baby

Peek-A-Boo

We play a game with my daughter where we place a cloth over her eyes for just a moment. She quickly removes the fabric with a giggle, as we say in squeaky voices, “Peek-a-boo.” The exercise is repeated until she bores of us, usually only a few minutes pass until she’s on to the next thing.

Spring in Colorado feels like a game of peek-a-boo. One moment you’ve got hats and gloves on, carrying bulky coats and boots into the house and in a flash, we remove the layers of fabric to sit in sunshine for just a few hours. Yesterday was sixty degrees. Today, thirty five and snowing.

As the sun peeks its face out, I giggle inside, knowing warmer days are coming. And when the gray returns, because we aren’t done yet, I find the blankets again.

In a brief moment when the sun was shining yesterday, I went for a walk to the park near my office. Walking quickly with my co-workers, I noticed the sound of laughter in the distance. The playground was swarming with kids. Coats piled up on the edge of sand, and parents watched from the sidelines. To see this playground full of children, buzzing with the sounds of bottoms sliding and legs kicking littles to new heights, warmed my heart.

In my emerging, I hadn’t noticed the return of the children to the playground.

We kept walking and two older women were hugging in the parking lot. “Don’t forget to get your beans at Lucky’s” one shouted to the other as she got into her car. We’re back to connecting on asphalt and reminding each other of the somewhat mundane tasks that make up our lives.

This has been a long, cold winter. Snow fell this morning, but Spring is playing peek-a-boo with me. Baby is too. These are beautiful things.

When the Fog Rolls In

It took seven years for the words to come more slowly. Muddled in fog, the memories pull my tongue back into my mouth, trying to make full sentences when the dryness comes at the beginning of March.

There are still words for the sadness and they are taking longer to take shape this year. In the stretching of letters into sentences, my brain seeps into places we used to live together. So much has changed.

This week we both sized up my baby’s car seat and moved down her mattress in the crib. We put up baby gates and took down too-small jackets into the basement. They told me this would go fast, and again, as the fog of new parenthood has lifted, I find myself bouncing up and down to catch up with her growth.

However, a familiar front has rolled in, bringing in old stagnant air of grief, and as the mixing air swirls around us, pushing the blur of her infancy into, well, the past. I can’t believe we’re coming up on a year of baby, and seven years without Dad.

Life happens as we live it. In the bouncing up and downs there’s now wine at the grocery store, cookies with crumb baked in, and baby babbles on the monitor as we wake up in the morning. There’s the ache of not knowing a parent as a friend, of watching others grow and wondering how we ever moved so far in different directions. There’s the putting on of his old sweatshirts and slippers, fingering tears in the worn brown sleeves, as you sit and you watch, chest upon knees, as the grief fog returns.

Seven years, and the words have slowed. The settling, the acceptance, the stillness of grief’s truth, all beautiful things.

Every once in awhile, I’ll ask readers and friends to do something kind in honor of Roy. Sometimes I’ll ask on his birthday. In other years, the day of his death. This week, please commit a random act of kindness in his honor. Buy the person behind you in the drive thru’s coffee. Send that card you’ve been waiting to send. Thank a nurse. Bring donuts to work. Clean up your socks even if you don’t want to.

Please email me or tag me on social media when you do and we’ll create a little bit of sparkle on a real sad Saturday. Do something kind. Help the fog lift. Make memories of Roy into beautiful things.

No Sunscreen

Upon reflecting on the end of the summer, I realized over the last four months I never once got out a tube of sunscreen. My arms remain pasty white, not covered from protective goo, but rather drool and spit up and diaper rash cream.  

Sure, I stepped outside, squinting into the sun with glasses on and dark circles under my eyes, but we didn’t spend time outside. Not really. This was a summer spent navigating the challenging demands of welcoming a new human to our family. We passed a baby between our hands, threw burp clothes across the room, and taped boxes with clear tape at our feet. We saw morning light, not dusk. We emerged slowly, wondering if the threat of Covid lingered, and asked how protective we should be for each other while tending to the care and keeping of our own small family unit. 

We hired movers, packed the kleenex, and remembered growing pains are, at times, just that. Painful. 

But like the sunburns I did not receive this year, the pain points of adding to a family left a tingly glow, freckles of her presence sticking with us as we move into the new chapter of being a family of three. We’ve peeled off sheets of skin of who we were, leaving new, fresh, vulnerable layers underneath. 

Adjusting to parenting hasn’t been easy, and the transformation has been beautiful. 

Recently, upon meeting someone new, I was asked what this blog was about. I shared my philosophy of searching for the good and about my dance with grief. I shared about the pandemic, and living as an anxious person, and trying to find gratitude in times of desperation. The new connection asked, “And what’s beautiful about this season?”

I had to pause, but it didn’t take long to name a few things. 

There’s beauty in the shape of my daughter’s mouth, and the way her hair curls on the sides when she gets sweaty from sleeping in our arms. There’s beauty in the routine forming, her exploration, and in my husband and I trying to move our feet to our faces like she does while keeping our backs on the floor. 

There’s beauty in smiles and coos, and messy buns, and at times, even the 6:30 am wakeup calls. How many years until she begins to sleep in again?

Back at work this afternoon, I took a walk around the park for a quick break. As the sun beat down on my pale arms, I was reminded how much things can change with warmth and a bit of vitamin D. I heard the church bells ring in the distance. I’ve been walking that path for five years now, and yet, the afternoon bells had a different tinkle to them in this season. 

While the paths we walk may remain the same, we as humans aren’t meant to remain stagnant. I’m changing and growing and walking forward, still. 

No sunscreen this summer, what a beautiful thing.

Mush
Photo Courtesy of Unsplash

The green orbs sat patiently on my counter over the weekend. As the sun set towards seven, I sank a blade deep into the flesh of the avocado. Pivoting my palm, I split the fruit in two and plunged a spoon next to the pit. With a quick flick, the little nut popped out onto cutting board leaving smooth spittle as it rolled to a stop.

I scooped out the creamy flesh into the bowl, leaving the halves to be mashed and mixed into something delicious.

With the first shot in my arm, I’ve noticed I’m starting to feel like the shell, rather raw and scooped out.

I’m trying to reconnect with those who I haven’t seen in over fourteen months. Funny how we count the passing of time like the aging of a toddler. Only when we pass into the twenty-four month will we round up to years.

I hope we don’t pass that milestone. No one wants the terrible twos of this pandemic.

In cutting my re-entry teeth, I picked up the phone to a friend who I went to kindergarden with. She’s been back for awhile now and when I asked her what was new, she said, ‘Actually, a lot. I’m moving to Seattle next week.”

My stomach dropped and plopped into a bowl, turning to mush. I took a breath and smiled through the phone and said congratulations.

Another long-timer pair is selling their home and moving to California. A best friend is expecting a baby in July. With each update, I try to be thrilled for the change. New places to visit. New adventures to toast with champagne.

But mostly, I just feel scooped out.

The pandemic has carved from me the time and space I had hoped to fill with friendship. In our social distance, we’ve made choices and changed our shapes. My fear of being left behind kicks into overdrive.

Maybe this is where the metaphor fails and sadness takes over. I’m sad what was will no longer be. I recall our core group of family dinner crew and wonder who will fill the seats on our back patio whenever our little bistro backyard re-opens.

They talk about metamorphosis being a magical process. Transformation undergone in cocoons. What really happens in there, though, is an undoing. An unraveling. A mushing effect.

I’ve been cocooned for quite awhile. I’m not sure what will emerge. But in the scooping, I create space for what can be. I’m open to what will fill this next chapter.

And the mush? It waits, knowing life can transform into the delicious with a quick dash of salt. What a beautiful thing.