a hair growth pattern that most closely resembles that one Stooge, or perhaps a mad scientist, and as most often commented by others “just like an old man's”. Yes, it is true. It has hardly grown at all on the top and just grown OUT from the back and the sides in a wild curly mane that brings to mind electric shock therapy. When just bathed it is soft curls and I know, gag, boys with curls, but on my baby it was the most beautiful thing on earth. But then it kept growing and finally I realized that it was starting to resemble a mullet and you know what? I already live in a country ass mountain town and I really don't need to add “mullet” to the list of things that I currently have to endure. So I pulled out the scissors and we went outside and I attempted my first little boy's haircut. It didn't turn out as bad as I thought it would, especially when James took off and I had to chase my 18 month old around the yard with scissors in my hands. I know. I should write a child safety manual.
Before picture. See? Mullet. Yikes.
I'm a total hick. I cut my half-naked son's hair on the porch. Realizing I have reached a new low.It's a little long on top, but that's only because I thought the child should experience longer hair on top like most normal children.
He seems rather taken with it.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Something Good
I would like to take a moment from my whooping and cartwheeling to say that I have finally, FINALLY, been hired at a small company here in town. It's run out of a little old brick house and the front room will be my office, oh happy day, I have an office again! I've already been making mental plans to bring in a little potted plant to sit on my desk next to the window, and wondering which pictures of the kids I want to frame and bring in.
Oh, I know, it's not all about decorating my desk. It's also about paychecks! MONEY! We'll be able to pay our mortgage on the big, beautiful house that we're building!
Can you tell I'm in a good mood?
I start work tomorrow. We don't exactly have all the kinks worked out with the whole “who's going to keep the kids” thing, so that will be, um, fun. It won't be a problem until next week and hopefully we'll have something worked out by then. So today I plan on doing fun things with the kids, things out of the ordinary like making the drive to a larger town, one that has a movie theater and department store. I'm feeling brave, like I can take two small children out into the world and not feel overwhelmed. Ah, the sweet surge of optimism that comes with a job offer!
Oh, I know, it's not all about decorating my desk. It's also about paychecks! MONEY! We'll be able to pay our mortgage on the big, beautiful house that we're building!
Can you tell I'm in a good mood?
I start work tomorrow. We don't exactly have all the kinks worked out with the whole “who's going to keep the kids” thing, so that will be, um, fun. It won't be a problem until next week and hopefully we'll have something worked out by then. So today I plan on doing fun things with the kids, things out of the ordinary like making the drive to a larger town, one that has a movie theater and department store. I'm feeling brave, like I can take two small children out into the world and not feel overwhelmed. Ah, the sweet surge of optimism that comes with a job offer!
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