Family First

 So, I've been thinking about this post for a while now.  It's about my family.  Not the one I created but the one that created me.  I miss them.

They live right down the road and we are very very close.  They are super supportive of me, my husband and our children, they are always there for me, they call me all the time, and I see each of them at least once a week when they aren't traveling.  So, how is it that I can miss them so much?
Here's how:  my life is 150% consumed by the family I've created.  Literally everything I do morning 'til night revolves around my husband, my three kids, and my dog.  Which is awesome in a lot of ways because without a shadow of a doubt -- I am ALL IN.  I will not look back at this time in my life and have any regrets or missed opportunities.  I will never say I was being pulled in a million directions and could never give childrearing my full attention.  There will be no regrets of having missed anyone's first steps or first words.  I was there.  I've been the person to help them learn to walk, to talk, to sooth themselves, and more recently I am now the center of their universe in learning right from wrong (otherwise known as "good job!" and "don't ever do that again!"  My relationship with my husband has gone from planning the occasional night out or vacation together while negotiating different work schedules, travel schedules, and our combined finances to spending close to 100% of our time within the four walls of our home and negotiating things like how best to load the dishwasher, what's for dinner, where are my socks, and how are we going to split up the night feeds.

I don't work -- so I can't even say that I'm also forced to share a part of myself within the larger workforce.  I don't have "work" friends anymore or colleagues to lunch with and/or dish about current events.  Now wait -- that's not entirely true, I do have colleagues that I lunch with -- it's just they have awful table manners, speak in extremely loud voices, they never pick up the tab (or anything else for that matter) and the conversation is usually extremely repetitive and one-sided.  They NEVER ask me what I think about anything. They just talk at me.  They are adorable, yes -- but mentally they tend to be more mind numbing than brain stimulating if you catch my drift.

So, back to my family.  How can they be such an integral part of my day-to-day or week-to-week and I can still miss them so much?  Unlike my former work colleagues, they never "stopped" working with me.  My parents and my brother are still very much a part of the job I do.  They give me solid advice when I need it, they give me constructive criticism when I ask for it, they cheer me up when I'm down, and they laugh, love and celebrate my successes and the successes of my kids and my husband.  It sounds like a perfect relationship doesn't it?  That's because it is.  The imperfection lies within me and within the imbalance that comes with being 150% consumed by ANYTHING -- work, a relationship, kids -- whatever it may be.  For me it's my kids right now and getting our family up and off the ground these last three years.

Almost every interaction I have with myself or with anyone around me is about my kids.  From little things like "can you pass me that burp cloth" to "can you take Haven and Ronan to the zoo while I nap with the baby?" to "can you find me a used basketball hoop or a pink booster seat the next time you're out shopping?" to big things like can you move in with us after my daughter with the heart condition isborn to to provide extra support we will need to forge ahead through the unknown of both having our first child, and having our first child be very sick.  It's been all about the kids.  All of the time.

I used to sit down and have dinner with them.  We used to grab the occasional drink together and talk about the news, our different jobs, our friends, our extended family, or travel plans for Thanksgiving or Christmas.  Not anymore.  Now it's just texts and voicemails about dropping shit off that I need, babysitting the kids, checking in on me to see how I'm "managing" everything, and hearing about holidays and travel plans that don't necessarily involve me and my growing, impossible-to-travel-with-right-now brood.

If we do get the off chance to talk about current events or family -- I am either half listening because I'm too tired to even shift my focus to something outside of my everyday wash-rinse-repeat with the kids, or I am so out of the loop on family stuff I have to spend most of conversation asking them to remind which cousin they are talking about, or I have to admit half way through a semi-interesting current events story that I have the news DVR'd but I'm three weeks behind on the evening news so if it's happened in the last several days, I don't know about it yet.  I'm even behind on the weather.  When you find out you are the last person to know about the weather, you know things have gotten pretty bad.

They bring me meals because I can barely get around to cooking.  They come over and garden or build me a shed  -- because while I must admit I do occasionally make it outside with all three kids to hang in the backyard -- I sure as hell don't have time to tend to our own garden or find storage for all our accumulating kid crap.  Every last thing they interact with me around is not only about the kids -- it's about bailing me out.  I just don't contribute anymore.  Not because I'm an asshole -- more just because I don'thave anything to bring right now to the"metaphoric" table -- except for the amazing children I have created who I have to logistically bring to almost every literal and actual table I am ever invited to sit at -- and as cute and as wonderful as they are -- it's always a shit show of managing behavior and trying to force feed vegetables while trying not to spill anything liquid all over the place -- all while I'm breastfeeding instead of eating myself.

I get so much sympathy from my family.  If it's not looks of "gee, Molly -- I don't know how you do it" it's actually verbalized comments they make to me like -- "well, you can only do the best you can, and you are doing a hell of a job, honey."  Which believe me, is like music to my ears when I am second guessing everything I'm doing or am just so damn tired I don't even know which end is up anymore.  And while they are always the first three people to sing my praises -- they also have a front row seat to view the worst of my parenting, too.

Knowing that my parents made the decision to only have two kids, and I have now gone into uncharted territory with three -- they can look at how physically, emotionally, and financially strapped I am and even my brother can feel a little bit like, well you did bring this on yourself -- you chose to have this family -- you're going to have to man-up and deal.  Which I am.  And they would be the first to defend the fact that I am.  We make this choices in our lives and we have to stand by them.  I definitely stand by my choices to have this family.  I just get sad sometimes about the consequences, I guess.

Unfortunately, parenting isn't one of those things where you ever feel like you are functioning at your optimal level.  You don't randomly wake up one morning, three years in and three kids later saying, you know what?  This week I am definitely operating at the top of my game!  Instead it's fundamentally embarrassing and down right upsetting when your family (or let's just also add the loving husband into this argument for kicks) "helps" you out by taking the kids for an overnight, or out for a walk, so you can rest or "recharge your battery" -- and they STILL come back to a disheveled, frazzled, tired, wreck.  I feel bad about that.  I feel bad that one part relief doesn't always equal two parts refreshed.  It's hard to EVER feel refreshed inside this long haul.  No matter how much help you get, no matter how many compliments, or reassuring comments, or random pats on the back -- even after HELP has arrived and taken over -- you still somehow look like you're about five minutes from spontaneously combusting into a pile of dust on the kitchen floor.

But it's frustrating for me on a personal level that my relationship with my mother, my father, and my brother have changed so much since I started having kids.  All of our conversations are short.  Or interrupted.  Or about the kids.  Or about help that I need.  Or about something I can't figure out how to do without their help.  Or me just asking them to talk about themselves and the amazing things that are going on in their lives, with their friends or at their jobs because I don't have any of that to share with them anymore.  It's a consequence of becoming a parent I completely did not see coming.  I feel like I've had to trade in my own family to have a family of my own.  I miss them.  And as cliche as it is for a stay-at-home mom to say over and over again....I miss me.

And I know, I have a newborn right now, and I'm in it to win it and currently knee deep in breast milk and mustard colored shit.  I have enough experience this time around to remind myself that once again, in time, things will eventually get better -- but the thing about having kids later in life is that you don't really know how much time you have left with your own parents.  Now, jesus, it's not to say that both of my parents have one foot in the grave or that my 32 year old brother is going to kick the bucket anytime soon.  But holy crap have I had to let go of something I loved SO MUCH in having a close relationship with my family in order to start a family of my own and I guess I really and truly do regret that piece of it.  I miss MY family.  My family of four.  I don't want to reemerge from this "young kids" time of my life to one or both of my parents not being as "active" anymore or just generally unable to for a variety of reasons to do some of the stuff we've always been able to do together as a foursome.  And by the time I do reemerge from this -- my one and only sibling will be underwater with his own wife and kids.  So what will that relationship be like after all these years of me being underwater?

Maybe this is just a feeling of wanting to stop the clock a little bit that we all go through as we reach middle age or almost 40 or whatever the hell you want to call it.  Maybe it's a side effect of having chosen to stay at home with my kids -- knowing that given the option tomorrow to return to work, or lunch with my colleagues or go on vacation with my family --  I would probably have to say no -- partially because I don't know how I could EVER go back to the person I was before kids and partially because I know as hard and as isolating as this is right now -- I only have this one chance to put 150% into this stay-at-home-mom-gig-- because the second they are grown up -- they'll go through something like what I'm going through now -- a pulling away from the original family.  Guess it all comes full circle in a way.

I guess, I just needed to get this off my chest.  And since my actual chest is currently engorged engaged, yet again, in the extreme sport of of both breastfeeding and pumping -- I had to throw this up on this here blog rather than carry the additional weight around on top of the three little monkeys I have hanging off my every limb already :)

And Baby Makes Five

A lot has happened since my June 23rd post and as to be expected it's been a little hard to get on the computer and reflect on just how much has transpired since coming up for air after Haven's surgery.  On July 20, 2013 we welcomed Tommy into the world and here's a brief of summary of how that all came about over the past two months and how we got to being a family of five this go around.

• The last two weeks of June, Haven got a special ed placement based on her heart condition and some of her gross motor delays and was assigned to an integrated classroom at a Boston Public School.  My little three year old, just two months out from open heart surgery, commuted across the city on a school bus to her pre-k classroom from 8am-3pm for the last two weeks of June.  Words cannot express how mind blowing it was for both Brian and I to see her recover so fast and then try something so new and so grown up in just two short months.  She loved it.  She'd get on the bus everyday and I'd lift her into her bus seat (which looked enormous in comparison to her little body), she had her little backpack with her, never cried a single tear, only waved and smiled and looked so proud of herself, and so excited for this new adventure.  She is nothing short of amazing.  She is such a tough kid, so willing to try to new things, so social, and trusting of new experiences (likely because of everything she has had to endure), and feeling as good as she does with this new circulation of hers -- she was READY to get out of the house and go learn, and run, and play with other kids.  Putting her on that bus everyday and watching her wave back at me with her head barely reaching above the window and watching her venture off into the world already...well?  It was crazy.  Made me crazy proud and crazy wowed.  "She's going to be ok" I'd tell myself as the bus pulled away with my precious cargo in it and I would walk back alone into the house without her and then I would think no...she IS ok.  My kid, who has been through so much, is ok.  It's really and truly finally going to be ok.  

Here she is eating her breakfast on the front steps waiting for the bus to pick her up.

• Having Haven in school gave me some much needed one-on-one time with my little man, Ronan.  Knowing that Baby #3 was a mere six more weeks away before Ronan was shoved into middle-child status.  Those last two weeks in June gave me the opportunity to spend some really awesome quality time with Ronan.  Without Haven.  Now, I love Haven more than words -- but that's just the thing -- she says about 300 words a minute, is an unbelievable chatterbox (not surprisingly if you've met me or Brian) and so Ronan can easily get crowded out given that he doesn't walk or talk as much as she does.  At 21 months -- this kid was SO frustrated with the fact that he doesn't have the walking down and he cannot for the life of him come up with any other words besides basketball, hockey, baseball or soccer ball to describe anything.  I'm not kidding.  He would try to tell me he wanted an orange and kept saying "basketball" over and over and over again until tears were streaming down his face with frustration.  It is true that basketballs and oranges do look somewhat alike -- but this poor kid literally can ONLY describe things through the lens of sports balls.  He is all Brian.  I can barely identify the name of the right ball with the right sport.  And it makes me laugh that I gave birth to a kid who is so sports centric when I know literally next to nothing about sports.  But the limited sports vocabulary combined with only being able to scoot or "walk" on his knees made our scared one-on-one time a little challenging for both of us.  He is so clearly ready and desperately wants to walk but he's just not  there yet and therefore he is SO FRUSTRATED.  And honestly, being 9 months pregnant -- I'm pretty much frustrated all the time too.  So the end of June and most of July was a little brutal on the Ronan front.  If sports are literally the center of your universe....you can only shoot hoops and dribble from your knees for so long before having a nervous breakdown.

 
So, I'll be honest....as awesome as this video is (let alone the fact that he always scores when she shoots...literally almost every time -- and yes, I realize he is dribbling a baseball or softball or whatever it's called) it doesn't quite capture the frustration Ronan has been going through while transitioning into a toddler.  Let's just say these were not Ronan's best months as a human.  I'd like to say he beautifully emerged from his cocoon of babydom into a gorgeous butterfly -- but it was more like a scene from the exorcist watching this metamorphosis happen.  I called him an asshole in my head more than once.  I did.  I admit it.  I absolutely hate the developmental transition into walking and talking.  I might be outing myself as a terrible parent here -- but I gotta be honest -- trying to be an active (let alone positive) participant in helping your child become a walking and talking human is nothing short of excruciating.  There is hardly anything you can do to help them.  They just have to work it out, on their own and in their own time.  That could take two weeks or 12 weeks.  And it's just not practical or safe to wear earplugs all day long while minding children.  Here's a PG video of Ronan being slightly miserable during this transition.  The rated R videos that I keep in the vault I would rather not share for fear of social services taking him away from me for how poorly I handle this stage of parenting:

Thankfully, fast forward six weeks later and Ronan has made incredible strides -- he's talking, he's walking -- he's so much more content, happy, and totally not an asshole anymore.  He has transitioned to the other side and is literally the cutest most adorable almost two year old money can buy.  He is simply wonderful and we are LOVING this new little man in our lives and just want to eat him up he's just so damn perfect....see for yourself.

But getting here was a bumpy ride.  That's for damn sure.

And guess what?  We get to do it all.over.again.  Because we have another human being to raise and help make it through all these same transitions.

His name is Tommy and he arrived two weeks earlier than we expected.  Not in the "oh-my-god-my-water-just-broke-I-think-I'll-call-the-neighbors-and-take-a-cab-to-the-hospital-and-birth-this-one-myself-since-it's-my-third-and-it'll-probably-just-fall-right-out-of-me-in-the-cab-on-the-way-to-the-hospital-anyway" type arrival I was expecting.  Oh, no.  Instead, I show up at my 37 week appointment, find out I haven't gained any weight in like a month, the baby is fine but my placenta might be "getting old" (seriously, I think that's literally what they said me -- the doctor straight up disrespected my old ass placenta right to my face in the doctor's office) and said --- while the baby is probably fine at this point it's better "out than in" and we're going to have to schedule you for an induction.

Awesome.  Okay -- so what like next week I'll come in for an induction? (secretly giving me time to start pushing when the kids aren't looking and try to go into labor on my own).  Ummm, no.  Like tomorrow.  We want you to come in tomorrow for your induction.  Oh boy.  So, I gotta call my husband and tell him we're going to have a baby by the weekend?  Yes.  You should call him.  We'll see you back here tomorrow night to start the induction.  Jesus.  It's game time.  We're going to be a family of five sooner than we planned.

Ugh.  On the one hand it was a good thing that I could make arrangements for the kids, get my shit together for  the hospital which - who am I kidding -- if I didn't have time to gain weight during the entire nine months of the pregnancy -- you can imagine I didn't exactly have a bag packed for the hospital even though I was full term and 37 weeks.  So, I guess a healthy diet of string cheese, goldfish, and a grand total of about 16 prenatal vitamins that I barely remembered to take over the course of the entire pregnancy didn't really put me at a healthy pregnancy weight, eh?  Hmmm, that's so fascinating.  I thought our bodies were meant to do this stuff?  Poor kid is probably starving in there let alone trying to survive off the grandmother of all placentas hobbling around on a cane inside my uterus.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I was a little worried for the baby.  Especially after everything I'd been through with Haven.  I sure hope the baby IS actually ok.  I hope the reason I'm so small and didn't gain weight doesn't mean there is actually something wrong with the baby that they can't see.  But given during Haven's pregnancy I was eating freakin kale, and flax seed, and drinking organic water for christ sake and she came out with half a heart -- I can't assume that I  completely screwed this kid's chances because of my far less healthy lifestyle due to chasing two toddlers around was going to make or break this pregnancy.  So I have to assume everything is going to be fine and just accept the fact that I have to be induced.

It probably won't take long anyway.  They'll just give me that cytotec pill thingamajig and I'll have the baby in like three hours.  Having had a natural child birth with no meds in 2010 and again in 2011 -- I sure has hell can get the job done here in 2013.  I'm a pro at this point, right?  Who's with me?!?!?

Just another lesson in things NEVER turn out how you think they are going to when it comes to labor and delivery -- or hell, I guess in life in general at this point.  Multiple rounds of cytotec 36 hours later I still hadn't had the baby.  I was exhausted.  Meanwhile, Brian was getting the hospital version of a resort vacation.  I mean, when in the last three and half years have we been anywhere without the kids for 36 hours where the main task was to get as much rest as possible before active labor started and to order room service every 4-6 hours for our meals.  I mean, even for me -- as exhausting as the induction was -- this was as close to a vacation as we'd had since we got married.  Sad, but true.  So...here I was waiting and waiting and waiting for labor to start and Brian was getting like the best nap of his life.  It pretty much went down like this:

Freakin finally, active labor started, and three hours and three pushes later, Tommy finally arrived:

He was clearly just as annoyed with the induction as I was, but he was healthy and minus being a little jaundice -- he's pretty much been sleeping off the 36+ hour induction since he arrived.  And given the fact that his actual due date was August 4th -- we're VERY lucky he's so sacked out and sleeping pretty much around the clock so we can adjust to being a family of five.  Obviously, WE aren't getting nearly as much sleep as Tommy is -- but all things considered and given he hasn't really woken up yet as a baby -- we are doing really well given the insanity of having three kids under three and a half.

In saying that though, the cumulative exhaustion is starting to mount, and he's waking up a bit more day-by-day which will undoubtedly only make things harder for the next three or four months as he settles into the beginning of babydom.  And given our track record with the last two -- he'll start scooting at some point, need early intervention services, and refuse to walk until he's two -- but I digress.  But all-in-all, somehow, we've survived the surgery, we've survived Ronan's metamorphosis into a toddler, and now we've survived the labor, delivery and first few weeks with the newest member of our family.

What a freakin marathon of a year,  of three years, of a life it's been.  Thank god it's a good life.  A wonderful life, really.

We did it.  We made it.  We're here.  We've arrived.

So, with that monster of an update -- I'm off to sleep....for the next two hours anyway :) 

Kelley

October 28, 1976 - August 12, 2007

I'm trying like hell to not let you fade away in the six years since I last saw you.  I hated thinking there could ever come a time when you would feel less real in my life.  If I could post a picture of you every morning to make it feel like you've come back to life, I would. And while my memories of you feel softer and more quiet each year that passes, I am thankful for how very real you still feel to me even though you're gone.  We have pictures of you around the house, we share stories about you with the kids.  You still brighten each and every day that I'm alive with that light in your eyes.  I love you and I miss you.