Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Sandcastles

Before...

I don't think I need to explain that things have been a little bit hectic around here.  We're all a little disheveled, more often than not.  But once in awhile, we're not.  Once in awhile, there are a few, lustrous hours of order - clean clothes, clean faces, de-tangled hair...

...and after. 

But of course, those hours are always numbered.  By the end of the day, we're usually a step behind our pajama'd beginning.  The now dirty clothes end up in a little heap somewhere.  The hairdo has disintegrated into chaos, and happiness is now a matter of pasting a sticker to our bare skin, using the best adhesive available: sooty rainwater.

At this point, I'm often tempted to ask myself why I ever bother in the first place.  It's not as though there is ever a day that doesn't end looking like a disaster.  But I just have to laugh instead, because this is life - mortality in a nutshell.

What do we do, if not build things to be decayed?  We wake up each morning and create each day like a sandcastle on the beach.  We build, often carefully, pouring our creativity and energy into the cast of our priorities, packing and shaping, and hope for the best result.  Nevertheless, whether by waves or wind, we will find that, by its end, the day has dilapidated considerably.

Especially as a mom, I've come face to face with this reality: that all of my efforts, all of my accomplishments will, at least seemingly, fade away.  Nothing but my (more and more sporadic) journal entries and occasional photographs will remain in years to come, to prove that today ever happened.  And yet, today matters.  The exertions with which I attempt to bring order or beauty into my life and the lives of my little ones are not insignificant.

When the evening has come and finds all that I have built or done in a limp state of disrepair, what will remain, but the patience that I have worked into my fingers?  The ability to endure, that has seeped into my reddened knuckles?  The new understanding in my tired eyes, of the redemption of every new morning?  What will remain of my creations in the sand are the memories that my daughters will someday carry away with them, that their mama loved them.


Surely, there is something that we are meant to learn by the cycle of creation and destruction.  Doubtless, there is wisdom behind the mortality and fallibility of our bodies and of all that we do here, calculated to allow us to grow.

Monday, September 22, 2014

My Happy Thought

In the few short weeks that have followed the appearance of our Ellie, I have found myself daydreaming from time to time.  I have caught myself thinking, half-consciously, now we're a real family...

I know that that's ridiculous.  We were a real family before Ellie was born, before she was even thought of.  Ben and I were a real family even before Addie came to us.  We were a real family from the day we were married, when we committed to be a forever unit, to build one another up and to grow together for the rest of our lives and long after.

But life is a long time - not to mention eternity - and I can't help thinking about it, envisioning family photos taken someday in a studio or on a carpet of fallen leaves.  When I was a new bride, my husband was one of the only real certainties of my future.  There would be him, me...and whatever other family members might happen along.

Almost a year and a half later, Addie came into our lives, and they were, of course, changed forever.  My imaginary family portraits began to feature her little face as well.  Alongside the baby pictures that began to appear on our walls, I saw, in my mind, other pictures - the first day of kindergarten, Christmases and family reunions to come.  And yet, in addition to Addie, the pictures included a number - no one can say how many - of nameless, faceless little strangers.

Ellie is yet another piece to that puzzle.  Now that she is here, I feel that I know something more about both of my daughters than I did before.  Each one adds a new backdrop to the other's life.  Each adds a clarifying line to the vague contour of our future as I see it before us.  All of those yet-untaken photographs are one less part imagination and on more part reality.

So, in those moments of sunshiny contentment, this is what I see - lots of murky, undefined years, but each one is filled with my girls, my husband and with abundant promise.



Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Venturing

I thought I had this parenting thing figured out.  Surely, being able to go about my business with a rambunctious toddler in tow, and being able to keep her happy entails some sort of motherly prowess, right?

Well, this week, with my mom gone back home and my husband gone back to work, I'm getting to really get my feet wet, on my own with both girls for the first time.  As if being at home with both of them weren't sort of a trial by fire, our 2-week well-child check-up fell on the first day of mommy's lonely reign.

I spent all morning preparing, trying to get myself and both girls in a state of being fed, clean and ready to go.  We still got out the door barely on time.  As I pulled onto the interstate, anxieties began to rise.  I felt a profound weight of responsibility hanging on my shoulders.  I had forgotten something, I was sure of it.  Reaching behind me, I found Ellie's little head with my fingertips, just to reassure myself.  It wasn't enough.  I pulled off again at the first exit and found a place to pull over, just so that I could turn around completely to see that my baby was, indeed, asleep in her car seat.  Sufficiently calmed, I took courage and we continued along the freeway toward town.

Despite its inauspicious start, the outing went quite smoothly.  We got back home all in one piece, but exhausted, and I found that I suddenly had a new respect for my sisters-in-law, mother-in-law, mother and the other women in my life who raised or are raising their children cheerfully and accomplishing and learning other things besides.

If anyone would have asked a month or two ago, whether I knew what I was getting into, I would have had to answer honestly that I didn't.  While I understood conceptually that a second child would add substantially to my stress and busyness, I knew even then that I hadn't really internalized it.  Then again, I wonder if anyone is ever really ready to have a child.  I'm convinced that it is always, to some degree or another, an act of faith.

As I walked from the clinic, I was shepherding Addie along beside me and had Ellie's unwieldy car seat slung over my opposite forearm.  A passerby observed, with a smile, "You have your hands full!"  My mind went back to words from a blog I had read years before, and I almost repeated them aloud: "Yes they are - full of good things!"

I am so grateful for my life and what it has become.  It is not what I envisioned.  I am grateful for these little years and for the opportunity to choose to embrace them.


I was blessed to come across this video a couple of months ago.  The address on which it is based is one of the things that really gave me the courage to unashamedly pursue motherhood...but that's a topic for another post.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

While the Dust Settles

Through calls, texts, and Facebook, most of our family and friends already know about our new arrival.  I was overwhelmed to see just how many of our friends and neighbors were eager to help us when the hour came, and so grateful for all of the support we found among our family and friends, both here and far away.  While I have so much to say and tell about the most memorable Labor Day weekend of our lives, I am currently far behind in the process of writing it down, and there is a little girl who will only sleep between the hours of 8:00 PM and 2:00 AM if nestled in my lap or arms (it's now about 10:00 PM).  Since a picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words, though, I thought I'd post a little visual of our new reality and let that speak for itself while I catch up on everything else.

Sisters