Mother’s Day… was perfect.  I can’t begin to say how good it felt to breathe and enjoy and know that losing Mara hadn’t ruined Mother’s Day forever.  I definitely had some mixed emotions, but over it all hung an umbrella of happiness and I enjoyed every minute of it!

Gabe’s school helps the children make Mother’s Day gifts, and this year he made me a special little lunch sack that contained breakfast in bed – a muffin and a juice box!  Mixed berry juice and an Otis Spunkmeyer muffin never tasted so good!  He was so sweet, telling me how he made sure all the decorations on the bag matched.  This is a common argument between us – how his clothes don’t match.  So I thought his matching efforts on my gift bag were especially adorable.

I had very generously received an iPhone several weeks go in honor of Mother’s Day, and I’ve been having lots of fun with it since then, especially with the camera.  It’s a huge step up from the camera on the droid I used to have!  I’d fallen in a bit of a photo taking rut lately, and the phone (and Instagram, to be perfectly honest) snapped me out of it.  So for a special excursion on Mother’s Day afternoon I told Tahd I wanted to go somewhere and take some family photos.

Not far from us is a little nature preserve, so we packed up the kids and the tripod and set on our way.

I am so glad we went!  I didn’t get everything I wanted, but I love so many of the pictures I did get.  They’re not perfect, but for a short notice outing with a cranky 7-year-old and a tenuous 4-month-old I thought it went pretty well!

We started with a little humor. Because humor goes a long way at warming the reticent heart.  Bet you can’t guess whose heart was reticent…

I’m so in love with this picture of Gabe.  He doesn’t let me take many pictures of him lately, and this one is so relaxed and cute!

Sister wouldn’t look at the camera to save her life!

We were trying really hard to get a picture of me with Gabe and Isla but she started melting down to epic proportions.  So I grabbed our blanket and nursed her instead.  While I did, Gabe sat by me and inspected my charm necklace.  This turned out to be one of my most favorite pictures from the whole day.

After pictures we went to my parents’ house to enjoy family dinner with them and my sisters and their husbands.  Nobody came prepared for pictures but I thought Mom might like a picture of her with all her girls.

<3 them all!

I really have the best Mom, and I love the way she loves my children.  It is a privilege to be her daughter!

I hope your Mother’s Day was as lovely as mine!

What little anxiety I’ve been experiencing lately (yay!) has been entirely wrapped up in time – as in I have none and therefore feel anxiety. I remember Isla being a few weeks old and thinking how non-tired and non-busy I was and marveling over how this wasn’t as tricky as I thought it was going to be.

I think that might be where The Universe laughs at me. . But oh, yes! I sure did exhale a small sigh of relief two weeks into this parenting-two-kids thing and think the most difficult time was behind us.

We’ll blame the hormones, okay? They’re big. They can take it.

First off, I had forgotten that sleep depravation is cumulative. So although Isla slept well and I hardly lost any sleep (praise the good Lord!) losing hardly any sleep every night in a row for 4 months adds up to the equivalent of losing sixty hundred hours all in one night, and at some point you crash. Which I did. This weekend. With mastitis.

Glorious mastitis.

I speak of her fondly, yes, because without her I never would have permitted myself to sleep 15 hours in a row, interrupted only by feedings and several drenching fever sweats. But it was a lot of sleep, and it was delicious even though it was also completely necessary since I was literally incapable of anything else. I wrongly thought that mastitis was a breast infection. No, it’s more like the torturing of every joint, lymph node, edge, and crease by invisible but HIGHLY VINDICTIVE angry fabled witches who use you as their little voodoo doll with at least a thousand needles.

But I survived. Huzzah. And I think it’s mostly over, which is a beautiful thing.

Back to the whole “time” thing.

Next to Lack of Sleep is the issue of Baby Schedules, which are also closely relate back to that issue of sleep since MY BABY DOESN’T LIKE TO MISS ANYTHING. I’d complain about this except I have very distinct memories of being 4 and army-crawling up the polyester ish red carpet to spy on my parents and their company because they’d had the SHEER AUDACITY to put me to bed during their party and I couldn’t believe they didn’t find my presence completely indispensable to the success of their evening.

Everybody, check the comments because I’m pretty sure there’s a good chance my mother’s going to be doing one of those fancy motherly “payback’s-a-b!#€#” giggles except she’d never swear and she never says, “I told you so.” She probably should in this case, though.

So Isla doesn’t want to sleep, but being The Mother I know better that she does, in fact, NEED sleep. So I force it on her by – get this – sleeping with her. Apparently and under the new and expanded terms of the Mommy Wars, I am “Mother Enough” to cosleep eighty hundred hours a day.

Do the math on that. I lose sixty hundred hours of sleep every night and cosleep eighty hundred hours all day long. So why am I still do tired? No clue, but I just know that somewhere in the midst of the exhausting twenty hundred hours of sleep credit I earn every day I lose a lot of time and can’t get anything done.

Hold that. It’s 1:34 and isla’s waking up again. Third time tonight. Everybody hold your breath. Maybe she won’t hear the silent tap of me hiding under my covers and tapping under my IPhone (which I just totally tried to spell “eye phone”).

Twenty minutes later…

I haven’t mastered this whole “juggling my time” thing. I can squeeze in the little tasks of unloading the dishwasher and grabbing some groceries and clearing off the counters, but to do things that generally require a more devoted amount of attention? Well, I can’t seem to find enough time to do that – to apply myself to one particular project or thought for any consolidated amount of time.

What bugs me is the things that require this type of attention from me – the things that require me to think and plan and be creative and stay engaged – are the things that are most important to me. But I haven’t done them in a while now because I haven’t been able to figure out how to be a really good juggler of my time yet.

We have to talk about this – learning me some better time management skills.

Okay – I’ve juggled my way out of energy tonight and it’s 2:04 and Isla just squeaked again reminding me that I have approximately 90 minutes before I hear from her again and 90 minutes is a lot of obstructive minutes so I’m just going to stop writing and sleep.

Good night.

(and just one more thing – I typed this whole thing on my eye phone in the middle of the night so it probably has a whole bunch of awesomely embarrassing auto-correct fails and I’m not proofing them til morning. Or never. Depends on how well I juggle my time tomorrow…

Two years ago today we lost Mara.

I looked back at some of the posts I wrote during that time and wanted to share this one again.  There are so many wonderful things I could tell the girl who wrote that post, but mostly I’d want her to trust the quiet voice within her telling her to hold on…to keep loving and hoping…to go slow and feel it all.

Happy birthday, sweet Mara.  I will always remember.

**********

It was Mother’s Day. 2005.  Five beautiful years ago.  It was our first May in our inaugural home, a home we had planned for and saved for and created out of love and sweat and dreams.  A home to grow in.  A home to bring our babies home to.  A home to grow together in.  It was beautiful.

When we moved to Wisconsin and looked for our first home, there were several features we wanted.  Hardwood floors.  A fireplace. And of course, the basics – a stable foundation.  Strong walls.  But in my heart, I also hoped for small indulgences.  One was to have a home with a tree – a breathtaking magnolia tree, the kind that opens with blossoms so pink and vibrant they take your breath away.

It didn’t take us long to settle on a house, and as luck had it, a tree stood in the front yard.  Being anything but arborists, we had no idea what type it was.  Imagine my sheer delight when, for my very first Mother’s Day, the mysterious tree in my front yard burst with blossoms – white, pink, purple.  Magnolia blossoms!  In full bloom!  We took pictures under that tree, me with Gabe, me with my mother, my mother with Gabe, the three of us together.  It was the stuff out of fairy tales – gorgeous and perfect and lovely in every way.

Each year since then, I’ve wondered when our tree would bloom.  Three of the last four years, the tree bloomed late – much later than Mother’s Day.  Cool springs will do that to you!  One of those years, while experiencing an unseasonably warm snap during late winter, the buds started to try to pop, only to be frozen in time when the weather cooled down again.  The tree bloomed all summer, at no point reaching full bloom.  It was sad to miss the tree in all it’s glory, but it always made me smile to see the late bloomers popping out in mid-August or September.  Could anything be lovelier than a reminder of rebirth when life is already in full swing?

This year?  The tree bloomed too early.  The blossoms have all fallen from the tree and have been picked up, raked up, and swept up into the trash.  How poignant that seems at this very moment.

I watched the sun come up this Mother’s Day morning.  As the sky started to twinkle with the new day, the birds began to sing and it felt so fresh, crisp.  I didn’t expect to have that privilege, especially the privilege of soaking in the newness of the day.  If one thing is clear, it is that I am decidedly not a morning person.   But today, I watched the sun come up.

Also, I watched my husband dissolve in tears.

I snuggled with my son and talked of Heaven.

I watched my father place his head against my entryway hall and weep.

I watched my mother put on her strong face while Gabe scampered around, confused and silly, trying to make sense of this strange day.

All while I watched the sun come up.

The tree that bloomed too early?  Reminds me of my baby.  My baby who, as of about 4:00 this morning, is officially no longer with us.  Well, the baby is still with us in body.  But not in soul.  It’s soul bloomed too early – at least far earlier than what we would have liked.  Sometime between about 11:00 yesterday morning and 8:00 last night.  I watched the ultrasound screen, a screen so different from the one I saw just three days ago.  Three days ago the screen was alive with movement, with hope, with beauty.  There was a baby who, when “commanded” by Gabe (at the ultrasound technician’s request) rolled over so we could get not only a perfect measurement but a perfect profile shot.  I felt like we were suspended in time as we watched that baby stretch and twist and bring its hand up to its face for a prolonged snuggle.  We were transifxed.

In the wee hours of the morning, the screen looked different.  Equally beautiful, but still.  Motionless.  There was no movement, no twitch, no wave of the hand, no kick to my side, no flicker of a heartbeat.  I had a hard time connecting with the fact that the picture on that screen was actually within me.  It seemed too disconnected from the reality I’ve been living.  The technician wouldn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to.  I looked over at Tahd and shook my head while he alternately used his eyes to implore the screen to start moving and used his voice to implore Gabe to sit still.  Oh, the irony!  How much we wanted one child to move while we needed the other to sit quietly.

It will be okay.  And it will not be okay.  I will be okay.  And I will not be okay.  But in the end it will be okay and I will be okay.  The sun comes up.  I see it now.  I heard the birds sing.  This is reality, but there is a dichotomy in reality that is strangely comforting.  New days come.  Ours begins today.  When the sun is bright enough, I will call the doctor’s office and my plan is to basically beg for a D&C.  I don’t think I’m emotionally strong enough to miscarry on my own.  I often surprise myself, but I’m learning that it’s okay to have limits.  It’s okay to be not strong enough.  It’s okay to push for answers even when they don’t readily appear.  It’s okay.

I am weak.

I am fragile.

Four and a half years of infertility do that to a person.

If you’re the praying sort, I’m worried about several things.  First, I’m worried about miscarrying on my own.  And by worried, I would say I’m petrified, enough to ask the ER doctor to send me home with medication for anxiety.  I just want things to hold off until I can get into my doctor.  Second, I’m broken-hearted for Gabe.  My mother took him shopping this week and let him pick out something for the baby.  He selected two shirts – one in case it was a boy and one in case it was a girl.  When Grandma picked him up this morning, he told her – quite excitedly – that she could take the shirts back to Kohls since we wouldn’t be needing them.

At that moment the adults in the room heaved a collective sob.  I’m not sure I’ve completely exhaled since then.

Third, I’m worried I’m going to (or Tahd might) sink into a pit of despair.  I can’t help but notice the irony of the fact that something we’ve wanted for so long is being taken from us on such a special day.  When I’m particularly down, I wonder if God pleasures in torturing us in the meanest ways possible.  This – at more than 12 weeks pregnant and on Mother’s Day?  Seems colossally mean.  When I’m down I am also extremely hard on myself.  And in the dark of the pit it’s hard to see that the little things are just that and this isn’t my fault.  I can’t take the pit again.  I can’t.

Anger will come later, I’m sure.  Tears are free-flowing now.  I’m hoping sleep comes soon.  And with any luck happiness will find us on this Mother’s Day, too.  At least for a bit.

When I posted this picture on Instagram the other day someone paid me a very sweet compliment about how I always look fashionable whereas she hardly has time to take a shower and never puts on makeup.  I thanked her for the compliment, but what I really wanted to do was tell her the rest of the story.  I couldn’t figure out how to do it concisely in a short reply to her comment, so I decided I wanted to write it out here, partly because I just need to write it down and partly because I want to explain why the outside and inside don’t always match.

It’s no secret that I deal with a lot of anxiety in my life, and I always know when it’s getting out of hand when I find myself panicking about people dying.  Thankfully my anxiety has been moderately controlled since Isla was born, a nice change from the constant torment with which is plagued me during her pregnancy.

Anxiety often goes hand-in-hand with depression, and this is true for me.  My anxiety tends to be constant, but my depression comes and goes depending on my circumstances and my level of anxiety.  When my depression is at its worst it’s hard to function; even getting out of bed is a challenge.  Like anxiety, I have a red flag that tells me my depression is getting unmanageable, and that red flag is when it becomes overwhelming to me to get ready for the day (aka shower, put on makeup, do my hair, etc.).

This is where I take a deep breath because it really embarrasses me to have felt this way.  And to still feel this way some days.  Who hates to take a shower???  But its true.  Its simply my reality sometimes.  So I deal as best I can.

The last several years of my life have challenged my ability to cope beyond what I imagined possible, and although I can talk of the many bits of beauty we’ve found along the way it’s also true that it was very, very hard.  As such, during the last several years I have developed a growing dislike for showering, really an aversion to the basics of taking care of myself.  It’s all just so fussy!  Showering, doing makeup and doing my hair seemed insurmountable on most days, and I would much rather have stayed in my pyjamas, ready for bed at the drop of a hat.  Some days I did exactly that, running Gabe to school while wearing my pyjamas and coming home to tuck back in for a long day’s nap.  Other times I’d have commitments and places to be so I’d force myself to put in some level of effort so I’d look presentable.

Along the way, however, I’ve learned that if I take care of myself I feel better.  So as often as I could muster the energy I’d force myself to do the bare minimum.  For me, the bare minimum has become a quick face of makeup and some sort of style to my hair, with a shower every other day.  Because I have curly hair it can get a little fussy and demanding when wetted, so when I’m in the struggling-but-trying phase I often straighten my hair because I can get several days wear out of one good blowout.  The makeup routine has been simplified, also, and I have a simple “basic face” I can put on in a rush – for times when I oversleep or for times when I’m in a funk and don’t have the energy.

Then come the clothes, and I haven’t found my rhythm with them yet in my new postpartum/nursing body.  So I accessorize with things like jewelry and flower pins because I’ve found that even a plain t-shirt looks fun with a flower pinned to it.

I don’t do things like makeup and accessories in order to take a lot of time on myself or because I have it all together.  I do these things because they give me a boost when I don’t feel so great.  I do these things because they make me smile.  I would never want someone to see me with makeup done and some funky accessory and feel like I have it together and they don’t; I would want them to know that I do those things precisely because I don’t have anything together and taking care of myself in little ways helps to keep me from submitting to the sad, anxious, or negative thoughts in my head.  It’s how I fight – quite literally war paint that I put on while I battle the enemy and refuse to let it win.

I have no judgment in my heart toward people who choose not to do these things.  To each her own!  But I also know there are people out there who think it looks like fun but don’t know how to get started or think it takes too much time.  I’m no expert when it comes to hair, but I do feel like my quick makeup routine is competent enough to share, so here it is.  I swear that anyone can do this, and I timed myself when I did it yesterday – it took 4:49, start to finish.  But I also put on lipstick during that time period, and normally I don’t put on lipstick until I’m in the car.  So it’s actually shorter than that.

Here are my supplies:

First, I’m a big devotee to MAC makeup.  I’m sure there are lots of other good brands, but MAC is my favorite.  It doesn’t fade badly by the end of the day and it gives good coverage with nice colors.  Second, I like makeup brushes.  Most of mine are MAC brushes, but I’ve also heard great things about elf and Sonia Kashuk brushes, and I believe they’re cheap and available at Target.  Finally, I switch things up at times, especially when it comes to the foundation.  While the MAC stuff is my favorite, it’s also pricier, and I don’t have a MAC store near me <insert Tahd’s breath of sweet relief here>.  So I pick up random face powders and foundations at Target or Walgreens and generally have reasonable luck with them.

I’m linking to some of the products I use; these are not affiliate links and I don’t get anything if you click them and/or buy them.  Just fyi.

Here are my steps:

1. I use some sort of moisturizer. It’s usually from Avon and not pictured here, but I’m not picky. I usually get the Avon sets of day and night cream, but I’m bad about washing my face at night so when I run out of the day cream I just start using the leftover night cream in the morning.  I was told makeup adheres itself best to a moisturized face so I think it might help the staying power of the other products.

2. I use a brush to apply concealer to my undereye area, the area around my nose (it gets red and I like to even that out), and any blemishes.  I kind of “buff” it onto those areas with the black handled brush that has black and white bristles.  It’s an amazing brush.  I got it last year and fell instantly in love with it.

3. I use a buffing brush (the stout, fluffy brush with no handle – a kabuki from bare minerals) to apply a 2-in-1 powder foundation.  Sometimes I just use the sponge that comes with the makeup, but I feel like I use too much if I do that.  If I’m using a liquid foundation I’ll apply that first, conceal second, and top with a loose powder (usually I just use Cover Girl and apply with the puff that comes with it).  But in my experience this is the fastest – concealer first and 2-in-1 foundation second.

4. I use the fluffy brush with the red handle to apply blush to my cheeks, and then I use the long-ish handled black brush (not the one with the white bristles) to put a little highlight powder on the tops of my cheekbones, the bridge of my nose, and my eyelids.  This sounds slightly complex but it’s not.  It’s just like putting on more blush, except I keep it high on my cheeks and only use a tiny bit.  A little goes a long way.  I love this powder.  It’s amazing and long lasting.  I get the Mineralize Skin Finish in Soft and Gentle and I think it might be my favorite thing ever.

5. I use a small angled brush to fill my eyebrows with light brown eye shadow.  I think I use the color Cork, but I know fairer people use Omega sometimes. Not sure about darker colors.  I feel like this is something that makes people look younger; when you look back at old pictures one of the things that makes people look younger is their full (often somewhat unkempt, but we’ll leave that for another day) brows.  I don’t want to bring back the unkempt thing, but I think filling in the sparse spots helps bring back a little bit of youthfulness, so I do it.

6. I apply a little shimmery white eye shadow (I use Nylon but I know Phloof is another popular color for this) just under my eyebrows and at the inside corners of my eyes near my tearducts.  I feel like this makes a tired mother look a little more awake.  MAC has amazing eye shadows – the pigments are so rich and the colors look great.  You can get really artsy with their shadows and do all sorts of fancy looks, but you can be really simple, too.

7. I line my upper lids and the outside portion of my lower lids.  I have Prunella (a purple color), Teddy (a goldish brown color) and Smoke (a black color with some greenishness in it).  Then I take a small flat brush, dip it in some eye shadow and smudge the line.  For this I often use Satin Taupe.  It’s a nice multipurpose color.  Honestly, this isn’t my favorite look, but it’s fast so I do it.  Some people don’t like to line their eyes, and that’s great.  I’ve lined my eyes for so long that I think I look funny if I skip it.

8. Mascara – my most favorite, amazing mascara is Cover Girl Lash Blast in the orange tube.  LOVE it!  It does a great job and is relatively cheap compared to what you get at a department store.

9. Lipstick/gloss/whatever – but I usually do this in the car with whatever I happen to have in my purse.

That’s it.  I do all that in 4ish minutes.  Here’s a picture of me on my average day.  Note that I’m wearing a hat, which means I did NOT style my hair…

It’s not the best picture, but you can see my whole face.  Here’s a better picture with part of my face…

Honestly, it took way longer to type it out than it does to do it.  In reality it goes more like this…

lotion, concealer, powder, blush, highlight, brows, eyes, liner, mascara

And this is what Isla did for those 4 minutes…

Happy baby!  :)  She can’t reach the toys with her hands but she sure can kick them!

So that’s my thought of the day.  The compliments are very sweet, but I always feel guilty because I know how much of a struggle it has been for me to put in the effort.  The inside and outside don’t always match, not so much because I want to hide the inside but because I want to encourage it to smile.

So now I want to know – if you’re in a funk what do you do for yourself to break the cycle?  What brings you out of your funks?

I know it has been too long since I last blogged when I go to write a new blog post and I have to log back into my dashboard before I can proceed.  We’re still finding our groove here, and just as soon as I think I’ve found it Isla changes everything again.  That’s a baby for you…predictably unpredictable!

I’ve been thinking about lots of things – about depression, about hopes for the future, about Gabe and his school stuff, about Gabe and his talking back, about more babies, about debt and finances, and medical medical medical bills, about the second anniversary of losing Mara…But for some reason I can’t seem to get my fingers out of the way of my brain so the thoughts are stuck in my head for now.  This is foreign to me – usually it’s the act of writing that helps me sort through the issues and the finer points of what I want and what needs to be.  But right now my thoughts are wordless, and until I figure out how to put words to them they’ll have to stay stuck.  So today I’m stealing from a fun blogger, Meg, to elaborate on things I do have words for – the present.  The right now.

Right now I am…

watching || Celebrity Apprentice. I’m rooting for Clay Aiken.  I’ve noticed I have several small crushes on gay men – Clay Aiken, Brad Goreski, Andy Cohen, Jeff Lewis… Not sure what it is, but I love them all!

drinking || Nestle hot cocoa.  Well, not at this exact moment, but I will be soon.  This is what they stocked in the hospital kitchenette when I had Isla, and it reminds me of some of my favorite days.

wearing || owl pyjama pants and a blue striped shirt.  Hot. And yes, it totally doesn’t match!

eating || mint chocolate chip ice cream

listening || well, the tv right now, but lately Tahd has been playing a lot of country on Pandora

avoiding || buckling down on my diet to lose the 15 pounds I want to lose – as is evidenced by the above mint chocolate chip ice cream! I only gained 20 pounds while I was pregnant so I was hopeful that the whole postpartum weight loss wouldn’t be tough.  However, when I got pregnant I was 10 pounds up from normal, so I wanted to lose that weight, too.  I was 154 when I got pregnant and am currently stuck at 157 now.  However, I want to get back down to the low 140s.  Really, I’d like to get down to my pre-pregnancy weight with Gabe, which was 134.  I can’t believe I’m writing these numbers down.  In public.  But I figure I might as well because keeping secrets certainly doesn’t help me!

wishing || for a hair cut and color.  I’ll probably get the cut, but not the color because I don’t have the time or inclination to keep it up right now.  I’m dreaming red, though!

feeling || lonely.  I feel like I haven’t been making good connections with people lately – I’ve just kind of dangled out there on my own, partly because I’ve been very anxious and depressed and partly because it’s hard to put yourself out there.

missing || my Grammie.  I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately.  She died just after Gabe turned 1, and I wish she was here so I could introduce Isla to her.  She was a very special lady; certainly all grandmothers are, but this grandmother was particularly remarkable and I wish she was still here.

thankful || that Tahd is tentatively scheduled to be home for the next four weeks straight!  FOUR WHOLE WEEKS!  I’m so very excited!

craving || five hours of sleep in one solid stretch.  Oh, how blissful that would be!

wondering || if we’ll really be able to pay off a big chunk of our debt within the next two years.  We’ve been discussing a possible plan that seems attainable, but it seems almost too good to be true.  We have a lot of analysis to do.

praying || for a friend’s daughter, Adara, who is about 2 weeks younger than Isla and just had open heart surgery.  If you think of her please pray for her, too.  She needs to heal and eat and gain weight.

needing || to make a trip to Goodwill – not to buy, but to drop off.  I think we have four boxes ready to go, and if I had time and space I know I could have four more!  We really need to go through this place with a fine tooth comb, because there’s too much stuff crammed into our little house.  Clutter, clutter, clutter!

thinking || about the fun we had roller-skating today.  I spent a large part of my childhood on skates but hadn’t done it since then until Gabe’s school took a roller-skating field trip.

dreaming || of painting my dining room white!  With all sorts of brightly colored frames on the wall.  And this monogram project.  Anyone have any spare buttons?  I’m going to need a few.

loving || Instagram!  It just became available for Android so I downloaded it and have been having so much fun!  I’m slightlycosmo if you want to follow me.  Here are some of my favorites so far:

Watch it.

Vulnerability is not weakness.  Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.

Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.

We have to talk about shame.

This video – it’s good stuff. Worth the time.

(If you’re reading this in a blog reader click through to see the video.)

I read an article tonight I shouldn’t have read.  Don’t read it unless you’re prepared to cry, although you should know it’s a very well written piece.  In it, the author’s infant daughter dies.  I knew this before I started reading.  A blogger I read described the article by saying, “It is about the death of his one-year old daughter, from complications of a brain tumour, and I will never forget it, ” and that should have been sufficient warning for me.

I knew I shouldn’t be reading it. Um, hello! Brain tumor.  1-year old.  Death.  Most people would find it emotional, I’m sure, but I know I can be very affected by things like that.  About three paragraphs in I paused to reconsider my decision to keep going, but my curiosity got the better of me and I didn’t stop.  By the time I was done I was weeping, attempting to resist the inevitable but overwhelming urge to race upstairs and wake my babies and huddle together in the middle of my bed.  Even a second away from them seemed like too much.  I can’t imagine being apart from one of them for a lifetime.

In spite of the anxiety I knew it would produce in me I think I kept reading purposefully.  I have an underlying anxiety right now – an unhealthy anxiety – that I’m afraid to acknowledge openly or even privately.  But I think anxieties like attention, and if I won’t face it directly it will find ways to reflect itself back into my life. This article was like a mirror, forcing me to pay attention to the thoughts bubbling beneath the surface.

After I had Gabe I was consumed with not getting postpartum depression.  Obsessed.  Preoccupied.  Frantic.  And, as luck would have it, I think I actually did have it, maybe not the depression version as much as the anxiety version.  I’ve always been anxious, but my anxieties really kicked into high gear at that point, exacerbated by the fact that we started trying to get pregnant again when he was 9 months old only to start the whole infertility journey.  Once I finally faced up to and treated my depression and anxiety I realized how troubled I had been for months and how much better I could have felt if I had gotten the help I needed.  I didn’t have to feel that awful for that long.

I think it’s happening again, but different.  I feel happy – I feel so, so happy.  Like, deep in my bones.  My marrow is happy.  I get Isla from her crib when she wakes up at night and peek in on Gabe asleep and feel like my heart is so full, and I’m so lucky.  But I also feel scared – scared of losing it, scared it’s going to go away, scared there’s going to be suffering.  I’m paralyzed by those fears, so I keep the surface moving while I try to pretend they’re not hiding underneath.  But they are, and sometimes it takes seeing them outside myself in articles and news stories and things on tv to remind me that they’re really there and they need attention.

Last week it was cancer – I spent hours in the darkness trying to convince myself that I wasn’t going to die of cancer while my children were young.  My mind raced and my heart pounded until I worried myself to sleep.  I’d wake up in the light in disbelief that I was ever that panicked, but when night came again so came the fear and the cycle began again.

This week it has been failing my children in general, specifically Gabe.  I can’t remember if I wrote about it but he had an epic meltdown about school a few weeks ago.  Last week was school break, and this week he went back to school.  Not thinking, I had forgotten that some of the homework involved in The Meltdown of the Century still had to be turned in post-break, and this turned into Epic Meltdown 2.0 – except unlike the first fiasco this one happened both at home AND school.  That, combined with a few other things, have culminated in a not-very-good week with me consulting Dr. Google about all sorts of possible explanations for the problems.  I worry so much about him, worry for now but moreso worry for later. You know the saying – little people, little problems.  Bigger people, bigger problems. I want to do the right things now to make his later better, but it’s hard when I don’t know if we’re on the right track.

Now that I’ve read that article I bet next week will be my kids getting sick.  That’s sort of how my anxiety works, bouncing from one things to the next just as soon as I think I’ve gotten something under control.

Since losing Mara two years ago I’ve worked really hard at finding a New Way – by embracing optimism, purposefully looking on the bright side, and observing and being thankful for the many small, beautiful things I have in my life.  Anxiety, however, is a lingering vestige of the Old Way, and I haven’t had a lot of success at putting it to rest.  It’s a discouraging irritant, one whose constancy grates at me and leaves me feeling like a “less-than” optimist.  I’m almost an optimist but can’t quite shake the pessimism.  I’m almost happy, but still a little sad.  I almost believe I have what it takes, but really I think I don’t quite have enough.

I was thinking about oysters tonight and how they build a beautiful pearl out of layers upon layers of calcium surrounding a microscopic irritant.  I was thinking about how beauty comes from pain.  I was thinking about how losing Mara brought the precious gift of happiness into my life.  I was thinking about how maybe I don’t have to let my anxiety spoil that happiness.  Maybe I can use it as an irritant that produces something much more beautiful and valuable.

I know how this works.

I’ve been down this road before – have gone farther and have made it back in one piece.  That is one of the beauties of history – the testimony it can bear to the present.   The irritant is there, but I know how to lay the

layers

and

layers

of calcium, overlapping them carefully, one by one, until my irritant is neutralized by layers of opalescent nacre full

of happiness.

Of peace.

Of light.

So apparently I have tonsillitis. What’s up with that?  And it’s only on the right side, not the left.  I thought it was just allergy ick because the weather has been so bizarre, but after 8 days and increasing pain I finally decided to take a look.  Well, hello there nice little white patches!  I think we’ll be taking you to the doctor!

I got smart – I called ahead to the walk-in clinic to find out how long their wait was, and when they said ZERO MINUTES I practically ran there AT THAT MOMENT to avoid the wait.  They lied, just a little bit.  We waited about 10 minutes.  But I think they usually see such long wait times that to them ten minutes IS zero minutes.

You say po-ta-to, I say po-tah-to?

The doctor was in my room for a grand total of about 22 seconds before he left to get me a prescription and send me on my way.

That’s the kind of trip to the walk-in clinic I like!  Quick and dirty.  Except not really dirty at all, unless you count the ugly white patches.

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After what has been an extremely consistent 3.5 hour stretch of sleep each night, Isla has taken to sleeping a little longer each night.   This is good, except I’ve been staying up late because I keep expecting her to wake up any minute.  I’m working on that.  :)

Not so much during the day, though… Where is the child who wouldn’t even stay awake to eat?  She’d love to sleep if I’d take a nap with her, and while I can’t say I dislike naps, I do like to be awake for some portion of the day.  Babies are such mysteries!

This is her taking a nap in the carpool pickup lane.  She’s pretty much the cutest thing ever!

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Essie’s Turquoise and Caicos… fun and makes me think of the beach.  It’s a win!

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Gabe’s teacher has two spelling lists each week – the blue one is easier and the green one is more difficult.  Gabe typically gets the green list.  This week he got the blue list, which would be fine except when Tahd put him to bed tonight Gabe offered that he purposefully did poorly on the pretest so he could get the easy list this week.

Oh, dear Gabe!  We love how you make us smile and think up tricky ways to stay one step ahead of you.  I think we might be behind right now, but we’re fighting a valiant fight!

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I signed up for a Color Run!  Have you seen these?  Seriously – this looks like so much fun!  You get pelted with a blast of color explosion every kilometer.  There’s only the one small dilemma… at this time I can’t run one entire mile, let alone 3.  I’m working on the Couch to 5k on my treadmill, but as soon as it seems nice enough I’m going to put Isla in the jogger and take her out with me.  It’s still a little cold, I think, but once it’s warmer it will be easier to run with her than wait for a time when Tahd’s home and/or she’s sleeping to get in my workout.

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I’d like to find a photography group. Or a book club.  Or something. I’m feeling a little lonely lately.

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My husband is not my boss.

I went to a women’s group recently at which we were told our husbands were our bosses.  This did not jive well with me.  To put it mildly.  So when I got home I asked my husband if he thought he was my boss.

No.

And if he thought I should consider him my boss.

No.

Then I asked several women the same questions – women who are older and wiser than me and women who’ve been married a lot longer than me.  They didn’t like it, either.

So I just have to say it.

I love my husband and I respect my husband (could do better on both counts, certainly).  But he is not my boss.

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I’ve been experiencing a frustrating juxtaposition lately – the desire to write along with a lack of inspiration. So I picked up my virgin copy of Writing Down the Bones and finally cracked its spine.  Good stuff!  It makes me want to bring a little notebook with me wherever I go. There is so much that happens and so much to write about… mundane, beautiful, important, hilarious.  At the top of my list I add:

Must write more!

Here, there, and everywhere, really.

Before Isla was ever born I knew I’d have to do it…have a photographer come to our house after her birth and document the long-awaited little one joining our family.  She just recently sent me the photos and it has been so poignant to revisit that morning, remembering the way she pretzeled in my arms and cried like a little bird waiting to be fed and sank into my still-squishy belly when I held her close.

Those days – they still take my breath away!

The photographer sent me two batches of photos – the ones I selected as favorites and she edited, and the “outtakes,” the originals I had laboriously combed through to pick from.  Three months later and I found several new favorites in the bunch and set out to do a little editing of my own, and had so much fun in Photoshop that I couldn’t stop editing.  Photoshop’s addicting like that, at least for me!  So I’m sharing here some of my favorite edits.

Loved having the four of us on the bed reveling over Isla

This has become one of my favorite pictures. It was hard to pick pictures initially, but now that I see her personality and expressions more some different ones stand out to me.  She looks like this every morning while she’s waking up – head cocked to the side, legs squished up and biting her lip. Sweetness!

Pure mischief!  I cropped this one – Tahd and I were originally in the background but looked kind of drugged or something. But I couldn’t resist that face!

Some of my favorite pictures of her were on this pink fabric. Love her hands here, how they’re curled under her chin and also how the lower hand is flat with her fingers fully extended.  That’s another thing she does, and I rub her little palm while she does it.

I love the creases and dry skin on her feet – such a fresh and new baby thing!

Be still my heart!

Oh, to know what he’s thinking here!  We bribed him to do these pictures – straight up bribed him with cash.  We are those parents!  lol

The photographer worked so hard to get her into this position, and she was having none of it!  She much preferred – and still prefers – laying on her back.

Loving the curvy little nose!

The eyes again… he has great eyes!

I’d kiss her all day if I could!

He would, too!

Oh, Pinterest!

I made a new Pinterest board last night where I could pin the pictures of the projects and recipes I’ve attempted.  Pinterest tells me I currently have 2,562 pins across my 41 boards.  Guess how many I put on my “Completed Pins” board?

15

A big, fat 15.  ”Fat” is especially appropriate because most of them were recipes.   How is it that I’ve spent countless hours pinning all these brilliant ideas and I’ve only done 15 of them?

This, my friends, is an absurdity.

What good is it to collect ideas if you never try them?  Somebody needs to get busy!  Less pinning, more doing!

Here are my top contenders for this week…

We have a chalkboard wall in our hall, but it usually sits untouched until we have company.  This would be a simple little idea that might get it a little more action.

Tahd is traveling again this week and I wanted to find a few fun things to do with Gabe.  I picked up a new pack of Sharpies this week and think he might find this cool:

We can’t leave sister out!  So I found a craft for her, too.  Not sure it will turn out exactly like this,  but this is a cute starting point!

Much to Tahd’s (and possibly the airline’s luggage handler’s) dismay I brought home some sand from Myrtle Beach so I could create this project.  The sand made our luggage weigh 50 kajillion pounds!

And just in time for Easter, a few gift projects!  I want to make some of these flowers to put on hair elastics for Isla:

and I think everyone needs one of these:

And finally… I see this somewhere in Isla’s room, and I also see a picture of her with it:

Also, I really want to overhaul and paint my dining room, but I just don’t think that’s going to happen this week.  So I’ll save it for another time when I’ll have opportunity to paint.

Hopefully the Pinterest gods smile on me and I’ll get to complete at least a few of these projects this week!  You can keep an eye on my “Completed Pins” board to see if any of these projects show up there!