End of an Era

We are done having kids.

This is not a news flash for anyone who knows me in RL.   And this is not the post to mourn this issue (I’m sort of telling YOU and MYSELF that at once, you see).  I’m saying this to explain that fact that I am in a sort of Craigslist Hell right now, because, well…we are not in need of keeping large bins full of tiny little sleepers and baby wash cloths and receiving blankets and bouncy seats and infant carseats et cetera, et cetera-aaaaaaah.

Side note, when we made the ‘done having kids’ thing official via a the big-ole V for Mark, I explained to Sam that “Daddy is having a little surgery so he won’t have babies any longer.”

To which Sam protested, “But Mommy, I LIKE Abby!  I want to keep her!”

ME…ROTFL!

(psssst…Mom, if you’re reading this…that’s Rolling-On-The-Floor-Laughing)

It wasn’t a choice, really, being done.  We don’t have the money for more treatments.  We really don’t have the money for more college tuitions – let alone more shoes and haircuts and soccer seasons and whatnot.  We DEFINITELY don’t have the money for another entire pregnancy with me out-of-commission again.  But more than money…my body is not only a poor study at getting pregnant, but it isn’t that great at actually being pregnant either.   I count myself extremely fortunate that I have two healthy children with the pre-term labor problems and other issues I had with both pregnancies.

But two doesn’t make up for losing Will.   I often feel our family is unfinished, but I know that having one more or two more or eight more kids would not make up the special place that Will has in my heart.

So we are at the end of an era.   And it feels sad – well – saddish like the sad you feel when you come to the end of summer or leave a good  job or something.   I’m not letting myself feel any sadder than that…or maybe I just now have perspective on true soul-ache.  And this does not feel like soul-ache.  It also feels incredibly freeing to know that I no longer have to pay any sort of attention to my menstrual cycle, or cervical mucus, or slap down large fees for rude, pregnant technicians to tell me that my cycle’s been cancelled because of a cyst…or that I could load myself up with all kinds of legal OR illegal drugs without care for the consequence to an unborn life (not that I would, Mom).

I’m sort of as normal (in a weird sense) as I get these days.

…of course, I caught the husband of our young couple quietly looking at Will’s picture on the piano as I did my best sales job on the Chicco Keyfit carseat and Snap N Go stroller (which I sold to them by the way) and remembered that I’m not so normal.

But then again…

who is?

Riding the Waves

I clearly remember when Sam was nearing about a year old that I had this crisis of sorts.  His whole first year, I had that schizophrenic this-is-hard-but-I’m-not-supposed-to-complain-because-I-had-infertility-and-he’s-such-a-blessing voice murmuring in the backround.  But I also had this sub-backround voice…more like an assumption…that if I could get past the first year, then being a mom would get significantly easier.  Like, POOF, on his first birthday he would get a cake-messy face and I would get a magic wand with all the answers or something.

Smirk…I know…I really am that naively optimistic.

So this time around I realize that this is not the case.  And I am slightly more prepared this time…in general…or at least I am more comfortable with winging it on a regular basis.  I only mention this more to reassure myself that Abby being, gulp 11 months old, really should be a crazy time. 

She is shear joy.  Truly she is.  But this child is into EVERYTHING.  God made her this way so we couldn’t get too angry with her while she tears up our house.  We had family come and stay last weekend, and while I cleaned the basement, Abby followed behind me and took apart all the good that I was accomplishing.   I put the Wii equipment away.  Abby happily discovered where we kept the Wii equipment and pulled it out, tasting every little plastic part.  I gave Abby her toys and created a barrier of pillows and laundry baskets to the Wii drawer.  This was like a presenting her with a Survivor obstacle course challenge to run.

Abby and Sam are keeping me busy enough that I haven’t had a lot of time to ponder how it will feel to have Abby’s birthday and yet a whole year away from our William coming up next month.  I don’t even have much time to run the parallel time of ‘what was I doing last year right now?’.  Maybe that’s a good thing.  I don’t know though…balance seems to be the key with grief.

In general we’re just plodding through from one little island of stability to the next.  I’ve been watching a lot of the earthquake/tsunami coverage in Japan almost in awe of the grand scale of that disaster.  I feel so awfully horrific for those families and it just about kills me each time the next news story up is about Charlie Sheen or the Royal Wedding or something.   Hmm…I guess we all need our distraction.  The news about Japan reminds me about the earthquake in Haiti from January 2010.

I never wrote a post about this, but, Will died the same day as the earthquake in Haiti.

When I watched all the coverage I felt so very, very small in the grand scheme of it all.  Not that Will didn’t matter…not that.  But I was also so keenly aware that there are always bigger things and more pain all about us.

But that pain does not erase our own…just gives us perspective.

So, my perspective is that I’m tired but generally happily so.  I wisely understand that I will be MORE tired as Abby gets closer to two not LESS.   Abby cut her eyebrow open last week, and Mark and I wisely determined that we could use skin-glue (much like superglue) instead of an ER visit as the cut was gaping but very small.

1. Try number one resulted in my finger being glued to her skin.
2. Try number two resulted (as she fussed and flinched) in her eyelid being temporarily glued open.
3. Try number three seemed to do the trick though my nerves were shot.
4. We decided we might be too dumb to use skin glue (it was quite a way from her eye by the way)…though it looks awesome now – not sure got past foreheads into the eye area again.

I try my best to ride the bumpy ocean waves of regular life…and even enjoy them (albeit in retrospect) – knowing that these are not tidal waves.  These are just what to expect.

Another wave today…Sam was quietly building legos at the kitchen table this morning when suddenly he began to cry and panic.  He had, you guessed it, lodged a lego up his nose.  I’m not sure what possesses a child to think to themselves, “Hmm, I’ve got a small lego, I’ve got a small hole in my nose.  Let’s see what happens,” but I guess this is pretty common.

So, we rode the wave.  Put my coffee down calmly (because I’ll be needing that for later), and commanded him to stop picking his nose and shoving the lego further up.  Squirted a little saline and tried to get him to blow it out.  No go.  Off to get the “Remove Lego From Nostril” kit:  flashlight, tweezers, towel to cover Sam’s eyes, alcohol swabs, wet wipes.

Sam’s sniveling and the saline really did help, as the slime helped slide the lego down back into a reachable position.  Luckily, Sam DID stay still when I told him to (so I didn’t stab him in the nose with the tweezers), and I plucked that baby out pretty quickly.  Sam had chosen a round red headlight-type lego for his ‘experiment’, which came out easily once I got a hold of it.  I would say that was pretty smart of him except that sticking the dang-on thing up there in the first place pretty much voids out any intelligence-motivated thoughts on his part.

As I tried to give my gravest lecture about not sticking thing up one’s nose, or ANY holes in one’s body, for that matter, Sam really seemed more interested in getting the lego back to so he could return to building.

Sigh.  A mother LIVES for those kinds of lectures.

Anyway, back to surfing the waves.  I know tsunami’s are out there…but there’s really no accurate warning system in life for those kind of things.  Maybe they’ll invent an app for that.

Just Breathe

Mark is back.

I managed not go completely certifiable while he was away.

I was nearly there toward the last few hours though.  Nearly.  He was supposed to be home around 5-ish…BUT the airlines lost his bag.  Sam danced in rocket ship circles around the living room, randomly launching himself from furniture, the dog…me.  Abby sniveled near my legs wanting to be held only to arch her back and reach for some far-removed object once she was in my arms.

All the while I raced around the house putting laundry away, dusting forgotten picture frames, and attempting to simultaneously finish every spring-cleaning project I started while he was away.  The dog barked and pleaded to be walked, only to stand outside, take long and cleansing breaths of the frigid evening air, lift his leg to every bush in the yard, and then happily root around the grass for small truffles of rabbit poo.

Meanwhile, Abby was pressed up against the sliding glass door crying in desperation as if I had left her forever while Sam continued to rocket ship blast into clean piles of laundry.

It was about now that I think I started to feel my grip of sanity lesson.  The little blood vessels dilated in my eyes to the point where they began to interfere with my vision.  I started seeing little sparkly stars and wavy lines.  My blood pumped in my ears like the obnoxious stereo of my downstairs neighbors in college.  Thump…thump…thump….dunga…dun…DUN!

Mark called to update me on his progress.

“Home now,” is all I remember saying, though maybe there was a tad more coherence?

Mark walked in the door and was tackled by rocketboy, the dog and Abby.  I stayed by the sink rinsing dishes and taking deep breaths as I was still trying to keep myself from, well, completely freaking out and doing whatever that might entail (pretty sure it would’ve entailed a LOT of screaming, breaking things, locking the dog out of the house, and nonsense talk).

Mark gave the kids spin-around rides and tickled them and kissed them and wrestled with Sam and took the dog for a nice, long walk.  He marveled at how much taller Sam seemed in just a week and Abby’s new tooth she ‘grew’.  We showed off Abby’s new tricks:  clapping to music, raising her arms to ‘so big’, and saying ‘mama’ again (she’s said it for a while, but then she stopped).    And, out of nowhere, she decided to say ‘dada’ for the first time.  I know, sounds too cheesy to be true…but it is.  Sadly, Sam is heartbroken that she has not said, ‘Sam-Sam’ as of yet.

As the evening passed, I felt my shoulders begin to relax, my jaw unclench, and my breathing to get deeper and calmer.  The weight of family was placed back between the both of us again.  I am so fortunate to have Mark to help carry the weight of these wonderful and exhausting kids.  I could finally take a deep breath again, after six days and nights.

Funny thing is, I hadn’t realized I wasn’t really breathing all that time.

* * * *

OK…

Haven’t posted a pic of Abby in a while.  Here’s a quickie photo shoot I did yesterday.  And also Sam a week or so ago with some serious bedhead issues.  I feel like I’m getting my mojo back with the camera again.

Now, if I could only find the time and unlimited photography budget…