Sprouting little wings

If I haven't said it before, I'll say it now: not a day goes by that I don't acknowledge how grateful I am that Daryl and I have never had to send Margot off to daycare; how blessed we are that our employers give us enough freedom to stretch and bend our work schedules in order that she can spend her days at home with us instead of at a daycare facility. Our schedules are arranged in such a way that when one of us is at work, the other one is home with her; and in spite of how maddeningly frustrating it can be to operate this way when it means never having a day in the week where we're all together, it is, above all, a gift.

Cutting and pasting our work schedules, though, was obviously a direct result of bringing Margot into our lives; before she was born, my schedule was standard Monday-Friday, 9-5. So making all of this work meant putting my work hours on the chopping block - which, in turn, did the same thing to my paycheck. This isn't to say that we aren't making ends meet, but only to say that we've had to make adjustments where we can. And this past summer, after realizing our financial situation was altogether too uncomfortable (it's hard to say no to Chipotle) I decided to pick up an extra day at work. Well, this meant we were short on childcare one day a week; but by stroke of luck / divine blessing, everything worked out perfectly when Daryl's mom offered to come to our house every Wednesday to look after Margot. And as far as Margot is concerned, her Nana is one of the most magically wonderful people on the planet.

I digress, though. Nana works in the school system, so when the summer came to an end, so did our outsourced childcare services. Enter Marcia: one of my nearest and dearest and most beautifully talented and lovely friends (seriously, you guys: she's the mastermind behind t i b b e n l i t t l e s. You'll fall in love.) Marcia swooped in and offered to watch Margot when we needed her.  And yesterday just happened to be the first day that we had to bring Margot over there.

I was nervous. Not because Marce didn't have every ounce of my faith and adoration, but because I didn't put enough stock in my own little girl. My mind kept reeling, thinking surely we'd drop her off and say goodbye, wrenching ourselves out of her little arms, while tears poured down her face and she begged us to stay, calling out our names in despair.

It sounds dramatic. I know. But it's where my mind went. I know if you're a parent, yours has probably gone there, too.

I spent a lot of Tuesday evening telling her and re-telling her what the next day was going to look like; that Dada was going to drop her off over there, where she'd get to play aaaallll daaaayyyy loooonnnngggg with her favorite friend Wendy. I told her she'd get to play games, ride on Wendy's rocking horse, maybe go to the park, and anything else I could think of that'd help her (me) feel pumped up about dropping her off at someone else's house and leaving for the day. This was totally new territory for me.

And as it turns out, obviously, Margot was fine. Better than fine! Daryl told me that she was more interested in Wendy's feet than she was in saying goodbye to him.

"Wendy feet! Bye-bye, Dada. Wendy feet!" (Poke, poke.)

I've had Margot's independence on my brain so much lately. When hanging out with our next-door neighbors last week as we sat around a fire in their backyard, they talked about how big and scary the world has started to feel now that their son is five and they've had to start teaching him how to operate in the world without them. They've had to teach him how to navigate getting home on the school bus, how to watch out for cars on the street, and make sure he knows his address and his parents' contact information, and a plethora of other such considerations that just don't exist while our kids are young enough to constantly remain under our care. It's all just so much. I drive past kids waiting for the bus before school on my way to work every morning and my brain instantly zaps to their parents, thinking about how each and every one of them managed to come to terms with sending their kids off into the world on their own. How much trust they've all mustered up and put into their kids - not because they want to, but because they have to. Because kids grow up. Because we can't cradle them in our arms forever.

But it's terrifying. It's overwhelming. And it just boggled my brain yesterday when, after we were all home and went for a walk to the park down the street, I was asking Daryl and Margot each about their days. Realizing how odd it was that the three of us had days and experiences independent from one another.

Because...what? When did Margot get so big? Did I not just give birth to her last week? How has she gotten old enough to have her own experiences outside of our house and outside of our care? It doesn't make sense to me. It's amazing and beautiful and completely bewildering watching her grow so quickly.

And so last night, there was no bigger sigh of relief than while I was giving her a bath, and asking her about her day, and she just kept yelling, "Wendy house! SO FUN!"

My girl, when did you become your own person with your own little ideas?

Love thyself.

It's hard to love yourself every day of the week. I know.

It's hard to accept that you're good enough, or present enough, or that you're lovely even if your jeans don't fit anymore. It's a tall order to consider that you're radiant no matter what your hair looks like or whether your sweater has spit-up on it and holes forming at the sleeves.

Growing up, I spent so long ripping pieces of myself apart. I think - I fear, I lament - that I only did this because I'm a girl being raised in the world, amidst warped ideas of beauty and skewed body image, in spite of the solid teaching I was given at home. I invested too much time thinking that my skin was too pale; that my arms were too hairy; that my thighs made me look like a hippopotamus; that I had man-hands and a boy's voice (I don't).

But tearing oneself down is exhausting. The energy that we can expend dreaming up and focusing on different faults or reasons why we're not good enough is just so tiring. It's gratuitous. It needs to stop.

I'm not saying that loving yourself comes easy, or that strong self-confidence is something inherent. It takes work. But more importantly, it takes a consideration that those people in your life who love you are onto something. It takes an intentional effort to hear what you're being told, and take it to heart.

The confidence that I have, which started from this tiny seed at the bottom of my heart and sprouted up and out and all over my body, exists because I've been taught well to love myself. I took the example of the handful of people who raised me up and held my hand and walked alongside me and reminded me time and again that I am wonderful.

I feel blessed in my life that I've had certain people love me so deeply, with such care and such intention that they instilled within me this tiny seed that grew up, up and away. They taught me, over a long string of years, that my pale skin is beautiful. That who gives two shits about your arm hair? That my thighs are beautiful and perfect just as they are. And that my hands are lovely and my voice is just my voice. My girl voice. And they taught me so much more than this - that I am loved in spite of any and every single flaw that I possess.
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When I started this blog some months ago, I did it as a means to reach out to other mothers. Women like me who are experiencing the gamut of emotions, being stretched in every which direction, nearly broken but still hanging on, and who might find themselves feeling isolated or alone.

And a couple months ago, I stripped off all my clothes and stood with my naked baby girl for the 4th Trimester Bodies Project as a way of taking a small step forward - or a big step, really - shouting from the rooftops, in my loudest voice, that we as mothers are strong, we are beautiful, and we are brave. It was the first step in a series of motions I took to liberate myself from my own cage. And to have sloughed off my clothes and those bars feels like the most freeing thing I've ever done.

I want Margot to learn to love herself. And I know that this starts right here. I want to love her all through her days and to lead by example and show her exactly how powerful she is. I want her to have a realistic understanding that beauty is everywhere, that beauty does not revolve around body size or shape, and that she can do whatever she wants to do and be whoever she chooses to be.

I want her to understand that her value is not determined by her beauty, but that regardless of what she looks like, or what changes her body goes through, that she's perfect just as she is.

What do you love about yourself? Are they the same things that I love about you? Do you take selfies on your phone when your kids are napping? I do too.

Lifting you up, up, up when you're feeling down, down, down

If there’s one message I might walk the streets hollering out at the top of my lungs, it would probably have something to do with reminding you that I’m okay, you’re okay, and that we’re gonna be okay. I’d probably be fervently reminding you that if you’ve just had a new baby, or even if it was kind of a while ago, those feelings you’re experiencing, and that voice in the back of your head that’s taunting you to throw in the towel – they will diminish and disappear. And while I can tell you with great certainty that hours or days or weeks later they’ll resurface, they’ll always just be hills or mountains that I know you can scale.

Because even though we’re all going through different things, as mothers, we’re also all walking down the same road. Whether a mother chooses to have an umedicated birth or an elective c-section, whether she endures episiotomy or vacuum or forceps, whether she births in a birth center or hospital or at home unassisted, whether she chooses to formula-feed or breastfeed exclusively, whether she opts for cloth diapers or disposables, or whether she chooses to stay home full-time or foster her career; we are all doing our absolute utmost to raise our babies and do exactly what’s right for them and for us, all the while bending backwards until our spines nearly snap in two.

Because no matter what path we're traveling, we’re all hanging on by a thread.

The weight we bear as mothers, as we hold up our children, our jobs, our partners and every other responsibility and relationship in our lives is nearly too great to bear on any day and over the course of every day.

Motherhood is hard; and nobody gets through those early days unscathed. Pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood are altogether rewarding, exhilarating, exhausting, trying, demanding, and beautiful. But if you’re new to this, if you’re on your knees, or if you’re barely scraping by, remember two things: you are not alone, and there exists an army of women behind you who support you and love you.

The things you’re feeling have been felt and endured by scores of women before you. I am one of them. Whether you’re experiencing postpartum depression or anxiety, or battling the overwhelmingly powerful effects of postpartum hormones, remember that this too shall pass. It gets better. It gets easier. Life has a way of priming us for greater challenges; and if you reach out, ask for help, and make yourself vulnerable, I promise you will feel the pull of that army lifting you up and out of that hole.

Sleep deprivation and postpartum hormones are a lethal combination – but they’re one that we’ve all experienced, and continue to. So again, I say: you are not alone. This will pass. And you are loved.

I love you, but you're creeping me out. But I love you. But you're creeping me out.

I have felt fiercely and intensely attached to Margot lately.

It's really no wonder why, I know - I'm living through our days mourning the loss of her first sibling - and truly, overall, I'm okay. I really am okay. But I can't say it comes as a surprise that my heart is glomming on to this girl of mine at an exponential rate while I grieve. 

I hadn't even really noticed until just recently, when I realized how frequently I flip through photos of her on my phone when I'm not around her. Whether I'm away from her at work, or whether I'm one floor beneath her while she's down for her afternoon nap, or whether I've put her to bed only a short time prior at the end of the day - it's only moments before I'm picking up my phone and looking at all the pictures I've taken of her in the recent past. 

I ache with missing her while she's sleeping. While she's awake, we're usually attached to one another; either I'm holding her, or she's sitting on my lap, or nuzzling in the crook of my neck, or laughing and smiling her biggest smiles while my stomach hurts from laughing so hard. We're having amazing days together. I don't know whether to attribute these moments to a higher level of patience and love for her, or to some heightened sense of awareness that she's picked up in light of my grief. But whatever the reason, she is without a doubt pouring excess amounts of light into my life. 

I took this picture of her this morning, while she was watching Daryl drive off to work, and waving goodbye to him, and I haven't been able to stop looking at it all day. I posted it on Facebook and on Instagram and I wish I had it posted on the inside of my eyelids so that I could stare at it incessantly. She's beautiful and charming and magic and I can't stop wondering how on earth I got this tiny human - how I got so lucky so as to have her to call my own - because she's just unspeakably amazing. I told her today that she's brought me to joy I didn't even know existed before I had her. 

Something weird happened today, though. I almost don't want to write about it because it's surely going to make one of us sound like a looney tune; but at the risk of that, I'm regaling you with a story about the creepiest thing that happened to me all day. I have a serious love for creepy, but this was a little over the line. 

"Baby gone. Baby. Baby. Baby gone. Baby gone." 

I wish you all knew how well Margot speaks - because this story could easily be discredited on the assumption that she's just a tiny girl, with a limited vocabulary, and a garbled one at that; but for those of you who can attest, please stand with me here when I say that Margot has a truly exceptional talent with speech. If there's a word that you can say, she can say it. She started talking at 9 months old; and now, at almost 20 months, she's pretty easy to understand. So as I tell you this story, please take my word when I say there's no doubt as to whether I was misconstruing her words. She speaks clear as a bell. 

"Baby gone." 

We were running errands today, driving from Costco to the co-op in our neighborhood, and she was blabbering on in the backseat, as toddlers are wont to do, and I was paying her almost no attention, as mothers are [ashamedly] occasionally wont to do. I eventually started to pay her some mind, though, because, well, that kind of just naturally happens when a tiny little voice is repeating the same thing over and over three feet behind your head. So I asked her, "What, Margot? Baby gone?"

"Yes. Baby. Baby, mama. Baby gone." 

Thinking nothing of it, I said, "Huh..? Baby? What baby?" 

"Baby. Baby gone." 

"The baby is gone? Where did the baby go?" Okay...I'd indulge her. I had no idea where this was going.

"Baby sick. Tired. Baby gone. Tired." 

"Gone?" This was starting to get weird.

"Yes. Baby tired. Sick. Baby gone." She continued. 

It got weird. I got creeped. I can't stress this enough: neither Daryl nor I have ever - EVER - talked to her about this loss. About this pregnancy, about a sibling, about miscarriage. She's also the youngest in the pack when it comes to our friend group; she doesn't have babies in her life. Now I'm not suggesting she's telepathic, or otherwise intuitive on some otherworldly level, but can I get an amen when I say that this creeped the crap out of me? No..? K maybe it's just me. But for the life of me I can't figure out what she was talking about. And it didn't end there. I decided to indulge her further.

"Margot, what baby? Was the baby a boy or a girl?" 

"Girl." 

"Pardon?"

"Girl." 

Okay... whatever. I have no idea who she's talking about. She goes on for another minute or two, talking about this baby who was sick, and tired, and is now gone. I was still driving, still listening to the radio, but with some serious wheels grinding in the back of my head. Then, about five minutes later, after some silence, she says, "Baby come." And again. She's stuck on repeat.

"Baby come? Huh?" I said. What does that even mean? Does she even know the word "come"? Probably, but I have no idea. 

"Yes. Baby come. Baby come." 

"..........Is....a baby...coming?" I ask. 

"Yes." 

Okay. I'm not going to travel down some weird road here, but I also won't ignore the niggling feeling that she could be feeling a pull toward me just as strongly as the one I'm feeling toward her. Either that or she's the creepiest human being I've ever met. 

Three to four to three

Being pregnant for only two months was a weird thing. It wasn't something I thought I'd have gone through; especially since I spent the first bit of it so busy toddler-wrangling that I often forgot that I was even pregnant at all. Now, though, it's the opposite. The sting feels most severe every time I forget that I'm not pregnant anymore. And when I remember, I get that sinking feeling in my stomach.

I remember that I don't have to haul out my maternity clothing anymore. Or worry about how I'll bend over Margot's crib every night with a growing belly getting in the way. I remind myself that there's no more immediate need to think about how to rearrange her room, or to daydream about what she's going to be like as a big sister. I remember that it's okay to do things like have a glass of wine with dinner, take a hot bath, or take some ibuprofen to subside my pounding headache that hasn't passed in over two days. 

Pregnancy has a way about it - when I first found out, I was slammed with all kinds of feelings; and naturally, I mentally signed on for an ensuing 36 weeks, give or take, of a beautifully exciting and terrifying roller coaster ride of emotional and physical experiences. I signed on the dotted line and never expected anybody to rip that contract up. I was going to end up with a baby in the spring - so what's happening? Why am I so empty all of a sudden? 

Upon realizing I was pregnant, though, coming to terms with the idea that I was going to go through pregnancy and childbirth and everything that goes along with that for a second time around, I faced feelings I was altogether not expecting to feel. For starters, we hadn't been actively trying for this baby. To say that it was a surprise isn't quite right, but unexpected - yes. Entirely. 

I didn't totally know how to be happy. It's not that I wasn't overarchingly so, or that I didn't understand that this was a wholly amazing experience about to unfold before me, but I didn't fully grasp the concept of how to physically rejoice in knowing I was about to bring forth a new little baby into a household with a preexisting toddler in it. 

As far as kids go, the idea of zero to one was, for me, fantastic. It was great. Sure, it was terrifying at more times than one, and overwhelming and crazy, but hey - there was a baby coming! We were going to have a baby! She'd sleep, she'd poop, she'd cry, and she'd make cute little garbled noises. And she'd be fun. It'd be good. 

One to two, though, that's just bat shit crazy. How was I supposed to do that?! Are there services offered wherein we might outsource toddler A until we had a steady handle on baby B? I'm not suggesting this would have been a forever thing; five years max. But no, wait... I didn't want to do life without Margot in it every step of the way. And so where was this baby going to fit in to all this? I had heard a lot of times that women expecting their second child worry how on earth they'll find enough love in their hearts to measure up to how they feel about their firstborns - but my hesitation wasn't so much about the love quotient as it was about whether I wouldn't be so busy making sure Margot wasn't tossing cat poop around in the litter box that I wouldn't accidentally leave my new baby strapped safely in its car seat, sitting atop the roof of the car in our driveway, for reasons completely unbeknownst to me. And then when I'd realize, whether I'd yell out a half-hearted, well-meaning apology to the baby - "I'm so sorry, babe - I'll be back in an hour as soon as I can just get some of my shit together inside...Please don't take this personally..." And then figure this must be the precise moment and reason for which all children born after the Almighty Firstborn end up fending for themselves thanks to a mutual understanding that, yeah, if you want to eat lunch today you're just going to have to fix yourself your own sandwich. And also if you could take a series of selfies every now and again, I need some materials to toss into your baby book. Thanks. Oh and yeah by "baby book" I do mean a little Ziploc bag containing your dried-up bellybutton and somebody else's bandaid. ("OKAY WHO PUT THEIR BANDAID IN THE BABY'S KEEPSAKE BAGGIE?")

I felt like I was living in a very tangible moment of history. It almost felt more like history than like present, really; because it occurred to me that we would hardly remember the days that went by before our second baby joined our family; and might the memories one day fizzle out altogether? No - I wanted to make a concerted effort to keep them from disappearing. 

And now that we're back to where we started, back with each other and no new little growing babe on our horizon, well, absorbing each blessing, every day and every shred of grace and love is a project I'm working on with all my heart, limbs and senses. This time we have with our sweet girl, this time we have as a family of three, is exactly perfect in spite of what we've lost. This is our meantime - our time that's passing no more quickly or slowly than it's meant to; and I'm taking in every breath with deep gratitude. The passing of our sweet second baby will never be lost on me; but I don't dare let that loss take away from the beautiful present that's unfolding before me at a dizzying rate.