The Darkness Before the Light

Almost exactly a year ago, I remember sitting with a dear friend at the park and confiding in her something that I was really afraid to verbalize up until then.  While watching the kids play and sipping on our chocolate shakes, I said, "I'm afraid that I will never have a strong connection with Gavin." 

There were several reasons for me to say this.  He always had gravitated toward Ryan, we are so much alike that we often butt heads, but mostly I was afraid that I had lost that critical bonding time with him when he was so small.  I went into a deep, dark postpartum depression that scared me to the core.  The truth of the matter is, I don't remember a lot of those earlier days with Gavin.  I think the memories are fuzzy as a way of protecting me, because as most of my friends and family know, my memory is like a steel trap (except for things I need at the store or errands I should run).  I remember the first few weeks when my mom stayed with us, but after that it kind of becomes a haze of colicky nights and mastering the art of avoiding other people.  There were also a lot of other stressful things happening in our lives at that time with my work, family health, etc...that certainly didn't add to the situation.  I have a few memories that were bright moments of perfection that pierced the darkness that surrounded my soul.  I remember things like going to the kiddie park, trips to Kansas City and visiting family, but the day-to-day stuff, the place where life really happens, is kind of a blur.   Not everything was bad, I mean, how can it be with a baby as precious as Gavin (once the colicky part was done).  There were days that were better than others, I have pictures where I can see real and genuine smiles, but there's a lot where you can also see a smile that isn't really there. 

Gavin's first laugh.  This I remember.

Thank God I was with it enough to plan this.  I mean, how cute are they?

Gavin's first Christmas.  More real smiles from both of us.

This picture made me sad.  This is an example of the blur of this time.  I cannot remember Brennon's room ever being arranged this way.  I just kept staring at it and wondering if I had a hand in it. 

I have started praying in the last year or so that God would give me back the memories without showing me the darkness that I was living in during that time.  It's the kind of darkness that if light was shined on it, the light wouldn't make the darkness disappear, it would just illuminate all of the ugliness that the darkness had caused.  Thank God that I had a friend who cared about me enough to resist the way I was pushing her [everyone] away, and suggest that I consider my options as far as medication*.  I couldn't go back though, and by the time that cracks of light began to shine through, I had missed a lot.  I pray that I am a natural enough mother that I was as good to him during that time as I should have been. 

When Gavin was 10 months old, I was rocking him and I remember I started singing to him.  It was such a breakthrough and I was crying because I felt like I really wanted to sing.  It wasn't a halfhearted rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle anymore.  I wanted to sing to my boy in a way that he would know that his momma loved him.  We picked up from there.  I couldn't think about everything I had missed. 

My husband was amazing with Gavin.  He must have just known exactly what he needed and gave it to him.  They were a natural fit.  My little boy who shared my looks had a heart that belonged to his one and only, his daddy.  I am so glad they have that bond, and it's hardly fair for me to be jealous of it, because the connection I have always had with Brennon (Ryan's mini-me) has been strong.  At this time, Ryan was also staying home with the boys during the day while I worked.  (And then he worked at night....go, husband!  I mean, I can't imagine working and then working some more.  He's a champion!)  So it seemed natural that Gavin would be close with him, but it still hurt my feelings that every time he got hurt or scared, he never wanted me.  He wanted his daddy.  But that day in the park, I said what I was really afraid of, and it just made me more scared.

Although I'm going to stop here, please don't be sad for me.  I want you to understand my story, my journey, where and how far I've come.  Because the story is far from over, and I think you needed to see this part, because this part has shaped me, so that when I talk to you about what happens next, you will smile along with me too.


*I am in no way suggesting that medication is the necessary treatment for everyone who experiences postpartum depression.  I am simply stating that it is a very real medical condition and ignoring it or pretending it is not there will not make it go away. 

The Fight that Gets Us Fired Up, Conclusion

It's been three weeks since I told you to come back tomorrow.  For three weeks I've been sitting on that lovely stump called writer's block, but the truth of the matter is that sometimes the best way to get past it is just to write anyway.  It's not always pretty and polished, and sometimes it's just downright ugly, but I have to forge ahead.  (Also, I'm going on nine months without a good night's sleep, so if you think it's terrible, I'll allow you to say, "Bless her heart, she must be tired.")  When I started the series about stay-at-home vs. working moms, I had a million thoughts swimming through my brain, but I just can't quite seem to really get a grip on a single one.  So, I'm going to be a truth-teller, and I can't worry any more about who I'm going to offend or who is going to look at me differently.  For me, it all boils down to this....I'm scared.

I did them both, and I did the best I could at it.  Well, most of the time I did.  For me, the choice is clear that I would love to be at home for as long as I could, but the fact of the matter is that it's just not feasible for our family.  I wish it was, but it's not.  I'm not resentful of the fact that I'll be going back to work, but that doesn't mean that I won't cry sometimes.  I know that so much is going to change as I do return to the world of working moms.  I'd like to say that I will cherish each moment with them and make every moment count, but I won't.  I'll do my best, but sometimes I'll be tired.  Sometimes the best that I'll be able to do is sit on the couch at the end of the day and watch four episodes of Peppa Pig.  I don't judge other moms for doing it, so I'll try to forgive myself as well.  I'll look for those Kairos moments when time stands still and things are perfect, and I will cherish that moment and hold it in my heart with a death grip while I go through my work days until the next time one presents itself.

More than anything I am scared because I don't want my friendships to change.  I have been on the mountains and in the trenches of stay-at-home mommyhood this year, and I know that sometimes moms need an outlet, and soon I'll have work for that while my friends who stay-at-home will be desperately seeking time with other adults and conversations that do not include words like potty or boo-boo.  And although I love teaching and I'm thankful for my career, my heart will ache to be at home, so I'm afraid.  I'm afraid, because I know that sometimes I hear SAHMS complaining about how they feel like they are going to go crazy being home.  Believe me, I've had my days, but I try so hard to keep my complaints to those few friends who have seen me at my best and worst, because I know that broadcasting my "poor me, I have to spend all my time with my children" rants on the Internet is only going to twist the knife of jealousy into the wound of those who desire with everything in them to be at home.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not going to try to make my life seem perfect....it's not.  Being a mom is HARD, and being a wife is HARD, and sometimes being a friend is HARD, but pretending to be a perfect mom, wife, or friend is harder.   And the hard work of being any and all of those is what makes life so beautiful.  So, whether you love it or hate it, remember that your words effect those in your circle.  Don't judge others for whatever motherhood choices they are making, because you never know their reasons, their stories, or their journeys unless you're willing to really listen.

I Don't Know How She Doesn't Do It

I'm never going to be that woman.  The woman who everyone looks at and says "I don't know how she does it!"  I don't think this ever really bothered me before, but now that I'm pregnant with our third child, I've been kind of boxing myself daily about why I'm not getting everything done each day.  Maybe it's that little bit of freaking out about if I can't get everything done now, how in the world will I get it done with THREE???  I mean, why am I not finished with a completed to-do list including dinner, papers graded, baths, bedtime, shopping, bills paid, lunches planned, laundry folded, dishes done, doctor's appointments, toys away, and cookies baking in the oven, and blog updated?  (Which is incidentally, why this blog hasn't been updated near as much as I'd like!  I mean, I think about it all the time.  I'll think of something and think, I'm going to blog about that, and well, it just doesn't always happen.)

Besides having the recent revelation that NOBODY does it all, I also realized that I don't want to.  If I am able to do all that I need to do each day completely on my own, what part shall God's grace play in my life?  Due to the fact that I know I cannot in any way get everything done that I would like to get done in my many roles, I know that I have to begin every day by asking God to please help me have strength, wisdom, discernment, and peace. 

Acknowledging my need for God's help doesn't mean I am a flawless mother, wife, or teacher.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  It means that I know my flaws, I know what I'm going to struggle with, including mommy guilt.  That alone, could crush me daily.  The reason it doesn't crush me is because I am aware that most moms deal with mommy guilt.  It can surface in any number of ways.  Maybe today I feel guilty for not getting as much done around the house.  Maybe tomorrow I'll feel guilty for doing too much around the house and not spending enough "quality time" with kids.  A week from now, I could feel guilty about being too harsh with my sons when I know they're only 2 and 4.  Next Wednesday, I can beat myself up for being too tired to make dinner and feeding my kids junkie fast food for dinner.  And a month from now, maybe I'll even feel guilty for making a hair appointment in the evening when I'm already away from my kids all day while I teach.  But the fact of the matter is, mommy guilt is a chameleon.  It can take on whatever form it needs to get its point across.  It is almost certainly the most efficient way that women attack themselves in their daily lives. 

You can think to yourself, "Why can't I get it all done like Sally?"  or "Why can't we have a normal day of errands without meltdowns like Mary and her kids?"  Well, Sally and Mary may look like they've got it all together, but I promise something's not done or at least not done in the right way.  Maybe Sally's a hoarder and Mary's taking little Billy's ADD meds.  Okay, so maybe it's nothing that drastic, but I like to make it really crazy in my head so I seem a little less crazy myself.  Well, that, and I have a really huge need for humor in my life.  So, I ask God to help me remember that he called me to live my life, and nobody else's.  How could I have guilt over not getting everything done when only Sally's called to that anyway?  And so, if my blogs appear few and far between and only the front of my shirt is ironed, I'll still hold my head high and know that I'm getting done with everything God helped me do that day.  After all, I'd rather cross off half my to-do list with his help than the whole thing on my own.  It will help me down the line to teach my children to rely on God's grace.  It will help me keep my sense of humor as a mom, and most of all, it will help me remember that NOBODY really does it all!

10 Things I Love, Love, Love

I seriously thought that I would be able to come up with the things that I love the most easily, but it really took some time.  There are a lot of people that I love, things I love to do, and places I love to go, but narrowing it down to what I love the most was kind of hard.  Those of you who are close to me could probably guess a lot of them, but I think I have a few surprises up my sleeve for all of you.  Here it goes...

10.  Trains.  I love being able to hear the train from my house.  When we first moved in, I thought it would drive me insane to hear the train whistle blowing at all hours.  When my boys were tiny babies, I would be so nervous that it would wake the boys after working so hard to get them to sleep.  It never did.  I hardly ever hear it at night, and sometimes I don't even notice it during the day.  That's not to say that it's not there, but I just don't always hear it.  There is something so comforting about it just being there.  When life seems so crazy and you think everything is falling apart, it is grounding to know that the train is there, the world just keeps going and whatever we are going through will pass as well.

9.  The beach.  I know it sounds totally lame to say that, because who doesn't love the beach?  I love it because it's peaceful, because I have so many memories of being there growing up, and because it reminds us that we are just one small speck in a world full of God's creation.  I love to play in the waves and sand and act like a silly kid with my silly kids, but I also love to just sit there and take it in.  My absolute favorite memory of Gavin is when I took him out in the ocean when he was only one year old.  He just laid his head on my shoulder and we moved with the waves for probably an hour.  Every beach is different.  They all have their own unique aspects, but I could be happy at any of them.

8.  Friends.  Both kinds.  I love my girlfriends that I can talk to for hours, but I also love my other Friends, as in Monica, Rachel, Pheebs, Ross, Chandler, and Joey.  I own every episode and I can quote from every one of them.  I used to do it a lot more often, but then I realized that only a handful of my actual friends new where it was coming from.  So, now I save my quotes for Kristi, Shanna, and my poor husband.  Watching Friends can pull me out of just about every funk.  So next time you're having a poopy day, watch it, and think of me.  Maybe it will work for you too!
7.  Language.  I love learning new words, using new words, and especially finding grammatical mistakes.  I'm human.  I make them too, but maybe that's why I love to find someone else making them.  I'm a dork, I know.  I'm okay with that.  In fact, I might even be a little bit proud.

6.  Pizza.  Yep.  It made the top ten, but seriously, could there be a more perfect food?  You can do anything to it, and have a new food experience every time.  I love a hot, fresh pizza straight out of the oven at a pizza place.  I love the bubbles in the cheese when it is done just perfect.  I love that you can make it as healthy or unhealthy as you feel like depending on your mood.  In other words, it is a food that is okay with you being moody.  What's better than that?  (On a side note, this is also why I like tulips so much.  Can you see that I have accepted my moodiness and even embraced it?  I'm a girl!)

5.  Baking.  I love to bake.  It is so wonderful to know that you made something from scratch and that no store-bought item can even come close to it.  Some of my favorites are banana bread, peanut butter cookies, and snickerdoodles.  I love sharing my baked creations with my family and friends, experimenting in the kitchen, finding new recipes and making them fun, using my vintage Betty Crocker "Cooky Book", and I LOVE when the boys help me make bake.  I also love cooking, but there's just nothing like the scent of a kitchen with fresh baked goodies.  No candle can truly capture it, and no amount of HFCS or the other junk they put in mass produced store-bough cookies can compare to the taste of cookies right out of the oven!  It's so much fun to do, and your creations can turn out differently every single time....kind of like life!

4.  Barnes & Noble...especially the kids section.  I love just browsing through the shelves of book after book.  I mentally add books to my wish list for my kids, my classroom, or my kindle (which is kind of ironic to be doing at a bookstore, I know).  I look at books and think of how someday I will definitely be publishing my own book, because if some of those books there could get published, I've got nothing to worry about.  I look through the whole children's section every time.  I remember going there before I even had kids of my own.  I would say I was buying things for my classroom, but really I was looking at all the books I wanted to make sure I would share with my own children someday.  I also have really good memories of sitting in the coffee shop (and sometimes then in the car in the parking lot after getting kicked out aftre closing) with my closest friends and talking for hours about life and everything else that would float in and out of our conversations.  It's a magical place, and if I lived in a different time, my dream would be to own a children's bookstore, but we all saw how that turned out for Kathleen Kelly and The Shop Around The Corner.  (Makes me cry every time...)

3.  Photography.  I love to take pictures.  In another life, I would have been a photographer, but then who would be there to teach my class of second graders with a smile and a healthy dose of reality everyday?  I took some classes in college, but my teacher was a real, well, let's just say I'm not a fan of his.  It kind of turned me off to the idea of doing it as a career, but I have taken a some senior pictures for people I know, and they have all been happy with them, so I guess that means I'm pretty decent.  I love photographing my kids, and I am that parent that posts too many pictures on facebook, but oh well.  I love it.

2.  My family.  Another generic answer I know, but my family is my life.  I don't know where I'd be without them.  They are my people, my light, my source for smiles, sadness, and tender moments.  I don't say this to mean that I see them as a burden.  It's quite the opposite.  Because they are so intertwined in my heart, what they feel, I feel.  I love my husband with all my heart.  We have the most precious gifts in the world, and no matter what we go through, as long as we're together, we are blessed.  I cannot say enough about them, so I'll stop...or maybe not.  No, I will.

And drumroll, please.....
1. Jesus.  Obviously, without Him, I wouldn't have all the other things I love.  He gives us new life every morning, and He teaches me to rely on Him when I'm not able to do it all on my own (and who would want to, anyway).  He blesses us in the biggest and smallest ways each day, and I can only hope that I am a good example of His love for my children.  I'm not perfect, and I'm certainly not going to preach, but I am thankful for a source of strength that will NEVER fail me.

There you go.  I know this was a long one, and now that it's over, the other posts won't be so long.  Now you know a little bit about me, and from now on, I can give you a glimpse of what it's like for me to live my life. 

Erin

My Least Favorite Things

In my time in the classroom, I've found that kids are usually very good at writing about themselves.  They love to write about their favorite things, but they find it even more fun when you let them write about things that they don't like, their least favorite part of a book, or their worst part of their day.  Maybe it's because we all love to vent or complain or maybe our culture has taught kids to over-explain everything about their dislikes and why they feel the way they do.  I admit that I fall into the trap as well.  I sometimes have to remind myself to be more positive.  Since this is a brand new adventure, I should start out on the right note and put a happy spin on my first posts right?  Wrong!  I am going to get my pet peeve post out of the way so that from now on, I can write as the most happy, cheerful person on the planet!

Ok, I might have gotten carried away....nobody needs to have Mrs. Sappy Happy shoved down their throats until they want to toss their cookies.  So without further ado, I give you my top ten dislikes:

10.  Peas. 
So it may seem a little pathetic that I would use one of my top ten on a tiny little vegetable, but I really, really dislike peas!  I do not like their squishy texture, disgusto taste, the way that canned peas are a color green that can only be described as manufactured ugliness, the way that frozen peas look unnaturally green, or the fact that they can ruin a perfectly decent salad.  That being said, I do eat them about once a week in order to show my boys that sometimes you should eat things because they are good for you, not just because they taste good.

9.  Vanity. 
Now I'm all for making yourself all pretty when you go out, but really nobody cares if you are wearing all your makeup and most fancy pants when you go to Walmart.  I just never, ever want to be the person who someone won't recognize if I don't have makeup on.  I also don't want to waste time that I could have spent with my family on myself.  That being said, I did just buy some awesome new mascara, but really, a girl's gotta be a girl!

8. The way my dad turns the television louder and louder so that you have to talk louder. 
People are more important than television, so turn it down.  I love, love, love my TV time too, but if you can't stand people talking over whatever sports play is happening at any given moment, join the 21st century and get a DVR so you can watch it when we aren't around!

7. That guy who pounds his music so loud at the stop light that it makes your heart thump in your chest.
*BOOM!  BOOM!*  This makes me feel *BOOM!  BOOM!* so much smarter than you, guy. 

6.  Bad Restaurant Service.
Okay, this really more of a pet peeve of my husbando than it is for me, but it directly affects me since he is usually my restaurant companion (Don't we sound fancy?....Um no, we sound more like old fogies.)  The deal with it is, that most of the time, there isn't an excuse for it to happen, yet the servers still expect that 15% tip.  Now, if I get good service, I'm going to tip you well, but if I get bad service, maybe you should start tipping me.  Good idea, right?  I bet 99% of wait staff would improve if that was the deal. 

5.  Whining. 
BUT I DON'T WAAANNNNNAAAA hear it, kid.

4.  Fox News. 
I don't want to make enemies, so I'm just going to leave it at that.  Actually, I'm going to say one more thing...whatever your beliefs, be able to defend them.

3.  Texting and Driving.
It's just not safe, people.  Cut it out!  You're putting all of us in danger, and nothing you have to say is so important that it can't either be said on an actual call or wait until you reach your destination.  Also, I will make you feel bad if you text and drive with me in the car, so go ahead and try it....no don't!  Stop texting and driving....seriously.

2.  Smoking.
Again, cut it out!  It's gross.  It makes you smell bad and look unintelligent, and it isn't good for you or the people around you.  There is nothing smart or sexy about it!  As much as you'd like to think it does, it does not make you look like Don Draper.  By the way, is there anyone out there who hasn't heard about how bad it is for you?

1.  Stupidity
This is pretty all-encompassing.  It's hard for me to put it into words, so I'll leave it at this, use your brain!  Especially if you're a parent.  If you're in college, especially undergrad, I'll give you a pass.  Use your brain in class, but you can act a little stupid as long as you don't lose a scholarship or drive drunk....or smoke...or text while driving!  As for the rest of us, take a little time to think.  It does wonders for your ability to make good choices.  Brand new information for some, I know. 

Amazing how much better I feel now that I got all those out.  I can't wait to share with you the things I love...it will be much harder to narrow it down to 10!

Erin