Kids Are Gross

O: It's okay, momma.  I don't need a tissue. I can use my shirt!

Today, I found

a half eaten apple in my bed,

at least a tablespoon of sesame seeds ground into my kitchen rug,

paint splatters on the wall in the living room,

three and a half pairs of sand-filled shoes on the dining room floor,

a mysterious, grey and brown smear on the wall behind the toy basket,

and a sippy cup of what used to be milk under the couch. 

Geez, kid, get it together

I have wiped butts, noses, and hands, and the hands were the grossest of the three.  I have been sneezed at, peed on, and licked.  I have made them beautiful meals, only to turn my back for a minute to discover that they have poured the milk over their fish, or dropped hunks of mashed potato into their cup of water, creating some inedible, unholy stew that I will later have to scrape off of their tiny, brightly colored dishes.  

Don't let that sweet face fool you. GROSS.

There is a smell in the car that I am afraid to investigate. 

Once, P actually blew her nose directly into my mouth.  Please don't ask about the logistics. Just know, it happened.  

God, they are gross. The grossest.  

So gross

A Birthday

O: Dearest Mommy, I hope you know that you are the everyday best especially on your birthday. Looooooove, O.

my favorite birthday card ever

In the past 32 years,  I have had 2 children, been loved and supported by 6 parents, celebrated 7 years of marriage to the best partner anyone could imagine.  I have done 28 shows and learned at least one important thing from each one.   I have made more friends than I can count, and I can count my dearest of friends on one hand.  I have loved and been loved.  I am infinitely grateful for that.  

we still aren't too old for kissy-face selfies, or if we are we don't care

Today is the 32nd anniversary of my birth, but it no longer strikes me as being just my birthday.  I understand now, how deeply I share the day with someone else.  

my mom and my baby

Happy Birthday, mom. Thank you.  

Daddy Bedtime

O: Daddy, let's play knights of the shining armor.  

I've been in rehearsal or doing a show for the past two months and I just started rehearsal for a new show, so I'll be on the same schedule for the next two months.  Most nights during the week, I'm not here for bedtime.  

O & P, you are welcome. He's basically the best.

Bedtime has become Jim's domain.  Evidently, after P goes to sleep, he and O enter a magical fantasy world with dragons, knights, and pillow forts.  I hope, when I'm all done, I'll be invited too. 

I love working.  I love having a creative space. I love having actual conversations with adults. I love knowing that the girls are with Jim and that they are having pajama-clad adventures in our living room.  I don't love missing playing knights of the shining armor.  I don't love missing the soft, sweet smell of P's breath as she falls asleep in my arms.  When I get home, they are already asleep, breathing softly.  I don't love that.  

A Mommy Blerg: A Promise

O: I promise I won't forget to love you forever, ever never again. 

(The above quote is a complete fabrication.  Nothing resembling that sentence has ever issued from O's mouth)

I have ambivalent feelings about blogging, especially being a "mommy blogger." Yet, as this project continues I am buoyed by everyone's kind words and positive feedback.  When I first started considering sharing my writing and my life in this way, I began keeping a list of things I would not do, things this blog would not become.  So here are my promises, to myself and to you.

1. I promise I will write in complete and grammatically correct sentences.  When I don't, it will be a specific choice because of style or tone, or a proof reading error, so blame Jim.

2. I promise I will never call anybody DH, DD1, or DD2.  I will never be TTC or EBF. If something makes me laugh, I will describe, with language, how I fell to the floor and rolled with glee.  

DD2 is so cute it makes me want to ROTFL, or something like that

3. I won't rant, not because ranting isn't fun, but because this isn't the forum for it.  That is what late nights on the couch with Jim and a bottle of wine are for.  

4. I won't pad out a list.  If I only have four things to share, I won't restate one to get to five. 

5. My lists will only contain information that I want to share one time. (I just couldn't resist. I'm not proud)

6. I won't overshare.  This is tricky, because by some people's standards I already have. Just know that anything I do choose to share will be shared mindfully and with forethought. 

7. I won't try to sell you anything.  If I share about a service or a product, it will only be because we use that product and it genuinely makes our lives easier/better/more fun.

seriously, though, this is the best lunch box ever

8. I will use my own images.  I won't load a post with a bunch of open-source, uninteresting pictures.  I have a fancy new camera.  I am trying to learn how to use it.  

oooh, a fancy picture of a basketball that I took all by myself

9. I won't invent O quotes. If a blog post starts with a quote from the kids, I promise, they said it.

 "Though she be but little, she is fierce."

-Billy Shakespeare, regarding P

10. I won't turn my post titles into click-bait. I Got My Kids To Sleep Twelve Hours in Their Own Beds: click here to find out how.  

Is there anything you hate about blogs, or anything that you would like to see more of?

Growth Spurt

O: It is time to go to sleep, P, so you can grow big and strong like sissy. 

O went to bed and woke up an inch taller.  Her shoes don't fit anymore and her pants are too short.  She can't even shimmy into her most recent bathing suit.  She leaned out and shot up, her sweet round face morphing over night into the face of a girl instead of my baby.  

She was walking away from me, and I saw in her gait, her length, her shape, the adult O, striding into the rest of her life, with my hair,  her father's calves, and a confidence entirely her own.  

When Jim sends me pictures of P via text, I first think that it must be O, with pudgy knees and fluffy hair, until I enlarge the thumbnail and find, my newborn there, looking all too much like a toddler.  I swear, she was just born a minute ago. Or was it a year? Or was it nearly two?  

Stop it.  Both of you.  I need a chance to catch my breath, to catch up.  I feel like I'm missing all of it. Just stop it.  Okay?

The Gap

O: Mommy, what did you do before I got here?

There is this gap between the type of parent you imagine you will be and the type of parent you are. The hypothetical conversations about attachment parenting, discipline, rules, and diapers that take place between partners or friends are the breeding ground for those definitive statements about things we'll never do. They start from a seed of judgement but grow from our own self-doubt and fear.  

I try to look back on pre-O Kate's ideas about parenthood fondly and gently.  I admire her enthusiasm and regret only her absolutism.  I try to remember her when I'm talking to people who don't have children yet.  I try to stifle my laughter, my eye roll, or my snide remarks, when they share with me the things they think they'll never do.

I forgive her for her naïveté.  She couldn't know. She couldn't know how terrible and wonderful it would be all at once.  She couldn't know how much she would be willing to give up for sixty-seconds of uninterrupted silence.  She couldn't know how the long stretches of complete boredom and drudgery would be punctuated by moments of sheer, blinding, white-hot bliss.  She couldn't know how badly she would need community, how isolating and lonely being a parent can be.  She just couldn't.  

The type of parent that I am today is kinder, more loving, and more flexible than pre-O Kate could ever imagine.  She dances in the rain, does cartwheels, and goes to bed without finishing the dishes. She has learned that there is joy in the smallest things.  She eats ice cream right out of the container and has french fry parties.  She makes mistakes, big, terrible, unfixable mistakes, that she forgives herself for and learns from, or at least tries to.  I could have never even conceptualized the parent that I am, because the parent that I am has been shaped and molded by who my children are becoming.  I owe them a debt of gratitude for that. 

Five Things I Swore I'd Never Do

O: It's ok mom, I'll just watch another DVDV. 

Before I had kids, I swore I would never

1. give them food I haven't paid for yet in the grocery store.

I will buy your silence with string cheese, even before I buy your string cheese.

I came here to kick butt and eat string cheese and we are all out of string cheese

2. ever use a disposable diaper.

We were so close, but I can not tell a lie.  When it is after midnight and I discover we are all out of clean cloth diapers, I'm super happy about that secret stash of disposable diapers, left over from our Grand Canyon trip, I have hidden in the trunk of the car.  

they just take so long to dry

3. let them have screen time on road trips.

Kids need to be bored, I said. It's when they stretch their brains and use their imagination, I said. Evidently, I said a lot of silly things.

4. utter the phrase, "Because I said so."

To be fair, I did say so, and sometimes, shouldn't that be enough?

5. start a blog, but especially, a mommy blog.

Oops.

Wanted: Infinitely Patient, Brillant Scientist

O: Why does our skin move? Why don't our bellies have any bones? What's the ooey stuff between my hair and my head? Why is a dragon not a dinosaur? Why am I not a dragon? Why does bread get hard when you leave it out? Why? Mom? Moooom? Mom?

O: I got a smart thinkin' brain.

Wanted: an infinitely patient, brilliant scientist, preferably with a weird sense of humor and a background in earth science, biology, paleontology, evolution, and mythology.  Needs to love children and answering questions.  

Why am I worried that this is some kind of upside-down flag, anarchy symbol that means Jim and I should be very afraid?

I'm no dummy. I love science. I studied botany and physics in college (and political science, and linguistics, and psychology, but that is a conversation for another day). 

I'm doing my best.  Drawing on everything that I can remember,  I am trying to take each query honestly and answer it genuinely.

K: Our skin moves, because we move and it needs to be flexible so that it will move with us. There are no bones in our bellies because that soft tissue is where a lot of our organs are and they expand depending on what they are doing and bones would get in the way of their function. I have no idea what the ooey stuff between your hair and your head is, but we are definitely washing your hair tonight. A dragon is not a dinosaur because dragons are mythical beasts and dinosaurs are archeological fact that we can observe in the fossil record. You are not a dragon because you were born of human parents, and for that I apologize, because it is almost entirely my fault. Bread gets hard when you leave it out because the moisture in the bread evaporates into the atmosphere and it becomes, what we call, stale.  

Oh, no.  Next, P is going to start asking me questions about trees.  

But, apparently, it is not enough.  So if you know anyone who meets the above description and works cheap, please, send them my way.  

O: Why does the sky turn orangy pinky when the sun sets?

K: Because, well, light refracts at different angles and then, well. Why don't you ask Daddy?

I would also settle for a very talented creative writing major, who could tell her beautiful, artistic and complex lies, but watch out, the kid knows when you're reaching.  She's got a smart thinkin' brain. 

Maybe It's Working

O: Hey mom, let's be Toms.

A little bedtime Silverstein

We try a lot of things as parents. Much of the time, it just feels as though you are shouting into the void, with not even an echo coming back.  Every now and then, however, you may get a glimpse that your thought, energy, and love are building up in that tiny brain, affecting those synapses, helping to form new connections.  

Lay a foundation.  Keep having conversations.  Act with love. Maybe it's working.

Unsolicited Advice for New Parents

O: Mommy, you are the best mommy I've ever had. 

On that stellar recommendation, I have distilled all of my parenting experience into a single piece of universally applicable advice for any and all new parents.  Everything, other than this gem, is just situational guess work and opinion.  Breast or bottle? Cloth or disposable? Cry it out or attachment? Stay at home or back to work? These are choices you get to make.  I have no input or insight to share, because what worked for my family may or may not work for yours. Ok, here it is: 

Clearly I know what I'm talking about.  Look how happy and well adjusted she is.  She looks like this ALL the time. 

Get a heating pad, plug it in and leave it on or near your rocking chair.  BAM. That's it.  

Full disclosure: I'm two kids and nearly four years in and I just did it a week ago.  Don't make the same mistake I did.

To everyone else, the already-parents, the never-been-parents, the parents-of-grown-adult-children, hush.  Let these sweet new families have some peace.  Don't scare them with stories of poop in the tub, the 5:00am feeding that lasts until noon, or the panic they will feel the first time that baby sleeps for more than two hours.  They'll know soon enough.  If they need you, they'll ask.

Make them dinner, but don't tell a woman who is eight months pregnant to sleep while she can. Drop off cookies, but don't ask about their birth plan, or, even worse share your own harrowing tale. Offer to come over and hold the baby for twenty minutes so she can go take a shower and promise to leave right after, but, please, don't comment on how she is feeding, clothing or washing her baby, partner, or hair.  

New parents, know you can always ask. Someone will have an answer for you, and you get to hear that answer, listen to your heart, and make a choice.  Some of those choices will be right. Some of them will be wrong. All of those choices will be yours, and it will be ok.  You know more than you think you do.  

But, I am serious about that heating pad thing.