Two years ago, I woke up at 4 in the morning with a smile on my face.
I knew he was coming, was on his way, and I was oh-so-ready to meet that little guy.
I stayed up late a few nights before his birthday last week and I wrote
and wrote
and wrote
and wrote
the whole story of his birth
and how I felt and what it meant.
I poured through photos of me dancing in the doorway and kneeling over a giant blue ball, hands clasped in my husband's. Of me on my knees in a tub of water in my living room, soft morning sun streaming yellow through translucent white window shades on a cold, quiet Friday morning in November.
Of my morphing face, frame by rapid frame, as my midwife lifts him from the water
and rests him in my arms, against my chest
wonder and joy, captured in dots per inch.
My husband peering over my shoulder, reaching past and lifting one chubby pink leg to get a peek, and our dropped jaws, our smiles.
I can hear the laughter through the photograph
A boy! Another boy!
He's here!
He's here. My baby is two.
Happy birthday, my Axel, my love. We are so, so happy you're here.
:::
I had intended to share what I wrote of Axel's birth story, but when I sat down at the computer, I never looked back to my notebook and this is what came out instead. Who knew. But I do know that when I was pregnant with my boys and planning my homebirths, birth stories were encouraging and empowering for me to read. So if you have any questions about homebirth, or just love reading birth stories, please feel free to email me at clarity.chaos at gmail.
Evenings like last night remind me sharply of the disparity between my reality and the persona I may unintentionally present online, in this space here where I ruminate and reflect, sharing my favorite photos to evoke a feeling or sentiment, or just to illustrate the boyfulness of my life. Occasionally I get emails from a reader or a comment from a faraway friend who reads my blog telling me 'what a great mom' I am. While I appreciate support and think, in general, that people should express kind words towards each other more often, I cringe a little when I get these kudos for my mothering. Because frankly -- I feel a little fraudulent.
To clear things up, I offer up now a little disclaimer: I, for one, most certainly do not have my shit together.
I love mothering, I enjoy most every aspect of it, and frankly I think I do a pretty good job overall. But I have plenty of faults and flaws and insecurities. For starters: I yell too much, I'm always late, I tend toward laziness, I'm terrible at returning calls and emails, my house is always messy, I'm the only mother on the east side of Madison who has kids that won't eat raw vegetables straight from the garden without coercion. (Or dip. Lots and lots of dip.)
And my kids are crazy. While this is in no way a fault or even a complaint, it is occasionally a source of insecurity. I have three very physical, very loud, very active boys and when we venture out to parties and potlucks and events, they are still physical and loud and active. Inevitably, raucous devolves into mayhem, often resulting in wrestling, spinning, or random and unintentional kicks to someone's face. Even among the most supportive and understanding of crowds (like last night, at our beloved semi-annual preschool art show and stone soup party) I walk away feeling slightly deflated, wondering if silent judgment passed through the minds of friends and acquaintances, or whether I left anyone baffled by my seeming ineptitude in the child-control department. My exhaustion and doubts climb their way to a seat of power, stepping on the heads and slouching shoulders of my confidence and intuition. Is this just how it is with three kids? With three boys? Or is it me?
Point being - I'm not perfect. Anyone who knows me in person or finds themselves in my company for more than 2o minutes can attest to this. (Or you could ask my family and they'll tell you sight unseen....) We measure ourselves against the best of another mother, rather than the whole. It is a dangerous path to tread because we will never measure up to the composite of the best of every other mother.
In these online spaces where we select which pieces of the whole to share, which stories to tell, what photos to post, it is easy to give the impression of having it all together. Which I don't. And I just wanted to make that clear.
So to you - far away friends and online strangers - especially the new mamas among you -- please remember not to hold yourself in comparison to the facade you perceive as the ideal, the Perfect Mother -- here or on other blogs or at the grocery store or in the school pick up line. Because she doesn't exist. I'm not her, you're not her. (There is no Her.)
Thus ends my public service announcement.
I wrote a little piece last week on my struggle with ambition and passion and faith over at In the Hush of the Moon. I wax a bit poetic, so if that's not your thing I did leave a bit more of an explanation in the comments. The post is here if you'd like to read it.
And finally, for a little glimpse into the chaos that is my daily life, here's a little clip (below) from a perfectly normal, run of the mill evening in the Clarity-Chaos Household. Watch, then please tell me - in all honesty -- is this level of volume and activity the norm in your house too? Does it seem so MUCH just because our house is tiny? Am I scaring you away from having more children?
Oh, and be sure to head over on Tuesday to good tots! a new blog "for stylish moms and their kids" by my friend Jill of the inspirational fashion/style blog good life for less. She'll be publishing a piece I wrote for her mom says series where I share my top five mantras for mothering. Please check it out if you have a minute!
Over and out friends. Have a fabulous Thanksgiving.
note the minivan captains chair masquerading as furniture. and the sweet dog, immune to the mayhem.
I can't help but picture people as babies. Little kids. It instantly makes them seem vulnerable. It exposes the insecurity that hides inside, buried under the finish we wear on the outside. As a mother, I see it all the time. Any stranger walking down the street, the grouchy man at the post office, the infuriating colleague. I see them as babies, traces of childhood peaking through, the features their mothers must have loved, the mannerism or the posture or the gait she could recognize from across the schoolyard. It softens people. It turns them back into someone with feelings and needs and trouble with communication and it's easier for me to extend that benefit-of-the-doubt, to search for their good intention amid the conflict.
I stare at the faces of my boys and I catch glimpses of who they'll be, how they'll walk, what they'll look like when they smile. I can see how their babyness will shine through, not lost on me. I get glimpses of who they'll be as young men, as old men. I think about what our relationship may be. How we'll spend our time together -- I need to foster that now. I'm laying the stones in place now to build that foundation so we can grow up and expand and still have that familiar place to land our feet, so we can have a relationship when they are adults that will look very different from this one we have now -- but will retain the essence, will hold those features from babyhood, childhood.
So I can look closely and with enough lighting and from the right angle still see them in there, see us in there. Recognize what we were and what we built and where they came from and who we are.
Reposting from about 7 months ago because oh how I need this reminder this morning, waking up in a Wisconsin that I'm disgusted with this morning and trying to remember that it's ideas and philosophies with which I'm [strongly] disagreeing -- as opposed to people who I am not liking. (But oh, it can be hard when emotions run high.)
:::
They were talking politics, and I heard him tell her, "I think it's good for parents to give their children something to believe. They can always change their minds later."
And I thought, what about teaching your kids how to think, not what to think?
I don't need my kids to grow up agreeing with me -- I want them growing up knowing how to think. To form their own ideas, to question pat answers, to want to know the why's behind thewhat's and how's.
This is what I want for my kids:
For them to learn that everyone has ideas. That we will like some people's ideas better than others. And that even if we don't like someone's ideas, that we can still like them, still respect them as a person.
For them to question good guys and bad guys. To accept that if we try hard enough, if we approach people with open minds and ears, that we can find common ground somewhere.
That we should listen, rather than wait to speak. That we must always be open to changing our minds when presented with new information. That there's no shame in recognizing we were wrong.
I don't want to give my kids something to believe. I want to support them in their process of discovering what they believe.
(And I want to follow my own advice.)
:::
Keep comments civil, people. I get caught up in political nastiness pretty easily, so I could use your help on moving forward here.
I'm a realistic optimist who relies on raw honesty and plenty of humor to navigate the boystorm that is my life. I am mother to three and wife to one. These are my stories.
