On Becoming a Mother

When Michael was born I thought he was dead. See, his heart rate dropped during labor and he was born with the cord around his neck, and when they put him on my stomach he was gray and didn't move. And for that split second, I thought he was dead. Now, looking back I realize that they would not have put him on my stomach if he was in fact dead, but I really honestly did not think he was alive. And I wouldn't touch him. The nurses must have thought I was the coldest person. And finally, the nurse took him away, cleaned him up, and he started to cry. And so did I.

And then, they handed him to me. And our eyes met. And the minute I saw him, I thought, of course, it was you, all along. And I couldn't believe how much he looked like his Dad.

Now for the confession. I cheated a little on this blog exchange post. It's stolen from my "Real Moms" post. I tried and tried to write something else, but I kept coming back to this, the moment I became a Mom.

And now, Mommy is my favorite word.

This post is part of The Blog Exchange. Jodi is mom to a 2 year old, a part-time lawyer, and wife. She blogs at Jodifur about all these things and many more. Please visit her site, and you will see Kendra's post!

Goal

First, let me just get it out there. I've been really busy moving and have neglected this blog. Please, don't stop reading. I still love you guys and I promise once these settle down, I'll continue writing, daily if I have to.

As a part of a new set of goals I am setting, I have decided to undertake a serious study of other countries. I thought it might be appropriate to spend 1 week studying each country. I decided to start in the top left corner of Europe and work my way through Europe. Anyone know what the top left hand corner country of Europe is? I didn't!

So next week, plan on a wonderful synopsis of my discorveries of the top left hand corner country in Europe. Still don't know? First person to comment, will get a surprise.

Barf-O-Rama

Our family has a history of barfing. Both our children had reflux and barfed constantly for the entire first year. First up are our 2 favorites from the Babe's childhood.

Both happened at church. Maybe there is something especially puke-friendly about our church. The first was that I was sitting next to this woman who was playing with the Babe. He was looking in her direction when the barfies came out all over her scriptures. When I apologized profusely, he comment was, "Oh I was planning on getting new scriptures anyways."

The 2nd we didn't actually see. We were sitting in sacrament meeting letting our son crawl around on the floor under the pew. The next day we were visiting with the couple that happened to be sitting behind us at church the previous day. They told us that it was so funny what our son had done at church. We had no idea what they were talking about. They told us how he had crawled under the pew and barfed all over one of the hymnals then closed it. We didn't even know so now I have visions of some poor person opening the book to sing finding my son's surprise.

The Little Lady has recently topped the Babe's 2 favorite barfy stories. This lovely one happened at the fair last weekend. We sat in some crowded bleachers to watch a tiger exhibit. The Little Lady had just eaten and was loaded. Of course right in the middle of the show she spit up. I hurried and grabbed a rag to clean it up. Once the show was over, I noticed that she had really spit up a lot. Not only had she gotten my pants a bit, but also the bleachers were covered and the back of the man sitting in front of us was covered. I didn't know what to do. So I ran. Hopefully, he didn't notice?

This is why any pictures we have of the first year of our children's lives, they have large wet, colorful spots around their necks. Yes, I do try my hardest to keep my kids clean but how many times a day can you possibly change a child's clothes? And if perhaps I do leave a portion of my carpet showing in a picture, pleeeeease don't look at it.

County Fair

The hubby left his sick wifey *insert ohhhh poor sick wifey* home with the mean Little Lady today to enter his prized peas in the county fair. He drove 1 hour each way to get to the fair grounds. Yesterday he read that they would be judging him on presentation. So he sent me to Target to buy a decorative plate to display his peas on. He convinced me to get a babysitter today so I could take them out the 1 hour drive for him. But I got sick and so he took work off to take care of his sick wife to take his peas out there. When he got there, they said that he should take them off the cute decorative plate I bought him and put them on a plain white paper plate they had stacks of.

He is sure he is going to win a blue ribbon and I hope he does! We shall see.

P.S. I'm so sick I didn't even take a picture of the prize peas before he took them.

Anxiety Issues

Today my anxiety issues were taken to a new level. The house of one of our very best friends down here was broken into. That alone is horrible but it was in the middle of the day when she was home! She is alright and her kids are also. They hid in the closet and the intruder never found them. But how scary is that?

It just absolutely freaks me out! I will now admit that I already had some serious anxiety issues. I more often than not wake up 2 or 3 times a night hearing a noise and freaking out. It started when we moved to Vegas. We live in a relatively safe neighborhood but I still freak out. I'm not sure why. I just have anxiety issues.

I go through phases. For example, one night the hubby forgot to lock the door so every night for weeks I won't trust him to lock the doors, I'll personally have to go around and check all the locks sometimes several times. One day, I left the back door open and went to the store. When I walked back in, I'd forgotten I'd left it open and freaked that someone was in my house. I'm starting to wonder if I'm going crazy!

But the hubby assures me that some of these thoughts are normal and we just have to talk ourselves off the cliff. That typically works but now I know someone whose been broken into. The icing on the cake is the man was a registered s e x o f f e n d e r for crimes against a child. I am just absolutely shaken up tonight and I hope they put him in jail for a really long time.

Almost Tragedy

Today I will hold my little ones a little closer and say my prayers of thanks. We really had angels watching over my 2 little children. I know that sounds so cliché but I really do believe it today.

This afternoon my kids were driving me crazy! The Babe didn't have a nap and wouldn't stay in his bedroom for quiet time. The Little Lady is getting teeth and quite disagreeable with them. I forgot to eat lunch so I wasn't feeling well. It was just after 4:00 and I wanted the hubby to come home and rescue me. Instead, I decided I would go outside and let the Babe push the Little Lady around in the stroller, while I sat there and relaxed.

I went out and put the Little Lady in her stroller and told the Babe to push her around. I ran back in the house for literally 1 minute to grab some water and some fruit snacks because it was super hot outside and I hadn't eaten lunch. *insert bad parenting remarks* Yes, I'm a terrible mother and left my precious little ones outside for like 2 seconds unattended. Today it almost cost them their lives.

While I was in the house, I heard a loud noise outside. It sounded very much like the stroller had tipped over. I was sure I was going to go back out and find the Little Lady dumped over with her head cracked open because my 3-year-old had been careless with her. What I found I thought was worse.

I ran back out and I saw a black car right next to my stroller. The front side was all smashed in right where my stroller was. Of course, my heart stopped dead right there. I think it at least skipped a few beats. There were a couple of girls running towards the stroller. Then my brain kicked in and I realized the stroller wasn't mangled. Then I saw my kids unharmed! My children never looked so sweet and precious! I immediately grabbed my son into the best hug ever. The poor thing was shaking all over. The Little Lady had no clue what was going on and was surprisingly quiet.

There were 4 boys who got out of the car and a neighbor was running towards us. The first thing they all ask was if the children were ok. Apparently, this car, driven by an underage driver, had turned the corner to come down our street going waaaaaay too fast. He lost control of the vehicle and went up on the opposite curb. Overcorrecting, he went up on our curb and hit the back corner of a truck parked half in the driveway / half on the sidewalk a few houses down from ours. Then the underage driver decided to gun it to get away. He drove about 150 feet with one tire missing scratching the street with his exposed rim.

The part that really makes me so upset comes here. First, they tried to lie and say the underage kid wasn't driving. Some neighbor girls saw it and were fully prepared to tell the police of their lie. Then the underage driver called his parents and his father called to try to get the owner of the truck to lie to the police. What kind of message does that send to his son? Not only that lying is ok but even a step further that you can manipulate others to lie for you instead of being accountable for your actions.

Two hours later the police show up. Two. hours! The policeman made the comment that the underage driver had no idea of the magnitude of the situation. I couldn't agree more. We are so lucky that the truck was there or he would have killed both my kids. He could have gone to jail for vehicular manslaughter. But my children would still be gone.

It really made me think about a lot of things. First and foremost, I learned that if I turn my head for just one second something could happen. Another thing I learned would be that I should never take for granted my children and really try not to get so upset with them because you never know when that would be the last conversation with them. Also, I think I will lock my kids in the basement from the time they become interested in driving till they are 18. That started yesterday.

Shaken Nerves

My nerves are so shaken up tonight...I can't even write. I'll calm down a little tomorrow and write. Until then you'll just have to wait.... Everyone's safe...barely.

The Truth About Television

We don't have cable. We don't have rabbit ears to get any channels. If you turn our t.v. on, you see blue screen unless you put in a movie. I let out the secret that I've been watching Grey's Anatomy via abc.com. Here's the truth, I'm addicted. I started by watching Grey's Anatomy, then I liked Dancing with the Stars and now I've added The Bachelor to my abc viewing pleasure. I've had to think about why we don't watch t.v. and find better reasons for justifying my watching t.v.

This brings me to my thoughts today. I haven't watched t.v. regularly in at least 5 years probably more like 7. No, I don't know who the last American Idol was and I have no clue what the plot on Desperate Housewives is (although I think the name speaks for itself on this one). Anyway, I'm rambling.

Since my regular viewing has been so long, my brain has changed. Now that I have been watching t.v., it's freaking out on me. I enjoy reading and watching movies. My brain understands these. There is a character, they go through life and then they live happily ever after. The problem comes with t.v. is that you get a 30 minute glimpse of that then you are left hanging. When I read a book, I'll read for a while then put it down and my brain will be left wondering what happened to Cinderella. So later that night or the next day, I'll finish it and find out what happened. The problem with t.v. comes here. I can't pick it back up and finish. The stupid t.v. makes me wait a week before I get another 30 minute glimpse. By the time the next episode comes, I've forgot what happened the last week or that there even was a character named Grey.

My brain is seriously confused as to why I am putting it through such torture. I watched The Bachelor today and all day my brain has been wondering who he picks. But I know that by next Tuesday, I'll have forgotten who the contestants even were.

I guess this brings me back to my original notion that there was a very good reason why we don't watch t.v. It's a waste of time.

My Greatest Hits: The Many Faces of Friendship

I recently read the wonderfully insightful book, "My Friend, My Friend: The Story of Thoreau's Relationship with Emerson" by Harmon Smith. It was a remarkable book not only because it was about the personal lives of two of my favorite authors (I'm a bit obsessed with them at the moment actually), but because it was quite illuminating in its discussion of friendship.

While many of us know about Thoreau and Emerson as authors, transcendentalists, philosophers, proponents of the anti-slavery movement - what was most interesting to me was that this book portrayed the two men as human in that they found a profound connection in one another, yet their relationship was strained.

Emerson, who was 14 years older than Thoreau, was often quite critical of his dear friend because he felt that he was not living up to his potential as a writer. Thoreau, who was not blind to Emerson's feelings, often felt as if Emerson was not so much a friend, but an overbearing, overly critical father figure. And this great tension between them often puzzled the pair because they did indeed feel so deeply connected to one another.

While I read the account of such an honest and real friendship I was constantly reminded of my own friendships and they are a most sacred thing. Friends are people we feel a mutual connection with and when we allow ourselves to open up to such a relationship it makes us vulnerable - more vulnerable than I think even romantic love makes us.

Afterall, romantic love is based on a mutual physical attraction that involves the body and the heart, while our friendships put us in contact with one another's souls and inner most thoughts and feelings; allowing us to confess to one another what we would never tell even our therapists.

And while we ask our partners in love to fulfill the ultimate role of loving our entire being, we can have several friendships that satisfy individual aspects of our whole and because of this our friendships often run deep - ie a friend who shares our love for writing, another who is our connection to the past, still another who we can share our insecurities and questions about parenthood with, and even one who shares our (secret) love of cheesy (especially those involving tap) dance movies.

It is this vulnerability and the depth of feelings in such relationships that sometimes causes great tension. You see, we have great expectations of our friends because they have such an intimate role in our lives and when they betray that role or they change the relationship without permission or they simply don't need us anymore or they become self-destructive and we cannot stand by and watch because it hurts too much - it is some of the greatest pain we ever experience.

But when I think of my own precious circle of friends I realize that without such relationships we cannot experience life, or ourselves, to the fullest because friends provide us with the opportunity to take the greatest risks and receive the greatest rewards through a shared trust of one another.

"A friend is one who takes me as I am." ---Thoreau

"The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it's the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friend." ---Emerson

May we all have friends such as these.

This post is part of a Blog Exchange. My name is Nancy and I am the proud mother of two rambunctious boys, ages two and four. I've been writing fiction most of my life, but now have a new passion for blogging. You can usually find me over at Just Thinking . . .

where I write about everything from family to politics to writing to, well, not much is off limits.

And to Kendra, who you can find today over at my blog, I appreciate you're letting me contribute to your space :)

Deep Thoughts

Your regularly scheduled blogging has been interrupted for some deep thoughts. Your regular silly mommy blogging stories will resume tomorrow.

I have been thinking for a while about a song I heard recently in church. The words go:

"Be gentle and loving in deed and in thought,
For these are things Jesus taught."

I'm not sure why these particular words stuck out to me the other day. But I thought in my head, how does that work with a 3-year-old who is the tantrum king? As I pondered this week on this song, I came to the conclusion that you can discipline while still being gentle and loving. My favorite example would be my husband.

I am the one who has a quick tempter and while I don't ever hit my children, I am quick to send him to time out because of my temper. Now the hubby on the other hand is always slow to send him to time out and would rather gently and lovingly talk to him. Even after the Babe is in time out, I'm always still stern and make him apologize. The hubby also makes him apologize but just has a gentleness that I can't even come close to.

So next time you guys see me in the store dragging my toddler around (ungently and unlovingly), remind me that I need to be more gentle and loving. I'm not promising that I won't yell at you either though. But apparently, I need to take lessons from the hubby on how to be more gentle and loving.