{a portrait of my children each week in 2013, inspired by Jodi of Che+Fidel}
Monday, May 20, 2013
19/52: A Portrait Project.
{a portrait of my children each week in 2013, inspired by Jodi of Che+Fidel}
Okay, maybe it's an unedited phone picture but it was a busy week and I'd be hard pressed to find another one that captured where they are at this moment so very well. He's been so at once tender, sensitive, and rambunctious and she's been so nurturing, smart, and patient.
This is what it is right now.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
blog migration and baby love.
 |
| one year ago. oh my heart, my growing boy. |
I have been very slowly moving posts over from my old blog to this new space so I can close that chapter (and auto billing, for real) and really hang in this one.
It is so strange and wonderful reading old entries, and remembering things and feelings from years ago.
If you are only recently coming to read this blog, you can poke and creep around in the archives here now too. I'm particularly fond and proud of The Sling Diaries posts, one of the ways I really stepped out of my comfort zone and decided to document our new life here in Tampa with my little ones.
I am often undecided about why I blog, why to continue, whether it is worth it or not, but reading these posts and the bunches more that are making their way over (embarassing new doula ponderings too, I'm sure) has been so good for my mama heart today.
We are getting things done around the house today, gearing up to host a warm and special down-home Mama Blessing for a dear friend tomorrow. And that's about the best kind of weekend I can dream up right now. Belly love and sweet tea.
Yeehaw for birth and babies! Happy weekend y'all.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
how to lose a tooth.
My children are terrible teethers. During the daytime our amber necklaces work just divinely, but when those little suckers are cutting through the gums at night, there is not much sleep happening in my house. Mothers who tell me their children aren't bothered by teething at night are alien creatures to me. I know we're supposed to support each other as mothers, but I have thought on more than one occasion, "Go back to your planet, alien moms, because you have no way of relating to the level of exhaustion I'm rolling up here with."
Once Matilda started creeping into teeth-losing age territory, I fantasized about keeping the teeth as battle trophies. A little specimen jar full of all my sleepless nights. Maybe I'd string them onto a necklace like a witch-doctor's shrunken heads? Too much? One thing was for certain, those teeth would be mine. If I am the tooth fairy, then those are my teeth.
Matilda finally lost her first tooth yesterday. It had been wiggling for WEEKS, and I was so excited. Browsing tooth pillows on Etsy (there are too many, I couldn't pick one!) and handing her cobs of corn, I awaited it as anxiously as she did. I took a midwife's approach to it though, told her not to mess with it too much, that it would come out on its own...reassuring her with that kind of annoying "let nature take its course" all day when all she wanted was to see what it meant to lose it.
We put it in a plastic sandwich bag, sealed it up tight, and I carried it with me in my purse all day while she was at school, proudly showing off its absence. She showed it to our friends at an afternoon play date, but then it went quickly back into my bag. She showed it to Brad when he got home from work, and then brought it to the table to "shine it up" for the tooth fairy.
I married a man who cleans. It's a blessing and a curse. He sees our toddler trash, project scraps, and whisks them away--but also has a hard time discerning what is trash and what is MOTHER LOVING TOOTH TREASURE. You see where this is going, right?
"Where's my tooth??"
"Brad, it was on the table...did you clean the table? It was in a bag, did you throw the bag away?"
"Daddy..."
"Daddy..."
"I...I didn't even notice what I was picking up...are you sure? I couldn't have..."
And there sat the bag at the top of the trash, but the tooth previously in it was nowhere to be seen. She cried and cried as we rummaged through the trash.
We sifted through the trash like two gold miners, with colanders and strainers looking for the one piece that was different than the rest. The kitchen trash was coincidentally full of rice and corn and all manner of small things that might look like a tiny baby tooth. Cooked rice from dinner, raw rice from the rice bin, (moldy) baby corn, popcorn, sweet corn (you might have noticed we like our starches around here), day old beans. Art projects I'd tried to throw away without her noticing were unearthed--commence more tears.
"Maybe we can trick the tooth fairy," she said, "this rice looks a lot like a tooth."
"No, we have to be honest," I said. "The tooth fairy knows where teeth are, even if they're not under your pillow. Think about kids who accidentally swallow their teeth, or spit them out a drain, or get them knocked out on the playground...the tooth fairy doesn't forget about those kids," I said, realizing the irony of my insistence on honesty. I have already justified the tooth fairy mythology to myself in that one day I'm just going to tell her I'm a fairy. A big ol' giant fairy who took her teeth and gave her treasures. It's a whole lot easier to stomach than the Santa Claus situation.
Brad and I looked at each other as we sat on the patio, arms deep in kitchen garbage, rice and beans and broken dreams, and knew this was one of those moments. This was one of those parenting moments that we would laugh about later and say "Remember how you threw away the tooth?" But at the time I was too disappointed and heartbroken really, more for myself than for Matilda, to let it go. "We love you so much," I told her. "Sifting through garbage is NOT our favorite."
Brad wrote a note of apology to the tooth fairy. We put it under the pillow and she awoke to a sweet note in return, a smooth little gemstone, a crisp dollar, and a cute pink collar...because the girl who is growing so much right now has asked for a kitten and after much deliberation we have decided we're ready to take the plunge and indulge her, adding a small furry new member to our family.
I realized I didn't want the tooth so that I could hold on to my frustration, to hold on to the story of a sleepless infancy, but so that I could hold on to HER. This was a piece of my daughter, and it was impermanent. These days are impermanent. I can't keep her in a jar, keep her as she is right this very moment, and that reality breaks me down.
I am learning how to be her mother every day. I am learning when to let her go, let her grow, and when to keep her small and protected. I am learning she is her own wild soul, just the way I imagined she would be. She is a smart and spirited girl, this I know, but she will find her own way...and there are small things, pieces of her I hold dear, that I'll have to breathe deep and release.
That tooth is gone and has left its lesson behind, but lest you think I've risen above it--I am making more careful plans to collect all the rest.
Oh I will have my creepy tooth jar, y'all. I WILL.
Once Matilda started creeping into teeth-losing age territory, I fantasized about keeping the teeth as battle trophies. A little specimen jar full of all my sleepless nights. Maybe I'd string them onto a necklace like a witch-doctor's shrunken heads? Too much? One thing was for certain, those teeth would be mine. If I am the tooth fairy, then those are my teeth.
Matilda finally lost her first tooth yesterday. It had been wiggling for WEEKS, and I was so excited. Browsing tooth pillows on Etsy (there are too many, I couldn't pick one!) and handing her cobs of corn, I awaited it as anxiously as she did. I took a midwife's approach to it though, told her not to mess with it too much, that it would come out on its own...reassuring her with that kind of annoying "let nature take its course" all day when all she wanted was to see what it meant to lose it.
 |
| Pure drooly happiness. |
We put it in a plastic sandwich bag, sealed it up tight, and I carried it with me in my purse all day while she was at school, proudly showing off its absence. She showed it to our friends at an afternoon play date, but then it went quickly back into my bag. She showed it to Brad when he got home from work, and then brought it to the table to "shine it up" for the tooth fairy.
I married a man who cleans. It's a blessing and a curse. He sees our toddler trash, project scraps, and whisks them away--but also has a hard time discerning what is trash and what is MOTHER LOVING TOOTH TREASURE. You see where this is going, right?
"Where's my tooth??"
"Brad, it was on the table...did you clean the table? It was in a bag, did you throw the bag away?"
"Daddy..."
"Daddy..."
"I...I didn't even notice what I was picking up...are you sure? I couldn't have..."
And there sat the bag at the top of the trash, but the tooth previously in it was nowhere to be seen. She cried and cried as we rummaged through the trash.
We sifted through the trash like two gold miners, with colanders and strainers looking for the one piece that was different than the rest. The kitchen trash was coincidentally full of rice and corn and all manner of small things that might look like a tiny baby tooth. Cooked rice from dinner, raw rice from the rice bin, (moldy) baby corn, popcorn, sweet corn (you might have noticed we like our starches around here), day old beans. Art projects I'd tried to throw away without her noticing were unearthed--commence more tears.
"Maybe we can trick the tooth fairy," she said, "this rice looks a lot like a tooth."
"No, we have to be honest," I said. "The tooth fairy knows where teeth are, even if they're not under your pillow. Think about kids who accidentally swallow their teeth, or spit them out a drain, or get them knocked out on the playground...the tooth fairy doesn't forget about those kids," I said, realizing the irony of my insistence on honesty. I have already justified the tooth fairy mythology to myself in that one day I'm just going to tell her I'm a fairy. A big ol' giant fairy who took her teeth and gave her treasures. It's a whole lot easier to stomach than the Santa Claus situation.
Brad and I looked at each other as we sat on the patio, arms deep in kitchen garbage, rice and beans and broken dreams, and knew this was one of those moments. This was one of those parenting moments that we would laugh about later and say "Remember how you threw away the tooth?" But at the time I was too disappointed and heartbroken really, more for myself than for Matilda, to let it go. "We love you so much," I told her. "Sifting through garbage is NOT our favorite."
 |
| Power to the Peaceful. |
 |
| Tiny note full of magic. |
I realized I didn't want the tooth so that I could hold on to my frustration, to hold on to the story of a sleepless infancy, but so that I could hold on to HER. This was a piece of my daughter, and it was impermanent. These days are impermanent. I can't keep her in a jar, keep her as she is right this very moment, and that reality breaks me down.
I am learning how to be her mother every day. I am learning when to let her go, let her grow, and when to keep her small and protected. I am learning she is her own wild soul, just the way I imagined she would be. She is a smart and spirited girl, this I know, but she will find her own way...and there are small things, pieces of her I hold dear, that I'll have to breathe deep and release.
That tooth is gone and has left its lesson behind, but lest you think I've risen above it--I am making more careful plans to collect all the rest.
Oh I will have my creepy tooth jar, y'all. I WILL.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
happy mothers day, to all who do this work.
But I didn't, and the day has passed. And it was just like most days. I woke up when my kids did, after waking with my sniffly clingy youngest a couple times overnight. I read "Baby Bear Baby Bear What Do You See" about ten times tonight to get him to sleep tonight, then scooted over as his big sister crawled into bed with us, scared about one thing or another. And tomorrow is another day.
I didn't go to a spa or get any flowers, but I did breathe extra deep today. I breathed my kids in, smelled the salt and sand in their hair. Cherished breastfeeding. Laughed at jokes. Hugged extra tightly.
Today was for me, for sure. For me to remember how damn lucky I am every day to walk this path with this family I've made. To get to do the work I do some days, to walk with other families on their paths, and then come home to this one.
Happy Mothers Day to those on this journey--who are mothers, who want to be, who mother mothers, who help raise kids, who mourn lost babies, who love on kids as aunties and friends...may you breathe this day in, and then out again. And then in again tomorrow.
Tomorrow's a new one.
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