Children at play...baby on board...kids crossing...BEWARE OF CHILDREN!

I often wonder just how crazy I look to my neighbors when I dare to take all four kids outside to "play". Last week, I finally got Madeline riding a two wheeler. I've tried the previous two summers, but I was (WAS!) always pregnant and a pregnant woman running behind and holding up a teetering child on a bike is not effective...and just plain ridiculous. But something clicked the other day, and now she is a two wheelin' bike rider.

And now Leo MUST be a two wheelin' bike rider too. So I ventured out just before nap time with all of them, including a tired and cranky, but stubborn and insistent 4 year old who would half-assed attempt to coast down the hill trying to strike a balance, but no way in hell was he dragging that "dumb bike" back up the hill to try again. But he WAS going to DO IT AGAIN(!) so would I "PLEASE JUST BRING THE DUMB BIKE BACK UP THE HILL!" for him? With that kind of enthusiasm and those good manners, of course i will.

And while I'm carrying his bike, I'll continue to intercept the out of control 22 month old on the battery powered, 5 mile an hour tractor as he is sort of getting the hang of it and screaming at me to BACK OFF so he can do it himself (loosely translated), even as he keeps driving off into the forest and then screaming in frustration until I rescue him. And then I will go peel Madeline off the pavement and break up the fight between her and her bike which she now "HATES!" and she "HATES BIKE RIDING TOO! IT'S HORRIBLE!" and she will "NEVER DO IT AGAIN!" because she is "THE WORST BIKE RIDER EVER!" And as I pour on the "ya gotta get back on the bike, honey. Falling is a part of learning. But you gotta get back on!" inspirational speech, I can hear the FORD F-150 slowly coming down our quiet, dead end, family friendly street. And by the time I turn around, the truck and my toddler on a toy tractor are now playing chicken in the middle of the road. Fortunately, my stone faced, unflinching kid is winning, or at least my neighbor has been kind enough to stop his vehicle, give me a patient wave, wait for me to drop the two bikes I'm towing, dust of my daughter, scan the road for Leo who is sitting in our driveway and being NO HELP AT ALL, and a baby in a stroller (who has been no where near the the road and resting contentedly under a shady tree with a rattle and a smile, but just in case she too lost control of her vehicle...), and drag toddler and tractor to safety.

I realize this entire experience sounds a bit out of control and riddled with anxiety, but it was great fun. And rest assured, anyone who turns down my street while we are in the middle of it could not possibly miss my family and our convoy of vehicles, bicycles and strollers up ahead. In fact, it is quite possible that my kind neighbor began to yield when he surely heard the whining and bike bashing and felt the the earth shaking stubborn, frustrated foot stomping from miles away.

Baby Ginger's face, in the midst of all this cautious chaos, summed it up perfectly...with a silent smirk and laughing eyes "These people are crazy and this woman is in way over her head but I'm so happy to be here."

my cup runneth over

It's not easy to give every ounce of love that a mother's heart can hold to five people every single day. And I don't want to divide it up and dole out shares. I want each of my babies and the love of my life to have it all; to be smothered and drenched in my love and adoration for them. It's one of my greatest daily challenges...to love my family enough.

They annoy the hell out of me most of the time, like, it's actually their favorite pastime.  But... unconditional love, unconditional love, unconditional love.  We'd all be doomed without it.   I'll be the first to confess that, once upon a time, I would have been utterly un-lovable without unconditional love.  I love these wonderful, rotten, precious little monsters more than I can even handle sometimes. And while I am sure they know this, I also know that they can't possibly really know.

I love them so much that I have nightmares and sleepless nights at the thought of all the terrible things that could happen to them.

I love them so much, that twenty minutes after someone has given me a reprieve from them as I have dreamt about all day long, I miss them and worry about them and want them back and I consider never letting them leave the house again for fear of one of those terrible things happening to them.

I love them so much that I want them to have everything in the whole wide world that they want. I love them enough to NOT give them everything they want.

I love them enough to want to spend every single second with them, making them laugh and smile and enjoy life. I'm so tired.

I am only one person. Granted, I'm a mother of four, so I'm kind of super-human, but even as a super human, I struggle. But it's ok if I'm not smothering them with my love every single moment of the day, it really is. And truth be told, they can be rotten and sometimes they don't deserve to be smothered in my love.

But when they do...

I really try to seize the moments. I have come to know the pure joy of the simple pleasures in life, thanks to my little monsters...I mean muses...

Last night it was a heart to heart with my beautiful, smart little seven year old. It was the first one that I do believe she genuinely listened to and contributed to and...took to heart. She wants to be good and kind, even when others aren't. She thinks it can be hard sometimes, to be GOOD and KIND (it can), but it's what she wants. She is "REALLY gonna try". I can see her good intentions and kind soul in her eyes.

A few days ago, I went out for an escape, I mean a run. The kids had been especially evil that day and I couldn't wait to ditch them when Darren got home. I also had to stop next door at my mother in laws to feed her animals because she was away. I thought to myself:

"Perfect, I'll swim at her house after I run, ALL BY MYSELF in PEACE and QUIET. Because if I go home to swim, those little psychic, psycho, swarming vultures will surely spot me the moment I get back and insist on swimming with me and invading my alone time. "

Two minutes later, I caved and decided maybe Leo would like to swim with me. Yes, Leo would like that. I went home, jumped in the pool (without telling a soul that I had returned) and right on cue, came my little Leo. He stood at the glass door with his hand on the knob thinking once (not twice) about disturbing me, and came out with a little grin on his face, knowing that I had missed him while I was gone and was ready for him to torment me and love me again. We swam and splashed and jumped and cannon-balled and laughed, just the two of us. Perfect.

I've been taking Lennox on long bike rides with me. I have always loved doing this with my kids. But there is something extra special about whisking away child number 3 and taking him out for a solo adventure. People always think that #3 becomes the forgotten one. I could never let that happen to little Lennox...well, there was that one time...but never again.

He sits in a little baby seat right in front of me, between my arms, so it's like I'm giving him a hug the entire time we're riding. He usually eats a juicy peach while we ride and the sticky peach juice pours down my leg, and he hums Twinkle Twinkle the entire time, only pausing to use his few words, pointing out any truck, tractor, choo-choo, dog and a few others that I can't make out at all although he seems certain of. He loves it, I love it, he loves me, I love him. It's magical.

It's the simple, intimate times; the ones that catch me off guard at exactly the right moment, the ones that remind me how special and awesome each one of them is in their own special and awesome way and how lucky I am to be their overwhelmed, underappreciated mother.  The moments when I can just stare at one of them, frozen in a love trance, and they'll say "I know, I know, you love me." The moments that I will never take for granted, because no matter how many I am blessed with (and I am very blessed), it will never be enough.

My cup runneth over.

Pregnancy Perils

Pregnancy Perils



Disclaimer: I love, love, love my children. I would have ten of them if I did not have to grow them inside of me for nine months. But I do, and it’s hard. And it gets harder every time. So hard, that I spent a week after finding out about #4 wondering if I could possibly survive another nine months of this again, as if I had a choice.

For me, it’s not so much about the physical hijacking of my body, despite the unimaginable discomfort, months of sleepless nights and a new painful ailment every month. My challenge is with my mental health; I struggle to remain recognizable and loveable, or at least tolerable, to my loved ones…and myself. Last night, Darren asked me what I was writing about. I said “pregnancy” and he said “are you writing mean things about me?” Poor guy. He deserves better than pregnant me. Our babies are my very best attempt at a peace offering; Thank you for putting up with me. Please accept this gift as a show of gratitude…and remorse.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I would bash those women who use pregnancy as an excuse to bitch and whine and make everyone around them miserable unless they are constantly catered to. Not me. I was blissful. Ok, that may be a stretch. Someone will surely call me on that, probably my sister-in-law who tells me that she knew I was pregnant due to the amount of sleeping, eating and whining I was doing. I suppose I wasn’t quite myself, but to the best of my knowledge, I could not have been happier. I remember the way it would suddenly strike me that my baby was growing inside of me, and I would smile and feel warm and tingly. I felt honored and blessed. And when someone would ask me how I was feeling I was always “great”. Never mind that I was puking every twenty minutes or so morning, noon and night, or that I was painfully tired but I couldn’t sit or lie down for fear of my body bursting into flames from the heartburn raging through my entire body like wildfire. “Great. I’m great. Thank you for asking.”

By my second pregnancy, I was still blissful and honored and blessed blah, blah, blah. But I quickly discovered that, ironically, pregnancy and children do not mix. This time around, I did not have the option of sleeping my way through my body’s inability to function sanely and rationally. Instead, I had to keep up with a three year old. I had to be alert and creative and patient and fun, in between all the puking. Have you ever tried puking with a three year old in your face asking you why you’re puking and “could you please stop and get me some juice”? Yeah, blissful.

Pregnancy #3; the novelty has worn off. We found out I was pregnant this time during our family vacation in Disney world. I was already well aware of it as the revolting signs that a baby is inside of me, sucking the life out of me, had now become unmistakable (to reiterate, I love, love, love my children). But I kept it to myself until Darren returned one morning with a pregnancy test (I guess he has his own unmistakable signs). It was an amazing and unforgettable trip, and despite my unbearable exhaustion and perpetual nausea , I spent the week dragging myself through every amusement park at Disney with a smile on my face, because, let’s face it, you can’t walk around being a miserable bitch in the happiest place on earth.



But once I was out of Mickey Mouse’s site and back to reality, I started to become a bit unglued. Now I had two demanding children to fend off, I mean take care of, despite my anguish. I also had a house with walls that were closing in on me at mere thought of an addition to our family, and a mother on her death bed whom I had to accept would never get to meet her latest grandchild and I’ll never even know if she heard me tell her the news that day when she was fighting for her life and they told us she might not make it through the night. It was too much. Certainly enough to break a lesser woman, but I was about to be the mother of three which meant this was no time show fear. And to be honest, I was truly afraid that if acknowledged every emotion that was threatening my well being at that time, it would have been harmful to my unborn child. But this time around, when someone asked how I was feeling, I was “Miserable! I’m over it! Screw you for asking”, more or less.

Considering some of these extenuating circumstances, which I have only just put into perspective as I write this, I feel somewhat justified in confessing that I did, in fact, unleash the beast during pregnancy #3. I remember quite a few episodes that left me wondering who this crazy fat bitch was that was running my life and praying that my loved ones would forgive me or assuring my children that their real mommy would be back soon. Like when we were house hunting and the crazy fat bitch demanded that my very kind, generous and obviously patient boyfriend “get me that house or I’m gonna be really pissed”, or when I started growling almost everything I uttered to my poor kids through clenched teeth just because they had the nerve to touch me or call me mommy. I wasn’t even aware of the teeth clenching thing until one day I heard Darren warn the kids not to make mommy use “the scary voice”.

And now, pregnancy #4. I have a pack of birth control pills in my cabinet that I requested after #3. I decided against starting them when Darren reminded me that they make me a little crazy. Neither of us anticipated we would be dealing with drastically crazy again so soon. And while life in general is far more manageable this time around, with a big, beautiful new home and my mother now at peace, most of the challenges and joys of pregnancy remain constant, and my sanity remains…hanging on by a thread.

As usual, I had just gotten back into my skinny jeans when I found out I was pregnant again. As usual I am forced to choose between not eating and dealing with the puking and migraine consequences, or eating and instantly feeling like my insides are a raging inferno. As usual, I am in a love/hate relationship with my children; I love, love, love them, but I hate the fact that 95% of their sentences begin with “mommy, I want…” “mommy I need…”, “mommy, where is my…” “MOMMY, MOMMY, MOMMY!!!!!!!!!!” As usual, I am wrought with guilt over not being able to “play” to the best of my ability or lie down with my daughter at night because laying down is not an option until around 11 p.m. when the heartburn has fizzled out. As usual, my brother and father are left speechless over the news of another child (anything beyond two is just inconceivable to them). As usual, I have baby mush brain which leaves me struggling with everything from a simple game of Candyland, to the basic “why does Cookie Monster eat his cookies like that?” type questions who’s answers once seemed so obvious to me. As usual, I find myself simultaneously snapping at my children and wanting to kick the crazy fat bitch’s ass for talking to my kids that way and putting that fearful look on their innocent little faces. And despite believing that I had held off on the crazy clenched teeth growling for much longer than usual until the other day when I snapped and then turned to Darren and proudly stated that that was the first time I had unleashed it, he was quick to point out, “No. No. You’ve been doing it for weeks.” And these days, if you ask me how I’m feeling, I can usually muster a “pretty good”.

It appears that writing this has been therapeutic as I awoke this morning with a renewed sense of calm after writing late into the night. While helping my daughter get ready for school today, Darren asked, “wait, where is all the yelling and arguing this morning?” I told her that I was sorry for being so grumpy when I’m pregnant and reminded her that it would help us both if she could be a bit more cooperative. She suggested that it would be even more helpful if I would say things like “Madeline, you don’t have to clean your room the whole time I’m pregnant.” Ah, the six year old art of negotiation.

Pregnancy is hard. Four pregnancies in seven years are downright agonizing. Those nine months are so seemingly eternal that the idea of the unbearably excruciating pangs of childbirth is eagerly anticipated. I genuinely enjoy labor because as soon as that first contraction comes on and I feel the familiar anguish of my body being ripped apart, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. About 8 hours and several secret thoughts of removing my (or Darren’s) reproductive organs with my own bare hands later, I will be holding my precious child in my arms and anticipating eating anything I want with no threat of heartburn. I will also have almost entirely forgotten what was so bad about it all in the first place. I’ll be a mom, again. And every time I meet one of my children, I feel like the luckiest person in the world. Who wouldn’t want that four times over?