Two Things Are True

Two things can be true at once*: a list of paradoxes to reflect on my 33rd year, which ended yesterday ;)

• Quarantine has been hard AND yet good, a chance to check my motives, my priorities, my schedule, my heart.
• I am growing AND circling my way back to the same old patterns and unhealthy hang ups.
• I am grateful for the time spent working from home with my kids AND I sometimes want to hit/yell/kill them when they barge in on my Zoom class (I haven't actually done any of those except yell).
• I am learning to nourish and fuel and accept my body regardless of how it looks AND I feel a twinge of shame when my pants are snug.
• Publishing my words on Coffee and Crumbs brought new connections and encouragement AND forced many of my demons and regrets into the light.
• Virtual teaching takes sooo much more work just to teach blank, black squares in a virtual abyss AND I have never been more organized or efficient in my lesson planning.
• We started at a new-old church, I continued to meet with my moms' group, and the kids finally got comfortable being left in kids' church AND then the pandemic forced us back to church in the living room.
• We look forward to the day that we will become more involved in foster care and adoption AND understand that right now we are so overwhelmed with toddlers and working from home that it will be a few years before we start the process.
• We enjoyed family dinners with our wonderful friends AND they moved away.
• Potty training Aidan brought tears and tantrums and battles of will AND yet we emerged victorious.
• Nadia has made us proud with all of the words she's learned AND she is driving us crazy with all of her very specific demands. "Me all done sleeping. Me want sparkly drink, no water!"
• Ryan and I have never spent so much time together AND yet it feels harder to connect.
• We welcomed a beautiful, healthy niece in July AND had to wear masks when we first held her in our arms.
• I am so grateful for my parents' who watch my kids AND I'm sad I couldn't send Aidan to regular preschool this fall.
• I have more wrinkles and laugh lines and gray hairs AND I have never felt so sure of myself or the life I am living.

I know the year ahead will bring the good and the hard, the tender and the tension-inducing. I am committed to living in the both/and. To leaving space for conflicting feelings and diving deeper into nuance. To remembering that two (or three or even four) things can be true at once. And life is all the richer for it.

***

*I first heard this phrase/idea from @drbeckyathome on Instagram, who has incredible resources for parenting and life in general.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series “Make a list."

Two Years of Brave

“The only thing I want for my birthday is to be home together as a family of four,” I told my husband in the weeks before my daughter’s scheduled c-section and my own birthday four days later. 

You can probably guess where this is going. 

On the morning of my daughter’s birth, I curled my hair, did my makeup, took one more bump pic. We checked in to the hospital leisurely. I walked in unassisted, no pain, no contractions, no panic. Everything according to plan. 

I thought we would be in the hospital for two days max. But on the morning of the second day, the nurse noticed my blood pressure rising.

“The doctor wants to keep you for monitoring,” she stated matter-of-factly as my plans came crashing down. 

When we found out we weren't going home, we dressed our daughter for the first time in the outfit that should have been her take-home outfit. 

My husband suggested a photoshoot. Just her, because I could not stop crying. I missed my toddler son so much I couldn’t breathe and hated myself for not “savoring this time in the hospital, just the three of us,” like we were at some spa retreat. 

How do you savor an uncomfortable bed, an IV port, hourly blood pressure checks? How do you savor when nurses monitor for symptoms of stroke? 

Moments after we snapped her picture, the nurse popped in again. 

“Are you seeing spots? How’s your head? Any upper abdominal pain?”

She wrapped the cuff around my arm as my chest pounded, my whole body tensed, and sweat plastered me to the sheets. I could sense my blood pressure rising with every concentric squeeze of the cuff, silent numbers stacked against me.

 //

Looking at my daughter you wouldn’t guess anything was amiss. She wasn’t bothered by the eventual week-long hospital stay. She was sleeping and nursing like a champ with a “perfect latch” according to the nurses. 

She had the softest brown hair—like downy duck fluff. She curled into herself, a crescent of baby rolls—thigh creases, elbow dimples, rounded cheeks. I never knew newborns could be so plump. 

On the day we should have gone home, we dressed her in her brother’s onesie—the newborn size that doesn't look like it could fit an actual baby when you hold it up, but it fit her perfectly. Green and white stripes. A small lion. The words BRAVE embroidered across her tiny chest, urging me to push through my fear of the unknown. 

 //

Nadia, my girl, from the beginning you have been unfazed by the chaos around you. When you were an infant we said you had “resting unimpressed face” (not quite a B, but definitely unimpressed by our efforts to get you to reveal your dimpled smile.)

It was a gift that you nursed so easily. That you slept through the night at 7 weeks. That you let me schlep you around to mom’s groups and story times. 

Even now in the pandemic, when 2020 has stolen your playdates and playgrounds, you happily play with brother and create your own bounce houses out of couch cushions. 

For your two-year well visit, you confidently marched your baby doll into the doctor’s office, held her hand while the nurse weighed her and rocked your tiny panda mask. 

You are fearless in water. A skilled climber. And want to do everything Bubba can do. You are already potty trained, already in a toddler bed, already insisting “No I am do it” for everything from climbing into your cars seat to buckling your stroller to riding your too-big bicycle. 

I love your adventurous spirit. I love your bravery. Your tenacity and determination. 

I want you to know that it’s okay to be fazed
To take up space 
To be difficult 
To make your voice and needs heard
To make a stink about Bubba stealing your toys 
To be scared every once in a while. 

Our love for you is not contingent on your easy-goingness. 
Our love for you is not contingent, period. 

But I also hope you keep this graciousness, this openness and freedom. 

The way you give Aidan the toy that he really wants because you’d rather play than get your way. 

The way you ask, “Mama sad?” When you see tears well up in my eyes and you come over to “nuggle me,” placing your soft, dimpled hand on my thigh or shoulder. 

The way you sit still to take medicine or get pasta noodles sucked out of your nose. 

The way you still want mama’s milk before you drift off to sleep. 

The only thing that really fazes you is being away from me. In fact, you are a real jerk to dada and I do hope that changes. That you will let him comfort you, delight you, and delight in you. 

On your second birthday, baby girl, I just want to say I love you. I’m proud of you. And I’m thankful for the ways you're showing me how to be brave. 

Chasing Clouds

Clouds hover and humidity clings. 

My daughter squeals at each pelican and heron that flies by. 

“Yook! Bird!” 

I try to focus on the pitter patter of her feet on the smooth deck.

The creak of the porch swing.

The smell of salt and marsh and sea life. 

I want to savor this moment, but my to do list, the never-ending tasks for the semester intrude my thoughts like unwanted clouds. 

Rest can be stormy for the overachiever. A discipline that paradoxically takes work. Rest is both necessary and hard. 

What revives each person is different. What revives me now, as a mother, is different.

Given one hour to relax may actually feel worse than no break. One week of vacation felt the same. The list is so long of things to catch up on. If I spend the time sleeping then I don't get to read or write or prep for virtual classes or do the dishes or the laundry. 

When was the last time I felt fully refreshed or caught up or revived?

We choose rest  anyway--for the memories, the discipline, the change of pace and scenery. 

Rest is not so much trusting that the work will be done, but acknowledging the work does not define us. Rest declares that our worth is not in our productivity. 

This summer, rest looked like a trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Rest included cousins, “Aunt Maw-yey,” and “gamma’s house,” boat rides and hush puppies, fried shrimp, bacon wrapped scallops, and barbecue. A drive by birthday party for my 85-year-old grandmother.

Rest looked like slow mornings playing Paw Patrol and afternoon ice cream treats. 

Rest meant diving under crashing waves, splashing and giggling with my toddler daughter in the sand as she floated in her puddle jumper yelling “yook me” “foat, no sink.” Her little toes bobbing above the surface, her salty, wet hair plastered to her sandy face. 

Rest also brought meltdowns for my homebody son. He didn’t want to share with his cousins (“Paw patrol is only my favorite”) or venture into the water. He sulked on the sand, whining for a snack, for mama to come in. “No one can be in the water,” he declared. 

Rest felt like humidity. Like salt and sand settling in the mesh of bathing suits, sunscreen rubbed over hot, sticky skin. 

Rest smelled of fish and marsh and giant drops of rain. 

Rest meant the freedom to run through puddles after a thunderstorm.

Rest gave my kids a glimpse of a summer that mirrored my own childhood trips. 

Rest can be like chasing clouds in a Carolina blue sky as they constantly change and morph from majestic to ominous, billowy and white to stormy and gray.

And still we chase. We choose to rest, to reset. To silence the to-do list and open our eyes to the beauty in the sky.

***

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Rest -- A Photo Essay".

***

Photos taken by me, my husband, my mom, and my cousin, Mollie in Davis and Beaufort, North Carolina. All photos were edited by my husband.