I have failed. . . and I will continue to do so

This evening I feel like a mom failure, with a big, capital F. Malachi and I attended his buddy's one year birthday party, a joyous occasion to be sure. The party was held in a room at a park. It was tight corners, and there was not room in the room for baby's play. I held Malachi on my lap for most of the time, only to let him crawl on the floor a few times with my eye on him. At one point, a lady almost stepped on him -- (failure number one.) "Good thing, I looked down before I took a step" she said loudly. Yes, good thing. And I get the point: "get your baby off the floor."

My baby is now quite stout. In the past 2 months, he has really packed on the pounds (especially in the belly region.) It's no small feat to carry him anywhere, much less feed him and myself lunch single handedly out out of disposable paper plates. After painstakingly cutting up fruit and cheese into small bites for him, he proceeded to try and turn the paper plate upside down- his new favorite game. This wasn't woking. I then tried to give him some noodles from the noodle soup. He spit them out. I then gave him wild mushroom soup-- he delighted and cooed for more. And at this point (failure number two) I just kept feeding him wild mushroom soup because A: he was finally eating something (without trying to throw it on the floor) and B: he was sitting contentedly. If my transgressions had ended there, I don't think I would have felt the need to write this post. But they don't.

Jump ahead with me to one hour later. I have been juggling holding Malachi and letting him crawl with trying to sneak bites of food for myself. It's now time for cake and ice cream. I am still hungry, so you bet I am going to enjoy a sugary piece of cake. As I hold Malachi on my lap and get ready to sink my teeth into glorious marble cake, he starts reaching for my bowl. I push it further away, and he looks up at me and whines. Oh fine-- one little bite won't hurt? I give him a small taste of the ice cream. He loves it, and he is sitting contentedly on my lap. Sold! I give him several more bites of ice cream in between sneaking bites of the delicious cake.

Jump with me to 5:30. The party has been over for awhile, and we are at home. Malachi is crawling happily about the living room. Then I hear him grunt and hear the gurgle from his stomach. I change his pants only to find an explosion. Poop up to his shoulder with chunks of wild mushroom soup laughing at me. And I feel so terrible. I allowed my own "convenience" dictate what I fed my child, and now he has diarrhea. Lesson learned- I have failed, and I will not make that mistake again. But the thing is, I know that more and different mistakes await me as a mother. I am only human, and failure is part of my humanity. So I roll up my sleeves, wipe away the poop, and prepare for our next great adventure: this could get messy.

When your baby becomes a toddler. . .

There’s a certain sadness that comes when your baby crosses over from being a cuddly infant to being a wiggly toddler. The feeling was so subtle that I almost missed it. But no, there it was nestled right below the business of caring for a one year old. I noticed it when I realized that I could still squeeze out an ounce of milk even though Malachi has been done nursing now for 3 weeks. I noticed it when I went to snuggle with him, but he wanted to climb out of my arms and play with his toys instead. I notice it everytime I pick him up, and he is half my length and 23 pounds already. 

As a new mom, I foresee that all of Malachi’s growth milestones are going to feel somewhat bittersweet.  Of course, I am happy that he is developing and reaching those milestones. And it will not be too long before he is walking yet too. But I also miss the stage of cuddling him and letting him nap on my chest. For as long as those mid-night feedings seemed, I almost cant remember how it felt already, and it leaves me a little sad. My husband and I don’t know whether or not we will be able to have more children. God alone know these things, and we don’t assume that even though it might be our plan, that it is necessarily a given.  

And now even as I mourn cuddling with my sweet baby boy, I am trying to also embrace this new stage of toddlerhood and all its possibilities. The world really is their playground! Especially the kitchen. 

Malachi T: Age 1 year and 1 week

Milestone: Crawling into oven drawers

The thing about moving. . .

I distinctly remember moving about 3 times in my life (although I have moved a lot more than that.) One of the first moves I remember was when I was 6 six years old; our family moved from our little two bedroom house in town into what felt like a mansion of a house (4 bedrooms) in the country. We had a large yard with a wood swing-set, a deck, and more outdoor space than we knew what to do with.  Not only did our new house have a dish-washer, but it also had a family room and two bathrooms. I felt like royalty living in our new house.

My parents were pretty on top of things, so it took our family about one day to get moved in and boxes put away. I had a new room; the house and yard were ours to explore, and yet one of the first feelings I remember having was that of boredom. I remember sitting in the living room looking at my older brother with blank stares on our faces. "Now what?" There were so many things to explore, and yet I missed the familiar routines from the old house. I knew how to pattern my day in the old space. I knew where my favorite corners of the house were; I knew where I liked to play with my toys. I knew how to find things in the kitchen. And now, with so much newness, I felt completely bored.

The other time I remember feeling this way was almost exactly four years ago when I moved from a house with family friends into a two bedroom apartment with a girl I hardly knew (who has since become one of my best friends.)  I was so looking forward to having my own space, my own room. It didn't take me very long to get my few possessions unpacked (the apartment included all the furniture I needed.) And although I had so been anticipating this quiet space of my own, I remember feeling bored and lonely on the very first night. "What am I going to do with my time every single night?" I remember thinking.

It's now night three in our newly refurnished, two-bedroom apartment, and guess what?  I don't know how to function in the new space, and dare I say I feel bored. Sure, there is lots to do; boxes to unpack, things to look for, addresses to update, and yet, I can barely get anything accomplished. Yesterday I thought the feeling was exhaustion. Today, I think the feeling is very similar to how I felt when I was a 6 year old girl - "now what?" I'm not sure where my favorite corners are; I'm scared to tackle cooking.  Whenever I go to complete some task, I discover I can't find something and get side-tracked before giving up. My world feels a bit discombobulated, and all I want to do is sit and watch the evening news. But our cable is not working yet.  I think about reading my favorite book or journalling, but I can't find either.

One of the authors that I studied in grad school summed up the way I have been feeling about moving quite well:

“And the danger is that in this move toward new horizons and far directions, that I may lose what I have now, and not find anything except loneliness.”  - Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 

Granted, we are expecting to find better things than loneliness in our move, but there are inevitably a few twists and turns waiting for us as we get settled in and adjust to not only a new place, but a new life stage as well.

Socks or Symphony

Life is an endless tension between the mundane and the glamorous. 

It’s a Saturday evening, and the night sprawls before me like a blank canvas waiting to be painted. For simplicity’s sake, I have limited my choices to two possibilities: going to the Minnesota symphony with my friend at a discounted ticket price or going to the nearest retail store and buying socks. The romantic and adventurous side of me tells me that this is a no-brainer: “You will have an unforgetable night at the symphony with your dear friend” but the practical side of me shouts loudly from the soles of my feet: “Don’t forget about us and how uncomfortable it is when one toe sticks through.”  The Dave Ramsey voice inside my head also reminds me that “you need that symphony money for buying socks.” 

And so on this Saturday night, I chose a compromise of the two:  I convince a dear friend of mine to go sock shopping with me, and together we hit up the local retail store and do some sock shopping. It’s not exactly living it up on a Saturday night. It’s just living. It’s just doing life together. There’s nothing glamorous about buying socks. But life isn’t only composed of the glamorous. Most of the time, in fact, it’s just an accumulation of the ordinary and mundane.  

My friend and I talk, we browse, we compare sock prices and styles, and we limit our purchase to 3 pairs of socks each. This is life; this is the tension between living it up and just trying to make it through the month. We are constantly choosing between the two, and each circumstance may warrant a different choice. But on this evening, I am happy and content with my choice, and I have a hole-free pair of socks all picked out for church tomorrow.