children

Merry Christmas–a bit late

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Merry Christmas!

I’ve been thinking about this letter and going back and forth. Do I write it? Do I skip it and just mail cards? Patrick commented that it didn’t feel like the Christmas season, and my inner grouch agreed. It didn’t. Why write a letter? We have been rushing, building, making big decisions for next year and general small children life living, and I thought it would be easier to skip it. The other day, I was driving with Leo and he demanded “Carol of the Bells.” He knows my favorite Christmas song and loves it too. Christmas is here for my little ones. They are excited. One of them is sneaking extra advent calendar chocolates (and is in for a big disappointment) and they have the Christmas spirit. I needed to find mine. Patrick may be too busy to find his for another week or so, but he will get there. So, I am writing the letter. It brings me joy every year. It is something I do at Christmas. The Christmas Cantata at Dundee Presbyterian church last week brought me to tears and solidified that the letter was going to happen. Life should never be too hectic to feel the excitement of the coming of Christ.

Why is Patrick missing the spirit? He has no time. He works all day and then is adding a bathroom and GIANT closet to our converted office/guest suite. He is working at least 18 hours a day between the 2 and I will be forever grateful for his determined soul because it will allow my beloved parents to come and go as they please. Also, we can have house guests now! He is a daily inspiration to our boys to find your passion and pursue it.

Teddy is 5 and filled with spirit and roughly 1,000,000 ideas. Today I found him holding construction paper over his humidifier and then blending markers over the damp paper in an attempt to make fabric. His mind never ever shuts down. Now that I have figured out how to get him to sleep at night, this is one of my favorite parts of him. He has created and built treasures this entire year. He lives outside like a feral animal. He received his own tool belt and REAL tools for his birthday and has put in probably 40 hours working with his dad on the new bathroom. He is in his last year of preschool and embracing it with vigor. I cannot believe how lucky I am that he is mine.

Leo Lion, aka Meatball or Lion Boy is embracing 2-years-old with every inch of his body. He is a blonde tornado of energy. He loves and plays hard. His brother is his best friend and he will do anything to make him laugh. The two of them play for hours and it, of course, makes me cry happy tears. I am expecting many broken bones from this one. He loves trying new bikes, scooters and throws everything he gets in his little hands. He is a dedicated thumb sucker and, most nights, informs me his thumb is “too spicy” and it needs to be rinsed before bed. He sings his bedtime songs loudly with me and I am madly in love with this little stinker.

My year revolved around my family. My world (and my entire family’s) was turned upside down when we learned on April 4 that my dad had throat cancer. My dad is my hero, my rock and my earliest moral compass. It took most of the year, but slow and steady won the race and he is cancer free. Life is not forever on earth, but I cannot bear to think about life without any member of my family and I am grateful that I get to spend 2.5 weeks with him (and my mama) in just a few days. My brothers and I were home for his 70th birthday and it was a weekend to remember. We laughed, ate, drank and made very merry. All felt good again.

We wish you a merry Christmas and jingles all the way!
Patrick, Katie, Teddy, Leo and Ernie
2017

When Swim Lessons and Botox Collide

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Most of the time Tiny 1 spends his time doing things like this:

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I passionately love this about him. I walk into his room after “quiet time” (otherwise known as my nap time but he thinks it’s when I solve world problems) and find him jabbering on about why he’s going to sell off this “naughty company”, making up songs, turning his room into cities with places like “cooky playground” or just painting himself.

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He entertains me immensely, especially after a nice session to myself of lunch, quick snooze and SVU reruns while folding the endless laundry.

This little 4-year-old of mine is a delight and a joy, until he has to try something new that is not his idea. For example, swimming lessons. I signed him up because I love him dearly and he must know how to be safe in the water. He must. He took private lessons last summer and screamed the entire time. It was fine because no one had to share this experience with me and the teacher was also a mother. THIS year I thought I had invested enough in his initial water safety and signed up for a more reasonably priced group lesson at the YMCA. He didn’t want to go but we discussed it before hand and he knew what to expect. He threw somewhat of a fit the first day and then was fine. The disaster struck when he got a new teacher.

Back story; I’m not 30 anymore. I like to look, shall we say, fresh like I just stepped out of a pilates class with glowing skin on a Lifetime movie. I do not look my freshest these days as I have developed hormonal acne. Fun stuff, said no one EVER. When I discussed both the acne and weight gain this year with my OBGYN, he told me that if I planned on eating each day, I should also plan on exercising each day. I was hoping he would say there was an obvious hormonal imbalance and he had a magic solution that would not only fix my discussed problems but also increase my hair volume. Nope. The second doctor I saw was the dermatologist to fix the hormonal acne. While I was there, I saw he was running a Botox special. I decided to go for it in a quest for that fresh look. I looked like this 48 hours later.

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I share this because it all coincided with the change in swim coaches. The day of the switch of coaches, I worked out ahead of time using the free child care the Y offers because I had chosen to eat that day. I had already complained (because that’s what I do) about the lack of sufficient air circulation in the cardio room but they didn’t particularly care. So I not only had a giant black eye but I was a hot, sweaty mess from the humid, non circulating air post workout. I gathered Tiny 1 from the nursery and took him to the pool for lessons. He arrived, saw there was a new teacher and promptly began the biggest tantrum I have ever experienced with him. He was wearing a tiny European swim suit (the only adorable part of the story), and started running away from the pool while I yelled, “NO RUNNING NEAR THE POOL.” While I attempted to contain him mid run, he yelled he would only swim with his old coach, threw himself on the ground and screamed to the point where other parents were staring and surely wondering if there was something intrinsically wrong with us as Tiny was screaming and I had the giant black eye and looked like a sweaty maniac hissing at my son to “follow instructions” and “no Disneyland if you don’t get in the water.” In all fairness, I also would have been wondering this as a spectator. We exited the pool for a calm down period, for both of us, and he went back up afterwards and sat but did not participate. After the lesson, he spent the afternoon in his room. In theory this is punishment, but he learned he could turn his curtains into a hammock, fit completely behind his closet drawers and wrote a note of apology to his swim coach for his behavior, which we laminated with it being a swim class atmosphere.

He loves swimming again. We have discussed moving up levels means new teachers and perhaps we can meet them ahead of time.

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My black eye has healed and I wear a bit of lip gloss to work out so I can look somewhat pulled together should the need arise again. I can’t change his intensity but I can control mine. His intensity is one of my favorite parts about him and I will take that bad for all that good. I don’t really have a plan yet for the future, but I’m working on that. I know he will work on it with me. Chances are, I will receive a detailed map on the physical steps to take to make the problem disappear post quiet time. He’s just that kid.

 

Is It Crossing the Line?

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We have a tooth issue. I am aware that this will be an anthill and not a mountain in terms of parenting, but it is where we are, and I am enjoying this small, small moment. My T is 4 and 3/4. He had 8 teeth by 8 months. The average first tooth bursts through at 7 months. Our dentist said he has advanced tooth development; I pray this influences his brain but not puberty. Dear Lord, please not advanced puberty. I still have vivid images of the story of an advanced cousin in his daddy’s Cadillac at age 13….no, not advanced puberty in this house. Anyhow, his first tooth became loose at age 3.5. It was so unusual that he had his first x-rays at this early age and all those big ole adult teeth were right there, waiting patiently to rear their jagged heads.

Preschool was an adjustment for my little man. His teachers rarely got to see him in his full glory as he was busy watching and not talking. During snack time mid school year, his first tooth fell. When I picked him up, he saw me and burst into tears—inconsolable, preschool angst ridden tears. Selfishly, I panicked for a moment worried that his teachers would think I was abusing him, but I quickly realized this was not about me and was a parenting moment.

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He settled down at home and definitely wanted the tooth fairy to come, but he did NOT want the creepy tiny flying thing visiting his room while he slept. I get it. It makes sense. A tooth fairy???? Come on history.

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His second tooth is loose. His favorite 2 foods that give him complete, unadultered child joy are king crab legs and corn on the cob. His first loose tooth lost its last leg while eating the corn on the cob. Now, he will not eat it. In fact, he will not bite anything with his front teeth. He is terrified of the second tooth biting the dust. Watching him eat is not a treat. The length he will go to avoid anything touching the tooth is somewhat fascinating, but I do believe that proper table manners are important and he is appearing a savage with the tooth issue. I have explained both gently and with a slight amount of frustration that he will lose it. There is nothing he can do to stop the progression of teeth. Since he is so clearly my child, I understand all of these fears about growing and getting bigger/older, and I have not been able to help him calm his terror of losing teeth. The tooth is starting to turn a color that no one would put in a giant box of crayons and it sticks out at an angle that, were it a limb, would be cast in a pleasant neon shade. This tiny tooth needs to go.

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I am not allowed to touch it. This wonderfully tactile child who could be worn on my body like a silk scarf will not allow me to come near it. I have offered to PAY him to let me see how loose it is. He locks down iron jaws when I come near it. I recently had an idea that seems brilliant, yet perhaps crosses the line. For the past 2 nights, I have gone in when he is completely asleep and wiggled the little brown tooth to encourage its exit into a little box where I, as his mother, will keep it safe and cry over it when he hits his delayed puberty.

Is this wrong?

A Change of Attitude

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Summer break is here. The tiny one is out of school. We all (well not sweet Daddy) sleep in a little later and have our days completely free. We have zero plans in general, with a bit of swimming thrown in later on in the summer. It is both daunting and exhilarating. Tiny 1 is against plans. He inherited this from me. I shun planning in general. He shuns planning AND clothing. He likes to be free to work. He told me last week he had too much work to do to go to a party because his work would probably take him all day. Knowing him, I have not signed him up for any camps. I have gone back and forth on this decision, but he’s at his happiest working in his backyard.

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Knowing his tinier brother, I have ordered a gate for the yard. This adorable, little blonde meatball is a menace.
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Summer just started and I found myself yelling at everyone on Monday, rolling my eyes, threatening and basically being a rotten human, not just a rotten mother. They were naughty, but they are 4 and 21 months, not adults. I thought to myself that the summer was going to be awful and I should find something for them to do, for someone else to watch them sometimes. I went to bed that night and could not sleep. I felt so ashamed. I have 2 tiny, wonderful boys and their moods revolve around mine. If I am naughty, they will of COURSE be naughty. I spent a long time reflecting upon the challenge given to me this summer and the gift of these boys. My original plan was to savor their tiny selves and I was failing, audibly. I decided I needed to change my attitude, something I had been commanding my oldest child to do that day. I prayed that I could do it. I asked for help, and I thought of how much I loved open summer days when I was little.

Guess what? I’m on day 2 of pure bliss. There was a giant temper tantrum in Target yesterday where I ran into so many people I knew, including someone I have been trying to integrate into my friend circle. I was calm and kind. I kept focusing on my attitude change. I was punched in the eye by the tiny meatball and I was again calm and kind–and put him in bed. Attitude change is my motto on refrain.

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Today, we have been building with boxes in our courtyard. We woke up with a mission! We drove around looking for free boxes and then bought a few. Their little eyes sparkled with joy and their faces were colored orange with fake cheese from chips. They’ve eaten primarily junk food and we have been having a marvelous time. They each got to choose a paint roller at Home Depot. The meatball kept throwing both rollers out of the cart, severely upsetting his brother who chose his with such care and would never behave in such a manner, but I could see the humor in it and told him to just sit on them so the meatball could not get to them. I gave the little naughty blonde more Doritos to sidetrack him. He snuck 4 lollipops while I wasn’t watching. It’s summer. I’m cool with it with my new attitude.

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We got home and planned, arranged, rearranged, cut and taped the boxes. My tinies chose a tall wardrobe box to be a house with a tunnel connecting to an apartment. An empty plant container is a chimney. After nap, the painting began.

Daddy came home early and was somewhat caught off guard, but the excitement pulled him into the fun while I went for a quick workout. We couldn’t get Tiny 1 to come inside until his stomach forced him. He painted the outside of his work and then started the inside. Tomorrow he plans to draw and hang pictures for the inside. His pride is palpable. Tiny 2 ate a popsicle after painting for a while. It was a glorious day.

It is hard to be patient sometimes. It is REALLY hard to manage big feelings, but it is my job. I signed up for it. It was worth it today. I pray I remain the adult and keep up the attitude change. Summer is full of possibilities with an empty schedule. “It is well with my soul.”

 

The Roaring Lion

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Both of my children were conceived via in vitro fertilization. This is not a secret and I have written about it before. What I have not written about is our Leo Lion’s conception. I have known what my beauties looked like from 3 days post conception. Amazing! This is our lion’s story.

The transfer process is less clinical than the egg retrieval process. The embryo(s) is/are unfrozen and sometimes they need to give them a bit of time to acclimate. For whatever reason, my precious embryos often did not make it after unfreezing. I said a prayer for each one. I mourned each one.Then I had to move on because there was always (thank you God) another one/baby waiting for its mama to be there. Just like our sweet Teddy, Leo Lion was the last embryo we had. Leo was different. When you are in the advanced maternal age group of at least 35, your embryos go through “assisted hatching” where the embryologist helps the shell open to release the embryo. Quickly after unthawing, Leo Lion was bursting through his shell ALL on his own. We all laughed at the eagerness of this tiny, precious embryo ready to go. He was moved into my womb and the waiting game began.

Have you waited to take a pregnancy test after disappointing months? I have. It is awful. This time, I skipped to the bathroom to take the test, 3 days early. I had a secret. I knew I was pregnant. I knew the day after the transfer. I KNEW. I FELT that tiny and blessed embryo burrowing deep into his home. He made it.

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A few days later, the blood test confirmed my intuition and the home pregnancy test. I was VERY pregnant.

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Skip forward to the delivery room…..Leo Lion came roaring out of the womb. He roared and roared and roared. I actually started to panic because I knew I was in for a much, much wilder ride than Teeny gave me.

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He wanted to nurse immediately and with great intent. He fought going to sleep at night. He roared letting me know he wanted to be held. His pediatrician said he was “very alert.” Leo does not do anything halfway. Even when he is just observing, his little limbs are moving as though he can move himself into the middle of the action. He is vocal about what he wants and does not want. There is nothing casual about Leo Lion. He has been this way since conception.

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I find it fascinating that from 6 days past creation he has exhibited very clear personality traits. We did not choose his name based on its meaning, but it is very apt. While IVF is considered a liberal choice, viewing and participating in the process of scientifically creating life has made me very conservative. I have known my child since conception, and I have seen his fierce determination since his cluster of embryonic cells forcefully left their shell. This is a gift and significantly cemented my view on when life begins. My child’s personality began at conception. I know this.

I love you madly Leo Lion. May you always live life fully and fiercely. I will roar behind you, my darling.

t and L

Charlie Brown

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The Tiny One is 3. He is marvelous and a total stink pot these days. We have been talking about rhyming words. He has also been watching Charlie Brown. I finally deleted the Great Pumpkin episode when I could not take it even one more time. Lovely Rudolph and feisty Frosty have been recorded, but he will have none of it. I think it is because of all the naughtiness in Charlie Brown. How scandalous they speak to his little ears. I told him I would delete all of them if I heard him using the bad words he hears. If he needs to say the words, he can do so alone in his room. Who am I to judge? I love bad words. Anyhoo, he is a clever stink pot. Instead of using the word blockhead, he uses frockhead. There is that rhyming lesson. Lately it has been shortened to frock, than fock. On my honor, the only time I have said the F bomb in front of him was at 4 in the morning when he refused to sleep and he was only 50% awake. It comes from bloody Charlie Brown. My husband was unaware of the rhyming and called out from his home office/nursery, “Are you hearing this?” I yelled back from the other room while Tiny 2 was attached to my tribal breasts for the 18th hour of the day, “Yes. He’s saying frockhead. He thinks he’s fooling us.” To which husband corrected me that it was now fock. Well, fock. I do not have the energy to deal with this one. I am too tired. All I want is to magically win the lottery without playing it and for my children to sleep for 10 hours. Neither one appears to be a possibility.

I am surviving on coffee and cosmetics these days. I wear a splint due to post pregnancy diastasis recti and I use a topical treatment in effort to prevent the post natal hair loss that is most likely coming. This is my appearance reality. Needless to say, I am not at my finest. A dear friend passes along treats from her Birch Box to me. One of the goodies was an spf 15 primer by IPKN New York and it is a life saver. It is the Flash Cream Radiant Primer. I have tried most of the big name primers and have not loved any of them. Either they are too shiny, sparkly or heavy. This gives you the glow I was supposed to have during my pregnancy. It gives me a fresh face with a subtle, healthy looking sheen. It has entered the limited arsenal of I-don’t-want-to-live-without-it. If I cannot commit to wearing makeup during the day, I can always at least commit to this primer. I love it. In my current sleep deprived and outnumbered state, this has made me at least look like a version of my former self.

Prime the face, rhyme with mommy mouth bass
Sleep, don’t make a peep
Tiny, please not whiny
Baby, someday sleep maybe
Love, all the above

The Day of Surgery

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It is common knowledge that teenagers have no sense of mortality. What I learned last week is that not all adults do either. I know that I will age. I know that I will not live forever. I thank God for my strong and imperfect thighs when I run past someone who is struggling to simply walk. I knew these things but I had not viscerally felt them until last week.

Our in vitro fertilization journey has been very different from the first journey when we had the tiny one. The drugs are different; the time line is a different. The medication made me sicker than I could have imagined. I sobbed uncontrollably from the hormones. I saw the needles being prepared and would sit, shake, and sob all the while knowing they were not that bad. My husband would apologize as he shoved 1 of 3 needles into my belly. I was awake most nights trying to breathe shallowly so I would not vomit. It was not like that last time….

Like last time, I produced a gazillion eggs. I am a hen. I was ridiculously proud of this. They cut short my injections and scheduled my surgery. I bought an US Magazine and looked forward to being in bed because, at my core, I am lazy. They retrieved 24 eggs during surgery. 16 were mature and I happily went to bed. I remembered the last recovery being palatable, so I forced my husband to take our tiny toddler to run at the park after his long and boring morning. They left and I read. I started to not feel great, so I went to get my anti nausea pills, which were no more than 15 feet away. I fell. I could not get up. Please Lord, do not let me vomit. The only thing worse than vomiting would be pooping my pants in public. Ok, let me vomit if it means never pooping my pants in public. I crawled back to bed and called Pat. It got worse.

I never know when it is appropriate to call the doctor so I waited. I could no longer stand up without dizziness and nausea, and pain started spreading all over my torso. I could not sit down, lay on my back, or on my right side. I knew it did not make any sense, but wondered if it was a heart attack. Ok, perhaps now it is ok to call the doctor. My doctor said I needed to come back to his office. I had to kneel in the back of the car because I could not sit and I said things that were not nice at all whenever my husband hit a bump in the road. Really.Not.Nice. The doctor sent me across the street to the hospital where we waited for 7 HOURS to be admitted. This entire time was spent on my left side. They were unable to do a cat scan because I could not lie on my back, even after 3 rounds of intravenous pain meds. I waited 6 more hours to be told that I had fluid and most likely blood in my abdomen from an ovary follicle that failed to clot during my egg retrieval surgery, and now I needed more surgery to fix it. They thought the surgery would take 15 minutes. It took 2 hours. My sweet, precious husband was in a full panic mode waiting to find out anything. He said he was so desperate he asked a maintenance worker if he could find out what was going on in surgery. They removed 2 liters of blood from my abdomen. I could finally rest on my back and sit. It was glorious until a few hours later I was too weak to move at all. I am not sure which situation scared me more. I needed to decide if I would accept a blood transfusion. The people in my life who know me deeply know I am terrified of this. I have irrational fears of diseases and am also a control freak. I had to let go and trust because otherwise I would not be leaving the hospital anytime soon. The beautiful view out my hospital room window of the foothills, bright blue skies, and wide lanes where I could walk and run convinced me just as much as my father’s voice over the phone to embrace the transfusion. I left the next day.

My husband asked me if I thought God was punishing us for being greedy and wanting another child. That probably saddened me the most of anything we had gone through during this procedure. I do not think we were being punished. I, too, lost faith briefly, but looking back, I think a small gift was being in that room with the beautiful view. That was a small nudge to remind me what waited for me outside those walls. Life. Running. Hiking. My family. More time to depend on my body while I am young. And just maybe in a year or so, another baby. Maybe. Hopefully.

How We Make Babies

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My brothers and I fought, a lot, as small siblings. My mom had a friend who was a psychologist and she told her to simply remove herself as an option the next time we were fighting. She followed the professional suggestion and locked herself in her room while the 3 of us argued over something. Apparently we knocked on her door asking for a referee and she told us to work it out ourselves. As the story goes, we stopped arguing, she heard a chair being dragged across the room, a phone being picked up and dialed and then a self righteous voice speaking. This is what she heard. “Hello Operator? My name is Katie Goeschel. My dad works at the hospital and I need you to call him. My mom locked herself in her room and won’t come out.” Enter sprinting mother and CLICK.
The tiny one needs a sibling. He needs a confidant who doesn’t have to go to his own house at night or follow a different set of rules. He needs a last option when no one else is available to play. He needs someone to teach him how to deal with confrontation and to side with him when parents are being unreasonable in his child mind. He needs a best friend and a best enemy (at times.) I may have fought with my brothers, but I cannot imagine a better life without them in it. I may or may not have been convinced one of them was a serial killer while he was going through puberty, but I am entertained and proud of the man he became.
We cannot make our own child without the help of science. We committed emotionally a while back to try in vitro fertilization again, and finally pulled the financial trigger last week. I thought I would share with anyone pondering this way of baby making, and anyone else who is curious, what the process entails as we go along. To anyone who has been told to “just relax” or “go on vacation and it will happen,” this is for you. There is nothing visually sexy or spontaneous about this. Oddly, I find it very sexy to watch my husband prepare my subcutaneous injections, but perhaps this is just me.
We ordered over $4000 worth of medications from one of the few labs who are able to provide. Everything shown in the picture is the medication that covers only 1 cycle of treatment.

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Yes, it is that expensive, and yes it is mind blowing and kind of painful to stomach when most people just buy a good bottle of wine before making a baby, but it is worth it and I am grateful that there is an option that provides the lifelong joy of a child. They have to overnight the medications because some must be refrigerated. We met with our reproductive endocrinologist for an ultrasound to make sure I was physically sound to start the process this morning. Our doctor was very excited about my ovaries and I was absurdly peacocking around today because of it. It took about 30 minutes to review the medications and reteach us how to administer all of the medicine that will stimulate my ovaries into making LOTS of eggs. We have to inject the medication at the same time each day, and we chose 9:00 pm as our shot time because my husband thought he could be home by that time to administer the shots.

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I choose not to give myself the shots for 2 reasons: I feel very connected to my husband when he gives me the shots, and they burn and make me queasy, so it is best if he does them. As the medication kicks in and the days continue, I will bloat as the eggs push against my abdomen, run out of non-used injection spots and bruise because of it and possibly become somewhat emotionally irrational as I have excess hormones running wild in my body.  The emotional part did not happen last time, but I will no doubt blame any moodiness on it.  I think this is fair. We have 1 day down and about 11 more to go before I undergo surgery to retrieve the eggs in hope of creating beautiful little embryos. Maybe it will work and our tiny T will have his own brother or sister, but maybe it will not.

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Our doctor feels good about our chance of success and gave us a 50/50 chance.  This is high in the world of ivf. It is not in our hands and we have accepted that whatever happens in this next year is ok. Our small boy is enough, but 1 more would make our cup overflow with joy.

Why I Changed My Mind

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I take videos of Teeny all day long. When he naps, I watch them. After he goes to bed, I watch them again. I email them to my mother and father and expect responses so I can revel in his wonderfulness over and over.  There is probably not a full 60 seconds that I do not think about him. He is 16.5 months and I still cry once per day thinking about how much I love him.

This is not an activism post, but something I have been thinking about for a while and simply wanted to say aloud. I am generally socially liberal, and I used to be pro-choice. I do not like government butting into peoples’ lives and this seemed more of a personal matter than governmental. I believe in the right for all humans to be able to marry and I believe in kindness for animals raised for food consumption, but I no longer believe in the idea of pro-choice. I remember discussing this with my best friend’s husband saying, “Who am I to tell someone else what they can do with their body?” Do you know what changed this? I could not have a baby.

If you know me or have read my blog, you know that we could not have a baby naturally. Every step we took up that giant mountain of infertility treatments changed my opinion. If one woman who was not ready to have her child would just let me have that baby….  Rational or irrational, suddenly all potential babies seemed like my potential child and the idea of someone not wanting that child, not knowing that I would travel and do anything to have that child was unbearable to think about.

We finally did get pregnant, and pregnancy through in vitro fertilization is a very different process than regular pregnancy.  Everything is monitored from the moment the embryo is placed in your body. When we lost one of the embryos, we did an ultrasound at 6 weeks. Guess what, we saw a little fighter with a strong heartbeat.  The doctor did not think he would make it, but he fought. I was barely pregnant in terms of time, but I was already a mother. That little heartbeat in a yolk sac has grown into my entire world. It is an unrealistic fantasy, but I would like a whole brood of them running around (provided they all slept at night.) I can think of nothing better than just being at home with a whole team of tiny Szurpickis; breaking things, running experiments in my brand new bathroom, locking each other out of the house.  These small people are so much fun! Seeing him at 6 weeks, intent on making it to full life solidified my earlier belief that I am 100% pro-baby growth.  Pro-life is a rotten term.  We are all pro-life.

This change in mindset came from my own experience.  It is just personal.  This is my general opinion, knowing that each situation is different and shouldn’t be judged.  It is simply something to think about.

Musings On a Night By Myself

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My husband is out of town.  I had the house to myself after the tiny one went to bed.  I thought perhaps the complete freedom might be liberating, but honestly, I’m bored without my partner.  I miss him.  I decided to take a bath and as I took my hair down, I thought about how hideous it currently looks and I made the ugliest face I could contortion.  I am not sure why, but I sometimes choose to do this.  I prefer it when I can perform this for my husband.  I adore his responses.  He is slightly horrified by what I can conjure, particularly if I am inspired by either old school Rachel from Glee or my perception of zombies.  I thought about this during my free time tonight and I thought maybe I should be concerned that this would eventually be a major repulsion for my husband.  I immediately dismissed the thought.  “Come on, he’s crazy about you” was my inner response.  Then I realized that this is a gift my parents gave me long ago.  I have never felt unloved by them.  I have never doubted the family bond of my parents, my brothers, and myself and it has allowed me to feel security in my grown up family.  This is not to say that I have not been allowed to blow around in the wind on my own, because I have, and I am also grateful for this.  My parents knew me and trusted the relationship enough to let me flounder and succeed or fail as needed before swooping in to save the day.  I am so happy, after the fact, that they did.  Here is what shaped me:

  • My parents let me sing multiple verses of Santa Claus is coming to town to our congregation at church, in June, at age 3.  (This led to me thinking teenage boys would like to hear me sing too, which was a very successful method of birth control.  Sneaky parents.)
  • My parents allowed me to audition for everything and drove me to said auditions.  If I failed, they talked with me but let me know that failure is part of life.
  • When I realized TCU’s music program was terrible for musical theater goals, they let me decide whether to stay or transfer.  No judgment made.  For the record, I made the wrong choice.
  • When I asked when we were all moving me to New York City, my mother said I had it wrong and I should buy a one-way ticket and figure out where to stay.  I thought she was evil.  In hindsight, she was both brave and brilliant.
  • When I could not figure out how to live in New York City, my parents did save the day and paid for my broker’s fee for the apartment.  I paid the rent.
  • My dad drove me out to California to go back to school.  I paid for school; he paid for all the insurance needed on my 26-year-old self.  I got a 4.0 and the outstanding student award for my major.  I needed to pay for school myself in order to achieve that.

Catching your child on every stumble can lead to an insecure child/adult, I have decided.  I am learning how hard it is not to sprint over when someone pulls the tiny one’s hair, or he falls 4 inches and bruises his forehead, but learning disappointment at a young age is ok.  I would rather that he be disappointed about being in his crib and learn to figure it out, than have an adult who is constantly disappointed about everything, without seeing how to make it ok internally.  I want to raise a boy who is so confident about having been so loved and believed in that he was allowed to fall a little bit, knowing he could pick himself up.  All of this rambling comes from one ugly face in the mirror.  Come home soon Patrick.