On To the Next Phase

After my last pregnancy and subsequent life threatening delivery, I was told by my doctor that I should not have anymore children.

Being one who does not like to be told what to do and who also tends to want another newborn the minute my last child (or children) drop the first sign of babyhood, I did not appreciate this warning.

Since that day I have been secretly dreaming of how to expand our family one person more.  I have thought about surrogacy and adoption and just about every other alternative to having just one more.  (If you know me in real life, I hope you were already fanning yourself during this confession, we don't need anyone passing out while blog reading.)

BUT

I think I'm done.  The dream is over.

I have been around a baby or two lately and the itch is gone.  I love holding them and breathing in that baby-soap scent but lately I am oddly content to give them back and return to running and playing with my active bunch while carrying a glass of wine (ooooh or a margarita) because I can.  My body is no longer inhabited by or providing nourishment for another being, and I can have a drink if I want to and sip extreme amounts of caffeine and take medication that actually works for a headache.

The baby phase of mommyhood is as amazing as it is challenging but I am not there anymore.  I am the mom to a strong-willed toddler and crazy three year olds and a moody teenager.  I have finally freed myself from the waiting-for-one-more baby stage and am content right where we are at.

The cradle is headed for craigslist and my maternity clothes are taking a one way trip to the Salvation Army.

As I said yesterday.

We are good.

Official title holder of the coveted "Youngest" spot

Stay tuned for next week's post:  Oops Honey, did I say that?  Let's go ahead and get that vasectomy reversed.

We Are Good

I have the amazing honor of guest posting for Nichole at In These Small Moments today.  Her writing is unspeakably beautiful and she has featured many a talented writer in her Small Moments Monday series.  I had to collect myself and pretend this type of thing is normal for a little blogger like me before I could respond to her email in which she asked (in her eloquent words, of course) if I would guest post.

So if this is your first time visiting and you would like to know the rest of the story here is the "after" and if you are not interested in knowing what happened next, here is a slew of cute pictures of my kids...

We Are Good

Life showed us its fragility and we wept and yelled and cursed at the unfairness of it all.

But we still had new life here,

to cherish and to nurture and to will to survive.

So we waited

and we dreamt

of the day they would be home

and our family would be together, not whole.  No never whole, but together

and we are good,

good plus one more.

We are brought down by grief but lifted up by laughter
and we are good.

We appreciate the quiet moments with space to breathe in the sorrow

and the loud ones with noise to drown it all out

and we are good.

We will never be full or whole or complete

but we are life and love and everything in between.

And we are good.

My Favorites of 2010, I Think

So the year is a few days from coming to a close and I'm full of I can't believe it went by so fast's, the kids are getting so old's and I wish time would slow down's so it is a perfect time for me to sift through my year of blogging and laugh and cry with myself and reflect on the crazy journey life has taken us on once again this year.

I found a great idea over at Scary Mommy that gave me an excuse to pour myself a glass of wine, listen to the song that sings "Hadley" to me playing in my blog background and scroll through my collection of posts, trying not to be to critical while finding my favorites of the year.

Thank you for reading and for being the great commenters, followers, family and friends that you are.  This blog has truly become my outlet and an amazing source of support.  I look forward to seeing where it takes me in 2011.

My favorites of 2010 (I think... it is hard to pick from your own work and I'm terrible at making decisions.  This list may change if I continue to overanalyze myself.  Oh and I did better as the year went on so maybe just skip the first couple months, k?)

January:  Memoir of a Teenager

February:  Sparkly Shoes

March:  The Youngest

April:  Belonging

May:  One Last Visit

June:  For Sale

July:  Stick

August:  Once Upon a Time

September:  Denial

October:  Today- A Letter to My Daughter

November:  The Up Side of Autism

December:  Dear Daddy- Tales from a Public Restroom

Happy Day After Christmas

I hope your holiday was full of...

hugs with someone who loves you to pieces

treats with a friend who let you sneak just one more

silly faces with a girl who laughs at your giggle

playtime with family who love you to your toes

music with people who sing your song

pictures with cousins who smile your smile

moments with a baby who fills your lap

and the tiny whisper of an angel to warm your heart.

Small Things Saturday

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This one is easy, the Small Thing I appreciate this Saturday is that it is after midnight, I have a quiet house, a glass of wine and two whole weeks of being less out numbered than usual.  I don't love Mark's work hours but I LOVE his vacation time.  

How scary is it that I'm even looking forward to cleaning this weekend just because they can climb on my husband's head instead of mine while I vacuum the floors and clean the sinks???

Oh and there is cleaning to be done.  

Did you see this?

or this

or this?

With two of us home there will not be one bit of drawing on themselves, peeing on the floor or massaging the table with yogurt.  

I'm sure of it.

These innocent faces would never repeat such behaviors when Daddy AND Mommy are home.

What is your Small Thing to appreciate this Saturday??  Join the blog hop or leave a comment...

The One with the Hole

Tonight was our annual candy making with the girls (and the boy who could not be left out of a sugar-filled event).

We all made our way out in the first of this year's winter storms to spend hours using up the mountains of baking supplies overflowing the kitchen.

My little ones in attendance were strategically placed in the cookie decorating section which was secured with a washable surface, easy to clean chairs and a large tarp over the floor.

My aunts have all done this whole toddler thing before.

The afternoon was warm with tradition and laughter and it was not lost on me that I am lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing women.

(the two down front with no self control in front of sugar belong to me)

Unfortunately, the sameness of tradition seems to be dragging me down this year.  I am fighting off the nagging heartache of one child missing and the reality that life will continue on this way, one tradition after another, rich in bittersweet moments.

Santa sitting on their lap as they try to get on his good side one more time.

At one point in the afternoon the kids were arranging candy dishes their own fancy three year-old way and my eyes found the spot where their sister would have sat, as they always do.  

Parker turned to me, beaming over their creation,

     Look Mommy, there is a heart with a big hole in the middle.

I kissed him on his blonde little head and replied, 

     Yep Parker, there is.

Bruce

There is a homeless man in our city that is always perched on his bike somewhere on the main road running through our town.  (Yes one, we are in the burbs and he is the only one I have seen.)

We see him every time we leave the house, he is either bundled up, hunched over his bags and blankets in the winter, or riding up and down the street in the summer.  I suspect trying to catch a little breeze in the heat.

Whenever I see him I feel bad.
I want to bring him a coffee or a water or a blanket or a fan, but I never do.

His name is Bruce.

I only know this because my brother-in-law, being the six and half foot teddy bear that he is, saw him one day on his way to our house, asked his name and why he was sleeping in the field and then gave Bruce the coat off his back and the hat on his head, when he was on his way to help us move... in the freezing cold.

Today, I had a moment of crazy and decided to venture to the mall with the little ones.  As we headed inside we saw the ever-present bell ringers of the holiday season, collecting money for the Salvation Army.

I echoed Merry Christmas to the freezing volunteer but, with full hands, did not put a dime in his bucket.
I told myself I would catch him on the way out but never did.

So this afternoon, while driving home from the mall, frazzled from all the get-back-here's, don't-touch-that's and we-are-leaving-NOW's of our trip, I find myself stuck in the slowing traffic of our two lane road to home, getting aggravated because it is nap time and they need it and I need it.

Sure enough someone decides he MUST cut in front of me and, as I am muttering under my breath about the fact that cutting me off isn't going to get him anywhere, and where exactly does he think he is going, I see that he is pulling his car off the road.

The man, that I am cursing under my breath for disrupting my five minute drive that is taking too long for my worn patience, gets out and walks up to Bruce, who I had not even seen in my world of crabbiness, and hands him the money in his wallet.

I looked back at my windshield through blurry eyes and was ticked.  At myself.

Sometimes I think the bitterness I feel for the hand I have been dealt clouds my view of the fact that there are others who have been dealt a hand a card or two less.

I was reminded today that I need to slow down the carousel, help when I know I should and give when I know I can.

If you need me I will be rehearsing the art of removing money from my purse with my foot, so I can drop some in that little red bucket next time I pass a bell-ringer and my hands are full

 ... after I find Bruce and invite him over for Christmas dinner.

Holiday Memory Making

We had a completely stereotypical weekend-in-December-with-little-ones and I loved every minute.

Since the kids were micro-preemies, this is the first year we are able to break out of the house and enjoy all of those germ infested activities we have avoided like the plague for the last three years.  Now we are free to explore all the holiday hotspots and catch every bug that the kids come within 20 feet of just like the rest of the mommies-with-kids-who-touch-everything world.

Speaking of kids who touch everything, we headed out for our first visit with Santa and, much to the misfortune of every Christmas display in the place, Santa was out feeding his reindeer when we arrived.  We had a twenty minute wait filled with holiday cheer, two 3 year olds, one 18 month old, no stroller and 80 million things they just could not manage to keep their hands off of.

"I'll keep him steady, you remove the horn"

"Let me just see if I can push that nose of yours right into your face.  Don't worry Parker is holding your hand"

That squeeze that they do to their brother, a little bit nice, a little bit not so nice.

For some crazy reason, the on lookers decided to just let us skip right to the front of the line.  We headed to our doom visit with the big red guy, who was surprisingly dad-dressed-up-as-Santa looking for the venue we took them too.  You would think an all Christmas all the time shop could manage an authentic looking Santa.  The moment I saw him coming I knew he would tacky up our pictures.

Parker loving up Santa, Sawyer hanging onto me for dear life to make sure there was no chance I was going to put him on the big guy and McKenna pre-breakdown that left all of the other children after us wondering what exactly was going to happen to them once they got to the front of that line.
Oh and a guy sitting in a big chair not doing a darn Santa-ish thing.

We took the kids and fled, not missing the irony that I could faintly hear Silent Night overhead during the lulls in McKenna's incessant crying.  

Thank God some elf handed us candy canes.  

We may not want to touch Santa with a ten foot pole but you can bribe us with candy any day.

"Can you believe they gave us this after that crazy display?"  

"It was just to shut us up McKenna, just to shut you us up."

So we headed out, one Christmas tradition down, and tried to wrestle everyone into the car to the tunes of a you-let-us-skip-nap-to-see-Santa-so-now-you're-going-to-pay meltdown times two (Sawyer never cries, just relishes in his perfect toddler title).

"Look Mom, almost as tacky as the one inside."

Before we told them it was time to leave, happily strutting their stuff.

McKenna had already figured out it was time to go and therefore could not be picture.

We wrapped up the weekend by decorating the tree and in the crazy, bulbs breaking every second, teenager complaining that no one was hanging anything high, ten ornaments on one branch, take the Christmas stocking off your foot, DO NOT put that in your mouth flurry of activity, it was as clear as my post bedtime wine glass waiting to be filled, that these are the moments, when Mark and I are sitting in front of a perfectly decorated tree in a silent house, many years from now, I would give anything to do all over again.

Notice the triple decker hanging of ornaments, impressive, huh?

Oh and I saved my favorite shot of the holiday frenzied weekend for last...

Black and white seemed to decrease the tacky Santa tone.  Parker has the perfect sitting on Santa's lap look doesn't he?

Merry month of December,