Love of a Mother

Tags

broken, child, children, Christmas, Family, love of a mother, mother, sister, suicide, twin

I wish I could describe the love of a mother, for those that don’t know first hand. There is a moment when your child is born…something physical happens. It is a love you’ve never felt before. No love you’ve ever felt for your parents, your spouse, your first love. It takes up your whole heart. And you think it could never be replicated for another child, but it is. To have your heart walking around outside of your body is a cliché, but it’s more than true. If someone asks you to choose between your child’s life, and your own, you will choose them every time. It explains how children can be so awful to their parents, and no matter what, they go on loving you.

Every moment of my day is spent worrying about what you’re doing, where you’re going. I make sure my phone is on me at all times when you’re at school, in the event that you should need me. Should something happen and I am not around, I feel nothing but guilt for not being there in your time of need.

I have had dreams for you. I have imagined you as president, world leader, ambassador, curer of cancer, veterinarian, pediatrician, paleontologist, fashion designer, famous dancer, Rockette, Disney Imagineer, marine biologist. I have probably imagined you in more jobs than you could imagine yourself.

I protect you where possible. Cushioning your blows. But life sucks at times. There’s no way around it. I can only try to equip you with a sense of humor and let you know that this too, shall pass. There is no problem too big or too small that we cannot work through together. I will not always approve your life choices. But I don’t ever want you to feel like you’ve done something I cannot forgive. That I would not support you in. If you told me you want to herd goats for a living in Afghanistan, I may advise you against it, but I will always support you. I want you to always know that no matter how bleak life looks, I will always be a shoulder for you to cry on. I will put on my pajamas with you and we will eat ice cream until our intestines rupture and we have burned all traces of that ex-boyfriends pictures. I will be there when college rejections letters come in. When the lure of drugs are introduced to you. When you can’t make your rent.

I will be there.

Suicide is an ugly word. It’s an ugly act. You always imagine it can’t happen to you. It can’t happen to people you know. It happens to families who don’t pay enough attention to their children. To families who’s children feel neglected. Those with mental illness problems. Addicts, who have no other road out. People in desperate financial straits who cannot see anything but red and final notices. People with secrets to hide that feel too big.

The truth is that suicide can happen to the perfect family. With the perfect children, who give their everything to their children, live for their children. People who are perfect parents. Parents who have been together since they were teenagers. Whose love is visible for the whole world. Suicide does not just happen in broken homes.

It does not happen only to people who have no one to love them. It does not always come with warning signs. Sometimes it happens on a clear blue day. Sometimes it happens on Christmas Eve.

Sarah, Olivia and Rosie are on Paige’s dance team. Their mom Kelley, is a permanent fixture at the dance studio. She helps with everything. The most giving person I know. She just had her 25th anniversary with her husband, who she’s been dating since high school.

She came home Christmas Eve to find her only son, and Olivia’s twin, hanging in his room. They cut him down and rushed him to one of the best hospitals in the country, only to be told that he was brain dead and there was no hope. They discussed options, and decided to donate his organs, as he had previously expressed an interest in doing should something ever happen to him.

They kept him on machines until matches could be made and teams could be assembled. And Christmas Day, Kelley and Rich pulled the life support for their only son, who turned 16 in September. I’m sure his twin will never have another birthday or Christmas when her mother is not sobbing inconsolably.

Please think about what you’re doing. Before you think you are not loved, that you are not cared for, please think about your mother having to pull the plug on you on Christmas Day. Please think about what you are doing to her for the rest of her life. The simple act of having to return your gifts to the stores…I cannot imagine….The gifts she put so much care and thought into. The gifts she wrapped and organized. The place she has for you at her table.

There is nothing you could have told your mother that she wouldn’t have accepted and helped you through.

My heart bleeds for your mother. I do not know you. I may have only seen you in the dance studio a few times. I know your sisters. I have watched them grow, admire them as dancers, your mother is amazing. When I got the news of your passing, I literally yelled out loud. I did not realize I was doing it. And then I cried. I cried for your mother, I cried for your father, I cried for your sisters, I cried especially, for Olivia, your twin. I cried for everything you could’ve been. I cried for everything you’re going to miss. I cried for every dream your parents ever had for you. I cried for every Christmas your mother will ever have to endure from now until the time of her death. And your sister’s as well, for that matter. The holiday will forever be tainted for them.

Six hundred forty eight. They started a memorial page for him, and that’s how many likes that page had in less than 24 hours. 648. 648 people you could’ve reached out to that would’ve helped you. Even if what you needed help with, was telling your parents some awful secret. 648 people who cared about you. Even if they didn’t all know you.

Please, if you are considering harming yourself, please pick up the phone and call your mother. Call your sibling. Call your best friend. Put on your favorite song and dance. Call a suicide hotline. You will not be judged, and they can give you the help you need. Don’t ever think you won’t be missed. Don’t think someone’s life wouldn’t be forever changed by your passing.

We need to take the stigma away from it. We need to stop putting suicide in a box. We need to understand that this happens in perfect families. To neighbors. To friends.

This time, this one hit far too close to home.

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High Fashion

Tags

child, children, fashion, green eyes, hats, nichole b photography, photography, stay at home mom

“What in Christ are you wearing?”

There’s a shrug, some long shirt underneath that doesn’t really go with it, a skirt, a pair of leopard print flats and a newsboy hat.  She’s clutching a fashion book that she picked up from one of our adventures, to her chest.

“What?!” she counters.

“You know what, Paige….whatever.  Wear whatever makes you happy.”

It’s a non-school day and this is the moment I choose to decide that this is not my battle today.  There will be other battles today.  However, if I don’t want to spend all day screaming and ripping my hair out in large wads from my head, I need to choose carefully.  She’s not going anywhere.  No one but my neighbors will see this horrendous outfit choice…not worth the battle today.

She’s about to head out the door when the light catches her.

“WAIT A MINUTE!  LET ME GET MY CAMERA!”

She’s not even startled by this outburst.  My kids are used to hearing it.  Instead, she heaves her shoulders and says, “Where do you want me standing?”

Granted, I had to crop out most of the outfit.  But that hat suits her.

My Baby

Tags

back to school, child, childhood, children, mischief, motherhood, parenting, youngest child

She’s already so sneaky. She walks in the house, facing me, hands behind her back, evil smile on her face. She side-steps passed the dining room doorway, where I am set up with my laptop, working. Her eyes never leave mine.

“What are you doing?” I eye her suspiciously.

“Nuffin!” she says. The grin gets bigger. The twinkle in her eye gets sparklier. She makes a mad dash for the girls playroom in the back when she finally nears the edge of the doorway.

She’s wearing an off white dress with gray drawings of all breeds of doggies on it. It’s her favorite. My animal lover. It has a hot pink ribbon that ties around the waist and adds a bit of pop. Her hair is in a messy side pony, her bangs hanging in her face, as always. A side effect of those ill-fated bangs that she cut herself at Christmas. She has a black headband on her head, with two black, and one gray plaid hearts. She has put it on her hair, in the hopes of keeping her bangs back, but it’s failing miserably. She has a new pair of black and pink Twinkle Toe sneakers that she had her heart set on yesterday when she went back to school shopping.

“What do you have back there?” I inquire again, when I hear rustling coming from the back room.

“Nuffin!” she repeats. A little more attitude this time.

“Don’t lie to me Allie Elizabeth.”

“Fine then. I just have this container that I’m going to put on the counter right now!” She emerges from the room to show me she does, in fact, have a Tupperware container in her hands. The girls are forever swiping these and using them for their snacks.

This excuse may have worked had I not just been in the back room while they were outside and saw that particular container already shoved into a corner of the room. It cannot possibly be what she just snuck inside. “Yeah? What did you put down to pick that up?” Her grin gets bigger. She knows she’s been caught

“FINE! But don’t get mad! I took the clay outside! It’s all right here!”

She brings it to the table, lays it all out for me to see, and then goes about putting it away. Something I asked her to do an hour and a half ago.

She gets everything back into containers and put back away in the closet. Then she looks at me with blue eyes that take up real estate on almost her whole face and says, “Can you help me tie my shoe? I tried and tried, but I just don’t know how to do it yet!”

I bend down and show her the bunny ears, loop, swoop and pull. She watches, eager for information. In a hurry to grow up. Be seen as a big girl. Not be a baby. Able to do everything her sister does.

And I think, while I watch her process the information, no matter who this girl is going to be, no matter what kind of future she has ahead of her, we all needed to be guided at some point. We all had to learn how to fasten buttons. How to tie our shoes.

She is full of spirit. She has that kind of personality that draws a whole room of people to her. She’s the kind of child that makes perfect strangers come up to us and comment on her personality and kindness. At a recent birthday party, she made sure every adult had cake (whether they wanted it or not) before she sat down to eat her own. She is a caretaker, a healer. When I’m not feeling well, she always asks what she can get me, and checks in on me often (and sometimes for WEEKS!) about how I’m currently feeling.

She will be someone amazing someday. As much as I feared world domination when she was little, I can now see a nurse, a doctor, an EMT. A veterinarian with an intense love of animals.

But for now, she’s my baby. She still needs my guidance and a shoulder to snuggle into at night when she gets scared and has a bad dream. The little girl that draws me pictures at every opportunity just to make me smile. The little girl that tells me she’s going to make a million dollars some day so she can build me that dream house on the water.

The summer has gone so fast, and in a couple of short weeks (she starts a full week after Paige) she will be in school full time. No more days filled with Allie incessant chatter, her smiles, her bounciness. I spent five years counting down to this momentous occasion, thinking I could finally escape her endless energy. But I am now realizing just how much of a hole she is going to leave in my days. The house will be quiet again. Kylo (our large Bull Mastiff) will have no one to run laps with from 8:00-8:30 am after Paige gets on the bus. The dogs won’t have anyone that gives them dog cookies out of their mouth (yes, she really does that with our giant dogs). There will be no one to inform me how much milk there is left at the house when I’m grocery shopping. No one to bounce meal ideas off of at 2:00 pm when it comes time to begin dinner preparation.

My days will be quiet again.

I sure will miss this face.

Things I Never Thought I Would Say Part 1

Tags

child, childhood, children, funny, humor, parenting, stay at home mom, things i never thought i would say

“Please!  We don’t EAT our band-aids!”

“We don’t sniff our blood.”

“Why, oh why, is there a steak knife under the treadmill?”

“Did you just hit me with your sock?”

“Please get the reindeer off the table.”

“No, we need to get the dog’s foot out of our mouth.”

“Get off the top of the house!” (Play house, but still, it’s about 15 feet off the ground, at the very least!)

“We are not pumas.  We do not pounce on our sister from the top of the chair.”

I figure the list of insanity that spews from my mouth could be endless.  Best to make it an ongoing thing.  What kinds of crazy things have you said?

Happy Joke Day

Tags

April Fools, child, children, Family, funny, humor, parenting, prank, pre-school, stay at home mom

I wrote yesterday about the prank Paige planned to pull on her classmates.  And I actually gave her a piece of tin foil this morning, against better judgment, only because I’m curious to see if she can actually pull it off.  Oh to be a fly on the wall in the third grade classroom today.

I thought that would be the end of it.

But then I picked Allie up from school.

“Hey, Mom!  Do you know what today is?” Allie asked on our walk back to the car.

Surely the pre-school teachers wouldn’t tell the kids what today was and encourage pranks.  “What, Al?”

“It’s Joke Day!” She throws up her arms in proclamation.  Apparently I’d be mistaken if I thought they wouldn’t tell pre-schooler’s about April Fool’s Day.

“Oh yeah?” I remark back.  I show no excitement.  No emotion.  No anything to tell her I may be on board with this ridiculous notion.

“Yeah….Hey Mom, your shoe’s untied,” she points at my sneaker which is securely fastened in a double knot, because nothing annoys me more than an untied shoe.  I know.  First world problem.  One of my many weird pet peeves.  I don’t acknowledge her pointing finger.  I don’t look down.  But she still screams gleefully and says, “Gotcha!  Happy Joke Day!”

Hopefully, that’s the last of the pranks from the kids.  I have a feeling this won’t be the end of it.

April Foil

Tags

April Fools, child, children, Family, funny, humor, parenting, prank, stay at home mom, tin foil

“Mom, I just need to borrow a little bit of tin foil for an April Fool’s joke tomorrow,” Paige says at dinner.

“Paige, if you think I’m going to let you borrow tin foil to prank me, you’re out of your mind.”

“No!  Not you!  Okay, here’s what I’m going to do.  I’m going to roll the tin foil up into a ball and then at recess, me and Madison are going to play with it.  And when other girls come up to us and say, ‘What is that?’ we can tell them it’s a silver catch ball!  Then they’ll say, ‘Can we try?’ and we’ll say, ‘Sure!’  Then they’ll catch it and say, ‘Hey!  This isn’t a silver catch ball!’ And I’ll shout ‘APRIL FOIL!'”

I stare blankly.

“So can I?  Can I please borrow a piece of tin foil?”

I was kind of hoping the day would escape her all together.  But I guess there’s no such luck.

“You And What Army?”

Tags

child, children, early, funny, humor, parenting, photography, stay at home mom

It’s been a long weekend here in our house.  And by long, I mean early wake-up calls.

Paige had her first dance competition yesterday in Bellingham, MA where her small little team of dancers took home a gold for their efforts.

Of course, having five people out of the house, completely dressed and fed, and one in full stage make-up required a wake-up call of 5:00 am.

By the time the awards ceremony was over at 12:30 pm, our little dancing girls were exhausted.  Thank goodness they didn’t have to go back today!  Or stay for the second half of the awards yesterday.

Today, my little one is singing at church.  For some reason, the people that are in charge of little ones, assume all littles are up before the crack of dawn.  Not my littles, and certainly not today after a long day yesterday.

I wake Paige up at 6:00 am.  She crabby.  She’s not opening her eyes.  She’s patiently waiting for me to leave the room so she can go back to sleep.

I get Allie up.  She is my better riser. She’s up without a fuss, almost as soon as I turn on her bedroom lights.  She gets dressed without a hassle, and actually beats me back upstairs.  It is about the time I’m getting her breakfast about a half hour later that I realize Paige is still missing in action.

“Is your sister in there watching cartoons with you?” I ask Allie.

“No!  Her still sleeping!”

I march back upstairs.  I plow through her door and announce, “Uh, excuse me ma’am!  It has now been a half hour since I got woke you up!  If you don’t start moving, I’m gonna have to beat the snot out of ya!”

She doesn’t move.  She doesn’t open her eyes.  She simply replies, “You and what army?”

I am almost out of her door, when her words hit me.  I turn slowly around and say, “Excuuuse me?!”  But she’s laughing too hard to reply.

“Did you just say what I think you said?” I respond, still dumbfounded.

Her eyes are still not open and she says, “Going back to sleep in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…..” and then she begins to snore.

I stare at her for a moment, mouth agape, wondering when she got this witty attitude.  When she stopped being little and got this hilarious ability to interact so quickly in this manner.

Whenever it was, I need new kids.

“Me and Glass”

Tags

child, children, funny, glass, humor, parenting, stay at home mom

I need better responses.  There are conversations that are so random, I have no reply.  I feel like I’m missing out on really interesting interaction.  I need to come up with some replies that are just as random as her remarks.

“Paigey, why are you on the counter?” I call, as the glasses in the cabinet shake and clatter together, while she’s perched on the counter, defiant enough to insist on getting her own GLASS because she’s far too grown up for the plastic kid cups I mandate for anyone under 27.

“Getting a drink,” she yells back.  Really, Ma, I’m in the cabinet that holds the glasses, what in HEAVEN’S name do you THINK I’m doing up here?

“Can you please be careful?  Don’t break anything.”  I have learned I need to pick my battles.  Today, I will not force the cup issue.  We’re already dealing with dirty room issues, and respect issues.  Tomorrow, well, all bets may be off.

“Oh, I won’t break anything!  Trust me.  I know glass.  When glass is angry, glass shatters.  When I’m angry, well, I scream and yell.  When I’m really frustrated, I cry.”  She gives a shrug of her shoulders here, as if it’s just a fact of life.  I cry.  It happens.  The world continues spinning.  “Yeah, me and glass, we’re REAL familiar.”

Dear Glass,
Now that you’re apparently familiar with my kid, please don’t fall out of my cabinet and break.
Signed,
Exhausted Mother Who Doesn’t Want To Pick Up Glass Shards Today

Five Years Old

Tags

age 5, birthday, child, girls, parenting, photography, pre-school, stay at home mom

She loves sugar.

Not so much spice.

She’s not all together nice.

But she is my Baby Bear.  And she is my heart.  She is my world.  She is my life.  She does crazy things just to make me smile.  She gives the best hugs.  She likes ruffles and frills, but also mud and chaos.  If I had to do it all over again, we’d maybe skip the ear-piercing screams, the three months of crying, and the utter defiance.  But maybe that just makes her her.  Maybe that’s why she holds my heart.  She wiggles her way in with beauty and love and leaves chaos in her wake.

Happy birthday my beautiful girl.  May you never stop dancing.

“I’m Doing All This Work For You!”

Tags

child, children, duh, funny, humor, parenting, shoes and socks, stay at home mom

The little one….ohh, the little one.  She’ll be the death of me.

“We need to pick your sister up at school today.  She has a dentist appointment and you need to come with me.  So where’s your game?  We better get your game charging or you’re going to be one bored girl,” I tell her.

“My game is in my room.”

“Then go get it so we have time to get it charged.”

She marches downstairs to her room, and is banging at the door between the downstairs portion of the house, and the upstairs.  “Mom!  Help!” she’s yelling.  “My hands are too full!”

I open the door and she has game, charger and an assorted array of cartridges.  We get her game charging and I say, “Alright, you need to get dressed.”

She huffs.  “I better not do all this work and then you find someone to babysit me! I’m doing all this work FOR YOU!”

I asked you to get dressed, not build the Great Pyramids of Giza.

After she gets dressed, I say, “So what are we having for lunch?”

“Um, peanut butter jelly?”  Her go to.  She has asked for peanut butter and jelly for lunch every day for the last eighteen months.  I wish I was exaggerating.

“Well, I’d tell you that you were having left over pot roast, BUT we had an unfortunate incident in which the dogs ATE it off the counter last night, so there’s no pot roast left.”

“Yessss!” she cheers.  “I didn’t want that anyway!” She calls into the living room, where the dogs are napping, “THANK YOU DOGS!”

I can’t help but laugh.  We get through our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches together and I say, “Alright, get your socks and shoes on.”

She wanders around the house.  Aimlessly.  She finds a toy cell phone somewhere and starts an imaginary phone call with a pizza place.  She requests a double slice pizza (?) with extra cheese.

“WHY are your shoes and socks still not on your feet?” I’m exasperated.  Getting her to do anything requires a considerable amount of effort.

“Uh, I’m looking for them, duh!”

“I’m sorry.  Did you just ‘duh’ me?”

“Yup.  I duh-ed you.”

I knew once she got a good grip on the English language, we wouldn’t like what she had to say.  At least when she was talking gibberish, we didn’t know what kind of idiots she took us for.