Mother's Day: Year 2

It doesn't seem like a year ago that I posted this about my first Mother's Day as a real mom. At the same time, it somehow seems like a lifetime ago, because my life has changed so dramatically since then, and nowhere moreso than in the Motherhood Department. I remember then being overwhelmed and frustrated, but joyful and thankful and most importantly: in control.

That has changed, of course. If you think parenting an 18-month-old is hard, imagine adding a 2.5 year old suddenly to the mix. It's sort of like that science experiment you did in middle school (or in my case, you saw someone do on TV) where you pour the vinegar into the volcano and it "explodes." It's that - with human beings. I think everyone's journey to motherhood is different, and everyone's experience as a mom is different, but I find that MY experience seems especially different in that there are very few - if any - people I know that became mothers in a similar way to me. And I know every mom's life is full of "shoulds" - I should feel this way, I should do this, I should think that, this should happen this way - but sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in shoulds, shoulds that I can't even say out loud, shoulds I think no one else (except Gina, of course) could possibly ever understand.

But here's what I've learned over the last year - it doesn't matter what the shoulds are, because life keeps moving forward. The girls keep growing - they keep entering and exiting developmental phases, and then sometimes entering them again. But this is how it is. This is what we have, and WE are what THEY have. I am what they have. I'm tired. I feel never-enough. I feel a million things at once and sometimes nothing at all. And the whole time, they are just here, growing and changing - emotionally, physically, mentally. They say things like, "Mommy, your nails are so beautiful," and "Come to me, mommy," and "Fuck."

Yep. I'm sure I'm doing a million things wrong, but somewhere in there, something is right.

'

Fever

Conversation with Gina yesterday in Target:

Katie (passing the baby section): I know it's only been 2 days since we've declared Isabella potty trained, but baby fever struck me the MOMENT I realized she's pretty much out of diapers. Like... it's suddenly as bad as it was when we didn't have any kids at all.

Gina: (laughing) Yeah, I get it. 

Pause.

Gina: (dead serious) But we do. Have kids. A lot. All the time.

What is this feeling?

I’m having that feeling again. A feeling which is not unfamiliar but not nearly familiar enough. It creeps up when I’m reading a particularly great book, or feeling inspired by a great article or interview, or listening to a new song I’ve just discovered that is lyrically perfect, often in its deceptive simplicity. All of those things have happened just recently, all at once: the great book is Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt – the metaphors! The word choice! The ridiculously rich main character, so complex and layered and flawed! I’m about halfway through the book and am obsessed!; the interview is the GIRLS panel last night at the Academy – envy at their youth and envy that they’re CREATING, and something that I think is pretty great at that; and the song is I Don’t Wanna Break by Christina Perri -  “I just wanna love you, don’t wanna lose me, don’t wanna lose you, if it gets harder then I don’t wanna break all alone…” sometimes a song just takes you to a time in your life and you combine the lyrics with a catchy tune and it throws you, quick and rough-like.

The overture to this was waking up one morning a few days ago before everyone in my house was awake, and the windows were open and it smelled like summer at dawn. The birds were chirping and the blue-gray light bled all over my living room, and I felt a surge of possibility.

So what is this feeling? Well. It’s this: I want to read all of the books – fiction, non-fiction, short fiction, flash-fiction, novellas. I want to read your journal. Yep, yours. I want to watch all of the movies and television shows. I want to consume all of the comic books and graphic novels. I want to see all of the paintings in all of the museums. I want to go to all of the panels, I want to be obsessed with everything that’s ever been created. I want to hear all of the music and read all of the lyrics. I want to read all of the poetry, maybe even memorize it. I want to discover all of the new bands and I want to go to the open-mic nights and I want to see all of the comics. I want to re-read all of my favorite books all at once.  I want to have lunch with you, all of you, one at at time and I want you to tell me about everything interesting that’s ever happened to you.

I want to write. I want to find stories to tell, and tell them. I want to create things people are obsessed with. I want to create things I’M obsessed with. I want to take pictures and learn photoshop and print pictures and frame them and hang them up. I want to figure out how to put into words how beautiful my girlfriend is, I want to find the right word to describe the color of her eyes. I want to write down every single word that I love, and I want to figure out how to use them in something I write. I want to learn how to construct metaphors – can that be taught? I want to blog and tumble and tweet. I want to take classes, go back to school to be all of the things I ever wanted to be – doctor, lawyer, writer, teacher, astronomer, marine biologist, actor. Filmmaker. Screenwriter. I want someone to shackle my ankles to a chair in front of a desk in a quiet room with a computer and force me to sit there for 4 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours, however long it takes until I’ve written something worth working on a second time, a “shitty first draft.”

I want to make sense of everything.

Of course, there is never time for this. Not for all of this, anyway. But there has to be time for SOME of it, right? If I could bottle this feeling, it would change my life. For now, I just let myself feel it, and let it move me to tears just a bit, and hope that if I keep reading and listening and working and writing – even just a little bit – the feeling won’t be so much of a stranger.

Brown-eyed Girl

"I want blue eyes like Isabella."

I couldn't understand what she was saying at first. Maddie always wants what Isabella has, and usually gets it because she's difficult to reason with (because THREE YEARS OLD and AUNT OF THE YEAR). We were out to dinner, and I thought she was saying blue ice, a la Walter White, but it didn't make any sense because no one had any blue ice.  No one had any blue anything - we were at a Mexican hole-in-the-wall restaurant. The Corona label was blue, but nothing else.

She pointed to Isabella's face. "No, I want blue eyes like Isabella." She asked for it as though she wanted the same kind of plate Isabella had, or the same stuffed animal, as though it was something I could easily give her, and why wouldn't I, because she had asked so politely?

I hugged her. "Oh honey, you have brown eyes. You have beautiful, perfect brown eyes."

Her lip quivered and she looked into MY eyes. "No, I want BLUE eyes like Aunt Katie and Isabella." I pointed out that Aunt Gina has brown eyes too, but that wasn't good enough for her in that moment. She cried real tears at the inability to pick her eye color. Gina suggested we ask Dr. Jordan the next time we see her if she and Isabella can switch eyes, and I said I'd pretend to switch with her right now. She (magically) calmed down.

I'm not ready for this. I'm not anywhere near ready to hear this perfect little girl complain about her body in any way. And about her eyes of all things! Arguably one of her best features. Shaped like her mother's and the color of her father's, they are large and deep and expressive.  They are the strongest indicator of her mixed ethnicity. She's all big-and-round-headed just like her mom and her aunts were when they were babies, and she's got the chubby cheeks and the ridiculous grin we all had too, but her eyes - they are what set her apart, in the best way. They are the brown eyes people write about and sings songs about. When she's an adult (like 30 or so, because she's not allowed to date before then), her partners will fall in love with those eyes.  I fell in love with those eyes the minute I met her. And no matter how big she gets, no matter how far away from me she is, whenever I see her, I'll be able to look into those eyes and remember the little girl that changed my life and made me whole.

I'd try to reach up and grab a star for her if she asked, but I'd never change her eyes to blue even if I could, no matter how much she begged. They're just too perfect as is, and I know I won't be the last to tell her.

 

Merry Christmas from the depths of my anger

Christmas Eve 2012, our first with Isabella, found me at the CVS Minute Clinic getting tested for strep throat. I remember still having the thought that I'd make it to the 11:00 church service that night. Of course I did not make it, instead downing tea and whiskey trying not to make that the Christmas of the Needley Throat. In the exhaustion of the next day's events (and feeling the stress of the past month finally lifting from me), I cried to my mom about how grateful I was that she and my dad, despite never having a ton of cash, ALWAYS found ways to give us wonderful, memorable Christmases. My first Christmas as a mom was my most exhausting one, no doubt, but the joy I felt Christmas morning was so unlike anything I'd ever known, it left me a sobbing mess.

This year, with two kids living with us, I knew Christmas would be a little more stressful, but I knew Christmas morning would come and I'd have double the high. In 2013, we officially joined All Saints Church in Pasadena, and we actually started making church part of our weekly routine in September, so for the first time since I left Ohio 13.5 yrs ago, I had a church in my new hometown to not only go to on Christmas Eve, but one where I felt HOME. Some of my favorite Christmas memories include church on Christmas Eve, and I was excited to take the girls this year.

I know all of you other moms have impeccably organized calendars, white boards full of reminders about who is to be where and when, and you rarely if ever mess up a time somewhere. I'm not that mom, despite my best efforts. So I thought the family service on Christmas Eve was at 5:30. That was the plan, to take the girls to the 5:30 service. 

All Saints is a huge church, so you have to arrive early on holidays to even get a seat. They do eventually close the doors if they reach capacity, which the do for almost every holiday service. So we got there around 4:45, armed with coloring books and snacks for the kids.

Christmas angels

Gina held our seats while I ran around with Maddie, because the best way to get her to behave is to force her into exhaustion. She eventually gets too tired to put up a fight. There weren't a lot of other kids there - turns out, the family service had been at 3pm. I didn't want to put them in the church-provided childcare that day, and neither did Gina. They go to childcare every Sunday - I wanted them with us on Christmas Eve. Most of the parishioners commented how beautiful they looked, how sweet they were, yada yada yada. They held it together really well during the service - they were super fidgety and asked a few questions out loud, and Maddie sang Happy Birthday to Jesus at a few inopportune times. I excused myself and Maddie after the sermon at some point when I felt she was too restless. We ran around a bit and came back. Overall, they were great for being 2 and 3.

As we were leaving, we got more compliments on how cute they were. We went across the street to Pasadena City Hall to check out the Christmas tree. As the kids were running around and I was trying to snap some pictures, I heard a voice behind me, loud enough for me to hear, but quiet enough that I wasn't sure it was directed at me.

"You know that place you just were, All Saints? They offer childcare." 

I turned around to see a woman who was approximately 175 years old. Her son or grandson was with her and he had a look on his face like "Just go ahead and shoot me now." 

"I know," I said to her. "We wanted them in church with us."

"Well, they were very noisy." 

I'll be screwed during the zombie apocalypse because my real fight instinct takes way too long to kick in. The phrase "What I SHOULDA said was..." is all-too common in my phrase ammo. 

"Yeah, well, they're kids."

"Well, it was very distracting." 

"Well, they are parishioners too." The grandson/home health aide nodded, clearly on my side, begging me to have mercy on him. At this point she was walking away, and this is when my fight instinct finally kicked in. I yelled after her, "IT'S CHRISTMAS EVE!" She mumbled something else and it was then that I lost it. I yelled at my family to get in the f*cking car, we were going home. 

I got in the car and slammed the door and started sobbing. Gina took over with the kids and got them into their car seats while I sat helpless in the front seat with my head in my hands. "Aunt Katie, are you so sad?  What happened to Aunt Katie?" was what I heard from Maddie.  "What happened to mommy?" from Isabella.  "Some old bag was mean to mommy at church," Gina said, which made me laugh for a moment, but it did nothing to curtail the 90 minutes of utter despair I felt on the ride home and once we got home.  Christmas, my absolute favorite time of the year to be a mom, re-experiencing the magic with my children, and I was a ball of rage. All of the small stresses of the past six weeks flooded over me, and I was hit with a familiar feeling I try to ignore, that NO ONE knows what it's like to be where I am, where we are, mothers by law but not biology, trying to be just as much to those girls as their biological mothers would be if they could be, and always feeling like I'm falling short, that their tiny minds are already racking up resentment toward me because I yell at them too much, I lose my patience, I cry, I get frustrated and annoyed, I expect more from them then they are able to give, and on and on and on and on.  I was sunk, for ninety full minutes, during dinner and bath time and bed time.  

Footy jammies! Come ON!

Wine helped. Going through the motions helped - we gave them their Christmas jammies, we read "Twas the Night Before Christmas," Gina rocked Isabella as I cuddled with Maddie until I felt her fidgety little body relax and drift off.  I emerged from the depths slowly, like a hibernating animal sniffing for the first signs of spring.  I began to regret my anger, to regret allowing some million year old lady ruin my Christmas, ruin my kids' Christmas.  But the great thing about kids this young is they forget stuff like this quickly, and as we slept, Santa brought a bunch of presents, and when they woke up, Christmas happened just like it was supposed to for them, a morning full of cinnamon buns and presents and magic and "Looky! Look what I got!" As long as their Christmas is good, mine is good.  And it was lovely. 

What is still the most annoying to me is THEY WERE ACTUALLY REALLY WELL BEHAVED IN CHURCH!

No really, I'm over it.  Promise.

"Whoever you are, where ever you find yourself on the journey of faith, you are welcome here." -All Saints Church

"And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." -Matthew 18:3