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Kids

Kids

My daughters’ differences

March 20, 2015

 

As I watch the ladies in my home grow and transition, and bicker and prod, I realize with absolute certainty that my frazzled, thirty-something mind will never comprehend the ancient complexities of how two human beings, created by the same two human beings, can be so completely, drastically different. Hank and I are opposites, no argument there. It is frequently pointed out to me that the older two pull their dominant qualities from the maternal side, but it’s hard to tell with such a sprawling spectrum of genetic attributes in both directions.
JoJo is inquisitive. She worries and ponders and seeks the truth. She cries often, and asks about things that people my age don’t understand or only contemplate when they’re really, really stoned. She has concerns and she likes to direct action and take the lead when she feels comfortable.
Spike is my wild card. She, too, is emotional, but it’s more for dramatic effect and from frustration. She demands to be heard and she doesn’t have much patience for parenting. I don’t worry about Spike when it comes to friends or the pursuit of her dreams. I think all that girl needs is a compass and she’ll be on her way.
While I celebrate these beautiful, mystifying differences between my babies, they are often the culprits for our sibling domestic disputes. The girls are the only players in a tireless game of tug-of-war … the yin and the yang … the opposites that often don’t attract. They would move mountains both to defend each other and to defeat each other. The fights. The crazy, yelling, name-calling, remote-throwing, door-slamming fights. About whose turn it is, or who was telling the story, or who gets the green plate. It’s exhausting, but common. I’ll catch myself tiptoeing toward losing it before I plant my feet, take a beat and remind myself that my actions become their reactions. That sisters fight. That this is life in our house right now, and it looks like this sometimes in ours and all the other houses with little firecrackers running around.
But a shaken soda settles eventually, and bitterness dissolves with distraction. And that’s what I adore. It’s then I like to slow the narrative and commit it to memory. It’s in the moments when, unprompted or pushed, they hug, or tickle or have those amazing conversations when you turn your back and laugh from your heart, out through tiny tears in your eyes. And my soul feels so full and I think,
I love these little humans. And I love that they have each other. They talk about the planet and God and monsters. They solve the day’s problems and only ask for my confirmation at the very end. “Right, Mama?” Sometimes I correct them, and more often I let their little imaginations govern the day. Because, really, wouldn’t we all be a little better off with thoughts of smiling moons and horses named Kiyango at the front door?
I simultaneously dread how quickly the time will pass, and eagerly anticipate the day when Sloppy Joan joins her sisters at the kitchen bar. If my predictions are on point, she will be her father; the calming rhythm that steadies the noise. I’m sometimes wrong about these things, but I see a peace and joy in her little eyes that reminds me of the man I married, and also why I married him. And it’s reason No. 5,986 why I love her so much.
So, this post is dedicated to the slower, happier moments. To dancing to Beyonce’s “Girls” in the basement, and imaginative time playing mermaids in the tub. To saving each other from the top of the slide and falling asleep holding hands. To reuniting after school and smothering hugs. Here’s to my delightfully different, dynamic, amazing girls and the perfectly imperfect sisterhood they share.
Kids

Three for three

February 27, 2015

As the third born in my own family, I know the perks and pitfalls of being the baby better than anyone. Yes, the masses dote and fawn over your adorable little personality and thigh folds, but you also get two older siblings within earshot plotting your fall from favor. You get carried around for an obscene amount of time, but once they put you down, it’s all farts to the face and baby doll beheadings.

As we near Sloppy Joan’s 9-month mark in our family, I couldn’t help but notice the third-child tribulations are already turning up.

 


[1. I mean, who could blame JoJo? Those cheeks are just screaming for a squeeze.  2. This is an actual picture that sits on my desk. Spike was 2 by the time I finally set up professional family pictures and if I’m going for transparency here, it will likely be a few before that train pulls around again. Flashbacks of the desolate pages of my own baby book. For now, a dear friend provided a Post-it Sloppy Joan that makes me smile, and the group whole.  3. Ugh, older sisters. They never want to play with you and when they do, it always looks something like this.]

Kids

Then came Sloppy Joan.

February 23, 2015

 

Have you heard of six word stories? Literary legend claims the phenomenon began when Ernest Hemingway was challenged to write a memorable short story in six words. His read, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Boom. Genius. But in recent years, it’s become a thing. Smith Magazine has these amazing Six Word Memoirs and there are various tumblrs with similar content. It’s one of those down-the-rabbit-hole situations where you start reading with CBS Sunday Morning on in the background and stop when the kids ask for dinner. Anyway, I bring these up because our third little blessing is a three-word story: “hairy and happy.”

We always wanted three kids. Maybe it’s because we’re both children of three-sibling families, or because we have a four-bedroom house … It just always seemed like the “x” on our treasure map. When we told the older two that Mommy had a baby in her belly, Spikey said, without pause, “Let’s call it Sloppy Joan!” Like all nicknames, we should have known it had legs. About a week after the initial announcement, I made sloppy joes for dinner, thinking that was the connection. It wasn’t. And they didn’t eat them. I still don’t know what part of her brain served it up that night. 

I’ve never been a glowing, peaceful pregnant woman. I mean, unless “glowing” means sweaty and “peaceful” means paralyzed by weight and general lethargy. But as I came into the final turn and the homestretch in this, my (most-likely) final pregnancy, I suddenly wanted it to slow down. Realizing s/he would soon be here and then I’d blink and s/he’d be 3, I started baking a layer cake of anxiety. Of course wanting it to last longer sent me flying into labor.

JoJo was born on May 1, and Spike on August 1, so we joked that it would be convenient if Sloppy Joan followed suit on June 1. Unlikely though, we thought, considering my due date was the 8th.  June had a sunny start, and on the 1st we went to my niece’s birthday party. I floated in my brother’s pool for a solid 4 hours. I was a Killer Whale who’d finally been able to be weightless, thanks to the water. Every strained muscle had finally relaxed. At 10:30 that night I laid down and got a shooting contraction. “Ouch.” Five minutes later, another. Then five minutes after that, then three, three, three, three … “Shit!” There’s always that moment on the drive to the hospital, no matter how ready you are, when you think, “I really don’t want to do this,” referring to the human coming out of your body part.

I labored through the night to the tune of a Friends marathon on TVLand. A few quick pushes before the sun rose the next morning and she was here. The first time you set eyes on your child is such an out of body experience. With JoJo, it was like I couldn’t focus on her face. With Spike, I couldn’t comprehend that all that baby came out of me. And with Sloppy Joan it was the hair. Oh, the hair. She was our smallest, coming in at 7 lb. 8 oz. and only 19 ½ inches long, but I’m pretty sure that at least 1 pound of that was her generous dark mane.For reference, depending on your generation, I would liken her to either Dudley Moore or Harry Styles, respectfully. But oh my gosh, was she sweet.

And is sweet. Her smile can light up a bear cave. She’s never quick to cry and very accommodating with her “helpful” big sisters. But to those who don’t know her, the poor girl’s hair will always trump her delightful demeanor. Going to the grocery store on Tuesdays (Senior Citizen Day) was always the worst. “Oh. My. Goodness …” – here come the hands – “Would you look at all that …” – please, no – “I mean, have you ever?” – Get back, Grandma! “Seen such a head of hair?!” And then they would reach out and move the strands, already covering her newborn eyes, across her forehead. It was a weekly occurrence I found simultaneously heart-warming and stomach churning.The third time around is certainly charming. She is a joy and 8 months in, we’re finally getting out of the weeds. And, I mean, this face … c’mon …

 

Kids

Next came Spike

February 18, 2015

 

There are times it feels like our second daughter just dropped into our lives as a hilarious, button-pushing, booty-shaking, crazy-haired, firecracker of a 2 year old. That’s not to say I don’t remember the night she was born. You tend to recall when a doctor presents a 9-pound Thanksgiving turkey of a baby, tushy toward you. It’s more speaking to how her facetious, force-of-nature persona over the past few years has eclipsed any of her earlier work, including first words and moving on to solids.She was a pudgy, perfect chunk of a little lady, who, after coming into the world, folded her hands gently under her chin and looked at me, almost as if she were inquiring, “What now?” In just 18 months she would be walking proof that God does, indeed, have a great sense of humor, which He sometimes shares through tiny little messengers with sparkly brown eyes.

 

But first, the name. It began, I suppose, when the meager Mohawk she was born with stalled, and she was left with, for a very long time, a sparse, short strip of strands. Looking back on it now, more than 3 years after the fact, it’s hard to say who started it, but we began calling her Spike. Eventually, after those first follicles gave way to uncontrollable ringlets, it stopped being about her hair, and started being about her general demeanor.You see, Spikey only cuddles when she’s sick, and only says she loves you when you absolutely aren’t expecting it. She wiggles what her mama (me) gave her often, and always to the beat of her own drum. And while the Lord dealt her stubbornness in spades, she’s even more blessed with wit. The kid is funny, man. She’s known, all along, when people are laughing with her and how to work the crowd. She has clown sauce running through her veins, and I’ll be the first to admit, it’s been her saving grace on more than a few occasions where her unwavering will met me at the end of long work day.

Her self-soothing strategy consists of rapidly moving her head back and forth, as if delivering repetitive flashes of a firm and insistent “no” to whoever looks on. A signal that she’ll soon be asleep, the ritual also results in the most matted, bird’s nest of a mane you’ve ever seen. I liken it to a ball of tangled Christmas lights, fresh out of the attic. But her, she’s declared it her signature look. “Leave it crazy, Mama,” she says. “You know, I like it when it’s wild.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kids

First came JoJo

February 14, 2015

When we got married in 2007, my husband told me he was ready for children whenever, but did not want me to tell him when we were “trying”. No special look, no secret code word, no headstands immediately following. He, “didn’t need that kind of pressure.”

As a magazine journalist living in the mega-not-really metropolis of Indianapolis, I would repeatedly deliver, with a big-city-girl, matter-of-fact flair, a rehearsed monologue in which I denounced the idea of motherhood for at least a year. I needed to focus on my career, enjoy being married, and all that other newlyweds jazz. Naturally, this meant I was pregnant by July, just 10 months after the wedding. I don’t know, it just all of the sudden seemed like a good idea.

Of course, as soon as I saw that conspicuous plus sign staring back at me on not one, not three, but six pregnancy tests, I was terrified at the magnitude of the impending upheaval. Hank was out of town when I found out, so I took a handful of primary-colored Planned Parenthood condoms left over from college and taped them to our bedroom door with a sweet little note from “the bean” to him. It was a list of requests, really. To console him/her when monsters lurked and teach them to be strong, like him. At some point I fell asleep, and woke up to a nervous, crooked smile about 2 inches from my face. “Is this real or, did you get a puppy or something?”

On the night I went into labor, Violet was attacked by a maniac on Private Practice. I was sprawled across my bed, a sunburned Beluga whale, eyes wide open as the unrealistically calm doctor instructed the psychopath how to cut the baby out of her womb (I really hope you’re following this, or else it just sounds terrifying), when my water broke. At 11:20 the next morning I was bearing down under a spotlight that stole the last of my humility, while the rest of the people in the room watched The View between contractions. One minute my doctor was declaring her distaste for Joy Behar and the next, an 8 pound 2 ounce human joined us in the room. It was a girl (a surprise for us) and she arrived looking wise and worrisome. In a fourteen-hour period, I’d gone from watching a baby come into the world, to watching my baby come into the world. I was a mom.

Since we didn’t know the sex of our sweet arrival, we went in with four contenders; two boy names and two girl names. When little Miss showed her precious round face, we were down to two choices. I knew what I wanted, but Hank needed to study her a bit. Frenzied and wired with all the moxie of a freshly minted father, he took off for the nursery, only to return 5 minutes later. “Well?” I poked. “What do you think?” He placed a thumb under the prominent part of his chin and rubbed under his bottom lip with his other four fingers. “See, they all have the same hat on, and …” We had been parents for 2 hours, and now sat together nervously smiling at the sobering realization we couldn’t pick our baby girl out of a pool of her similarly swaddled peers. It was a blow.

The next day Hank left for a bit. He came back with a flowering plant for me, and a small clear vase with a suction cup on it for the baby. It attached to the side of her small, clear crib and cradled a single yellow rose. The nurses gushed and cooed. How cute … her daddy wanted to be the first man to get her a flower. But we knew the truth. We knew those sunny petals were a beacon for picking our little chubby-cheeked chick out of the crowd. Maybe not our proudest achievement as “Mom” and “Dad”, but it was our first, and so it must be mentioned here for posterity.

 

Almost as soon as she could talk, she began referring to herself as, “JoJo”, an epithet inspired by her middle name. And so it’s stuck, for 5 beautiful years.