moments Archives - Page 8 of 11 -

Kept

May 27, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

I’m linking up again today with Melissa from Making Things Up for Six Word Fridays. The word for this week was perfect for so many reasons. We emptied out Connor’s room so it’s really and truly a big boy room – all the baby stuff is gone from the closet, all the too-small clothes have been put away. Yes, we’re keeping them, just in case. But he was really concerned they were going to disappear.

Don’t worry, honey. They will be kept.

So that’s what I was going to write about. But today’s activities presented another topic, and I just couldn’t resist.

***

She kept them for 25 years
Or it might have been 30
Such a long time, a lifetime
So far anyway (I’m still alive)

I knew she kept our things
But I didn’t know about these
They come in cases and boxes
And are just as I remembered

I’ve been flooded, overwhelmed with memories
First it was all our books
Toby Zebra and the Lost Zoo
I had forgotten all about it

Then toys – different bits and pieces
All evoking a time, a place
Long forgotten, remembered in an instant
Suddenly I am four, six, eight

An influx of memories this week
Little People and their many accessories
Looking at them, they seem old
But to him they are new

Collections mentioned as they’re brought out
Adult siblings claim ownership, teasing (mostly)
But it’s another’s turn to play
Making new memories of his own

Filed Under: Happy things · Tagged With: family, moments

Comforter

May 24, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

“I don’t want to sleep in my new bed!”

“Why not, honey?”

“It’s too old.”

He has a thing about things being too “old”. When we converted his crib into a toddler bed it was “too old” even though it was clearly a new set-up with new bedding. “Old” just means “I don’t want it.”

“It’s not too old!”

My excited voice.

“It’s brand new and you have new bedding just for you and everything! You even helped daddy build it!”

It’s actually the double bed from our guest room with a frame bought at a second hand store, but he doesn’t make the connection past wondering where that bed went.

“No it’s not. It’s old.”

He has such a sad face. Such a sad voice.

I know what he’s feeling. He wants to be close to mama and daddy. He’s not comfortable with this.

But it’s time he learned to sleep in his own bed.

Each night at bedtime, one of us will climb into his new bed, read stories, and get him settled for sleep. We lie with him until he’s asleep, a necessary step at this point.

When he’s asleep, we sneak out.

I’ve looked back at him as I walk out – he does look like a small boy in a big bed. I get this overwhelming rush of love because he’s my baby. But it’s time. Besides, he’s an octopus and everyone will sleep better if the octopus sleeps in his own bed.

Inevitably, sometime before midnight (and often much earlier) he will get up. Come to us.

“I want to sleep in your bed.”

For months we alternated – one night with dad in our bed, one night with me in the guest room. We needed the sleep.

For the last few weeks we’ve been sleeping as a family. We’ve loved having him – I’ve woken in the night and watched my boys sleep and have felt so blessed – but even in a king bed it’s sometimes too much with him in there. He sleeps like a baby monkey clinging to his mother. (And I happen to be that mother.)

That night, I escorted him back to bed. Lay down with him until he slept again, then started planning my escape. But there’s no leaving. In the middle of the night his mama-presence radar is on high alert.

He woke and I resigned myself to sleeping with him.

This is what we’ll do for now – alternate sleeping with him in his new “old” bed so he gets used to it.

He was restless that night, rolling and turning, sitting up and lying down again, trying to find the right position.

Restless child = wakeful mama.

Some time just before 5 am, he woke. Sat up and looked at me.

“I want a cuddle.”

He curled himself into me.

He seemed cold so I pulled the comforter over him again, tucking it around him. Moments later he kicked it off.

Then he took my hand and pulled my arm around him, tucking it under his warm body.

I understood. He might have new bedding, but in that moment his comforter was me.

Filed Under: Motherhood · Tagged With: bedtime, family, love, moments, sleep

To Celebrate or Not to Celebrate: Reflecting

May 8, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

Last week I asked my husband if we could skip Mother’s Day for me this year as I’m not feeling like a very successful mother at the moment. He told me that wasn’t allowed. Another friend pointed out it’s also about them having an opportunity to tell me they love and appreciate me.

Fine.

I understand that, but I still woke up today wishing I could stay in bed. I’m not sure I can read the cards today, but I will want them when this time has passed. So maybe I won’t read them today but I will accept them with love and read them when I’m ready.

I always understood Mother’s Day was hard for some people – those who have lost their mothers, those who have lost children, those for whom, for whatever reason, Mother’s Day is not what greeting card companies would have you believe. I just never expected it to be hard for me this year.

I had lots of things I wanted to say about motherhood today, but this page has remained blank for days. I can’t explain why I want to fast forward through this day – I believe mothers deserve to be celebrated and I know I’m caring for my child in my own way right now, even if it’s not the way I will one day be able to. For many reasons, some of which I don’t understand, the whole day just makes me teary.

So this morning I looked through some of our photos from Connor’s first year, and a few from beyond. These photos say a lot about who my child is, and in them I began to see who I am as his mother in a new way.

Typical photo of a baby right after birth? Yes. Typical Connor? YES. At the time I didn’t know how typical (thank goodness).

We became a family, and in that family my role is mama:

I had no idea how fleeting this would be – both his ability to sleep and this feeling that I was his mother and nothing else in the whole world mattered:

Throughout his babyhood, when he did this…

…I did this, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world:

But as I fell under the shadow of postpartum depression, I experienced some moments that right now live in me only as a tiny light that reflects my son’s amazing spirit; my memory of them is mostly through pictures:

This phase I do remember, and it lights me up. The fun and stimulation of that Jumperoo was a Wonder of the World to him and his unbridled joy was one to me:

I didn’t mourn his first birthday, but rejoiced in how far we’d come:

I did feel a piece of my heart crack when he had his first haircut though:

I have learned that discovering new traditions can be a beautiful thing. (Also, “Do, or do not, there is no try.”)

We’ve had a lot of these moments and sometimes I feel that my experience
as a mother has been defined by them:

But then we make it through another year:

And I remember that this is what matters:

Because regardless of how I feel a lot of the time, this is how he feels:

And that tells me most of what I need to know.

The best conversations with mothers always take place in silence,
when only the heart speaks. — Carrie Latet

Filed Under: Motherhood, Postpartum depression · Tagged With: family, living life, moments

We Danced

April 23, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

“Will you dance with me, mama?”

So many of his questions are hard and ask more of me than I feel I can give.

“Will you play with me?” breaks my heart when I’m in a low moment and playing takes more mama energy than I have.

“I want to go downstairs,” at 6 a.m. brings out the why-can’t-you and if-only questions that are asked so many times when you have a small child and don’t get to sleep in. And, for me, it feels like the time I’ll be on duty is longer than I’m able to entertain him.

“Can I have milk?” is a ticking bomb when it’s not time for milk and I know the required “no” response will instigate a meltdown. That meltdown (his) will cause a spike in anxiety (mine) and a fight-or-flight response – neither option an appropriate one when dealing with a 2-year-old who simply wants milk.

But when he asks me to dance? This I can do. I turn up my song, which is fast becoming his song.

He’s on his feet as soon as he hears the first notes.

Right right, turn off the lights
We gonna lose our minds tonight
What’s the dealio?

He bounces like he’s on one of those mini trampolines, smile at full wattage.

I love when it’s all too much
5 AM turn the radio up
Where’s the rock and roll?

Not at 5 a.m. but we did turn this up early one morning and danced to it in bed. When I peeked down the hall my husband had the pillow over his head.

Party crasher, panty snatcher
Call me up if you are gangsta’
Don’t be fancy
Just get dancey
Why so serious?

Fancy is not a word my little man worries about. “Just get dancey” is a suggestion he doesn’t have to hear twice.

And then the best part, where he kicks the strut in his stuff up a notch.

So raise your glass if you are wrong
In all the right ways
All my underdogs, we will never be, never be
Anything but loud
And nitty gritty dirty little freaks
Won’t you come on, and come on, and
Raise your glass
Just come on and come and
Raise Your Glass!

I watch him he bounces. As he twirls. At one point he stops and shakes his bum.

Dancing with him I laugh.

He stops for a moment and comes to me, arms in the air. I pick him up and he rests his cheek on mine.

“I love you,” he says.

I say it back as he kisses me on the mouth. The he slithers down and we’re dancing again.

In this moment something in me pauses and I can see so clearly what it’s about. Being a mother is not about worrying whether you’re good enough. It’s not about giving in to the anxiety when it hovers, telling you the hours until bedtime will feel like a nightmare-filled eternity.

It’s about saying yes when your child asks you to dance.

So we dance.

And when the song ends, we do it again. Because when you have an opportunity to dance with your child, you Raise Your Glass to that opportunity and dance.