December

I am a steward of my children.

I had that thought the other day, after listening to a podcast in which a mom shares the story of losing her son. It was a sad thing to listen to, and it had me pushing off tears with the back of one hand while the other balanced the stroller on my walk. It made me realize how much I take for granted, made me rethink my role yet again, made me reevaluate for the thousandth time.

“This will just have to do for the October blog post cause I’ve run out of time”

Motherhood is messy. That’s my grand conclusion after two and half years of doing this, and I doubt I’m breaking new ground here, but there it is. It’s messy.

Right now, in motherhood, I feel akin to a jumble of yarn that just won’t untangle. As I start to pull on one string, three other strings get stubbornly tighter. When I pull on another, four strings that were supposed to stay put come loose. I try to sort my emotions and thoughts out, but my brain is too scrambled to make sense of things, because in my proverbial yarn world, all my strings are touching other strings which are tangled up in other strings. Messy.

The last few weeks have been harder than usual. It doesn’t help that we’ve traveled or that the boys and I have gotten sick and cranky—but it’s more than that. I have felt a deep restlessness in my spirit, a lack of peace, and a complete disenchantment with stay at home motherhood.

August Reflection

I’d been waiting for George to start crawling for the whole summer. He was so close for so long—when anyone asked about him I’d say with practice, “yeah, almost crawling” and it seemed like that was my description of him for the entirety of July. So often Rob and I have exchanged looks when we’ve thought he might be starting. But today, he finally, finally, finally crawled. Officially.

I don’t know if this is just me, but whenever one of my boys reaches a milestone, I get this intense squeezing feeling inside of my chest. It’s like a firework going off inside my heart, an explosion of emotions that feels almost too much. It’s so emotional that it feels physical, tactile.

It’s a mix of admiration, pride, happiness, excitement, sadness, and tenderness, all at once. It’s a lot.

Do other parents feel this way? That when your child crosses that threshold, all your emotions are going to cave in and you might possibly implode? Is it weird that I feel this way? Or boring and normal?

July reflection: a slice of life

I walked slowly from my bedroom and into George’s room, my half-open eyes taking in the light from his sound machine. I didn’t bother to put on clothes when I slipped from bed to do the early morning feeding, since everyone was still asleep and the blinds were still drawn. My breasts were heavy, full of milk. It’d been ten hours, and my body was just as ready to nurse as George was.

During the day, George never goes past three hours between feedings, so even though he has been sleeping through the night for two months, my breasts always act surprised after the night stretch, like they have a mind of their own and that mind is forgetful.

George stopped crying when he saw me and smiled. I love that early morning smile, the one that says, “Oh hey, mom, funny meeting you here.”

February Reflection

Anna

I told myself that I would start writing more, if only so that I can remember things when I’m an old woman. One of my New Years Resolutions was to post something on my blog once a month, and, unlike a lot of people, I *almost* always keep my resolutions.

I turned twenty eight a few weeks ago, and I realized that I am a different person from the twenty two year old college graduate Anna. I feel somewhat removed from her, if that makes sense, and I’m grateful that I wrote a lot back then so I can remember who she—I—was.  I cringe whenever I read her—my—writing—from that time, and I suppose one day I will cringe at this too. “How could I have put that out there for all the world to see?” Oh well. I comfort myself that it isn’t actually the whole world…just people who know me, which I can live with. I know those people and for those of them I care about, I know they are forgiving, and for those people I don’t care about, well, I just don’t care. I know that when I am writing, I am capturing who I am in the moment, and that’s really the only way I can remember things.