Category: ChicagoNow Blogging Challenge

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I Am a Mom

This is part of the ChicagoNow Blog-a-palooza challenge.  Once a month all bloggers are given a writing prompt at 9:00 PM and instructed to write our little hearts out until 10:00 PM when all involved post simultaneously. Here is today’s prompt:

Write about something you learned or experienced since you woke up this morning.

Dammit.  I have not left the house today.  I did manage to change clothes, though, but that was sort of a bonus and not really intended.  I was standing in the downstairs hallway, just outside our laundry room, and realized I had been wearing the exact same clothes since Monday.  Today is Wednesday. That’s over 48 hours in the same fleece and Lands End stretch pants, and yes, underpants.  Ugh.  I stripped naked in the hallway and added them to the mounds of laundry, already separated, just waiting for me to take it to the next laundry level.

What in the hell has happened to me?, I thought to myself, standing naked and shivering in the cold hallway — I’m such a mom cliche.  Like a bad mom cliche.  And then it hit me:  I am a mom.

Whoa.

When in the Sam Hill did that happen?

Well, technically, it started about 8:10 AM on the morning of July 20, 2005, when my oldest child was born.  But that is when I became a mother, not necessarily a mom.

Those are different things, you know.

Today, all day, throughout the day, were these kind of, sort of LOUD announcements that I am a mom.  Standing naked in the pile of laundry was one.  An obvious one.  Doing dishes three times today was another.  Feeling stretched between my crying, hungry baby and my little boy home sick from school with a fever was in there.  Seeing my hair pulled back in a ponytail was one, sure.  Oh, yeah, and there were those piles of Christmas boxes needing to be brought back downstairs and no one to do that but me.

Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom.  “MOM!  Can you put my juice on a coaster?!”

I honest to goodness never aspired to motherhood.  In fact, I think I was the least maternal woman I knew.  But things change, and so did I.   And now, right now, being a mom is the most important thing I do.  It is a repetitive gig. God love motherhood, but it is mind numbing at times.  The dust and the dishes and the laundry and the bed making.  I about want to scream some days.

But then a baby smiles at me in a way he smiles at no one else.  And I swoon.  And find the strength to wash his bottles and bibs.  Again.  And again.

Today, late in the day, really, the baby was sleeping and my boy was comfortably watching television.  I crept downstairs to tend to that laundry, still in progress.  For the first time in hours (days?) I was alone.  No one in my arms, no one clinging to my neck, no one asking for a snack or art supplies. I took in a full breath and moved the laundry.

Rather than cart the clean laundry upstairs to fold and put away, I opted to fold it downstairs.  It felt luxurious, that folding of laundry all alone.  I clicked on the television and those Real Housewife bitches (who you never see doing any damn laundry — real housewives, my ass) kept me company for the 20 minutes it took to fold the bibs and burp clothes and towels and boxers and super hero t-shirts.  Dare I say, it was relaxing, those twenty minutes of solitude and laundry.

As I made my way up the stairs, I heard a whimpering, a sniffle, a padding of footie pajamas on the hard wood floor.  Is that Mary Tyler Son, I wondered?

It was.  And he was scared and crying and looking, suddenly, not much bigger than his three month old brother.

“Mom, where were you?  I was worried,” and then another round of fresh tears burst out.

The poor honey.  I dropped the laundry, scooped up the boy and cradled him in my arms just like I would the baby.  You don’t really get the chance to cradle four year olds much anymore.  I soothed him and assured him and apologized profusely.

“Mommy’s here, pie.  Mommy’s here, sweet pea.  Mommy’s always here.  I will never leave you.”

I am a mom, a MOM, dammit, and these little people need me, rely on me, worry to the point of tears when they don’t know where I am and think I have left them all alone on a cold winter’s day.

That is some serious stuff, my friends.

So today I learned, that I am a mom.  And I have the kids and laundry and dishes and dust to prove it.  I am a mom.  That makes me one damn lucky lady, laundry and all.

Laundry

 

 

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Figuring It Out

This post is part of the ChicagoNow monthly collective “blogapalooza” wherein one topic is presented at 9 p.m. and bloggers are afforded one hour to write their little blogger hearts out, publishing whatever they have by 10 p.m. Today’s topic:

Write about a great challenge faced by you, by someone else, by an entity, at any point in the past or in the future.

Eleven weeks ago today I stood in a labor and delivery room and watched another woman birth her child, who is now my child.  What kind of riddle is this?, you ask.  This is no riddle, my friend, this is adoption.

Rewind to four months earlier.  A bright young woman connected with my husband and I through our aptly named Facebook page, “Sheila and Jeremy Want to Adopt.”  She was pregnant, already mothering, and in no position (her words, not ours) to raise another child.  We talked.  We communicated.  We connected.  A few days later we learned that we were the ones — the family she wanted to raise her child.

I still, when I stop to think about it, have trouble wrapping my brain around this.

Caring for a baby comes easily to me.  The fact that this child and I do not share DNA or deep genetic codes appears to have had no ill effect whatsoever on my maternal bonding.  There is something about this stage in life that is supremely primitive.  A baby’s needs are simple and consuming:  food, warmth, shelter, protection, love.  I stare into my baby’s deep blue eyes and the uterus he grew in, the sperm that fertilized the egg, seem not so important.

Except they are.  They are very important and always will be.

Our son will always have two mothers and two fathers.  We can slice and dice it ten ways to Sunday, but this basic truth will never change.  Somehow, someway, circumstances led to one man and one woman conceiving and birthing this baby and one man and one woman parenting and providing for this baby, our baby.

I remember so clearly standing in front of a crowd of hundreds at our daughter’s memorial service eulogizing the life of my oldest child.  My parting words to these hundreds of folks was the assurance that we, my husband and I, would “figure it out,” somehow and someway.  We were charged, for better or worse, with the task of figuring out how to live a life moving forward that would no longer involve the day-to-day care of our child.

The parallels between our loss and the loss of our son’s Birth Mother do not escape me.  She, too, is charged with the call to “figure it out,” and move forward in her life that will not include the day-to-day care of her child.  There is tremendous loss attached to adoption, as well as tremendous joy and hope.

Our grief and comfort with our grief was something that our son’s Birth Mother was attracted to as she carefully vetted couples to raise the child growing inside her.  She clearly told us that she believed our own experience with great loss would help us understand and empathize with her own impending loss.  We agreed.  It’s true, you see.  Experiencing deep loss, like that of a child, is a life altering experience.  It hardens you, it softens you.  You evolve by accommodating the loss, or you don’t.  If you don’t evolve, if you don’t accept the loss, you stagnate.  That is no kind of life to have, most especially if you are parenting.

So here we are, eleven weeks in to our child’s life.  He smiles at us, he eats like a farmer after harvest, he relies on us for everything.  We change him, soothe him, bathe him, love him.  We are blessed.  To know this particular joy again, of infancy and firsts, well, I have no words.  I am a lucky freaking lady.

But our son’s story started before those first bottles and first diapers and first smiles.  His story started in a state we had never even visited.  He’s been places, our boy, literally, figuratively, and metaphorically.  When we adopted him, we entered a sacred pact with his Birth Mom — one, I believe, that is even more sacred than marriage.  There is no divorce with adoption, no do overs, no “starter” childhoods.

We have committed our lives to this child, just as we have to our two others before.  And the trust that our son’s Birth Mom has placed in us?  Well, I have no words.  That level of trust is beyond words for me.  At least right now.  Maybe someday they will come to me.  In the meantime, I will change a diaper and wipe a nose and fold a onesie and warm a bottle and tickle a foot and buckle a car seat and love and love and love and love.

adoption

 

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Advice to Myself on March 22, 2007

This post is part of a ChicagoNow blogging challenge where every blogger is given a topic at 9 PM and must post a blog by 10 PM.  Our assignment was to write a post offering advice to someone, anyone, about anything.  In keeping with the spirit of September being Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, I will be giving advice to myself on March 22, 2007, the day before my oldest child, Donna, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.  Here goes . . .

Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe.

I know you’ve been worried about Donna being not quite herself these past couple of weeks.  Your gut is telling you it’s serious, despite what everyone else around you is saying.  Trust your gut.  You are Donna’s mother — no one, no one, knows that child better than you.  You are her mother and in the next days and weeks and months and years, you will come to understand the true meaning of what that is, far better than you do today.

I can’t tell you what will be or won’t be, as this isn’t about forecasting the future.  This, dear Self, is strictly about advice and I want you to listen, as my words will help you.  What I tell you, this advice, is precious, as it is based on some seriously hard earned wisdom.  This advice is golden, foreshadowing intended.  Let these words guide you, not just tomorrow, but for the rest of your days.

You can do this.  Whatever it is that is asked of you, know that you can and will handle it.  You will find strength inside that you never imagined.  You are steel, girl.  Steel.  As powerful and mighty as the metal your immigrant grandfather worked with in the mills day in and day out.  And like steel, you will learn to bend when you need to bend and hold when you need to hold.  Whatever is needed, you will manage.  Whatever is asked, you will provide.  You can do this, whatever this may be.

Receive help gracefully.  I know that you are a stand alone kind of gal.  You pride yourself on being independent, self-sufficient, a sister doing it for herself.  I get it.  Now enough of that.  Enough.  When you need help, allow those who love you to give it.  Understand that for you to do what you need to do, you will need the support of those around you.  Change your paradigm, girlfriend, cause we all need one another.  There is no shame in accepting help.  To the contrary, knowing your limitations will only make you stronger, more capable, better.

Let Donna be your guide.  Okay, it’s hard to imagine, I understand, that this wee little sprite, just twenty months old has all the wisdom of the ages, but she does.  Trust her.  Donna knows things.  She will teach you lessons that will guide you for every day hereafter.  That girl you made, the little imp with the almond eyes, well, she will not steer you wrong.  Now you still need to be her parent — make her drink her milk and eat her vegetables and mind your maternal demands, but open yourself to all she has to teach.  Know that she is smarter than you, wiser than you, more graceful than you, and yes, cooler than you.  Learn what she will teach you, as it is her gift to you.

Love your man.  Woo-wee, you got yourself a good one!  Damn girl, you must have done something right in a past life to deserve this man, because he is as good as good can be.  Love him.  Care for him.  Trust him.  Lean on him.  Support him.  He is your rock, your anchor, your sail, your compass.  Know that he will not leave your side.  Know that he believes you to be extraordinary.  Know that he understands your value.  Know that those vows you took on your wedding day were more than words.  Know that you are loved.  Trust him, love him, show him.

Go to the joy.  This world of ours is a beautiful place.  Wondrous.  And joy is everywhere, even in sorrow and rubble.  Always look for the joy, and when you find it, go to it.  Do not be ashamed to feel joy, ever.  And if you can share it, bring others to it?  Well, yes, do that.  Often.

Choose hope.  When you wake tomorrow morning, this four letter word, H to the O to the P to the E, is going to be more important than I can explain.  It’s never been anything more than a virtue learned in your grade school catechism, St. Paul’s gift to the Bible.  Now I know the Bible isn’t really your thing and you are long past your catechism lessons, but stop for a moment and embrace what I am telling you.  You need to introduce hope into your life.  You need to understand that hope is a choice. A conscious decision on your part that will enable you to follow all these other little pieces of wisdom I have dropped in your lap today.  If you don’t hope — live it, breathe it, preach it — well, I just don’t want to say.  Without it, you will be nothing.  Less than nothing.  You will crumble.  Choose hope, let those hopes evolve, appreciate that it is your only option.

That’s what I’ve got for you.  Sometimes you say these words to Donna:  Never forget that you are amazing.  You, too, are amazing.  Truly.  You can do this, Sheila.  You can.

Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe.

I love you.