Advent Day Thirteen: Traveling Pregnant

When I was five months pregnant with Elvis, I thought it would be a really fun idea to travel by plane with Lydia, who was ten months old, by myself, to meet Brandon and his baseball team in Florida over spring break.  As I maneuvered down the center aisle of the jet with Lydia on one hip and her car seat on the other, a diaper bag slung around my shoulder, and my significantly larger belly than my first pregnancy leading the way... this idea, maybe it was not so good, I thought.

A few years later, Elvis, Lydia, Brandon's grandma Garnet, and I traveled by Grand Marquis ("the Mercury," as they called it) from Ohio to Florida to meet Brandon after Christmas.  Brandon was working a bowl game in Florida, and we concocted a plan to get Grandma south for the winter, visit Brandon's brother and sister-in-law, and also only drive one vehicle, buying one-way tickets home. I carried in all five of Grandma's suitcases and our travel bags into the hotel room, and while Grandma did her geriatric exercises ("This is just what I have to do, Bran!") and worried about where her eye drops were, the kids begged to go to the pool (closed for cleaning) and chased each other around the queen beds.  Meanwhile, Henry squirmed in my womb.

Life does not stop for pregnancies.

I love challenges like these: You don't think I can handle this?  Watch me.  Watch me load my car with three of the loudest children ever birthed by a woman and drive to... anywhere!  The grocery store, the department store, a restaurant, the zoo, the movies, you name the challenge, I will jump on board.  At the end of the day, I will sink into the couch cushions, satisfyingly exhausted, and celebrate my triumph over a typical day of motherhood with a glass of merlot. Or Maker's Mark, if I'm feeling especially accomplished.

The reasons people have to stretch themselves this way aren't always rewarded by a personal geriatrics demonstration or the full-on open-faced snoring grandmother in the passenger seat. They don't always result in meeting up with loved ones and settling into a week of relaxing in the sunshine, laughing about makeup cases and eye drops.

Joseph and Mary find themselves near the end of Mary's pregnancy, summoned to return to Bethlehem for a census.  I'm sure that they didn't want to go.  It becomes evident in the next few passages that they didn't have family to stay with in town.  Echoing Jesus' call to "render unto Caesar's what is Caesar's and to God what is God's," Joseph and Mary heed the edict to return to Bethlehem, obeying the government even though it is complicating their lives (there's also the fun tidbit about fulfilling prophecies regarding the location of the Messiah's birth, but that's another day).

Life does not stop for pregnancies.

"In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child." - Luke 2:1-5

Advent Activity: Popcorn and pajama movie night
It's Friday, again, which means it's movie night, again!  We recorded Home Alone, and I think that's on the schedule for tonight.  Given their reaction to any kind of bloopers and Looney Tunes, I think they'll love Home Alone.

Looking for the Goods

First off, sarahmwells.com is broken, and I'm unhappy about it.  I kept hoping it would reset itself or just reappear, and after multiple attempts to contact customer service people at Google and at GoDaddy.com, I have given up, deleted the domain name entirely, and with any luck it'll become available again in the next couple of days, so I can register it once more for my use.

This is one of the reasons I haven't written lately.  Another reason is because I've had two weeks of vacation over the last three (I wedged in five workdays somewhere in there), and most of this time has been dedicated to my husband and the three little people.  Heavenly, I tell you.  And the last reason is that I actually have been writing, quite a bit, but it's all super-secret-awesome stuff.  Not really.  It's for school, though, which means it is hopefully going toward my thesis, which is HOPEFULLY going to turn into a book.  

But before any of that can happen, I need to go yell at the circus animals hooting in the room above me.

Sigh. Okay. Threats of separation delivered.  I don't know why it is that they respond so well to this threat - I would think it a treat to get the whole room to one's self while the other one snuggles into my bed.  I like having the bed all to myself... once in a while.

I have the bed all to myself this weekend, a foretaste of things to come.  I admit I'm already panicking about Brandon's road trip days beginning again in August.  In fact, my heart rate just jumped a little.  It feels like summer is already over now that my vacation days are nearing an end and the MFA residency is approaching.  Before I know it, we'll be back to soccer games with an angry toddler and the husband out of the house half the week.

The quickened pace of life that will begin in a few short weeks makes me tired already.  I don't think I've had a long enough reprieve.  I don't want to feel like a single parent for half of the week again.  It is not easy.  

There are times, of course, when it isn't so bad.  A few weeks ago as Brandon worked to settle back into the full-time dad routine, every. little. thing. I. did. was. wrong.  Every thing.  Not wrong, but different from what he does, I should say.

"Did you put my water glass into the dishwasher, Gary?" he teased one morning after I had prepared breakfast, loaded the dishwasher, and cleared off the counter.  His dad, Gary, is known for the quick snatching and cleansing of the glassware, almost before your lips have left the rim of the cup.  I sighed.  "... The kitchen looks nice," he said with a smile, reaching to pinch my butt.

"When do you go back to work?!" I squeaked.  "Can't you call ESPN and ask them for work?"  This, after counting down the days until he was done with work for the summer.  This, after a mental breakdown this spring, after childcare challenges and scheduling conflicts and children who miss him and ME ME ME who missed him over and over again.  Go back to work, I said.  Leave me alone.

We laughed and squeezed each other.  "You have to stop critiquing everything I do, husband of mine. It's driving me bonkers."

I had gotten used to running things my way without Brandon around.  And then he was back, full-scale, with not much to distract him from the household and our children except the occasional round of golf and softball.  We had gotten out of step and in turn kept stepping on each other's toes as we did or did not take out the recycling, did or did not load the dishwasher, did or did not take Henry to the potty fifteen minutes or forty-five minutes after the last time he went.  

The trouble is now that we've worked out a few of these kinks, now that we've learned how to live together again, kinda, well, now he's going to go away again.  This is not the norm, this more laid back summer of temperate weather and short-distance road trips, of golf and barbecues and softball and boats and drinks with friends.

No, the norm is more like the last two days alone with the kids after Brandon left for the weekend to spend time with a friend.  The norm is me and my three little people eating pizza on a picnic bench at the park, walking across the lawn for ice cream, home in time for baths and bed.  The norm is me and my three little people on the couch for Saturday morning cartoons, the slow rise for scrambled eggs with cheese, and then a ride around northeast Ohio, to the tall ships in Cleveland with my mom, to the backyard swimming pool at my in-laws.  The norm is the long ride home with Henry sideways slouching in the backseat while the older two watch a movie and I seek through the stations for tunes I can sing to.  The norm is small feet stomping and giggles from the floor above me, empty threats of separation until they are quiet, sound asleep with feet and arms draped broadly across their beds.  The norm is this silent living room, the clicking of my fingernails on the keyboard, the flick of the paper as I turn the page on a memoir, the clock ticking past the time I'd go to bed if Brandon was here.

If Brandon was here, the Indians game would be on, and he'd be yelling at the TV or talking to the commentators about the last play or commenting on the job the stats guys are doing or laughing at the local evening news anchors.  If Brandon was here, the computer would be sitting on the floor charging, my book would be cast aside, and I'd be cradled between his chest and his arm, listening to the sounds of his stomach and heart (because if he had any of that pizza tonight, his stomach would have been talking louder than his heart).  We might be sipping whiskey (oh, who am I kidding, we would definitely be sipping whiskey) and listening to music, or maybe he'd be playing his guitar, or maybe none of that, maybe just us, alone in our living room, being husband and wife, occupying this space we've created together.

It is good when he is here.  It is good when he is gone.  Both are good.  In fact, when both are in their best gear, both are very good.

I don't always see it this way because I want both goods simultaneously and that isn't possible.  He cannot be here and not here all of the time, and if he was here and not here all of the time I would resent him for not being here when he is here.  You totally get that, right?

It is hard to learn how to balance this life.  How to make room for each other when we're together.  How to appreciate the space when we're apart.  How to shore up the foundation when the support beam goes missing.  How to lean into each other when the rain washes everything away.  How to be content - even when I want him near.  Even when I want him gone.  How to love deeply in every season.  It is hard.  But it is very good.

(That's what she said.)

The First Step Is Admitting You Have a Problem

"There is more to life than increasing its speed." - Mahatma Gandhi

I leave in the morning for my annual trek to the AWP Conference, this year in Boston.  I'm leaving with my homework done for this week, a packet submitted for the program, "spring break" for school waiting after the trip, four manuscripts formatted and sent to print in February, a grant written and almost submitted, all of the laundry in the house done, dishes washed, fridge stocked, living room and dining room vacuumed and clean, and all of my children healthy.  I've got my son home from Akron Children's Hospital after discovering a FREAKING KIDNEY STONE on Saturday.  A KIDNEY STONE.  In a FIVE YEAR OLD.  Why, Universe, Why?

I've also finished several glasses of wine.

My husband is supposed to fly in tonight from Baltimore to Cleveland, but it's delayed, hopefully not cancelled.  I need to leave the house at 5 a.m. to go to Boston from Cleveland.  If he's cancelled, he's arranged for a friend to come over to be with the kids so I can leave.  Which is helpful.  At least there's a contingency plan.

My eye won't stop twitching.  It's been doing it for weeks now, and it's really starting to drive me nuts.  I feel a little bit like Meryl Streep in It's Complicated, holding my eye lid up with my finger all day.

I need this trip, even though it is work and I have about fifteen different responsibilities while I'm there, I need this trip to try to regain some sanity, to try to slow down for just a second and not feel guilty for not doing something I should be doing.  Like right now, I should be putting the clean clothes away.  I should be sweeping the kitchen floor.  I should be reading through the school newsletter so that I know what's going on with Lydia's class.  I should know something about what's going on in my kids' school lives.  I shouldn't be blogging.  I shouldn't be whining.  I should just get over it, suck it up, like I've been doing, and stop making such a big deal out of it because it isn't a big deal, right, right?! RIGHT!?

Only I'm so tired.  I can't sleep, though, because if I sleep I'll dream about flies hatching from underneath my fingernails, like last night.  If I sleep, I'll miss my alarm and miss my plane.  If I try to go to sleep before I'm thoroughly worn out I will lie there and catalog whatever it is that is left to do on my to-do list that I'm ill prepared for or certain to forget about in the morning.  Better to Google, "How to know when you're having a nervous breakdown."  Better to watch Harry Potter #3 and drink another glass of wine and eat another piece of dark chocolate.

I want to quit everything.  I want to quit, to quit, to quit, burrow under my blankets and stay there until the Universe remembers that I am its center and it should do exactly as I tell it to, like we've discussed several times before, but noooooo, the Universe ignores me and does whatever the heck it wants.

I didn't work today because of the whole five-year-old-in-the-hospital-for-freaking-kidney-stones episode, which actually allowed me the space and time to reassemble the house that exploded on Saturday with unfolded/crumpled clothing and dirty dishes from Saturday from the dinner I made but didn't eat because of the kidney-stone-episode.

Let me pause in my ridiculous four-year-old tantrum that I'm throwing to tell you how incredibly grateful I am for so many friends and family members who came to the rescue with prayers and help with kiddos this weekend.  I don't know what I would have done without you.  Really.

And that's what it might boil down to, right there, that's what this all distills down to.  I know I'm not alone, but I feel so alone.  I don't want to ask for help because I'm always asking for help, but if I don't ask for help my eye twitches more and my heart starts to race and my hands start to shake and I start bawling my eyes out like I'm doing right now sitting in my kitchen sobbing like a four-year-old that's denied his ice cream cone.  I feel guilty for asking for help because I should be able to DO THIS, it isn't that hard, what's so hard about working and taking care of your kids and doing a little reading and writing here and there?  What's the big deal?  Why can't I keep it together?

I don't know what to give up or let go in order to regain some semblance of sanity.  And because I don't know what to give up, I want to quit it all, to say goodbye to work and to school, to retreat into my house and leave only to get my kids off to their respective schools, buy groceries, and go to yoga when I can because I need someone to remind me to breathe.  

But, like I've said a thousand times before on this blog, I am not a four-year-old who has been denied an ice cream cone.  I am a wife.  I am a mother.  I am a faithful employee.  I believe in my work and my family and my marriage and my God and my writing, and I know what I do is good and right, and I need to keep doing it, even though right now I'd like to curl into the cave.  This is what we do.  We keep on going.  It's only one really, really, really, long season.  It has to end sometime.

So, *deep sigh* I will finish this post, switch the last load of laundry, refill my wine glass, turn on something light and funny, or Harry Potter #3, and stop thinking for a while.  Whatever I forgot to pack can be purchased in Boston.  They actually have stores there, so no big thing.  And, if I do miss my alarm and miss my flight, hey, guess what, they fly more than one airplane to Boston.  Perhaps the hardest thing about this mini-mental-breakdown season of my life is that I know it isn't futile.  I know there's hope and an answer to the busyness, and I know that part of my problem is pride--I am proud of keeping this life balanced precariously on the edge of sanity.  Look at me, I'm doing it, I'm surviving!  But I don't want to just survive.  I want to thrive.  To live a life of contentment, as recommended by the good ol' Solomon in Ecclesiastes:

"Go then, eat your bread in happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works.  Let your clothes be white all the time, and let not oil be lacking on your head.  Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun.  Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going.  I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise nor wealth to the discerning nor favor to men of ability; for time and chance overtake them all.  Moreover, man does not know his time: like fish caught in a treacherous net and birds trapped in a snare, so the sons of men are ensnared at an evil time when it suddenly falls on them" (9:7-12)

Perhaps the only real crisis will be if I don't hurry up and refill this wine glass.

Tomorrow is a new day with its own worries, and thank God, thank GOD, THANK GOD His mercies are new every morning.  He is faithful, even if his faithfulness appears in my mind like Trace Adkins shaking his head and singing, "You're gonna miss this, you're gonna want this back, you're gonna wish these days, hadn't gone quite so fast, these are the good times, take a good look around, you may not know it now, but you're gonna miss this."  I am grateful for the myriad ways He has been merciful.  God, not Trace.  Although maybe Trace Adkins is also merciful, I don't know.

 

Sick Days

Know what I loved about today?  This morning after breakfast, I cleared the dining room table with my husband and loaded the dishwasher. "What time do you need to leave this morning?" I asked.

"Around 10," he replied.

Henry came in and tugged on my pantleg, "ILK? ILK?!"

"No, buddy, you already had two cups."

"OHHHHHH, Nooooooooooo!" Henry slow-melted to the floor.

Lydia and Elvis watched cartoons in the living room until Elvis needed to go to school, and Brandon drove him to Park Street.  When he came back, I was still working on dishes in the kitchen, hair pulled back in a pony tail, still in pajamas.  We small-talked through work-related issues, our schedule for babysitting the next few days, whether to take Lydia to the doctor for whatever cold she woke up with, and what I planned to make for dinner.  After a while, Brandon took a shower and I started a load of laundry.

Brandon left around 10 as planned.  Lydia and I played rummy in between loads of laundry while Henry watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  We picked Elvis up from pre-school and went to our pastor's house for a lunch meeting.  Lydia and Elvis watched a movie all afternoon while I made chicken soup and changed loads of laundry, never ending laundry.  When Henry woke up we went down into the basement and I watched Elvis and Henry play cars together while Lydia colored and I (wait for it) folded more laundry and read books for class.  Eventually we ate dinner, Elvis and Hank took baths, and the kids went to bed.  I'm writing this all now after indulging in an ice cream AND chocolate AND peanut butter sundae (so much for the Whole 30) and in the midst of loading the dishwasher and preparing to fold yet another load of laundry, occasionally checking Words with Friends for new games and my online discussion boards for new posts about my class.

I loved all of this.  I love that I didn't shower today (sorry, general public), that I spent the day with my sick daughter and toddler doing house-y stuff while also thinking about writing, reading essays, and watching my children be children.  I was present, if not always fully engaged.  I was home.

It ebbs and flows, this conflict between my desire to work full-time, which satisfies a drive to accomplish something and to contribute to a larger cause using the gifts and talents given to me, and the desire to quit and have days like this always, to simply be here when I'm needed instead of feeling torn between responsibilities of work and my sniffly daughter and traveling husband, and also the desire to sit down and write or read for class, which I am LOVING, by the way.  I have always enjoyed being a student, and being in the classroom again (albeit online) is a delight and feels a little indulgent, honestly.

If I could have the best of both worlds, I'd work 8:30-3 every day with a half-hour lunch, with the flexibility to work from home when necessary, and take a few weeks off each summer when my husband is also off.  I'd do exactly the same job or a slight variation of it, with the same enthusiasm and passion and excitement I have for my job now, with the added plus of not coordinating childcare every time my husband travels for work, simply doing the job from home that day.

Would that be so awful?  I'd be so less stressed all of the time!  Who invented the 40 hour work week anyway?  And wouldn't it be GREAT to have a relaxed morning, enough time to get the kids fed healthy breakfasts and carted off to school, maybe even (gasp) exercise or (whaaat?!) read through a devotional or passage of Scripture before the day gets rolling?

Enough whining.  I still love my job, in spite of its occasional burps and hiccups.  I'd just like a little more of my kids and a little less of my work.  That's all.

The Road Ahead: Fall 2012 Outlook

We had a great weekend with the kids here in Ashland, the last weekend before Brandon goes back on the road for football season.  It feels a little bit like a storm front is on the horizon. There's only a few more hours of daylight to soak up before hunkering down inside for the long night of lightning and thunder. 

It isn't that bad, really, it's just different from what we've been used to for the last three months or so. It's much faster paced, more scheduled, more demanding, more exhausting.  Summer is over.  I am taking deep breaths and long sighs; I am mentally stretching and flexing for the quickened pace.  I'm out of practice, haven't trained for the coming marathon. 

So tonight I went for a run after Elvis's late birthday party, after our parents left and the kids were bathed and ready for bed.  I didn't take my phone, didn't wear headphones, knew that if I ran through King Ridge and back toward campus it'd be about three miles or so, a solid 30 to 45 minutes.  I haven't run since July 9 but I figured if I took it slow enough I could make the distance. 

Sometimes I have to run without music in my head; it invites the kind of plodding out of thoughts and emotions and prayers that require pounding feet and even breaths, and as I rounded corners I welcomed the stream of conscious ponderings. 

I made some commitments to myself about exercise (before work), about date night (probably once every other week, maybe once a week), about how to handle the evenings when BW is out of town (friends and wine and when they aren't available, writing and books), and I made some concessions about time and weeknights.

Let's face it: turning thirty doesn't just mean I get to feel like the adult that I am a little bit more.  It also means I have three children who require, demand, and deserve my time and attention from 5 p.m. until they go to bed at 8 p.m., whether that means carting them off to soccer practice (which will take place four out of five weeknights the first few weeks-- gah!) or just skipping out on the temptation to commit to a dozen non-children oriented evening activities.

With Brandon leaving town Thursdays or Friday mornings and returning late Saturday or Sunday each week, I have to admit to a weight pressing down on my chest right now, a wearing down thinking about just me and the kids those days and nights.  I love the time I get to spend with them on the weekends, love going places and doing things with just the three of them, but I also know what it's like when it's all of us during the summer, when we're a less scheduled and stressed family unit.  And I know Saturday morning soccer standing in the cold wet with a toddler and a preschooler.  And I know packing up the kids for church and standing in the pew alone.  And I know family gatherings with me and the kids, taking pictures and sending them out to Facebook so he can see them.  I don't want him to go.  I miss my husband already and he's sitting eight feet away.

Now that I've finished throwing myself that little pity party, bawling and sobbing and causing Brandon to worry about his crazy little wife and her sudden eruption, let me say too how grateful I am for this work and that it is important for our family, financially and strategically, that he has this work and this schedule so one of us can be at home with the kids any time we're needed.  This is important and good for them, especially good for Henry, and maybe in a few years when he's in school things will be different, but until then, it's so great that Brandon can be here for Elvis and Henry during the day.  It's so great that we can both parent our children, even if it is in shifts.  It's so great to be able to work off some of the debt that we keep piling on and then chiseling away at.  It's so great to be blessed with jobs at all, let alone jobs we enjoy and are proud to do.

Running is a lot like writing, the outcome is unknown (exhausting or satisfying), both require an undistracted block of time, and both take you routes you might not have traveled otherwise.  Both always lead me home.

"Sow your seeds in the morning, and at night let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well." Somewhere in Ecclesiastes