parenthood

Marks and All

I started listening to a playlist on Spotify titled “Piano for Healing.” In the quiet moments, the melodies bring a bit of peace in the middle of a busy day. And allowing healing energy into my space is welcome as part of a routine.

Healing feels elusive at times – like you can’t quite wrap your arms around it’s finished point. This week baby got a bug bite right between her eyes. The bite swelled, causing her eyes to puff up and I tried calmly to reach out to a doctor – allowing only small moments of panic in this new venture of parenthood. She needed Benadryl, nothing serious, and within a few days, the swelling was gone, leaving only a tiny scab for her to pick at with her raggedy finger nails.

We got out the nail buffer and she seems to go about her days. And still, I think her once perfect baby skin has been disrupted by a mosquito or four. Our entrees into imperfection start young – our chances for suffering and the required healing abound. We move forward – marks remain.

This month I’ve been given the gift of Enneagram coaching with a colleague of mine who is getting certified in the tool. My primary style is a 6 – a loyal skeptic – personalities prone to preventative thinking, emotion, and planning ahead. The word skeptic brought up so many emotions for me – and I asked, in my session, is the root of our primary style a result of nature or nurture, or perhaps the soul work we are here to do on earth? In other words, my little childlike self was concerned, did I come out this way, a bit afraid of the world, or did the situations that life gave me make me a little more hesitant to fully step in the ring? I felt shame for being one who lives with doubt.

My colleague didn’t have an answer, and I’ve been wondering how in service of my own healing, I can use this skepticism to my benefit, rather than a paranoid weakness. In my report, they also said the opposite of doubt is moving towards faith – that skeptics like me can balance our internal anxiety with the turning over of our control. God grant me the serenity …

And in my healing, I unwrap my own fingers, tightly bound, and move them to my heart. My skin is tarnished too, marked with moles my baby likes to point out and pick at as she falls asleep in my arms. Healing is life work. Faith, a pursuit of beautiful things.

So for this week, in honoring my own healing, I raise up the beauty in Benadryl, in self-nurturing and the questions ones ask deep within. Beauty in saying there’s nothing to be ashamed about. Skepticism, too, can be a superpower. Beauty in a baby mouthing ‘mole’ and acceptance that our beautiful bodies tell our stories, marks and all.

The Myth of Bouncing Back

Sitting at the dinner table this weekend, Dylan and I were asking, “What the heck did we do last Memorial Day?” Was our house up for sale yet? Had we just been released from an unexpected visit to the NICU? We couldn’t remember. Time and sleepless nights has a way of erasing the days that were painful to live.

By now, people are asking if I’ve recovered from baby’s first year. I’m not sure you recover from the addition of a child into your family. Like all major life transitions, I don’t thinking bouncing back is an option.

I made a loaf of focaccia this morning that turned out perfectly. Crispy bottom, a soft spring in a chew, with coarse grains of salt sprinkled on top. I sliced a square and made the perfect sandwich, munching away at my desk while working from home.

The bread had a bounce to it that made me smile.

The balls in her tiny ball pit bounce when she launches herself, face-first, into the foam pit.

Her toes bounce as she tries to master walking with a bow-legged gait.

I bounce her on my knees and in my arms, through sleep regressions and teething.

I bounce in the kitchen, trying to cook dinner one handed as a new toddler asks for crackers with a scream.

I haven’t bounced back. And, it’s not just about the return to pre-pregnancy jeans.

Folks are asking me when we’ll do it again – create another child – and I don’t have an answer there yet.

I’m too busy bouncing in between work and play and her room and my bed and on the floor on my knees and crawling quickly up the stairs. I’m bouncing to catch up, bending to put my hair into a messy ponytail that moves with me, bouncing forward.

May the forward motion be beautiful, rather than asking me to hop back to a version of me that no longer exists – pant size or not.

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.

One Word

One word. Babies.

When my world fogs with confusion, and moving forward feels difficult, I rest in the hope that babies provide.

Now, now, hold your horses. I am not talking about my own future offspring, and I am not expecting a bundle of my own joy. Talk to my mother about her disappointment in my perpetual five year plan. You know the one – when you get married you say you will be expecting kids in five years. I’ve got a year and a half of marriage on the record, but still we say, ‘Oh, we will have kids in five years.’  That calendar is still moving itself a ways out, into the future.

In the meantime, I get to experience so much joy and wonder when spending time with friends who have committed to parenthood before me. There is something beautiful about watching your friends morph into their new role as parents. It is humorous and wonderful to see how they juggle new strollers, baby wipes, formula, and taking turns changing diapers.

Having only babysat for little ones, I caught myself thinking, “they actually know what to do with all of those plastic bottles and lids. They’ve got themselves together! They can take their kid out in public, and are making such a fantastic team!” My heart filled with pride as we got to spend time with one of Dylan’s best friends and his wife, and yes, their baby. A six month old, bubbling burst of joy. This little nugget was the happiest baby I have spent time with.

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Holding his little fingers as they wrapped around my thumb, watching his eyes follow a stuffed monkey as his dad danced it across the table, those experiences are balm for the soul. And as I still find myself weeping in the afternoon, or aching to call my dad to discuss the Rockies opening game, I return to the hope that Jackson provides. This little guy has so much to see, to experience, to embark upon. Let’s continue to make the world a beautiful place. For him, and for me, and for you, because as we move forward, the world needs more beautiful things.

Thanks to Mike & Josie for making such a beautiful little baby.