Today, at 7:19 p.m., my firstborn baby turned nine years old. Nine. He is nine. As I sat down to write his birthday letter, as I have done every year on every blog... I realized that this year, the other two boys' birthday letters sat languishing unfinished in the draft folder because life these past few months has been thrown into chaos by our last little human's ridiculous arrival. Rather than lie to my future self by inserting them where they belong (it would only take one tweak of the date), I have decided to own it and leave all three here. Note to My Future Self: see... you have never been perfect, don't lie to yourself and pretend you used to have it all together.... but you also don't let your imperfections stop you. I hope that is still the case. Nine Dear Liam, The truth is, this birthday is breaking my heart. Of course, I play it off, act silly and make you laugh because nine is a really big deal and you are enjoying every minute of it. And, of course, I do not take it for granted for one single second that you are here with me at all..... but, really and truly, it is breaking my heart. I was so young when you were born. I did not realize how young I was when you were born. But I was young enough to feel we would stay young forever. I was young enough that the first few years of your childhood passed as slowly as my own and your growing up felt distant and blurry and not really real. We would laugh about the absurdity of five... or six... and then we would jump right to the impossibility of sixteen. Nine never even crossed my mind. You would never be nine. You would never be on the heartbreaking edge of childhood, one foot out the door and so, so, so eager to leave it behind. No.... never. And yet, here we are. Some days, I can hardly stand the ache of wanting to hold your tiny body in my arms again, of wanting to hear your sweet baby voice, to see your small arms reaching up to me begging to be held. Some days, the sadness of never seeing small you again, of never smelling your sweet curls, or holding your precious baby hand is tangible...as if I have actually lost someone and you are not simply growing up and up just as you should. And so, nine is hard. This halfway point feels like a marker. I feel like we are crossing the finish line of one race and entering a new one. It feels like saying good-bye. When I found out I was pregnant with you, more than anything else, I wanted to not screw it up. Just not screw it up. And yet...I did. From the minute you were born, I did. I couldn't even get that right-birthing you- and you were so tiny and helpless and I had failed you so spectacularly from your very first breath. I have continued to fail you, over and over and over again.... and you forgive me, over and over and over again. You have the most resilient and forgiving spirit of any person I have ever met. Perhaps, it is simply because you have no choice. Walking two newbie parents through life requires one to have thick-skin, to survive all their missteps. But what is so precious about your forgiveness, as I watch you extend it to others and feel it given to myself....is that it is done so completely. Once you decide to forgive, the slate is washed clean. My hope for you as you enter this new part of your life- the part where many of the hurts that you will carry through the rest of your life will occur- is that you keep that superpower of yours, to forgive with your whole heart. My other hope for you is that you will know, that you know, that you know....that you are worthy. I hope that you retain your tender heart. I hope that you keep your fiery spirit. I hope you never, ever forget that you are desperately loved. The truth is, buddy, things are about to get weird.... I can feel it when you shove your hands in your pockets and whip your head to the side in that way you saw that teenager do, and in the way you clear your throat to try to keep yourself from crying, and in how you slap your hands over your eyes, but peek through your fingers, when you see kissing on television. Things are about to get weird, and I just need you to hold on, okay? And before they get weird....please keep wearing every costume in your costume trunk and change fifteen times a day if you want to. Keep talking my ear off about superheroes. Keep coming to tell us every detail of every nightmare. Keep burying your head in my neck when you get hurt. Keep making awesome sound effects while you play with your action figures in bed. Keep wrapping your legs around my waist when you hug me tight. Keep reaching for my hand when we cross the street. Keep laughing at The Wiggles when your brother watches it. Keep jumping up and down with excitement over your favorite foods. Keep crying when you feel sad. I know you are so eager to grow up, my love...but it is coming so fast now. Please, please keep being little as long as you can because when little is over, it doesn't come back. I love you, big or little, forever and ever. Mama Five Dear Dexter, I remember not wanting my kids to look or act too much like me before I had any, because I was afraid it would make it harder for me to love them. But, the truth of it is, Dexy-K, you look quite a lot like me, there is nothing about you that is hard to love and....you have made it easier to love myself. When I look at you, there is no question that you are beautiful and, if you look like me, there must be something beautiful about me too, right? Thank you for that gift. You have brought so many gifts in your first five years of life. Most obvious is the gift of laughter because you are funny; absolutely, positively, side-splittingly hilarious. You have brought us so much joy in some of the hardest moments. You have also brought the gift of flexibility because we have all had to learn to bend and twist our way through your many mood swings, quirks, and particularities. You know what you want and you know how you want it and you are not at all afraid to fully express every emotion. I do so hope you keep that gift, sweet boy: I hope you always feel your emotions as fully as you do now. Perhaps, one day, with less throwing yourself on the floor and wailing...but always with your whole heart. Your world is so vibrant and it is because you are always bubbling with joy, seething with anger, melting with disappointment, sizzling with excitement, and feeling every feeling with your whole entire heart and usually expressing it with your whole entire body. You are such a careful and thoughtful person, Dexter. You put so much care into any work you are doing. You put so much love into every gift. You are aware of other people and their feelings in a really magical sort of way. My hope for you is that you learn how to hold that magic carefully and not let it overwhelm you because you and your feelings matter too, and that is a delicate balance to learn. If you can learn it, it is going to bring such rich and beautiful relationships into your life. You have such a creative spirit. You often choose to express yourself with your fashion choices and that is something I absolutely adore. I love how you can equally rock a camouflage t-shirt and tennis shoes, a bow tie and buttoned shirt, or fiery red lipstick and fairy wings depending on your mood, and wherever you go, people compliment you on your unique sense of style. Thank you for your funny way of always stripping when you walk in the door, and the particular way you clean up after yourself so thoroughly, and the way you pronounce your S's. Thank you for your expressive eyebrows, your gorgeous dimples, your five billion freckles and your gapped-tooth grin that melts my heart into a puddle of mush every time you flash it my way. I hope you never let anyone tell you who to be, Dexy-K, because anything they come up with could not be nearly as spectacular as what you are becoming all on your own. I love your beautiful face and your beautiful heart, my magic boy. I wish you all the fruit snacks and rainbow sprinkles your precious heart desires on your birthday. Mama Four
Dear Rory, This year, "You Are So Beautiful To Me" has become our song...or at least the chorus of it, which is all I know. You find it funny for a reason I do so wish you could share with me, but, for me, it is the perfect song for you. Every time I get to the lines, "you are everything I hoped for and everything I need," I hold you close, your cheek squished against mine, and I sing them slowly and softly in your ear. Sometimes, I repeat it over and over and you giggle and giggle. I cannot know if you understand the words, but I hope with my whole heart that the message will seep into you somehow; that you will know, right down to your bones, that you are so loved and treasured for exactly who you are. I worry sometimes, as we have pushed you harder this year, that you wonder why we don't like you the way you are- why we are always pushing you to be different. I hope that you don't. I hope so much that you understand that we love you for all that you are, and that our goal is always to support you and to give you as many tools as possible to enjoy everything this life has to offer you in whatever way is possible. Sweet, beautiful boy of mine, I could stare at you all day. Your face is so full of magic and watching your big eyes soak up the world is one of the most beautiful mysteries I have ever witnessed. I so want to know what you are thinking and when I ask you, you often give me the funniest knowing smile as if you truly have been sent here to teach me to stop being so desperate for things I cannot have, to learn to be content with what is. I am trying, Roo… I promise I am trying. Rory, you are the easiest and hardest thing I have ever experienced in my life. Days with you are sweet and mellow. You are just so sweet and happy and curious and fun. Everything you do makes me smile. I adore being around you. There are only a few things you protest: being changed, being put in the car, being shut up inside, being told no basically ever. (That last one is probably because you rarely hear it and so it is confusing for you...because you are spoiled!) If I always took life with you one day and a time, it would be bliss...but, of course, sometimes things get away from me and I start to worry about the future and that is when things get a bit tricky. As you have gotten older, this has gotten trickier...but I think it is a learning curve, and one day we will be over it. We just have to hang on until then. I know you already have the hang of it all. At four years old, your patience is already worlds above the rest of ours. You have learned so many new things this year! Truly, I think you have changed more this year than any other year of your life and it makes things, that last year I had started to accept may never be, feel like real possibilities again! If I had to pick the single most amazing thing that you have learned this year, it would have to be nodding yes. There is so much magic in that tiny gesture; I know you feel that. I can tell by the ways your eyes light up when you nod and we understand and things happen just the way you hoped. When we are pushing you to try new things, Rory...when we are stretching out your legs and it doesn't feel good, or we keep urging you to tell us what you want, or we force you outside of your comfort zone, I hope you know that we only want more of the "yes" magic for you. Thank you for working so hard to stay connected to us, Roo Bear. Thank you for your beautiful smile and your super tight hugs. Every thing about you is my favorite. I love being your mama. Happy, happy, happy, happy birthday! Mama
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Ryan and I were talking the other day about faith, god and spirituality and I mentioned that the two things that have most deepened my understanding of these subjects are parenting and gardening. This is true for many subjects. I have all my best epiphanies in the garden and parenting has taught me more than any other experience in my life.
Just as I believe that a person can be a completely satisfied, whole, and fulfilled individual without.... climbing Everest, volunteering in a soup kitchen, or taking a feminist literature course, while still missing lessons that could only be learned by having one of these experiences, so I believe that a person can be a completely satisfied, whole and fulfilled individual without ever becoming a parent, but there are lessons that can only be truly learned through the experience of parenting. For me, one subject I have learned about from parenting in a way I know I never would have understood otherwise, is shame. Through both passively watching my children grow, and actively participating in the process, I have thought more and learned more about the idea of shame than I think I ever would have without my children. Shame is a powerful motivator. It is also an unhealthy one. We often carry the lessons we learn through shame with us for the rest of our lives, but these lessons come at a hefty price and are usually carried as a wound that never healed quite right rather than a beautiful moment of awakening or a positive turning point in our lives. If I say to you, "think of a time that you were shamed," chances are a moment immediately comes to mind. Probably it is not a positive memory. Probably it is not something you got over quickly. Probably you can think of other ways you could have learned any lesson you learned from that moment if you learned anything at all. Shame often slides into a child's heart when they are small, when grown-ups are always right and so they are always wrong. This hurts... but the pain is often mistaken as remorse, which those powerful giants in a child's life then feed without even realizing what they are doing. So, the pain-not-remorse grows up and becomes an Ugly Thing. It becomes an Ugly Thing that paces around in our heart, growling and bristling any time a flaw is brought to its attention. It gets harder to listen and to say we are sorry. It gets harder to see things from another's point of view. And the funny-not-funny thing is, sometimes we grow up and we realize the point of the shame and that we were wrong all along...but the Ugly Thing has already moved in and resists being evicted. I have noticed that there seems to be a turning point in every person's journey where they have traveled so far from the beginning that they forget what it looks like. They forget what it looked like in the beginning and how they felt and all they have learned since then. They also forget that there was a before the beginning and a before that and a before that. And then they meet someone who is at the beginning or at the before and they are exasperated that the person has to take the journey for themselves. They are shouting back over their shoulder, "I already did all the hard work for you! You should be here already!!" But that is not how it works. We do this with children a lot, don't we? We decide things for them before they are ever born. We decide their religion or their diet or their lifestyle. We decide that they will be homeschooled or that they will go to college or that they will get their ears pierced. We decide that they will be activists, pacifists, naturalists, environmentalists. We decide that they are vegan, paleo, keto, sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, GAPS, WAF, farm free, clean eaters, breast-fed, free range, organic..... We buy them certain toys and clothes. We play them certain music. It is all so intentional. We have such an agenda. And why? Because we've done the work, of course- we have done the research.... we know what is best.... we are raising good humans! It works for awhile. But then one day they are almost nine years old and they just want to buzz their head and eat potato chips and watch the Disney Channel. Or they are 19 and living off McDonald's and really into football. Or they are 25...or 32....or..... It doesn't look like we thought it would look and that is kind of scary. "I already did all the hard work for you!" you want to shout, "You should be here already!" And just like that, you forget your own days of drooling over Dunkaroos and being a bully on the playground, your days of plastering your walls with posters of Blink-182.... and that screaming match you got into with your mom over the JNCO jeans she wouldn't let you buy. You forget all the experiences and conversations and little moments and big moments.... and the one day you stumbled onto that blog about that family... and the year you gave up meat, and the book you read that felt like the author had plucked your thoughts right out of your head and, for the very first time, you did not feel like a total freak... and the skirt you saw at the thrift store that you wore until it was riddled with holes. You forget all the millions of ways you got from who you were to who you are and you forget that everyone has to take that journey for themselves...…… NO, everyone GETS to take that journey for themselves... and you have no right to try and steal that from them. It won't work anyway. We often shame people for being on their own journey. That is futile. We often shame to pass shame we are feeling onto others, to align ourselves with the "right" side, or to alleviate our own discomfort. That is cheap. We often shame to punish someone for or attempt to change someone's behavior. That doesn't work. I am writing this post because I have made a decision for myself. I have decided that I will no longer participate in any action or conversation that is meant to shame another human being for their behavior or mistakes or any aspect of their being. I will not shame my children, or my partner, or friends, or strangers, or myself. It won't be easy and I am sure I will fail...but I can do hard things that are worth doing. This is worth doing. * Not to be confused with conscious conviction. (If you are unsure about the difference look up the definitions of both.) |
WHO AM I?
I am Michelle: a wannabe hippie in love with a bonafide geek. We also spawned. I spend my days with our four wild, beautiful boy children and I overshare about our life online because I am a Millennial and that is what we do.
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