Right Where We Need To Be

Last week on the Honest Mom Instagram feed I posted a photo about not wanting to wallow in anymore sadness from the bad news that seems to be hitting our family from every angle. We unplugged from everything that night and drank orangeritas--heavy on the tequila--and made a dinner that we typically reserved for December holidays that made our house smell like home and familiar while a thunderstorm rocked the trees outside our house and I hoped that this little life storm would pass quickly. Reid put on goggles and danced his pants-less self around the family room with a pirate sword in hand and I let myself laugh from a place that wasn't anticipating the next piece of sadness.

But like this year has been, it found us again on Friday, and I began to wonder if this house we moved into not even a year ago was cursed. Did we pick a house that was full of rotten karma? Did we pick a spot in the world with a permanent gray cloud over it? And yeah, I blamed the house, because...Because!!

I spent the weekend with our neighbors--yard working, happy houring, brunching, laughing, crying, hugging; and I spent it with my momma friends--birthday partying, snow cone eating, nose wiping, band-aid applying; and I spent it with those extra special twenty-plus-year-long friends--coffee drinking, belly laughing, reminiscing, story-telling--and I had the most wonderful epiphany that I so desperately needed:

We are exactly where we need to be, bad year or not, placed just so because of the people that are nearby, that we share the life with.

I'm getting a lot of comfort from that.

Life and storms and dancing in the rain and blah blah blah--that's all grand to do by yourself, but who's going to hold your hand and do it with you? Who hands you the umbrella and the Wellies and finds the biggest puddles and brings the wireless Bose speaker with the pre-made iTunes thunderstorm soundtrack?

I need these people, and I'm feeling oh-so-grateful not just for them, but for this new mindset of weathering the storm with them.

-Kristin

Mamabird Builds a Nest

My husband, Greg, and I are both from Cincinnati but have been living in Washington, D.C. for the past five years. We tend to take advantage of the holidays as an opportunity to return to our hometown, to see our families, and to eat our favorite local grub (it’s usually impossible for us to get enough Skyline Chili into our bellies). 

When we go home, like we did a few weeks ago for Easter, we stay at the house my mother built. She didn’t really build it, not from the ground up anyway, but she took the bones of an old home, polished them, painted them, and made them new again. My mother, the architect, sculpted this home into her likeness so that whenever I walk through the door, it’s like I’ve stepped into her skin. 

Coming home—and it will always be home—is both comforting (like an old, holey sweater) and difficult (like parting with that old, holey sweater). She had designed it for parties and loud voices; for her kids and grandkids to move in and out of the back sliding doors in summertime; for the kitchen, the wide-open kitchen, to be filled with the scent of her cooking. 

When we come home—and it will always be home—when I push that front door open, it’s the quiet, the sound of a home unused and untouched, that breaks my heart. 

So on our recent visit, I asked Greg if we could host his family at my parent’s house for Easter this year. I wanted a chance to give back to his brother and sisters, who have always been so generous with their time and their homes during the holidays, welcoming my family through their front doors as if they’d known us forever. 

I didn’t cook. But I over-ordered food, a ham, sides and appetizers and snacks. We spread it all out on the island in the kitchen, the island my mother designed based on how large a slab of unbroken, seamless granite she could bring through the door (or, in the actual case, by crane, through the yet-to-be-built roof). 

We hid plastic eggs out back filled with jelly beans and chocolate for my two, sweet, blond-haired nieces. My mom always wanted a blond grandbaby—we’ll see whose genes, my swarthy Lebanese ancestry, or Greg’s fair-haired, fair skinned heritage, win out. The girls, in their matching green Easter dresses, moved in and out of the back sliding doors, in and out of a perfect Spring day, giggling, looking for all 36 plastic eggs, placing them in a cream-colored basket. 

A day before this Easter lunch, Greg was standing in the laundry room at the front of the house looking out the window.

“Hey, Yaz, did you see the mamabird?”

“What mamabird?” I asked, making my way to where he stood. 

I peered over his 6’5” frame. A bird, gray and black, had built a nest just outside the window, her body covering what we suspected were her eggs. Mamabird was watching over brood. 

The day of the Easter lunch, I called out to my nieces. 

“Hey, girlies! Did you see the mamabird?” 

They scampered over, their feet hitting the hardwood floor, their voices filling the room. 

Mamabird was still there, poised and frozen over her nest. 

Watching the girls watch the bird, I thought of my mom and the home she had built. 

Mamabird, poised and still, watching over us all as we used her home as she would have wanted it used, breaking the stillness with voices and footsteps, too much food, slammed sliding doors, and bubbly, infectious, giggly, bird-watching, Easter egg-hunting laughter.

-Yaz

A Less Frizzy February

I like to torture myself by playing back the things I have said to my kids. I lie in bed at night and run through my one-woman rage production:

It’s not time to wake up—no. You need to get some more rest...Well then just lie there with your eyes closed! 

Do NOT give that dog Cheerios!

Stop rubbing your hand in that!

Are you kidding me? Hold your cup up and down! You spilled everywhere!

You want it open? Okay, bring it here. Closed? Here, please. Open? <grumble> Seriously?! Nope. Putting this away now.

NO! We are going to paint! It is going to be fun. God! Why are you whining?! YOU wanted to paint!

No. NO! Stop trying to run over your fur-sister!

Sit on your fanny! Sit! DOWN!

Monkey! Knock.It.Off. You are just looking for a reason to cry. Stop crying!

Eat! Stop talking—just eat. Please. EAT!

Please, Sassafrass, stop turning on your toys and walking away! Too loud!

Sit up! Stop pushing back!

Please! Mom just needs a minute! A minute!

Take a deep breath. CALM DOWN!

<banging on kitchen window> STOP! Did you just eat poo?! (Don’t worry--that’s directed at one of the four-legged children.)

I’ve never been into the sappy, sentimental love. I prefer romantic comedies with a bit of angst and slapstick to sweeping sagas with sinking-ships and bared souls. As a control freak, I wrote our wedding vows and poured over books and poems looking for quotes and readings that balanced the romance of marriage with my less-than-flowery worldview. My favorite was from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.” Not the least bit fluffy—lovingly pragmatic I’d like to say.

In my family, Thanksgiving is a time to eat good food and drink bourbon slushies.  We have never gone around the table and shared what we’re grateful for. Thanksgiving’s proximity to Christmas causes me to ratchet up for the holidays instead of pausing to reflect. Don’t get me wrong, we aren’t unzipping our pants and picking our teeth with turkey cartilage, we’re just enjoying each other’s company without actually voicing how thankful we are for it.

Growing up, Valentine’s Day was always a welcome break in the slushy Ohio winter. I always disliked February: the high of the holidays had completely worn off and the promise of warm weather was too distant. I looked forward to Valentine’s Day because my mom would always have a wrapped gift waiting for us on our chair at breakfast.  It wasn’t the gift that mattered so much; it was my mom’s attention to what would brighten my gloomy month. A new sweatshirt in third grade to boost a pilled wardrobe that needed to stretch for another few months. A new set of Lip Smackers in seventh grade to refresh my dwindling collection gathering lint in my backpack. Bags of homemade cookies sent every year to my college mailbox. Thoughtful, practical gifts to show us we were loved…but no teary proclamations.

I decided this year, that I am going to start a new tradition for myself. This isn’t a Pinterest tradition that necessitates cream of tartar or Xanthum Gum, but rather a day to flip my daily script. I am going to take this holiday of love and inject a little grateful-turkey-talk. My mom used Valentine’s Day to give me a boost during the gray winters, and I want to try to do the same for myself.

So many days I review my “mom script,” and I am not proud of what comes out of my mouth. I wince when I relive some interactions with my kids, and I feel like it’s worse in the wintertime. We are trapped indoors and growing weary of our confines.

I read somewhere that parents should speak to their kids like they are being filmed and someone else is going to see the footage. Well, I would rather eat the stuff I wipe out of restaurant high chairs than be forced to see video of my cranky and snarky fits. I’ve caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror a few times when yelling at Monkey about not unrolling the toilet paper all over the floor—not pretty. Does screaming at my kids make my hair frizz or is it always that bad?

So, ­instead of beating myself up about the nagging and snapping and squawking, I am going to replay the sweet things my kids do this February 14th. Even on our worst days, one of them will do something that makes me want to cry with joy/take a picture/ hug them until they are flailing for freedom. When I obsess over my mistakes, I can forget those little things.

Mom- we da best family.

Awwwww <as Sassafras nuzzles one of our exceedingly-patient Labs>

Mom, Handy Manny would say this dinner deliciso! (After he’s gagged over the mushrooms.)

My spunky little girl looking me square in the eye and beaming while she puts a soggy Teddy Graham in my mouth—gifting me one of her most prized possessions.

We havin’ a good day mom. (Even when we most definitely are not.)

My sweet daughter flirting with me in Target, daring me to tickle her in that spot under her jaw that makes her squeal and crumple into a ball.

Awwww, Sass, you juss needa take a deep breath.  It’s okay sister--we almost home.

My dogs leaping on Monkey’s bed at the end of the night for story time…and the poo-breath is barely noticeable.

Yes, I think I see my hair smoothing already...

-Elizabeth

The Lingering Holiday Hangover

We're well into January now. And that can only mean one, glorious thing — the holidays are officially O-VERRRRRR! (Belted out just like Oprah.)

Hip, hip freakin hooray... with a cartwheel and fireworks and silly string.

Call me Grinch. Call me heartless. Call me odd. But this past Christmas season just about knocked the sense, sanity and patience out of me.

Like most of you, my family didn’t stop moving since before Thanksgiving. We first held a baptism for Graham (16 months), and then my beautiful sister came into town for turkey day. Then more visitors and meals and gatherings and cutting down a tree all Clark Griswold-style, and then enjoying the lights at the zoo — all within one brief weekend. Then there was the shopping (mostly online), wrapping, eating, traveling, congregating, celebrating a baby shower, more eating, crying, whining, melting down, peeing on the couch. I think I accomplished the most crying myself.

Within 10 days alone, we celebrated Christmas six different times at six different homes. And stuffed our faces at every single one.  

During all the hoopla, no one really slept...and we drove for hours...and it snowed a lot and got really stupid cold. At one point someone forgot her purse after a family visit hours from home, so we had to turn around and drive back to get it. Oops. Brian (baby daddy) mightily refrained from making any snarky comments. Hey, at least I didn't forget a kid or an animal.

Really, it was a great Christmas. Honestly. Much better than last year when I was postpartum and wanted to smack each person for simply being alive and happy (hormones are very discriminating). But this year, we eagerly visited family we hadn’t seen in years, held new babies, learned of pregnancies and upcoming adoptions, and received the most adorable holiday photo cards in the mail. The “husky one” finally started to walk. And to watch Cormac “Mac” (3.5 years) and Graham (yes, the husky one) light up at every twinkling light and wrapped gift and sugar-filled, gluttonous treat was, well, pretty joyful.

And sometimes even tearful. It really does all go by so fast.

I tried to take it all in. To enjoy the brief moments of wonder and excitement and smiles, but it’s so hard when most moments are taken up with taking care of others. As moms, we first plan, prepare and pack, and then we drive to our destination or have everyone arrive at our own home, never with enough time to spare. And then we’re either stuck in the kitchen all day or we spend every moment ensuring the kids aren’t using makeshift weapons against each other.

Or in our case, aren’t tipping over one of Grandma Shirley’s 13 antique hutches full of vintage china. She and the Mister literally live in an historic home, and on Christmas Eve there were eight children, five and under, jumping on their beds, getting into their pill drawers and playing with glass collectibles from the early 1900s. The woman has six grown children of her own, so she barely batted an eye at the commotion and craziness. God bless her.

The fact is, it’s hard to find the time to truly enjoy the small moments. Because there is always something to do. Some disaster to avert. Some nasty foreign substance to wipe off a hand. Someone to pick up and carry into another room because they keep swirling their arm around in the toilet.

But I do try.

Although, there were some moments I didn’t mind rushing by quickly so I could forget them. Like Roxy dog (6 years) eating all of Mac’s Christmas lunch and subsequently puking it back up on the dining room floor. Or turning 35 years old, a week before Christmas, with a horrid cold and lost voice. Or Brian shattering a framed 5x7 of Grandma Jean during the most insane game of “link your arms and dive for the gift in the LA Gear box” I’ve ever witnessed.

Oh, and this past festive season Mac started to “cry wolf” by acting like he was sick with various ailments, from his stomach hurting to his back itching to his legs aching. He seriously acts like he is dying while laying in a heap on the floor. All in efforts to get out of whatever I ask him to do (or eat) so that he can go back to playing.

#hesagenius

#itworkedthefirstfewtimes
#imasucker

*Sigh*

But all is said and done now. It’s over. (Hallelujah.) We have a few blurry photos and dark videos from the past few months. There is some documentation on Facebook and Instagram, and of course we have our Christmas card to remind us of our mindset this past value-packed season:

“Let’s not take life too seriously... except for family and pizza.”

 And I definitely need a few more good pizzas to help me get over this lingering holiday hangover.  

-Melissa