My Boys

Sunday evening I had a vision. There was this warmth lingering in the evening air and the sunlight was stubborn and sinking so slowly. I was racing with these creative juices and all I could think of was Bub and Teebs in matching outfits, old buildings, brick walls, college campus, and photographs full of shadows, shy smirks, and brotherly love.

It felt cathartic, just envisioning it. Just the thought of meandering around with my boys and my camera and this warm evening was like a revolution for my soul and I felt enlightened. I felt that burning of inspiration when I get a really, really good idea of something that I have to create. I had to create and capture this image in my head, I had to get this creativity out. But first we had to leave the house.

I ironed the matching shirts for the boys, zigzagged around toys in the hallway to grab random necessities to throw in my purse, diapers were changed, shoes were put on, and we were going. Bub was trailing behind me like a yappy puppy nipping at my heels, but I was loving it because I knew he was feeding off of my excitement. With Bub yapping behind me the last thing I needed was to grab my camera bag, shut the door, and go.

But when I expected to feel the satisfying click of the door that meant we were free, I felt a thud. I tried again, and on the second try I absorbed the sudden sobs coming from Bub and dropped to my knees. His Bubby hand, this little baby chunk of limb, had been in the crack of the door, and with all of my excitement and good intentions I had crushed those sweet, sweet fingers.

I held him and counted the seconds of silence, knowing the longer the silence the bigger the wail that would explode from his mouth. The silence drug on, then the vacuum of a gasp, then his wails, and my heart was crushed to the core. Even though there was no blood, just a hanging sliver of skin, those sobs shook me, and my creativity slunk away, embarrassed, and instead I was filled to the brim with guilt as we slathered band-aids around his finger.

He was fine, really. We were both more scared than hurt. But it wasn't my proudest moment. Needless to say, Bub got to eat popsicles for dinner and rest in the giant, safe arms of Daddy while I ran out and bought him a new toy. The door slam, the wailing, the scooping him up and rocking, the popsicles, the erratic reverse down the driveway to go ease my guilt with a new toy---the whole scene was just chaos.

But my life is surrounded by these boys, and the whole scene is often chaos.

Zigzagging down the hallway, dodging toys, slapping a bare heel down on the prickly edge of a Lego, wails, band-aids, tattling, not tattling, trails and trails and trails of scattered clothes and discarded toys and kitchen cabinets that never, ever seem to get closed. The games and the running. The stumbles and falls. And the band-aids, oh the band-aids. These are my boys.

I remember when Bub was just a squirmy thing, a tiny warm, round face, and Tom threw a box of 350 band-aids into our shopping cart. I remember feeling charmed, how sweet it was that Tom thought we would ever need 350 band-aids. How over prepared and protective he was being. What a Daddy. But these are my boys, and my chaos, and we need every band-aid we can get our hands on.

But at the end of every day, when the chaos has unwound into peaceful exhaustion, these are my boys:

Every night, those droopy eyed snuggles with Daddy. These are my boys. My rainbow after the storm, my silence after a feisty day. These are my boys. My chaos, my boys, my world. I'd take them over anything, 350 band-aids and all.

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Good Days and Bad Days

By all accounts, today was a bad day. The boys were feisty, picking fights with each other and getting right down to my very last nerve. The loudness was ok, the picking and poking at each other was tolerable, but it was Bub's sprawled out fit on the kitchen floor that really put me over the edge. Those 3 year old fits, they are powerful, right to their core. And they dig right into my core with each thrash and scream.

On the good days, the warm and cuddly days, I really feel like a mother. But it is these bad days, the tantrum and time out days, that I really feel like a mother. It is on the bad days that test my patience that I can feel the physical toll that mothering takes on my body. My heart grows heavy and it creaks with the ache to make the right decisions for these babies, and that ache weighs down on my body like lead. My skin grows longer with the weight and ache, and I can feel the sagging everywhere. I can feel the stretching and the divots of sinking skin and I can see the darkness pooling in circles underneath my eyes. It is on these bad days that I really feel like a mother and I really feel like I am giving myself to these children with the hope that they will grow into big, wise, good people. It is on these bad days, these handing myself over days, that I feel frayed. Like a rope snapped in two; torn and twisted at the ends and frizzing out with the prickliness of wire in every direction.

On these days, I feel like a mother, laying my mama jacket down across the muddy puddle of life and letting my babies stomp across it. Only afterwards I have to put the muddy jacket back on. On the bad days that it was mothering feels like.

But even on the bad days, mothering still feels good.

In the midst of all of that bad when Bub is thrashing with tears in the backseat and I'm gritting down on my teeth and sucking in hard so I don't cry too, suddenly there is a swift silence and the tears stop and a bubbling babble starts from Bub:

"Look, there's a plane! There's a plane, it's so far away! Look, mommy! I think it's a bird. A bird. A bird. A bird! I think it's a bird. No, its a plane, It's so high. Look, mommy!"

And then another swift silence. And I smile, and Bub smiles, and the bad is over. Even on the bad days, mothering still feels so good. 

Yes, today was a bad day. But a few days ago, Monday, that was a good day.

We went to the Children's Museum, and my boys played.

One of my favorite things in the whole world, on good days or bad days, is watching my boys play.

Monday was a cold and wet day, and the perfect place to be was at the museum.

These last few weeks it seems like something has clicked between Bub and Teebs and their brotherly bond is growing. Where there was once two boys playing in the same room, now there are brothers playing together.

Brothers, boys, and friends. My Bub and Teebs are loving each other.

We ran around the 3 floors of the museum for the afternoon, racing up and down stairs to find the next adventure. 

 

We shopped:

We picked:

We peeked:

We peered:

We were held back by mommy's strong grip:

We dreamed:

Monday, it was a good day. Playing and dreaming and brotherly adventures. And today, it was a good day too. It was a good day, and a hard day. But mothering is like that. And at the end of any day my boys are just warm happy bundles in their beds, even on the bad days.

Even on the bad days, mothering still feels good.

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When It's Cold

 Cold weather calls for creativity.

When it's cold, hallways become bowling alleys, inside voices become outside voices, rolling a strike on the carpet becomes almost as good as scampering through a sprinkler in the yard. 

Laundry baskets become race cars. And when it's cold, those big brother Bub hands wrapping around the chunky middle of Teebs' tummy to hold on tight for a ride warms every part of me.

As it turns out, when it's cold, we don't even really notice.

Because we have bowling pins to knock down and laundry baskets to ride in. We have arms to throw up into the air because the breeze from a ride in the hallway feels just as good as a breeze from the outside.

Because being together when it's cold is just as good as being together when it's warm. Because being together is always good. 
 

Being together is always good.

When it's cold, the living room is a race track and bedtime gets forgotten. Because we have to race enough times for everyone to win.

And everyone gets to do a victory cheer.

The best part about when it's cold, is that is doesn't matter when it's cold. My boys are always, always, always warm. And just to sweeten the deal, it's getting less cold. Slowly and discreetly, the cold in the air carries a softer snap against our skin. Slowly. But until it disappears completely, we have plenty to do inside, where it's warm, together. Because warm or cold, being together with my boys is always good.

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Rollerskating

I get to this point in winter where I'm caving in on the inside with cravings to see big, fat, bare, baby feet. I want big, fat, bare, baby feet stomping on steamy cement and I want dirt under fingernails and I want sweaty upper lips and I want boredom. The hot boredom that only comes in July when it's too laboring to get up off the front porch and do something but also that is alright because the sun feels so good. And then at the end of the day, after the stomping and steamy cement, after the dirt and sweat, there are these bulging diapered bottoms sticking up from uncovered legs in the crib where an exhausted baby lays and drools and sleeps and dreams about another perfect day tomorrow.

I am caving in with these cravings.

But Saturday was one of our coldest days yet. Snowy with the kind of cold that prickles right down to each and every goosebump. We spent most of the morning huddled on the couch, avoiding looking outside wondering what to do with this day.

Passing the baby, passing glances, and letting the whole day potentially pass by.

But Bub was antsy and rolling with energy and we just had to do something other than dream about July. So I played the brave card and said we were going roller skating.

Somebody had to hold Teebs and somebody had to skate with Bub, and for some reason that brave card got bigger and I volunteered, without even flinching, to lace up my skates and go.

It started out slow, we gripped the wall and grappled with our slipping skates while kids either buzzed by us or fell in piles at our feet. We tripped over each other and dodged other people, but there we were, Bub holding onto me and me holding onto Bub and the way we were really relying on that hand hold to keep us safe was really, really heartwarming.

We only made it around the rink a few times, but still by the last time Bub was ready to drop our grip and race ahead of me to show Daddy what he can do. And that was even more heartwarming.

So Saturday, we conquered rollerskating. Bub and me, I swear, sometimes it feels like together we can conquer the world.

We conquered  rollerskating, we conquered a cold winter day, and we conquered our Summer cravings. And it was a good day. It was, I know that for certain, especially when I hear nothing from the backseat on our way home so I turn around and see this:

Just silence after a good day.

(But under all of those layers there are big, fat, baby feet and in a few months they will be bare. And they will be stomping. And there will be steamy cement. Big, fat, bare, baby feet, I know they are under there.)

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Things I Love.

Always, I've been writing. For as long as I can remember the way that words sound and feel and pound so heavily against my soul when they are togethertogethertogether in just those right ways has taken my breath away. Nothing has taken my breath away like writing until I became a mother, and now I get to write about being a mother. And the combination is breathless.

A few days ago I was walking in a parking lot and there were these flakes of sharp snow shooting down so urgently that I felt like if I looked straight up it would sting my eyes. But it was so tempting that I did look straight up, and the snowflakes shot down like daggers. But they were soft peaceful daggers and for one sliver of a second I was taken back to this moment when I was 16. 

There was a rainy night when I was 16. And it was summer, steamy, and about 2 in the morning. It started to rain and there was an urgency to be outside. I wanted to see it and feel it so badly I sneaked out on to the porch. I felt like I was doing something wrong. “Sneaking out.” Even though I was just on the porch. I remember everything, every thought and every feeling, I remember the sound that the heavy front door made when I turned the lock and pulled the handle as slowly as I could to creak that huge door open. And I remember how I sat with my bare 16 year old legs hanging out into a rain storm on this front stoop that my dad and I had molded ourselves out of wet cement. I remembered it being calm. Warm. I remember feeling connected with life and God and everything I was supposed to be connected with. I remember feeling transformed. And then I remember racing back up the steps to my 16 year old room to write about it. 

So a few days ago when I was in a parking lot, squinting up at these darting snowflakes and remembering this powerful moment, I had to scour my archives to find what I had written about it so many years ago. It took about an hour, but I finally hunted it down. It was from June 30^th, 2003. A time when I didn’t believe in capitalization and I wasn’t really in to punctuation or spell check either. But this is it, verbatim.

”when seen from the right perspective, rain looks like sparks falling from the sky. i experianced this for myself last night and i was blown away. sitting on my porch with my legs hanging out on the uncovered cement, i was so tempted to move them from getting soaked but i couldnt. i leaned back and stared at the sky begging god for passion and inspiration, it was then i noticed how the rain didnt look like rain, the rain didnt look like water, the water danced like light. a sparking firecracker was showering me and all i could feel was cold dew, not pain. i winced, and expected the droplets to hurt, but they didnt, yet i still anticipated them just the same. it was brilliant outside, two in the morning, and indescribable, though i wish i could. during my morning moment of rain i felt nostalgic, and found its synonym to be bittersweet, so bittersweet.”

During that rainstorm I was begging God for passion and inspiration and I was begging so hard I could taste it. And I think I remember it so vividly because I've been begging ever since. But I took a few pictures of a sunset recently, and it was beautiful, just like the summer rainstorm and the darting snowflakes in the parking lot, and it really made me wonder what I've been begging for. Because really, I have all I need.

That night on the porch I wanted passion and inspiration. And I am so, so lucky, because this is what I got:

I got babies. And I love babies. I love the sound of babies. I love the love creaks that they make. When I sneak into Teebs' room to put away his warm, folded laundry and his breathing and soft raspy sighs fill the darkness of his room---those are love creaks. His moans and sighs and roaming vocal chords with their barely there snores. And when I open a dresser drawer too quickly and it stirs him from his sleep and he raises his still asleep head to try and see me, so groggily…I love that.

I love the way babies smell. I love the ways boys smell. I love how I can scuff my nose across the top of a baby head and whiff in this overwhelming scent of softness, Spring, and goodness. I love that. I couldn’t love that any stronger if I tried. 

I love the way Bub says “mommy.” Like it is a slur of mushy love. Just a mesh of one slammed together syllable. There is one mushy “mommy” in every single sentence. He doesn’t care how many times he’s said it, it still belongs there every time. I love it. I love not being able to wait until I have two boys that can say it at the same time, in the same way.

And I have people. Everywhere. I love the people I have around me. Tom and my family and Tom’s family. I love knowing that wherever I am there these people in every direction believing in me, often more genuinely than I believe in myself.

I have a house brimming with babies and a husband. And I love the work that I do in this house. I love the trail of toys and feeling like I'm the only person in the world who really knows the right place for them to be put away. I love the sense of completeness that comes with a tidied house at the end of the night, or the power of knowing when is the right night for the messes to wait until morning.

I love the look on these boys' faces when I really make a delicious meal, or when I don't and we get to laugh about it. And I love the look on my face when I say so discreetly, almost under my breath, I'm not in the mood for cooking, let's go out to eat.

And the laundry. I love clean laundry and an empty laundry room. I love waiting all day for Tom to get home so I can beam while I say "Guess what! Everybody has fresh sheets tonight!" And I'm giddy about it, because I truly, truly love what I do.

It's not all good, it's really not. And there are days when I am hideous and mean, just an ugly version of myself. But still these moments always bring me back, reminding me of what I really need and what I really have.

Nine years ago I begged for anything to inspire me, fill me with passion. Though it's not what I expected, I can not imagine being any more inspired or any more passionate than I am right now. Everyday, if I look hard enough, there are still bare-legs-in-warm-rain moments everywhere. Sometimes in snowy parking lots, other times in sunsets, but mostly just in every nook of space in our home with our babies.

And I couldn't possibly love that any stronger if I tried.

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Snow My Goodness

 Yesterday we woke up and scrambled to the window like every last one of us was a child.

Snow.

My.

 Goodness.

As soon as the tiniest bellies in the house were filled I slopped into Tom's boots, tied the shoestrings as tight as I could, wrapped up in Tom's sweatshirt, ignored his eye rolls, and tromped through the snow with my camera.

It was early and silent and if I ignored the burning in my fingertips the snow looked like just a thick covering of sheen. Sparkling, shiny, reflective. Soothing. It was early, silent, and soothing. Since becoming a mother, I've really recognized the soothing power of a day that starts early and silent. The earlier, the more silent, the more soothing, the better. Early, silent, and soothing fills me with the calmness to really embrace a great day.

And yesterday was a great day.

It was a huge snow, close to an entire foot of some of the thickest, wettest snow I can remember. My little onlooker Teebs wondered out of the front window for most of the morning, taking it all in.

And honestly, with all of that wonder wandering around, I begin to question what I really hated so much about winter anyway. There was this beauty in the frigidness, this beckoning from the outside of the window curling an index finger up at us through the cold glass and tempting us "come out, come out and play."

So we did.

We sunk our heavy boots into the soft sludge of snow and slid our feet through the mounds. The snow was still falling freely from the sky and from thick, wet clumps losing their grips on tree branches above our heads.

And we played.

And while I won't say that I love winter, because I really don't think that I do, I can wholeheartedly say that I love its beauty, and I'm in love with the wonder it brings out in my boys.

It didn't take Teebs long to shiver his way back inside, but that didn't stop him from standing at the front door and experiencing our Winter fun from the warmth of the house.

I can almost see the strength of his wonder, like the vapors of our breath in the cold, and he is loving it. My boys are loving winter.

Snow my goodness!

Sometimes though, even my boys agree that Winter is even better when enjoyed from inside. Bub left me at the base of our snowman with a bag of carrots in my one hand and a bag of grape snowman eyes in the other and pressed his face against the front door with his foggy breath begging "let me in."

We unfroze together. Me, with a mug of hot chocolate, and Bub by twirling in the most beautiful circles I have ever seen, swirling my scarf around him.

Soon it was nap time, my scarf just a pile on the kitchen floor, pools of melted snow scattered throughout the house, and silent sleeping boys warm in bed. It was cold, it was winter, it was kind of a pain, but snow my goodness, what a great day.

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