10 things that made me smile this weekend

1. That I have become spoiled by my husband's scratch-made bread to the point where I pass rather than have a slice of store-bought.

2. Playing baseball in the front yard with my three boys, even though I'm a crappy pitcher and my two year old freaked out and ran away with the bat every time his turn was through.

3. The fact that we are done with diapers. Oh yeah, baby. Not much cuter than tiny little spiderman undies on an itty bitty booty.

4. My husband. I told a friend the other day that I'm hard on myself as a mother, know I could always be doing more at work, but that I actually feel like I'm rockin' it in the marriage department these days and that feels really, really good.

5. Dropping by a friend's house to check out the remnants of her garage sale only to let the visit morph into a backyard catch-up while five boys ran around feeding chickens and eating watermelon and climbing treehouses and aiming wooden weaponry at each other. And leaving with a freshly laid egg and some tasty garlic scapes.

6. Garlic scapes and goat cheese in my scrambled eggs.

7. The guy rocking out hard while holding the "9.99 Car Wash" sandwich board outside Octopus Carwash. I love that guy, and he makes my day on a weekly basis.

8. Attending a baby shower with a bunch of strangers and realizing that I am so over defending my parenting choices. It feels really damn good to get to the place of not caring what other people think about how/where/when your baby sleeps/eats/etc.

9. Realizing, in the company of strangers at a friend's baby shower in the 'burbs, that I live in a very comfortable bubble and that I like it that way. I forget that many of my parenting/lifestyle choices are not exactly mainstream because where I live, in my little subculture in this city I love, they are. My eyes were opened to the criticisms and challenges that many (new) moms face about the way they raise and care for their babies - even just the assumptions that come up in casual conversation -- and I am grateful to be part of a supportive community.

10. Another short work-week ahead. Taking off Friday to celebrate my Middlest turning 5 (!!!) and a weekend of sunshine and fireworks.

:::

BONUS #11. That feelings of inadequacy and half-assery, worry and anxiety, and general melancholy are usually fleeting. And that a change in attitude or perspective, coupled with the practice of selective memory can go a long way for a girl.

Enjoy your week, friends.

Read more...

Can I tell you a story?

The videos from 2011 Listen To Your Mother are online! Here's me reading my piece at the Barrymore - if you have the time, click on over and watch the whole show. (90 minutes total, split up piece by piece. The Madison show runs from Confessions of a Cribaholic [hilarious] to 35th Trimester and is followed by a tear-jerking rendition of Lily Allen's Chinese sung by a Madison girls youth choir. Oh, my heart.)

This is a piece I wrote a year or so ago about an experience I had about a year before that. I'm no longer in that same place, at home full-time with three little kids, but I think the core message still holds.

We need each other, mamas. We really do. Hat tip and a thank you to my friend Maria for summing up the heart of my story so succinctly back when I first wrote it. I grabbed her comment and wove it in to the out-loud version, to hit home the moral of the story with a little more clarity and strength.

(Nice freeze frame, eh?)

:::

related: more thoughts on sharing our stories

Read more...

secrets to success

Mom, you are still eating. Correct or Incorrect?


Mom, I get ice cream when I'm done eating. Correct or Incorrect?


Mom, you have red cracks in your eyes. Correct or Incorrect?




(answer key: correct, correct, correct)

I've been busy. And tired. And wishing I could connect with other full-time working mamas to talk about how they do it. But guess what. They're all too busy to connect and if we actually did, I would probably fall asleep before I learned their secrets to success.

But I'm taking off work Monday and (cue trumpets) we're going camping this weekend! A little late for the first camping trip of the season (we're usually out at least once by the end of May) but we're going! With canoe and bikes and our giant tent with no floor and our dog and I think just maybe that this year -- with the baby two-and-a-half going on eight -- might be the least work yet. (Watch that last one come back to bite me.) A few nights in the woods and the water always sets me right again.

And I have nice friends. (Whom I never see in person.) The other night on facebook in an unfiltered moment I blurted

feelings of inadequacy and half-assery

without really giving any thought to the fact that people would read and respond. And the next day, midway through the afternoon after a rough and unintentional coffee-free morning (good lord that was rough) I opened up my account and actually cried at my desk reading the little mini-peptalks from my friends. My favorite was Erika who told me that I exude adequacy and full-assery! Best affirmation ever. Thanks, friend.

Anyway, life is good but I'm just wishing I could be and do everything I want to be and do when I want to be and do it.



(Maybe the trick is to look at it not as just half-ass, but ass-half-full?)

I don't know... I think it's time for bed.

Read more...

fiction freewrite: morning scene

She shuffles towards the kitchen, leaving the lights off. She doesn't want to wake the baby and besides, she was already squinting from the faint light peaking around the edges of the shades. When the robins started singing, she figured she might as well get up. Morning is here and any shot at actually getting some sleep is futile.

She fills the kettle at the sink, blinking hard. Scrunching her nose and squinting, she strains to make out the numbers on the microwave without her contacts. 4:45. She groans. Good lord. I couldn’t even it make to five.

She sets the kettle on the stovetop and turns the dial, listening for the click click poof of the flame. She tugs at the curtains above the sink, pulling them back, popping off the safety lock on the windows and sliding them wider than the two-inch opening.

From rote memory, she opens the bag, pours the beans, clicks the lid in place and grinds, wincing at the volume, prematurely cursing herself for waking the baby. She freezes and waits, but nothing.

The sky creeps, pulling light through navy, bleeding oranges and pinks across and outward, a silent show she takes in, waiting for the water to boil. The heaviness settles low in her belly, like it has for weeks. It almost carries the comfort of the familiar at this point, a constant presence filling her, filling the spaces of lost appetite.

He’s been gone three weeks. The planning and the rituals are over, family has flown back home, friends are busy at work and the calls have dwindled. The flowers have died but they’re still in their vases, the pungent odor of decaying plant matter emanating from the murky water, but she can’t muster the psychic energy to toss them.

He’s gone. He was here and then he wasn’t and now he’s gone. And she is here, here with her babies, yet very much not here and it’s only the drudgery of the mundane that gets her through. Get up, make the coffee, wake the kids, nurse the baby, dress, feed, shuttle, read, snuggle, feed, bathe, tuck, repeat. The oldest one knows that Mommy is sad, and she tries to compensate with perfection, but her fragility is all too clear. The baby is still oblivious. He still babbles Dadadadadada and he doesn’t seem to notice when the tears fall, when her shoulders heave with sobs during their mornings together, when it’s safe while his sister is at school and it’s just the two of them and the suffocating silence of the house.

The kettle whistles, jarring her back into the kitchen, the sky the palest of blues and the sun bathing the tile in its morning’s glow. She pours the water into the press, watching it seep into the grounds, saturating the dark layers and filling the pot with a rich murkiness. The steam rises as she pours, scalding her hand as it holds the kettle handle, but she leaves it there, tears brimming up and over as she realizes she is still making coffee for two.


:::


A little fiction freewrite, just for fun. A year ago I brain-dumped the first 1200 words of my novel and then I let it sit. Scenes pop into my head all the time, but I rarely get them down. Figured this time I would free-write whatever came, whether or not I ever get my butt in gear and bring this baby to fruition. 


And hey -- please take it easy on me... I spent about 5 minutes making a couple of minor edits so this isn't at all polished. It's a little scary throwing something out of the norm out here in public, but I'm trying to push myself beyond my comfort zone and focus on generating ideas rather than on achieving perfection.

Read more...