Author: horneymomtellsall

real talk.

~ horneymomtellsall ~ Leave a comment

I know that some people have to do life (and marriage) apart. Like my sister, who has a husband in the military, a husband who is an incredibly brilliant engineer and is also gone for months at a time. My husband is not in the military and he only leaves for eight days at a time for his job, but can I just tell you something?

THOSE ARE THE LONGEST MOTHER F-ING 8 DAYS OF MY LIFE SOMETIMES.

The way I feel about my daughter is like the hot air pumping a balloon through the sky: it is fire-hot, it alternates between deafening noise and absolute quiet, and it operates on magic (for people who don’t understand science. like me.) But when my little baby is sick with a nasty feverish spring cold and cannot sleep, and claws her way up my torso while crying and coughing at half-hour intervals for entire moon cycles…I get tired. And worn out. And in the morning, as the sun rises again, as my coffee brews and I put on make-up because I need to remember that I am, indeed, human…

WE MISS DADDY.

But hey: Sam Horney got home tonight. He walked through our door with a smile and some left-over pretzels from his lunch box and said,
“Woah, the house looks amazing, babe!” and
“Hi Clara! Daddy missed you so much!” and
“Hi baby, thank you for taking care of things while I was gone, I’m sorry she was sick.” and
“Let’s all get on our bed and have a snack together. Come ‘ere, Smooch, let’s give mama a break. “

So anyways, as I get tipsy off a half glass of white wine (breast feeding has made me a real lightweight) and the baby is munching cheerios from her father’s hand while chanting his name: We are together again. I slept for two hours last night. I have about a million hours of projects and portfolio work due for finals at school this week, but you know what?

Sam is pretty great.
Clara is a pile of love.
And God is good.

Happy Tuesday, Horney friends. Cheers 🙂

This is how you grieve.

~ horneymomtellsall ~ 8 Comments

Start with an empty room.

Open your arms, stretch them out in disbelief, tremble with a fear that cannot be breached, and gather your things. You’ll need some help, here, if you can find it. The room may be quite large, but also it could be impossibly

suffocating

shoulder-bending small.

If you find your sad self in this kind of a tiny room, stooped over, nagging kink in your neck, and fighting an eye spasm, hold someone’s hand and wait.

This room will grow.

Start with an empty room, and gather.

Drag in a table. Line it with dishes, or flowers, or scratched out angry letters, or bottles of booze, or chewed up plastic straws. Or nothing.

You need this table.
You need a surface.
You need a landing.
This may seem exhausting.

It will be exhausting.

Now find a lamp for your room. Maybe one with a dimmer switch? Because some days will be darker than others and you want to show the lamp that it is necessary and
yes, lamp, you are appreciated.

You may need more than one lamp. 

You will find all of this aggravating.

Pull an area rug to your room. Not wall-to-wall coverage, you need some distance between you and the floor and the walls and the oxygen. Your rug fibers ought to cushion your knees:

In prayer. In pleading. In the frenzy of your wild anger. In the quiet of your stuttered breaths.

Make sure it’s thick. 

Unfurl the rug, strand by strand, and feel the weight in the room.
Feel the world beneath your feet, ok?

Imperative: couch. bed. chair. instruments of quiet, feather-filled stops.

Your couch will be important.

Trust me on that.

For the sake of your tired body, trust me on that.
For the sake of aching ribs.
For the sake of solemn skin, stretched too far across hungry cheeks and dry lips.
For the sake of empty elbow crooks.
For the sake of wilted eyebrows.
For the sake of drowsy blood flow and cramping fists.

For the new iron casing around your chest and fingers,
the weight in your bone marrow that you cannot lift or shake or lose.

Please wearily accept the gift of respite:
when you sleep without dreams,
when your baby wakens and calls your name,
when the sun shines hot through your car window,
when you remember how to spice your spaghetti,
when hope pokes a tiny sprig in your direction,

Rest.
Find your couch,
Stretch across your bed,
and rest.

Live in your room.
As long as you need, stay in your room.

Welcome in guests, if the room will hold them. 

Explore it. Scrape the floor, crawl the corners, examine the bumps in the walls and the cracks in the ceiling. Trace every inch.
Fill a vase or a hundred old bathtubs with your tears.

The dead do not mean well. They come, they go, they leave us behind to tread the deep murky waters of in absentia. Heaven may hold them, but earth holds us, tether bound to the grocery store and decisions for tomorrow, which is terribly unfair when our hearts have recently begun a slow descent into our guts. Who needs grapes and milk at a time like this?

This is how you grieve. 

Start with an empty room.
Gather your things.
Settle in.
Move about.
Rest.
Rage.
Wonder.
‘Til you are left with one wooden chair.
Send the rug to the cleaners.
Haul the couch to the curb.
Stack your dishes and tidy your angry letters,
water your flowers and give them away.
Sit in the wooden chair.
Remember the room when it was crowded with sorrow.
And when you are ready,
And you’ll know when you are ready,

 

 

 

 

leave.

 

 

happy birthday andrea :)

~ horneymomtellsall ~ 2 Comments

Did we make a three-minute movie with 7 wardrobe changes?
Yes.
Did I break several SAG child labor laws?
Probably.
Will this video make anyone, anywhere, feel happier?
Obviously.
Happy Birthday Aunt Andrea! We miss you so much!

Just to be clear, this bizarrely diverse wardrobe was supplied 
by weird aunts, uncles, and friends. 

night weaning.

~ horneymomtellsall ~ Leave a comment

I’m laying here in my bed, blogging from my phone, because I can’t sleep. Why, for the love of all that is tired and holy, why can’t I sleep?

1. I have a mystery pain stabbing deep into my left side that, according to webmd, may or may not be liver failure, pancreatic cancer, or hunger.

2. Last night (let the bells ring across the land!) we decided to night-wean the baby. And it worked. Like, SUSPICIOUSLY easily worked. Like, Clara Horney may have been playing us fools for a while now, worked. But I haven’t slept more than 3 hours at a time since before acid wash jeans came back (which is a sign of end times, btw) and now my sleep schedule is entirely wacked out from the tick-tock of boobie calls the last 8 months. So I’m laying here in the dark, awake and possibly on the edge of extinction, TRYING not wake up Sam and ask him to go get me a bowl of cereal.

Night weaning. Who knew?

8 months : 8 weeks.

~ horneymomtellsall ~ 1 Comment

I had this moment the other night: Holding Clara in our hallway, right outside her bedroom door: Sam was out of town: I’d been alone with the baby since class ended that afternoon, and evening sunlight threw slanted shadows across the wood floors, across my bare feet. 
My baby’s arms wrapped tight around my neck, her head slack on my shoulder, both of her hands twirling lazily through my hair. We stood together in content silence, and I began to cry. 
This isn’t unusual: Especially lately: Because when things settle down around here, I cannot help but remember that Jimmy is still gone, and Cassidy has cried every day for 8 weeks, and the world is still turning, and this is reason enough to weep, always. 
But that night, I cried as much for myself as I did for Cass: As I did for Jimmy.
I cried because, in that quiet moment, the vulnerability of my love for Clara was frighteningly close to the surface. She turned 8 months old last week, and I have to wonder, perhaps in the collective wondering tradition of all mothers and fathers in all of time and space:
Whether or not this is worth it:
Whether or not being a parent is worth the risk.
The apostle John tells us that perfect love casts out fear. This points sharply to the fact that my love is far from perfect. Because I find, more and more, that my love and my fear are two knots in the same strand. I am SO AFRAID to lose Clara. I am afraid to lose anyone I love, of course, but I can’t tiptoe around each day, hands clasped in desperate prayer that I will never have to experience any more death, ever. So I tuck those other fears away, unless some extraordinary circumstances call them up again.
But Clara? 
Clara.
The idea of her death gives pause to my heartbeat- tingles down my legs and back up to my throat, a debilitating stroke of numbing fear. 
I’ve never felt this before. 
I fear Sam’s death, 
and I imagine I would fall far, far apart should he leave before I do, but also,
honestly, 
I could marry again. I could love another man, maybe, someday, if I had to.
But I could never have another first child. Another Clara. 
I struggle with this fear: 
I wrestle it down each time I read terrible news about bombs and guns and mothers losing their children: 
I leave it forcefully behind my garage door when I pull out of my neighborhood and onto busy roadways full of bad drivers:
I nod curtly to my fear every night, backing quietly out of Clara’s room after I’ve stared through the slats of her crib, my searching eyes rising and falling with her delicate rib cage in the dark of her nursery. 
Fear is a truth in my life that I must confess again and again, leaving the life of my child in the hands of my God. 
And I wonder: In the long tradition of mothers before me: I wonder with Eve: I wonder with Hannah: I wonder with Mary: And I wonder, achingly, about Jimmy’s mother Roseanna:
 Whether or not this risk of  loss is worth the abiding love. Could my heart manage what my womb has already healed from: Could I let Clara go again: Could I lose my baby and live another day: Can I surrender my fear in order to love more freely? 




Motherhood: release, release, release. 

two kids.

~ horneymomtellsall ~ Leave a comment

Whenever people ask me how many kids I want, or what I want my family to look like, I’m all,
“I want four little girls. But I also really want a son, and he’d need a brother… so two boys? Or actually, I want to have two girls, then four little boys, and then probably two more girls to round it out.” 

And then I’m all, wait, that’s eight kids.

Don’t tell Sam.

Speaking of Sam, he’s out of town this week, so I took Clara to visit him yesterday. I packed our overnight gear and we headed up to the mountains for a quick stay. He’s working in the same small town where my very favorite cousins live, so bam! Two birds one stone, my friends. We invited Cassidy and Amelia along on our roadtrip- one of my best friends and my 2 year old niece, respectively- and HELLO.

A toddler and a baby are a much different beast than just a baby. There were diaper blowouts, a dramatic cheerio incident at the hotel continental breakfast, someone ended up topless at the pool, and I think I might have slept about three hours last night.

And you guys, Clara can’t even really move yet. (She’s almost 8 months old and still doesn’t roll to get places. I would be concerned, until I realize that she’s been carried around like an Egyptian princess the last eight months, and might actually start moving on her own now that we set her down and force her to roll over for toys she can’t reach? I’ll keep you updated.) So it’s not like I had to chase two kids, you know? Although she is perhaps the chattiest baby I’ve ever met, so when combined with her delightful and wild cousin Amelia, it’s one fast and loud party. And one tired mommy (Aunt Boo Boo to some). Our night ended with me, Sam, and Cassidy huddled on the floor in our hotel room, drinking wine by the light of the bathroom and reading news reports about Boston while the little girls slept a few feet away.
Pretty classy weekend, all in all.

After 24 hours with those two girlies, 24 hours that included Cassidy’s constant help, by the way, I think maybe I’ll take a beat on trying for Smoochie part two.
MAYBE.

I was telling Sam we needed another baby before he’d even cut Clara’s umbilical cord, but yeesh. Am I just crazy?

I mean, I want 8 kids. That might be certifiably crazy.
I’ll keep you updated.

Horney hot tub party, hey now! 
 the girls and cousin Tad- what a boy, always got a stick in hand 🙂

her first swing ride! she found it underwhelming. and delicious. 

love these babes! 

it’s not easy to get a baby.

~ horneymomtellsall ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been trying for months and months to write Clara’s birth story, but for one of the first millionth time in my life, I just can’t make my words do what I need them to do. It’s all so… inadequate. Utterly.
We had an assignment due this week in my non-fiction class to write a photo essay. I went ahead and got super out of control with this particular “essay”, and created this piece de resistance. I actually have a longer version of Clara’s birth pictures and video, edited and put to music, but it is much too personal for the world wide web (says the girl with a blog). So this is what I have for you instead, my dear Horney friends.
By the way, the essay started with this post and expanded. I knew this blog would be useful one day.
OK. Love you guys, and may your day be filled with superfluous slideshows and good friends 🙂
NOTE: All photographs taken by Valerie Davenport Photography. This dear woman showed up with a few hours notice and her camera, and gave us the greatest (I say that in its fullest sense) gift that we could ever receive- she captured the birth of our first baby with beauty and depth and grace. You are a gift to the world, Valerie Davenport.

Happy Easter, Smoochie!

~ horneymomtellsall ~ Leave a comment
Three Horney revelers up there.
Last Easter Sunday, you stretched against those flowers on my shirt, 22 weeks in my belly and I FOOLISHLY imagined myself halfway through my pregnancy. 

But as any mom knows, ‘halfway’ through a pregnancy doesn’t happen until about 37 weeks, when body parts are blowing up and you sleep absolutely never.
Ugh.
Anyways, there you are, my own spring chicken. Expanding under my Easter best.

One year later, my chubby little friend, I missed most of the sermon this morning because of your insistent chatter, and also because I still haven’t put you in the church nursery (I know, I know, get over it, Jessie.) You wore your own flowered sundress, and a purple headband, and white sandals too big for your tiny feet that simply do not grow (You will probably be very short, daughter. My apologies.)

We LONGED for you, Smooch, and now here you are. I cannot stop being amazed. And I love being your mom. Even when you scream in your bed at night, and even when you get poop all over my clean sheets, and even when you make me miss church, I LOVE BEING YOUR MAMA.


He is Risen Indeed, Clara Horney, and on this fine spring day, 
I am thankful that God gave me you. 
I love you!

   


ronald mcdonald and my marriage.

~ horneymomtellsall ~ Leave a comment

There is something tragic about a McDonald’s drive-thru window. Like, I’ll take a hamburger and some chicken nuggets and possibly a lecture about healthy living and positive decision making, you know what I mean? So there we are, in the McDonald’s drive-thru, hungry and super irritated with each other. We’re already an hour late to a picnic with my family, and Sam is ordering food because he “can’t make it” to the park without eating something first. This makes sense, mind you, as it happens to be 1:30 p.m. and neither of us has eaten anything yet today. (Also. I would never live like this on my own. I love to eat. Love. Sam eats about once a day, twice if you count a bowl of popcorn.  After 5 years of marriage I sometimes roll the same way, and I can’t believe it, and how long can a girl even GO without an elaborate weekday breakfast? Come on!)

We haven’t eaten yet today because it took us forever to get out of our house to meet my sister and mom and some of my nieces at a park for lunch, for which I have packed a sweet little picnic, except now we’re going to be an hour and a half late and WE’RE SITTING IN THE MCDONALD’S DRIVE-THRU.
So. We are not going to the park.
It’s too late, everyone else will leave before we can get there.
No, I say, don’t order me any food. I hate this place.
And I am super mad.

Sam hands me a hamburger.

I devour it. Sheepishly. Wolfishly.
And in a surprising turn of events, Sam makes a plan.
The thing is, I’m the idea guy in our relationship. I come up with grand, complicated ideas, and Sam makes sure all the details get ironed out. When things aren’t working, it’s Sam and Clara whose (ridiculous) tempers run the show, while I rustle around for plan B.

But today,
today,
Sam Horney has a plan.
And I saw that plan,
and I called that plan good.

We gobbled up our burgers, then stopped by our house to grab the camera and the picnic blanket I’d forgotten. We drove 20 miles out of town into wine country, situated deep in the Snake River Valley, on the rich soil of the Bonneville Flood Plain. Our freshly washed car collected the dust of a winding gravel road as we climbed above the sloping patchwork of grape vines. Sunlight filtered through barren trees and looping cirrus cloud trails, warming the shocked white skin that peeked out our t-shirts and shorts.

We unloaded our baby, paid the ladies in the shop for a bottle of riesling, smoothed out our quilt under the bright blue sky, and nodded at each other in surprised satisfaction at our adventurous selves.

It’s been a tough month over here. A tough season, really. School sucks. I hate every minute of it, even though I should be thankful for an education. One of my best friends lost her husband, and there’s just no way to sneak around that boulder of a fact. We must face it every day. It won’t move- we must climb over it. And all of this hellish business can put a strain on our marriage, for sure. I find myself stretching to be kind, having to work to be patient, and losing it way more often than I should.
But God is gracious.
Even when I want to toss my husband into a McDonald’s parking lot,
even when I stomp my feet in cranky frustration,
even when I cannot handle one more change or disappointment,
God gives me peace.
God gives me Sam. And Sam gives me the gift of a good idea.
And Clara attacks a strawberry with the ferocity of a starving zoo monkey, and one more day feels a little bit better.

ps totally nursing in a few of those. you’re welcome, world.Â