An Offer You Can't Refuse

The Siders House Rules is not one of those blogs that gives away free stuff all the time. I'm just not that kind of girl (yet, maybe?). 


But I've been doing this thing over at the 365 Dream Project every day for almost a month - and I have about 11 more months to go. Goodness. The deal is, I write a new dream for each day and post it there. It's really incredible that day after day, they keep coming to me. I didn't know that I could come up with all these ideas. 


Most of them are intangibles, like always having a glut of good ideas, swimming in creativity, nurturing love in my household, etc. Some have skin and latitude/longitude, like the dream about having another baby, or my longing to visit the ocean once a year until I'm dead. 


But I have 365 days here, and I've dreamed up so many of the things I want for myself and my little life already. I have lots more room to dream, of course, but I want to invite you in.


So here's my giveaway, my invitation:
I invite you to share your dream with me, and I will place a post on the blog dedicated to your dream. You don't have to share your name, but you can share your dream, your deepest, hugest longing that you're afraid to ask or wish for. Come on, you know you have one. One you forgot about from childhood, maybe. Or one you just think isn't for now because of the kids and the mortgage and the excuses you've created. 

For years, mine was a husband, children, India, writing. Some of these have come true; others wait in the wings. But they're mine for the dreaming - and the doing has to start there. 

So be brave. Dream on with me. Dig out your biggest, most unwieldly, impossible dream, dust it off, and share it. As in, write it, whisper it, yell it, sing it. But get it to me some time during the months of August or September.  


Mini disclaimer: Rest assured, if you share your dream with me, you're not giving it up. It's not going to be mine. I'm just going to dream it with you, give a little more umph as it launches into the sky. 


This is going to be fun!




[Now for some legal-ish babble: I am not dreaming about just anything over here; I have standards: The Siders House Rules and all affiliates reserve the right to select only appropriate dream entries that align with SHR values. Inappropriate or otherwise invalid entries will not be considered. Thank you.]

Sometimes Babies Are Rude

I just let my son borrow my phone. He asked, so I obliged. It's locked so all he can really do is make pretend calls while listening to the iTunes feature that pops up automatically, and take pictures of himself. (I’m always a little concerned about the fact that he could theoretically make an emergency call, but hey, every kid has to accidentally call the cops at least once in their lives, right?) So I’m sitting here being super benevolent with this $400 piece of technology, letting him run up and down the hall, and of course he needs to taste the phone, and let the dog have a lick too. And I’m tolerating all of these gross bodily fluids rather well. But then he’s trying to come over to the laptop where I’m writing, and he’s tapping on the caps lock and so suddenLY I’M WRITING LIKE THIS before I realize it, and I change it back. Then he sneaks in a bit of punctuation ‘’’’’’’’’’’’ before I notice, and then I pause, again, to try to distract him.

At this point, I’m feeling guilty because this is probably a sign that he needs a sibling or that I am not being the most attentive mother. But hey, it’s also a sign that my child is not terribly socially intuitive. In other words, rude. 

This morning we ate Cheerios for breakfast. Well, I did. I ate them neatly and didn’t spill a one. John, on the other hand, was inspired. He joyfully slapped and spun a Jackson Pollock with gusto, scattering the hapless Cheerios to the four winds. Soon, the tiny oat circles carpeted the kitchen floor. His attention span for clean up lasts approximately 34 seconds, so I would be the one cleaning it up. I’m sure it was intentional. As my brother and I chatted on Skype today, I gave him a survey of the kitchen floor. He laughed. “Babies have no morals,” I warned. He should know the truth. Sometimes I think, “Where is your mother?” And then, you know, I realize the obvious. That I am the mother, and I really should do something about these tantrums and selfish behavior that would never work on a playground or in a boardroom.

Yes, this is someone else's kid. But don't you love that this is a universal baby activity. [Photo credit: onenjen.com]

Babies are indeed rude. And sometimes, I get upset. A little flustered, frustrated, flabbergasted at the situations I find, we find ourselves in. Rightfully so, I think. There are a couple reasons for this. The foremost, I think, is that I’m simply not used to being treated this way by regular humans in my daily life. Usually my roommates do not run off with dirty dishes, stolen from the dishwasher, begging me to chase them. Most days I am not being assaulted with a spatula or attacked from behind for a hug or piggie back ride. But I never see it coming. Most people do not want to drink out of my beverages, stir the insides or pour them on the hardwood (laminate) and splash in them. It’s absurd behavior. I’m not used to it.

The second reason for my more frequent bouts with anger is just the inconvenience of it all. If I’m honest, sometimes it’s out of the frustration for the fact that I am stopping my perfectly reasonable activity to pull an electrical cord out of a mouth, prevent a nose dive off the couch into something thick, solid piece of plastic. Or try to reason with this little wonder about how that toothbrush is yours, not that dogs, and there should be no sharing.

First world problems, I know. But these moments of domesticity can try the most patient and peaceable maternal instincts. They bring out the deeply rooted anger and impatience we didn’t know was in us. Really. I had no idea I was an angry person until 1) I got married and 2) I had a child. Parents and married people always said this to each other and nodded knowingly in return. I stared at them from a distance in disbelief. “You people are really screwed up.” It was incredible they didn’t know they needed therapy.

But alas, it is true. The rudeness and absurdity and inconvenience of the mess is annoying and angering, but thankfully, I see my true self in it. I would have no idea of these character issues if it were not for my son, and my husband, here to point them out. Thank you, Boys.

The hardest, hardest part of all this is not the mess though. It’s realizing that I am the problem. Because indeed I am. My selfishness and small-minded laziness gets me in trouble. They are not pretty, the worst ugly sides of me. My impatience and anger are there in a moments notice when I need them, or rather want them, and where is my patience and grace? Well, I am only now starting to make a practice of using them. This refining process is slow and searing, but it is good. All these little deaths leading me into the reflection of Christ. I know it’s worth it.

{And perhaps because God loves a chuckle, and I know I do, I had to stop this blog temporarily here at the end to clean up milk from my cereal bowl that I spilled. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I was writing in the dark. Very funny, God. But I get the point.}

How To Know You're Not Pregnant

[Pregnant or think you might be? Visit the resource listing on this site for help.]

It wasn't long after I wed my knight in shining armor that I realized something new and strange about myself. I changed my mind - I wanted a baby. 

This was a complete 180 degree turn from the weepy meltdown I had in the car on the way home from premarital counseling in March 2008. That was back when I was a first-year baby protester. But at this premarital counseling session our pastors made a compelling argument against the pill, and we couldn't argue. That afternoon Josh and I decided that we were not going to use birth control pills, which was precisely the day I knew for sure we were going to have a baby on our honeymoon. And I was going to cry. It was all planned out. 

I proceeded to cry-whine uncontrollably for the hour between Kansas City and Topeka. It was a long hour...for Josh.

It didn't help that Cozumel, our honeymoon destination, was known as "the Mayan island of fertility". The airline attendant gleefully warned us of this as we boarded our final plane. I pondered the strong possibility that this "blessing" might also apply to non-Mayans. I rebuked it, just in case.

Not that anyone's asking, but one of the the details that matters a little here is Josh and I were not sexually active before we got hitched. So a baby was never a worry, never a thought. I had a vague thought that I wanted to wait at least a year, but never in my life had this been an issue. As the big day approached, I visited the doc and got a pill prescription, went to the pharmacy and picked it up. I remembering taking that little brown bag back to the apartment, and I knew I was a big girl now. 

Big girl pills. [Photo credit: scientificamerican.com]

Then the pastors told us their story about non-pill use and it was just terrible because we agreed with their logic. Something about how the pill makes the uterus unfriendly to a fertilized egg, which to Josh and I (because we're armed with archaic, fundamentalist science), is a human with a soul. And even though they weren't trying to convince us of anything, they did precisely that. I couldn't handle the thought of meeting a bunch of my kids in heaven. "Oh hey, I didn't know about you...um, this awkward. Nice to meet you." (For the record, I am still not really sure about when humanity begins, but do you want to be the one to find out you were wrong? I don't want to be.)

So anyway, the moral of the story is that in my pre-marriage opinion, the worst thing that could have happened to me would have been a pregnancy, a human life growing inside me, a (gasp!) baby. 

Then I got married and something changed. I had thoughts about babies that didn't involve me turning into a pool of disappointment and rage. This was new. I wrote about it here, about how I could feel the biological clock had turned on. And I could hear it ticking. It was making me want a baby. Darn you, Mayan Cozumel water. If they couldn't get you pregnant, they were going to make you miserable until you wanted a baby so bad you just went ahead and had one. 

I started investing in those little white sticks that tell you if there's a human growing inside of you, pregnancy tests I think they're called. (Right, like I don't know. In reality, I can tell you the ratings of most of them and which ones are most likely to give you a false positive. Or I can tell you where to find out.)

Every few weeks, I started paying attention to the symptoms they listed as pregnancy symptoms on WebMD. I quickly became convinced each month my symptoms indicated that if I didn't have a horrendous case of stage 4 uterine cancer with complications in my thyroid, that I was in fact pregnant. 

Cramping? Check.

Soreness in certain unmentionable locations? Check.

Cranky, irritability? Got that one on lock.

Nausea? Did you know you can make yourself nauseous on cue? Well I can. Special talent.

Fatigue? Um, sure.

Frequent trips to the bathroom? You bet.

So every month I was pregnant. Or almost pregnant. Some months I took more than one test, just to be sure. Those symptoms sure were tricky. You can get them almost any time, like after running a 10k, or drinking 2 gallons of water. Or eating week old pasta. So you just have to have a box or two of them around, just to be sure. 

I took a picture of it so I could show my friend. And myself. Yup,  this one was real.

Well, one day when I had quite given up, run out of tests in fact, my friend at work gave me her extra ones. She was pregnant and didn't need any more convincing. I took the freebie test one Saturday morning when Josh was at work, just for fun. Because at this time it was a hobbie like kayaking and scrapbooking are for some (normal) people. 

But this one was positive. And wouldn't you know it, being pregnant felt exactly the same as almost or not at all pregnant, which warranted a second test-taking venture four weeks later, just to be sure. 

The second moral of the story, because I can have two, is that I am quite adept at knowing when I am not pregnant. And darn right rotten at knowing when I am. So if I ever seem a bit off, a little wobbly perhaps, or a little snarky or rude, tired or glazed over, if it looks like I had one too many drinks the night before, you can assume that I am pregnant. Or that I think I am. 

But really, until I am, I am not.

The Essential Implications of Plant Survival

I know they meant well, but it was a sad day. It was the day my co-workers got me a plant for a wedding present. It was a lovely plant, which would make most normal people happy. But for a serial plant killer – not on purpose, okay – the more beautiful the plant, the more tragic its imminent death.

I’m sure it was not a cheap gift. The heavy, blue ceramic bowl was stuffed with crumbly earth, dark and moist, and from the center, the plant sprung up, green leafy vines draped gently over the planter bowl and hung like graceful, ballerina hands beneath it. This was going to be a real tragedy indeed.

The wedding plant, circa 2012

Sweet Southern belle that I am, I smiled politely. “Thank you so much. It’s really beautiful,” I twanged, muzzling the real thoughts, something about how disappointed I was that after two years they didn’t know me better. I mean, really, I’m getting married, and here are my friends, setting me up for failure. What does this plant supposed to represent anyway? Does it signify my marriage, its tiny, fragile roots our first years together? I hate these plant analogies. Make it stop. Please don’t let this peace lily ruin my marriage. [Hyperventilating.]

So instead of muttering something about the underlying implications of passing on such a wedding gift to a notorious plant neglecter, I thought to myself of ways Josh and I could save the plant, or mostly how he could save it, since he might have a green thumb, or at least the peace lily in his living room hadn’t committed suicide or withered of malnutrition.

Later that week, or something close to that, the plant moved in with Josh. I can’t really remember when, but I’m clear on the part where I was eager to abdicate responsibility. Especially if our marriage depended on it. Wait, that sounds bad.

The green lily in the blue ceramic bowl took root in Josh’s living room window until we got our own place downstairs in the same apartment building. And then the lily moved around until we could find just the right spot to catch the sun once or twice a day. We added three bamboo sticks and our foliage collection was complete: two peace lilies and three bamboo, pointing toward the ceiling out of an inch of water.

A plant killer only needs time to do her dirty work. And time we have. Four years later, we just said goodbye to the last yellowed and soggy bamboo shoot. The last of his siblings. It was a little sad, but we were prepared. We had four years to ready ourselves for that day. I don’t know what happened to Josh’s lily, but I couldn’t find it in this house if my life depended on it. But somehow, the peace lily the girls at the office gave me in May four years ago is still clipping along. It only gets a few days of sun a month, and mostly I forget it’s tucked in the guest room under the west window. Leaves yellow, crinkle and fall off, but that thing just hangs on. And sometimes I go and feel bad for it and impressed with its tenacity, and I give it a little water and congratulate it for its perseverance in the face of such persistent trial.

Now I know you’re trying to make an analogy to our marriage, that even though Josh and I have been through our share of harrowing experiences, and even sometimes forget to water our new relationship with nice notes and date nights, we still hang in there and there’s life and greenery to prove it. But I think that’s a stretch. And if I ever kill this plant, well that analogy stuff has got to stop right away. I think it’s best we start now.

But I think I am going to go water it, just in case.

You Know You're a Mom Monday

This week You Know You're a Mom features Lindsey Evans, SAHM of the playful Sarah, age two, and the chilled-out Andrew, eight months. Lindsey is a generous, buoyant soul with a heap of toddler-mothering experience. And she has the privilege of staying with her children all day to watch them play, grow and learn. 

The adorable duo in a classic black and white. Love this.

Lindsey is not your average mother. Her story is one of incredible pain and grief, but is marked not by bitterness and stunting but by a rebounding spirit who, along with her family, is making great good from a great sorrow.

Lindsey and I met when her husband, Ryan, and mine were in a Bible study together. There were several of us newlyweds around at the time and we formed a dinner party group, meeting once or twice a month to enjoy some delightful girl talk while the guys scraped their plates loudly and talked "man" in the next room. Dinner was often held in Lindsey's living room, with her two cocker spaniels toddling about to join in the fun. We both were attempting parenthood at the time, although not successfully yet, and there was much to share along these lines as well.

But one of the most important things I learned about Lindsey during our dinner conversations was her incredible resiliency after an earth-shattering family tragedy. In 2007, her younger sister, Kelsey Smith, was abducted from a Target parking lot in broad daylight, and murdered.

Lindsey with Kelsey in the middle, at her high school graduation

Due to legal limitations on cell phones at the time, the family was not able to "ping" her phone and find Kelsey's location. This caused many problems and lengthened the search process for Kelsey. The killer was found and prosecuted, thank God, but the devastation lingered. Of course. Monumental family events like Lindsey's wedding and the birth of her children were marked with the tangible ache of Kelsey's absence.

The Smith family did not simply grieve and move on with life, however. Lindsey's father, Greg Smith, a former police officer, used all his connections and training to begin Kelsey's Army through The Kelsey Smith Foundation. Greg is now able to provide safety seminars to local schools and businesses to promote safety and personal awareness through The Foundation.  And to ensure that other families in their situation were not delayed in a search for their loved ones, The Foundation worked tirelessly and effectively passed the Kelsey Smith Act, which allows law enforcement to determine that a person is in danger and their phone's location can be accessed. This was a huge victory for the family.

The Foundation is a powerful instrument of good in the wake of such evil and pain. I admire each of the Smith's for rallying together and becoming a force to be reckoned with, rather than simply folding and calling it quits on life. Which I think would just be so tempting to do. I'm just so proud of them for taking their great sadness and turning it into these effective bursts of energy that leave a legacy. Amazing resilience, isn't it?

The Foundation raises money through an annual golf tournament at the Falcon Ridge Course in Lenexa, part of the greater Kansas City area, held this year on July 16th. To view a video news feature from a past event, click here. You can also visit the website to register or be a sponsor.

Despite the heartache of this loss, Lindsey and Ryan have two very beautiful reasons to laugh and enjoy their lives: Sarah and Andrew. Sarah arrived several months before our John, and then Andrew rushed in only 18 months later. So obviously, Lindsey's clocked far more parenting hours than I have, even though we started close to the same time. Over the past two years, I've relied on Lindsey for a variety of pregnancy and parenting tips, and she's always been available and ready to pass them on. Which I love. It was Lindsey's cautionary tale of diaper-blowout-at-the-mall woe with her firstborn that informed me to stash a change of clothes and a ziplock bag for every trip, just in case. Now, as she raises a girl and a boy, this mama gets a daily dose of strong laughter and a workout to boot.

So now that I've shared a little of Lindsey's story with you, I'd like her to share about some of the joys, setbacks and head-banging moments she encounters in life as a mom. But first, some up close and personal family photos:

The Evans four: with Papa Ryan, the littles and happy mama Lindsey

The adorable boy child, Andrew.

The huge-smiling pretty princess, Sarah.

And now without any further ado, Installment #9 of You Know You're a Mom Monday. By Lindsey Evans.

You know you're a mom when:

• You watch what you say not because it's inappropriate, but because you don't want your two year old to use it against you. Case in point, I apparently tell Sarah (the two year) "just a minute" frequently. The other day I asked her to come here and she told me "just a minute Mommy, I pwaying". I try to use different phrasing now.
• You never go anywhere without at least 3 diapers per kid, a change of clothes for each, and a set of pj's for each. And that's just the bare minimum. Most of the time I try to leave the house with kids, I feel like I'm packing for a week-long stay somewhere. But it turns out that I use nearly everything I pack.
• A good afternoon nap isn't complete unless a tiny body is curled up next to you. Better if it's two of them.
• Going to the grocery store sans the littles makes you feel like you're on vacation. Let's be real, I love my kids, but sometimes having them in tow makes getting things done (like grocery shopping) nearly impossible.  

The graham cracker picnic in yellow.

• You love watching your kids interact, especially when it's in a language that is all their own. Oftentimes my kiddos like to yell (happily) at each other and see who can get the loudest. Andrew (the eight month old) absolutely loves yelling, screeching, and clicking his tongue at anyone who will do it back. 
• Your relationship with food totally changes. While pregnant with my first EVERYTHING made me nauseous. While pregnant with my second I was STARVING all the time. And now that I have a picky toddler and a chunky baby, food is always on my mind. I have to make sure the toddler eats more than just a few pieces of something here and there and believe me she'd rather be playing. And I have to convince the baby that yes, one jar of baby food is all you get right now, and no you won't die of starvation if you don't nurse every hour on the hour.
• You have a camera ready (even if it's on your phone) at all times just in case one of the kids breaks out a killer smile, does something totally cute, or does something that merits photographic proof for when you're telling the story of it later.
• You hear and or say the phrase, "two more minutes", multiple times a day.
• But mostly you know you're a mom when you realize how much you've grown as a person since God blessed you with the little ones you have. My patience has improved, my capacity to love has multiplied, and my ability to understand toddler speak has increased exponentialy. That's not saying there aren't times when I want to pull my hair out or times that I lose my cool. But this whole motherhood experience has stretched my being and redefined me into something that my pre-baby self would barely recognize!

Thank you so much for sharing with us today, Lindsey. Those kids you've got there are mighty adorable. It was fun to hear from you.


You can read all about Lindsey's moments of knowing for sure that she's a mom every single day on her personal blog, Beyond Motherhood. And please stop by Kelsey's Army to learn more about the Foundation, the Golf Classic and all the progress they're making toward justice and safety in our world. Or shoot them a quick message and say thank you for the important work they're doing.

Have a wonderful week. Thanks for stopping by.


[PS: We're going to take a break from You Know You're a Mom Monday, but I have another idea up my sleeve. And I will need your help. Stay tuned.]

Darn You, Imagination

Sunday was one of those mornings. A morning where I used my imagination.  


It was 7:45, and the Big Boy was only starting to wake up. He may fall back asleep, I thought to myself, but as I perused the kitchen, I pictured eggs and banana pancakes, stacked on plates. And me and the Big Boy sitting upright at the table, forks in hand, smiling at each other and enjoying the exquisite company. We were both clean and not squirming. 


And then I came to. 


I remembered all the times my imagination led me astray. I recalled all the images I created in my mind of happy, whine-free quality time, and how it always looked in reality an hour later. So I let the Big Boy sleep. Because now I will have some quality time with myself and God, and at least I have a little more control over that.

The mess of reality. 

I'm not sure what it is about imagination. I mean, I love creativity. I love thinking differently, innovation, all that. But sometimes my imagination is a real drag. Disappointing. All those family picnics where no one needs a bath afterward and the breakfast where the Big Boy doesn't end up with egg particles in his mane, those are simply that: imagination.


I'm left with a bummer afterward, trying to make peace with the gap between reality and the dream sequence that brought me here. Living in the moment is hard. Appreciating things as they are and not being crotchety about who or what they aren't is one of the challenges of my life. I don't want to give up on my imagination either though. But maybe I need to learn a little discernment? Like which of my ideas are actually "good"? My husband would agree. He's always trying to talk me down from my latest adrenaline-rush, telling me I can't bake cookies for the neighbors three times a week and still maintain the dregs of sanity. Oh yea? But I love a good challenge. [I did give up on that idea before I started, thank you.]


So back to the point here: the moment. What is. I want to love that too. So here's to enjoying not the mess, but the person inside the mess. Here's to loving the fact that after he falls over, he insists on getting an arms-wrapped-around hug. Here's to appreciating the roly-poly character in the bathtub who love-love-loves water and stays in the tub long after it's gone just to reminisce. Here's to laughing at our mistakes and quickly forgetting crabby attitudes. Here's to quiet time during a nap. Here's to being all the way in the moment and not lost in resentment about a dream deferred. 


And may you live this way too. 

Hasta La Vista, Baby

Eighteen some months ago, Josh and I became the proud parents of The Baby. An infant. A tiny human who only thought about food, sleep and poop. Because of his apparent helplessness and tendency to use tears to communicate, we aptly dubbed him "The Baby", as in, "What is that Baby doing?" when the house falls eerily quiet, or "Is that Baby going to be in his diaper all day or are we going to clothe him?" The Baby has been a Siders' House staple for quite some time, and we've grown fond of him. 


But during the past month or two, a very sad thing happened in our house. The Baby left. There are still diapers, there is still crying, there are still tired, sunken in eyes in my head some days. But The Baby, he's gone. 


Today, there is a Big Boy in John's crib, a boy with slimmer thighs, longer curls, and a much more childlike, not baby-like, face. This new little person is capable of running (into the street, gasp!) and sharing his desires with words, actual words. He can shimmy up and down furniture while stashing a toothbrush in his mouth and an electronic device in his hand. If it weren't so death-defying, I'd be impressed.

The Big Boy, with Big Boy Juice and a Big Boy plate, sitting at the table. 

Now there is a bit more noise in the house. It's the sound of me asserting my authority over the din of the Big Boy's strongly-held beliefs about his Constitutional rights. Although it's hard to make out the amendments over the screaming. 

     "John, please, no eating shoes. That is gross." [Commence crying.]

     "Out of the drawer, John. Anti-fungal cream is not toothpaste." [Commence dramatically          

     chucking himself  on the floor in a heap of despair.]

     "Okay, we're going inside. See you later." [Commence whining.]

     And perhaps the most time-consuming argument result:

     "Okay, mister, timeout." [Commence limp arms and wailing.]

Just to be safe, and so as not to draw attention from the child protective authorities, we call this Big Boy, "John", although the resemblance between him and his helpless, infantile self can hardly be recalled. Except in pictures. 

When Dad's gone, we let John park his car in the garage.

Saying bye to Baby has been a rough transition for me. I enjoyed calling him The Baby for so many reasons, partly because the generic title made me chuckle, but also because he will forever be "My Baby" and calling him something else, like a Big Boy, meant growth, meant driver's licenses and curfews and college. Can. Not. Handle. It.


But a while ago I committed not to stunt my child's growth by treating him as younger or more incapable than he is. If he is a toddler, with words in his mouth and spoons in his hand, alas, I must grow up too. So Big Boy it is, despite the internal battle. But for short, I can call him B.B, which sounds a lot like Baby, and I'm okay with that. [De-ni-al.]


The Big Boy enjoys a variety of artistic endeavors, but he's really putting most of his focus into music and dancing at this point. He can scarcely be around rhythm without moving and shaking to it. Here he is with his latest choreographed piece by Jock Jams, "Ya'll Ready For This." My sister, Holly, is also an experienced dancer and selected this piece for the performance. Enjoy.

You Know You're a [Military] Mom Monday: Memorial Day Special

Today's You Know You're a Mom comes to us from Ingrid Cribbs, the wife of a Naval officer, Michael, and the mother of 15-month old Anna, the strawberry-haired, playful, opinionated, [slightly] dramatic rendition of both Michael and Ingrid. No really, she looks exactly like both of them.

Can you see the resemblance of both parents? Not yet? Well, keep looking.

Can you see it now? Oh man. So darn cute.

Ingrid is on deck today as our You Know You're a Mom because here on Memorial Day, and every day, I want to honor not only our service members who sacrifice their lives in so many ways, but also their families who tirelessly adjust and create new lives around themselves wherever they go. Ingrid and Anna make unique sacrifices to their lives when Michael is out on a deployment, and she often does not hear anything from him at all for weeks or months. What an incredible life to live, don't you think? Requires such courage. I text her every so often and just tell her how brave she is because that's really all I can say. Because it's true. 

A little history: Ingrid and I have been friends since college. We ended up in nearly all the same predicaments at almost the same time, including an internship that led us into youth ministry, together. This was a year of unprecedented wackiness, and I'm so thankful we had each other for sidekicks during this roller coaster. Ingrid married the man of her dreams a few months after I married mine, and when my little John was only 3 months old, Miss Anna came on the scene. So our history of doing major life transitions right next to each other remains pretty consistent. And it's made our friendship that much more fun.

Ings and I at her wedding. 

Ings and I in LBDs: she's 5 months and I'm 8 months here, early October 2010.

Since her marriage, Ingrid has lived in various cities and states around the U.S., adjusting to the military lifestyle with grace, creativity and the usual joie de vivre we expect from her. Ingrid adds fun and life to every situation she's in, and I wish I could spend real-time with her and her daughter, Anna, as they grow up together.

Ingrid and Anna, doing some girl time.

And now, without further ado, here's Installment #8: Ingrid's You Know You're a Mom moment, Military-Mom style: 

You know you’re a military mom when you’re walking out of the gym and staff members you’ve never seen before are calling your daughter by name and she looks back at them like she knows them.

I’ll explain.  I married an amazing Naval officer who has no ordinary Navy job.  He is one of the few nuclear submarine officers who serves aboard the USS Alabama.  The U.S. submarines are our country’s silent protectors that are secretly scattered all over the waters waiting for the orders to strike.   

What does this have to do with the gym?  Well because of his job he spends up to 16 hour days being trained or leading others to effectively do their job.  Then they deploy for months and no one knows where they go.  We have limited contact with them and go on with our lives.  This drove me crazy until I joined the YMCA when Anna was younger because they have childcare.  It doesn’t come cheap, but to have that 1.5 hour break to exercise has worked wonders.  So we go almost every day even when working out is the last thing I want to do or have the energy to do.  We go because I know I will have a break and my daughter loves it.  Apparently they love her too.  I mean they see her almost every day! 

What I love about military kids is that everyone knows them and loves them so dearly. 

Ingrid, this is awesome. Thanks for sharing a glimpse, and we know it's only a glimpse, into your life as military mom. I'm glad your daughter is so loved. Thank you so much for your sacrifices that you make, alongside Anna and Michael. Thank you for loving your husband so much that you'll follow him anywhere, and for caring about and investing in our nation and it's people, and folks like little old me. You're a great friend, and I know you're adaptable, fun-loving personality make this adventure possible. I'm proud to call you my friend.

Happy Memorial Day to you and yours. Hug a military service member and his or her family today. Tell them how thankful you are for all they for us, out front and behind the scenes. We are a grateful nation.

{And don't forget: send your You Know You're a Mom moments to sarah@thewellhub.com.}

History is Something

I've had the Lazies the past week so you'll have to forgive me. Well, it wasn't quite Lazies because, in another area of life, I was working in full speed ahead. Just in another direction. Took all my time. So maybe it was a case of the Distracties. Anyway, back again with this writing thing. 

Tonight I resumed a bad habit I've never quite been able to lay to rest: taking pictures of myself on my cell phone and sometimes, sending them to my friends. I would say "Don't judge me", but why bother? It's already happened. But at least let me explain myself. I adore this activity because of the nearly endless hilarity that ensues...for me. Contorting my face into ridiculous distortions and then writing wacky captions for them is all the entertainment I need for a Friday night where the husband opted for a book. Especially when I get to imagine how much joy I've brought to someone's life when my lovely mug shows up in their inbox. "You're welcome, everybody."

Taking pictures of myself has history though. As in, it wasn't just my idea. Two of my very good friends have cried and nearly peed ourselves with giggles, quickly shooting digital portraits of our silly mugs, flipping the camera around to see the results, laughing hysterically, and then assigning our faces another emotion or expression and capturing that, one after the other. First it was Jen in Kansas City, and then a few years later Danielle, in Lawrence. 

Exhibit A:

Caption to Jen: "Just got my first Botox injection. Looking good but I just can't feel my face."

My too-much-time-on-her-hands photo shoot yielded at least a few smiles for me, but got me thinking more about the history of friendships, mine to be exact. I've got these incredible, deep-down cement friendships with Jazzy, since age 12, and Rachel, since 15, Jen since 17, Ica since 18, and a handful of others I've met or reconnected with since then: Ingrid, Danielle, Michelle, Jessica. For most of these women, we were together before boys, after boys, dreaming up husbands and then watching them materialize. {poof} They were in my wedding. I was in theirs. 

Some time in there, the huddle moved outward, south, east, far east in some cases (Ica), or a wee bit west in mine. Anyway, the proximity was less proximal and therefore, the interaction was less frequent.

So much time goes by between face to face these days, weeks, months, even years. There are hundreds of ways to connect - phone, text, Skype, email, facebook - but none of them come close to heads together, hugs, and hysterical laughing fits around coffee or martinis. Those moments, once so frequent, are few but so precious now. 

And when we're together, we can't help but remember those days, those nights, the slumber parties, the roommate tales, the stories that I tell one way but she tells another. The night none of us slept when the three of us, Rachel, Ica and I, slept width-wise on the bed and I woke up whining and groaning because I was so frustrated and miserable. They still mock me for this one. And rightfully so - I was just so pathetic.

Or the time Danielle and I tested out how "done" the muffins were by throwing them against the wall like noodles to see if they would stick. 

Or the time Jen and I were on vacation in Colorado and we took pictures of ourselves in front of a mountain scene but when we developed the pictures, the scene behind us was black and we were just sitting there smiling like idiots in front of blackness. We couldn't handle how hilarious this was, cry-laughing in the grocery store one-hour photo lobby. 

Or when Jazzy and Trotta and I were barely driving legal, only 17, and we went to St. Louis in the middle of the night and had only 9 hours to get there and back and we got a terrible speeding ticket and almost died when one of us feel asleep at the wheel and we had to take all our pictures at 4am in the dark. And then we all had to tell our parents about it when my conscience caved and everybody got in trouble.

And there's so much more - it's all just so good. All this history. All this time.


It makes the big long space between the hugs and martinis and side-hurting laughter a little easier. It's like a giant fast-forward button for the times when we are together again, like we can somehow just press un-pause and start right where we stopped. We use the words and faces on screens and phone calls to fill in the details, but the good stuff happens in real time, although for these girls, I will take what I can get. 

It was really hard for a long time to even think about making new friends, to imagine that there might be any room left over for more deep love and crazy laughter and sleepovers. That the days with new friends would once again add up to months and years, and that these wild stories that were once only about me, would now involve my kids and theirs. But out here in this little college town, I was more alone than I wanted to be, and I had to let the guard back down. And now I have new friends who I take pictures with, and our kids give each other kisses and hugs, learn to walk and talk together, and one of those toddlers might even call me "Mom", in addition to his own mother. (And he's not John.) It's been wild, learning that my heart does in fact expand, and that love is one of those things we don't run out of, that it does this exponential growth thing instead.


But either way, I'm only 30 years into life so for the women who were girls with me way back then, who have been around for over half of these years, there's no way to replace this history. The deepness of knowing exactly where she's coming from, that I know her old address and she knows my mother's maiden name, and we were both grounded for smoking or speeding or whatever but at least it was together. And she knows what the boys called me when I was 13... to have someone understand what you want to say just because you've been here before, a few years ago, to be so known and so loved - I'll never trade this good-good stuff. And I'm glad I don't have to, that love adds and doesn't subtract. Maybe that's the best stuff. 



A few of the "old" friends through the (recent) ages:

One of those times when I traveled a few hours south to get some face to face with Jen.

Danielle and I will probably always have bad boundaries with noses.

At my before-baby party. Minus but thinking of Ica and missing her badly.

Ica, Rachel and I like hiding behind things. It's a long-standing tradition. Foliage is our favorite.

Ings and I, looking fab, rocking LBDs and babies in wombs.

Ica's Bachelorette party with the IRS.

And somehow, the husbands came along too. One by one by one. Which is good, since polygamy is outlawed in the United States.

Husbands who know how to dance.

Husbands who know how to humor their wives with dry wit and - even - getting along with each other.

And Jazzy, on her happy day last year. What a good day. (Also happened to be the day before I went pixie hair.)

I love you all, new friends and old ones. May the years keep adding up for us all.



 

The Day a Mother Was Born

"The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new."

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

On November 15, 2010, at 12:51am, two people were born: a child named John and a mother named Sarah. This Mother’s Day, we are both almost 18 months old, doing a few things well and most things clumsily. 

I think it was almost yesterday when we went home together, both needing somehow to be carried. It was just a few days ago, it seems, that we both cried and cried in the middle of the night when one of us could not sleep, and so we were both awake. 

I am fairly certain we just started this life only yesterday, two fresh, new people in the world with no ability to communicate our feelings, who could only whine and eat and sleep all day. Not knowing how to do anything that we very much needed to do now.

That dark morning we both burst onto the scene, one of us a baby, one a mother. And suddenly those things that were mine before I was born became somebody else's, just like that.  

{A few of our first moments growing up together: he was asleep for most of it.}

These hands, my own hands for so many years, now belonged to someone else. Hands that flipped buttons on a remote or cupped coffee cups in wee morning hours now flipped bottoms out of soiled diapers and cupped bottles fresh from the warmer. 

Shoulders that had it easy all their lives now supported plush, rosy cheeks, attached to a baby who is fresh from his nap or a spill on the ground. 

Arms that gave hugs to many or swished carefree by my side now lift and scoop and sway and rock, but only for a precious one or two. 

Feet that tilted up horizontal, kicked back on the coffee table for hours or tucked beneath me criss-cross now bring me back and forth, back and forth from one bedroom to another, pacing up and down the hall to comfort, running to divert disaster in the kitchen, now in the bathroom, now in the yard.

Eyes that looked just about wherever they wanted, now notice when things are a bit strange, when blond curlys are making their way across tabletops, when tiny feet are too too close to the edge of something, or when patting is about to becoming hitting which will soon become crying. And these eyes, that once cried only for themselves, now welled up and overflowed at new things, at tiny smiles and sighs, burbles and giggles and chatty sounds. All so precious.

The babies looking at each other, one of us already in love love.

And ears that once tuned out the world with the rhythms of song and conversation now hear everything at once, even the sounds of silence, and interpret the bangings, the quiet, and all of the rest with such accuracy these ears may as well be, yes, a second set of eyes. And these ears now strain in the mornings to hear a baby, having a sweet conversation with himself, and the sounds fill the heart right up and over. And there's nothing to do but just soak it all in.

A planner once scratched full of meetings and face-to-faces emptied out for good the day that time stopped and started over. And then the planner simply said “Maternity leave”, with no scribbled-in appointments in the hours and days in between. A wide-open space for two babies to get to know each other. A baby human and a baby mother, both learning how to cry and breathe and eat, learning to ask for help when we both thought we were self-sufficient just a few days prior.  

Yes, we are still new at this. Still both amateurs at being human and mother. So much more to discover, to see, to understand. Our eyes are wide open. We are both curious. We still cry. But now we give more hugs. There is more giggling and fewer tears. And we are learning, learning, learning. But we do it together.

{Happy Mother's Day to all of you Mothers, no matter how old you are in Mom years. Thank you for taking the learning road with me, and welcoming to this universal thing called Motherhood. Thank you for all your weeks, months and years of devotion and sacrifice and scared love you pour out. Today I know how much you give up to do what you do. So I thank you, with all my mom love.}