why we don’t have another baby yet.

May 26, 2015 ~ horneymomtellsall ~ 7 Comments

There’s a fast-approaching date on the calendar that I’ve been waiting to experience. It’s the day that Sammy turns 16 months and 16 days old, the exact age of Clara when he was born. I look at him every day and can’t imagine having a newborn at home as well. I don’t know if it’s because Clara is our oldest, or because she’s always been a little more observant and socially aware than he has, but Sammy seems so much younger at every stage. We dote on him, it’s way too easy to dote on him, and he also has Clara to direct and control his life (which she attempts with great pleasure and a small iron fist), and for these and many other reasons he still seems like a baby to me. Let’s be honest, it probably also has something to do with the fact that he is still nursing. I never really knew how I felt about “extended” breastfeeding until I found myself doing it, and it turns out I am not a fan. Every time he sits up afterwards and says “Ahhh! All done!” I am embarrassed for everyone in the house.

Maybe it was just ignorance, honestly, that convinced me to get pregnant when Clara was 8 months old (she’ll be so much older when he’s born! I said. She’ll practically be an adult! I said) but when it came time to think about our third baby, I felt a definite hesitation. Not in the longing for a baby; I daydream about our other children constantly, and pray every day that I can have more. But I haven’t felt a peace about trying again. Isn’t that strange? I never felt this kind of pause with our other pregnancies. I don’t normally pause for anything, in fact.

My family, my big family of my siblings and their spouses and my parents, recently struck a conversation about our Meyers-Briggs personality profiles. We all took an online version of the test and then read through each other’s profiles, gawking at how accurate they were and how different all of us are. I am an ENFP, an introverted kind of extrovert, full of ideas and love and short on follow-through and common sense. I’ve read through lots of information on my personality lately, trying to figure myself out and how to be a better person.

Mostly what I’ve noticed is that I am impatient. I am the opposite of a perfectionist: I am a “it’s good enough and if it’s not I’m sure we’ll all survive anyways” kind of a person. This is mostly because I have so many ideas and dreams that I couldn’t possibly be expected to spend any time finishing and perfecting just one of them, how dare you suggest it. Also, I am lazy. These traits cause problems for me, especially with my husband, who is too particular to even let me do the laundry because I forget which t-shirts don’t belong in the dryer. I just don’t care about doing things right, or about how they will get done, and I fail to see any value in following a set of rules for something that can be done faster and or easier.

And what a surprise, but I pay for this mindset constantly. My teachers always said, “You have so much potential if only you would finish something,” and they were right. I am impatient and I suck at being faithful in the details.

But now, as a mother, there’s not a lot of room for that part of me. Mundane tasks, maintenance chores that no one notices unless I don’t do them, a day revolving around the essentials of life; this is my new normal. (Do you know that children must eat at LEAST 3 times a day? It’s never-ending with these people!)

This is hard for me. It is hard almost every single day. But you know what? And this is my qualm with all those personality profiles, all of those lists of strengths and weaknesses: They don’t leave much room for grace or transformation. Because I can change. I mean, I can’t change who I am. I will always prefer major projects to small tasks. I will always enjoy creatively solving complex problems to doing the actual simple, good work of everyday life. But I am not my own person anymore. I don’t answer to Jessie, I don’t worship at the altar of Jessie, and I sure as hell don’t need Jessie and her personality traits determining my life. Simply put, Jessie makes a lot of messes. She’s not exactly my role model.

Inside of those four letters- those ENFP traits and ticks- I depend on the God of mercy to sift through me. Like the farmer methodically sifting wheat and chaff, like a judge and her intuition sifting fact and fiction, I pray for refinement as God sifts through me and presses the truth of who I am into my soul, letting the unsightly habits fall away one by one.

What does this have to do with babies? Well. We don’t have another baby yet because God said Wait. I know it was God, because it wasn’t me. Impatient, jump head first off the cliff me- she would have tried to get pregnant a long time ago. And I know it wasn’t the devil because he actually normally sounds a lot like me, which tends to make him more convincing of course, and I would have told myself YES, go for it, now is always the right time.

I haven’t always heard God so clearly. Motherhood has chastened me, gripped me, led me into a lifestyle foreign to my tastes and behaviors. This isn’t some creative project I’m working on, these children and my home like some grand masterpiece preparing to be revealed; this isn’t one of my plays or my essays or even a full day of creative work culminated in a finished product. This is a long study. This is devoted work. This is work of the heart, produced by steady movements of my hands and my body, a work that is making me quiet down the demons of my personality and be still. Be steady. Listen.

And in the listening, I heard Wait.

So here I am. With my two beautiful kids, an ache in my skin for many more, and a renewed trust in the One who knows me and keeps me, loves me and cherishes me, and is doing the work of sifting and refining me.

Wait. Be still. Be refined.

Waiting is so hard! Waiting is the worst! But in the waiting, I’m hearing so much. I am mother; but I am more. And I am less. I am Jessie, which means I am impatient and impractical, foolhardy and visionary; but I am learning to listen. Learning to be the truest version of me. With kids, without kids, whatever: the sifting is necessary. And it’s good. So- I wait.

(Imagine her sunscreen budget.)

Stuff Clara says.

May 22, 2015May 31, 2015 ~ horneymomtellsall ~ 2 Comments

This morning Clara asked me if she could bring a quarter over to her friend’s house to show to him. I said, sure, I don’t care, just keep it in your pocket.

Right as we were leaving she paused, thought for a minute, and then said, “Hey Mommy? I should probably just leave this at home so it doesn’t get lost. I’ll go put it back.”

Watching me write in my journal.

Clara: What are you writing about, Mama?
Jessie: Well, I’m writing about you, actually.
Clara: ME? And my brother??
Jessie: Yep, and your brother.
Clara: Oh, THANK YOU, Mommy! Thank you.

7 a.m., a minute after she woke up and came into the living room. Before she could reach door handles.

Jessie: Good morning, Smooch!
Clara: (pointing towards the nursery in concern) Can you shut my door for me? I don’t want to wake Sammy up.

After eating a piece of spicy jerky.

Clara: Ahhh! Mom! My mouth is gone!

Hearing the crinkle of candy that I am secretly trying to eat.

Clara: (Calling from the back of the car) Hey, hey, hey. You got a treat for me too? easter5 2015

After a particularly traumatic doctor appointment (which would be all doctor appointments.)

Clara: I don’t like going to the doctor.
Jessie: Why not?
Clara: Cause I just want to stay home. Just Sammy can go next time. I’ll stay home and do yoga.

Sam is in bed one morning after working on-call all night. I try to tuck the baby in bed with him to earn a few more quiet minutes. Clara puts her hand on my arm and whispers firmly.

Clara: No, Mama. Let Daddy sleep.

Sam and I finally sit down for dinner with the kids after a hectic afternoon, and reach for each other’s hands over the table. He sighs.

Sam: Man. That was a long day.
Clara: (grabs our hands and lets out a huge long sigh. Shakes her head with her eyes closed.) Yeah, whew! Man. I’m tired too.

While she is using the bathroom.
Jessie: Ok, tell me when you’re done and I’ll come help. (Takes one step out the door.)
Clara: I’m done!
Jessie: (turning around) What?! Already?
Clara: (dying laughing) Just kidding! Just teasing you, Mom. I’m not done at all.

Clara: Hey mom, can I go outside?
Jessie: Sure. Go find your shoes.
Clara: (Stares at her feet, stares at me.)
Jessie: Clara- if you want to go outside, go get your shoes.
Clara: Uh, yeah, can I please just wear my feet?

During a sass-fest of disobedience.
Jessie: Clara, get over here right now. You don’t talk to me like that.
Clara: No, YOU don’t talk to ME like that, Mom.

Coming into the kitchen after waking up, blinking at the lights and covering her face.
Clara: Ah! My eyes are broken!

Coming home, walking into the house from the garage. Clara pauses dramatically in the doorway, stopping me and my hands full of groceries behind her.

Jessie: What are you doing? Go inside, please.
Clara: Mama! I can’t! I have gum in my mouth and I am NOT allowed to chew gum in the house.

Draped in fake jewelry and high heels.
Clara: Mom- I need a mirror.

On a weekend morning when I am passive-aggressively trying to make Sam come help with breakfast and the kids.
Jessie: Hey Clara, why don’t you go see what Daddy’s doing?
Clara: (Goes to check on him in bed, trots back out moments later).
Jessie: Well? What’s he up to?
Clara: He’s just in bed, snuggling.
Jessie: Snuggling? With who?
Clara: His ipad.

The day Clara spent at an elementary school with her Nona (the school counselor). You know, just like all the other 2 1/2 year olds who love to sit in with kindergarten classes and listen to lessons.

church with babies is a waste of time.

April 11, 2015August 14, 2017 ~ horneymomtellsall ~ 2 Comments

Ok, look: I’m going to start with this. I’m going to say that I’m speaking for all of us here; all of us with little kids; all of us who have little kids and who want to go to church. I’m speaking for all of us and I’m sorry if you feel differently than this:

Going to church with babies is a total drag.

Beyond the inconvenience of timing, beyond the rush and rumble between the family waking up and the opening prayers, beyond the very idea of getting your entire family fed, dressed and into the church on time, there are the actual useless and distracted hours of church itself. And can I just admit my anxiety here in confessing how difficult I find church to be? I feel like other parents with kids under the age of 6 are reading this and wondering why I can’t do anything right in my life. I’m sure their kids never poop their diapers right before walking out the door or spit up on their dad’s shirt right as he sits down, or decide it’s a good day to take that morning nap they’ve skipped all week. I’m sure there are children who do not decide that the sabbath is probably the best day to get wild-eyed and throw out schedules, rub yogurt in their hair or breastfeed all morning long. Those children must exist somewhere, and to their parents I say: stop reading. Go sip your still-hot coffee and pat your angels on their well-groomed heads.

To the rest of us I say:
Why are we still going to church at all?
What is the point?

A few weeks ago I was paged to our church nursery to pick up my screaming son, who is thick into separation anxiety. He lunged into my arms and I headed towards the nursing mother’s room to settle him down. We turned a corner and ran into my husband Sam, who was walking back from the bathroom with Clara. There we were. All four of us. Missing the entire Sunday morning service, two tired parents wandering the halls with our two tired, tearful children. We shook our heads, gave up our pretenses and went home early.

I could probably count on two hands how many times I went to church last year. Between traveling, illness, Sam’s work schedule, and just general baby shenanigans, there were entire months I didn’t attend at all. Last winter, Sammy was born weighing 4 1/2 pounds. We didn’t leave our house for 6 weeks, and even then the last place I wanted to take him was a germ-filled church nursery. So, we stayed home. January through April, until flu season finally slinked off. The first time we pulled into the church parking lot last spring, 19 month old Clara peeked out her window and said, “Costco, Mama?”

I used to be involved in church. For goodness sake, I used to work for our church. I directed summer and winter camps, I taught classes, I ran the midweek kids program, I helped plan conferences and I attended staff meetings. I loved church. But now? These days? Father forgive me, but:

Church with babies is a waste of time.

So the question begs to be asked:
Why go at all?

Does your church have a separate congregation that meets in the lobby, the hallways, the nursing room and the bathrooms every week? Is that congregation a small group of exhausted parents who are bouncing a baby on their chest, absentmindedly picking up cheerios off the carpet, and clearly not listening to one word of the sermon? I joined that church two and half years ago and have been wondering what I’m doing there ever since. Why are we here? What good is all this? Our kids are grumpy, we are distracted, no one is rested enough to worship or fellowship or do any other important churchy activities: WHY ARE WE HERE?

Oh, and if you’re not here? If you’re at home because it’s nap time or someone has the flu or someone was teething all night or you just cannot fathom showering and leaving the house for a morning of listless hall-wandering: maybe you are asking these same questions. Maybe you’re wondering how you can be a part of the church from your living room, how God could possibly bless you or use you in this tired and distracted state.

Parenthood, or at least these early years, has stripped away many of my certainties. What once seemed a given, things like a full night of sleep or clothes that fit right, or church on a Sunday morning; those absolutes become slips of memory. And sometimes I feel like I’m in the arctic, floating out here on my own lonely iceberg, unaware and uninterested in the movements of God’s people because I simply do not have the time or energy to join the flow of life.

But you know what I’m learning? What I’m seeing now, as I journey further into parenting?

I need to pray for a new dream. I need to pray for a new vision of how to be a part of God’s kingdom, a new way to serve, a new way to practice being a Christian in the midst of raising very young children. I need to examine my new self, the one that is now also mother, see who she is and what makes her heart race. I need new eyes for myself and my heartfelt, often meager offerings.

Moms and Dads. I know church is hard these days. I see you. I hear you. I’m out here in the lobby with you, or on my couch in my pajamas having church with my kids and the sermon streaming on my laptop;
I see you.

And you know what? It’s ok. It’s ok to think that church drags on when you’re dragging babies in with you. It just means that it’s time for us to let go of a few things.

Oh, that we would cast off that burden of disappointment! Disappointment in yourself. Disappointment in the church. If it seems like no one understands how hard this is or how much work you’re doing just to show up on a Sunday morning: you guys? LOOK OVER HERE. I’m right here, friends. I see you! Truth be told, you have some syrup on your elbow, but I see you. And you are doing pretty great.

And I have our answer! Right here on my couch next to my sleeping daughter who will probably make me miss church this week with her stomach bug.

Remember, this is our question: Why should we go to church when it’s so damn hard? When we feel so hectic and scattered? I haven’t sat through an entire sermon in over two years; how can that be helpful to anyone?
Here is our answer:

We need each other. Whether we can admit it or not, we crave connection. We need family, we need friends, we need each other. So you try anyways. You recognize this season for what it is, you open yourself up to new people and spaces and trials and error, and you reorient your approach to living in a faith community.

Wandering the hallway with another parent? Smile and say hello. Exchange phone numbers and have a coffee date at your house another day. See that dad trying to hustle his kids through the lobby? Smile, ask him if he needs help, ask your older kids to carry his diaper bag out to his car. Home with sick kids instead of at church? Text an encouraging word to a friend and pray for her as you do. You can borrow this one, I pray it for myself daily.

“Oh Lord, show me new ways to love! When I wake up limping instead of running, may I hold this time lightly, mindfully considering it part of my life and not the whole rest of forever. May this weariness blossom into opportunity rather than develop into a toxic pattern. May I specialize in small acts of faith, which seem to be all I have energy for, and please will You grow tall my seeds of kindness. Amen.”

It’s time to reconsider our place. It’s time to rethink church.

One of my favorite authors, Richard Foster, says it this way.

“Always remember that we enter the story not as passive observers, but as active participants.”

Gone are the days when you could slip into your seat as the worship music started and passively receive what the Church had to offer. Cool. That’s good. It’s time to move on from that anyways.
Gone are the days when I could commit to helping with every project that arose; my time isn’t mine anymore. I have to be more careful with my minutes and my energy. COOL. That’s good. It’s time for more intentional living anyways.

The point is this. God is in us. God is with us. We carry the light. We ARE the church. Church in the halls. Church in the nursing room. Church in the fussing baby, church in the tired pacing, church in the way we love our kids and each other’s kids. We are the ministers to one another. Let’s get creative, let’s stop longing for our comfortable seats in the sanctuary, let’s toss out the old way of life and be the church.

And here, in this word from Richard Foster:

“To worship is to experience Reality,
to touch life.”

THAT’S IT. My holiest act of worship this week might be returning a phone call or delivering dinner to a friend, praying for my neighbors or standing next to them on Sunday, singing in worship. Experiencing reality. Maybe it’s patiently holding my baby in those long afternoon hours. To touch life. Maybe it’s praying over my sleeping kids, warm in their beds, praying with a thankfulness that comes from knowing that the mechanisms which beat their hearts are a miracle, a miracle right here under this very roof. Thank you, I say.

This simple, quiet worship is my new reality. God’s Reality. In my new life. My new life with you, church hall-wanderers. Our new tired, beautiful life together.

See you on Sunday.

(Unless my kids are sick. Then I’ll probably see you in the vitamin aisle at Costco.)

Her bruise matched her dress so that felt like a win.

Clara’s stutter

March 28, 2015March 28, 2015 ~ horneymomtellsall ~ Leave a comment

For months and months, Clara has insisted on saying our prayer before we eat dinner. Every night it’s the same rushed breath of thanks,

“DearJesusThankYouFoodAmen.”

She folds her little hands and bows her little head, squeezes her ocean-tide eyes shut in a squint and her two year old liturgy tumbles out in a hurry. Sam and I barely have time to close our eyes before she finishes. And though sometimes we’ll follow up with our own prayer, we grin about the swift manner of hers every night, smiling across the table at each other as we pick up forks and napkins and start our meal together.

For awhile, Clara didn’t want to pray until her baby brother assumed the posture she deemed necessary; that is, bowing his head and closing his eyes, and folding his pudgy hands on his tray. He never obeyed her requests for stillness, of course, and she would sigh in exasperation at his incompetence, then proceed with her nightly thanks-giving ritual. This first born girl of ours loves a good ritual, and she especially loves a sense of order.

For most of this winter, I’ve been worried about a stutter that Clara developed sometime in December. She started losing the start of sentences- it wasn’t the kind of stutter where a syllable is repeated, it was the kind where a syllable is held. So she would have a thought and get stuck on the first word of her sentence, or maybe just the first letter. Instead of a quick two-syllable “Mama,” her lips would press together in a long and forceful “Mmmmmmm,” unable to move through the rest of the word.

The stutter came out of nowhere, like a wall of flood water, rushing over her speech and drowning her voice. She’s always been verbose, babbling coherently since four months old, but hearing this stutter take over stole my confidence in her communication. I had to hide tears as I watched her try to speak, her eyes rolled back in concentration, her entire body tense, fists at her side, perched in frustration up on her tip toes; if I could have spoken for her, I would have. She had something to tell me and she couldn’t. She had a need and didn’t have the words to ask. She wanted to talk with me and instead found herself wading through the thick mud between her thoughts and her tongue. It was the first time I’ve had to wonder if there was something wrong with her, and I spent many nights laying awake thinking about it, sick with concern.

After a few months of no improvement, and seeing the exhaustion on my little girl’s face when other adults or children couldn’t understand her, I reached out to my friend Danielle, who is a speech pathologist. I wrote with Clara’s symptoms, her ticks and struggles, and wept as I typed. There was nothing physically ill about her, and her health didn’t seem to be in danger; it was the emotional toll of her speech difficulties that was killing me. I watched again and again as she gave up, starting sentences and then quitting, frustration radiating from her body. It broke my heart to see her in that kind of darkness, her world cloaked in jittery misunderstanding.

I didn’t have to wait long for a reply. Danielle wrote back the next day with advice, and with a blessed ray of sunshine: don’t worry, she said. Don’t worry! Stutters are very normal for kids her age. They almost always start at 2 1/2 (which was almost her exact age) and wouldn’t be considered a problem until she turns 5.

Between Danielle’s advice and some research, I counted the things we needed to avoid:
-Finishing thoughts or words for her (did that constantly, whoops).
-Telling her to slow down or take a deep breath (did that every day, shoot).

And a few things that would help:
-Sam and I speaking s-l-o-w-l-y and clearly, modeling a relaxed speaking style.
-When we saw her getting irritated with herself, gently remind her that we were listening and that we weren’t in any hurry.
-React to her message, not the delivery. Basically, pretend there was no stutter. Just respond to what she said, no matter how long it took.

It’s March now, spring unfolding on sunny patios, floating on afternoon breezes, stretching into trees heavy with blossoms. It’s spring and it was 75 degrees outside today, so I took my kids to the park. Truth be told, I’ve taken my kids a lot of places this week. More places than usual. I tend to be a “one outing a day” kind of a mom, if that, but this week I blew off our normal pacing and we went. Despite the fact that my kids have spring colds. Despite the fact that they’ve missed a few important naps. Despite the fact that sometimes they just didn’t want to go. They wanted to stay. But the sun keeps getting warmer and I have that energy I get at the rise of new seasons, so we didn’t stay much at all. And today my house of cards came tumbling down, joker sides up all the way around.

Neither of my babies slept last night. Their coughs choked them awake every hour, their bodies restless without the anchor of decent naps all week. This means, of course, that I didn’t sleep either. But I plan a park and playground meet-up for a bunch of my friends every Friday, and I didn’t want to miss today. So I gathered up my coughing, weary kids and wished for the morning sunshine to clear our heads. Clara was a mess. She cried all day. She didn’t nap again, too tired to find sleep. Wilted by the sun and my somewhat reckless scheduling, she fought me all day. Her attitude was impossible to deal with, not only because I felt responsible for her exhaustion but also because she’s not usually so volatile. So we fought, and I was tired, and she was tired, and Sam is on call so it’s been a lot of parenting alone this week, and Sammy ate an old sticker off the trashcan at the park, and yes. It was a long day.

We finally sat down for dinner, happy that Sam was home with us and that bedtime was finally in sight. Our dinner, a lackluster collection of leftovers and cut up fruit, wasn’t exactly inspiring. But at least we were eating together. We bowed our heads to pray, Clara taking the helm as usual, and I snapped my head up in surprise as she began.

“Dear Jesus, Thank you for food. Please keep Nona and Poppi safe. Thank you for Mommy making our dinner. Amen.”

She pinched a green pea in her fingers and popped it in her mouth, oblivious to my tears and Sam’s shock. It was the first spontaneous prayer she’s ever shared at dinner. It was the first time I’ve ever heard her thanking God for me. And it was a moment, for me, of two points in time touching in delicate completion.

Her stutter has vastly improved over the last few weeks, and her language has taken on a new sophistication as her speech corrected, marked with a new sense of memory and time stamps, correct sentence structure and polished thoughts. It’s a noticeable difference to everyone who knows her, but especially to me, and tonight was a tender reminder of how far she’s come.

It was just like Danielle told us: She was stuttering because her mouth was working to catch up to her rapidly forming 2 year old brain.

And it was just like we pray for our children every single day: That we would raise them to be observant, kind, and thankful people.

She is both. She is sharp like flint, soft like moss. She’s our baby but so, so quickly becoming a little girl. She fights us and she whines when we say no. She rushes to her brother when he wakes up each morning, eager to reconnect and kiss his soft cheeks. I love her so- I love her so. I love the synapses firing in her head, I love the bruises on her shins, I love the curls on her head, I love the blue and the green in her eyes, I love when she laughs and I love when she teases, I love all the ways we are different and all the ways we will one day be the same.

My God, what a gift. What a gift, this and every part of motherhood. This and every day with her and with him. The babies sleeping as I write. The children I longed for. The ones we get to call ours.

When you love your kids but also they are the worst.

March 17, 2015March 17, 2015 ~ horneymomtellsall ~ Leave a comment

When Clara was three months old, my friend Josh was holding her, trying to make her smile, and asked me,

“So, have you ever hated her yet?”

I was appalled. Hated my precious baby? Hated this incredible newborn I was lucky enough to call my own? What in the world was he talking about? And this coming from the guy who was the most annoying new parent in the world just a few years before, believing his son was the best and only child that had ever taken a breath. Talking about hating a baby? Laughing at my outrage, he assured me that one day, maybe soon, there would come a time when I would want to throw my darling daughter out the front door. It would probably be in the middle of the night, he said, when I hadn’t slept in days and she was crying for no apparent reason and I would be completely over parenting in one fell swoop. I didn’t believe him, of course, he was just jaded with two little kids at his house driving him bananas; I would never feel that way. Never.

You know what? I didn’t. Not with Clara. Not for a long, long time. It wasn’t until after her brother was born, when she was suddenly a toddler and not my delicate newborn anymore, and no one was sleeping, and none of my clothes fit, and I spent day after day with the two cutest, MOST SELFISH PEOPLE I had ever met; that’s when it happened. That’s when I thought to myself,

“These babies totally suck. And I want to throw them out the front door.”

But you can’t tell people that! You can’t say that! People shouldn’t talk about their blessings like that. Because kids are a blessing and I wanted them so badly, and I am so glad they are mine.

But also, sometimes they totally suck. I was so glad Josh had unwittingly given me permission to feel that way. To be able to love with abandon and also want to run with abandon. To admit that though we would die for these kids, we also at times want to get on a plane and fly far, far away. We feel all of these things. All at once. Altogether. One and the same.

My friend recently asked me: “Do you ever feel judged or looked down on for trying too hard? Like your passion or talents make people dislike you?”

She was referencing an article from a mother asking people to stop assuming you’re judging them based on your own performance, or thinking that you are annoying for doing something you love. I had to laugh when Abra asked me if I ever feel this way, because I definitely tend towards the other extreme. Mostly in an attempt to be transparent and to avoid self-inflation, I spend a lot of time highlighting the harder parts of parenthood and the rougher edges of myself. Also because my siblings and friends read this stuff and they know WAY too much about me for any falsehoods to make it safely across the pages, so. Truth it is. But because I focus so much on these difficult areas of me and my life, people tend to assume the worst about me and my kids. I cannot begin to tell you how many sympathy messages I receive when I write about rotten days, nor could I catalogue the volumes of unsolicited parenting advice, or tell you all the times people have assumed things about my kids or my life that just aren’t true. And this is my fault, I know that, because this blog represents about 8% of my life but reads like 100% fact, and I get that. And for the most part, I’m fine with that. I don’t want to share everything, I don’t want to tell stories that aren’t mine to tell, and I try to be very careful about details and intimacies that do not belong solely to me.

ON THE OTHER HAND.

I don’t want anyone to think my kids are awful, or that being a parent is a nightmare, or that I’m day-drinking my life away. The real truth is that just like everything else in the whole wide world, parenting these little people of mine is a complicated clutter of joy and heartache; grief and satisfaction; fun and monotony. And while I have no idea if the internet will be around in this form when they are old enough to read these pages about themselves, someday I want my children to have this virtual record of our life together. Sliver in time though it may be, and a simplified version of all the days and years we have together, I want them to read this and to know that it was hard AND good. Ugly AND beautiful. Fulfilling AND draining. All at once. Altogether. One and the same. So while I try not to brag about my kids and I actually don’t think anyone’s children are as wonderful as their parents might believe (sorry, except yours, I’m sure your offspring are those rare perfect ones) I do have some good guys on my hands over here. And I do happen to think they are fascinating, lovely people, and I want them to know that. Here and in person, now and when they are older.

Sam and I are not the kind of people who are going to worship their kids. And even when one of us is tempted to do so, the other is quick to find some grounding in reality. We have to be able to groan about and laugh at our kids just as much as we adore them, or we’ll go nuts. What I’ve noticed in writing about parenting is how many people don’t have that kind of reality check in their lives. You know how I learned that? The onslaught of texts, e-mails, facebook messages, and even phone calls from people needing to share about a hard time with their kids. And I’m not just talking about my sisters or my best friends; I’m talking about people I’ve never met before. Almost every day of the week, some mom or dad reaches out to me in hopes of getting some solidarity in how difficult parenting can be, how awful our kids can act, and how tired we get of teaching the same lessons. We are all desperate for someone to say, YES. I hear you. My kids are the best thing that ever happened to me and also I can’t wait until I can get away from them for a few hours.

I hope you have friends to talk honestly with, about your job and your family, your good days and bad. I hope you have someone in your life who loves your kids enough to absorb your annoyance about them without assuming the worst about them. If you don’t: If all of your people think admitting the bad days makes you a bad parent – I’ve got your back. I know what it means to love your kids and also grind your teeth in exasperation. I get it.

Our family recently suffered through a long round of stomach flu. Early one morning, Clara came to my bed to tell me that her tummy hurt and promptly threw up on my pillow and my face. Puking is not a great part of motherhood. It’s just not. But after we cleaned up (and after Sammy crawled crying through a trail of Clara’s throw up because I wouldn’t pick him up, since I was busy cleaning up throw up), after everyone was bathed, I settled Clara on the couch and laid Sammy down for a nap. As I stood in the middle of the living room, worn out by nine in the morning, my sweet, thoughtful daughter said, “Mama, do you want to do your yoga while Sammy sleeps? I’ll get out your yoga mat if you want.” Which she did. She dragged my mat across the floor, unrolled it carefully and then snuggled back into her blankets, watching while I stumbled through my balance positions, encouraging me with lots of “You’re doing a good job, mommy. You’re trying hard with your yoga!”

And that’s it. That’s all of it. It’s vomit on your face and it’s yoga mats twice their size, it’s tired tears and it’s earnest cheering from the two year old on the couch. Altogether. One and the same. I hope I share enough of both elements for you to know that my kids are incredible and incredibly frustrating, one and the same. It’s ok to feel both.

All I want my kids to know is this:

Sammy and Clara,

On the teeter totter of my life with you, on that long rough plank of ups and downs, in the balancing act of motherhood-

My love for you can not be outweighed. Not by anything. Not ever.

Those kick-you-out-the-front-door days are like blades of grass in rolling fields of wildflowers. Recognizing them is important to the landscape, to the integrity of the vista; but they are simply a part of our story. I share them to be a welcome heart for other parents, to give permission for honesty and relief to the exhausted, but please know how little I care about those bad moments. How often I just sit and watch you play on the floor, watch with delight as you pretend to cook me pancakes, how I kiss your hair and trace your shoulder blades while I hold you, how I count each breath as you fall asleep on me. How I write down the funny things you say and clap with pride when you learn to walk. How I can’t wait to put you to bed and then miss you after you’ve fallen asleep. How my days are wound up with you and your needs, but with a wary eye to the future, when your needs will extend beyond my reach and I will long for these hours on the floor together. Please know how much we treasure you, how much you are adored, how much you drive us crazy, and how much that doesn’t matter.

You are loved.

And if nothing else? You’re real, real cute when you’re asleep. That’ll save you most days, trust me, kids.

They have their own beds, I promise. She asks to sleep in the crib with him almost every night, and I can’t say no to this level of cuddliness.

sammy’s birth day video

March 1, 2015March 18, 2015 ~ horneymomtellsall ~ 2 Comments

You know, it’s strange. I can write about a lot of things, from the ridiculous to the deeply personal. But when it comes to the birth of my children, I find myself stumped. I have so many different starts with so many different angles in the telling of Clara and Sammy’s births, but the words never flow. They never seem to stick without getting sticky, you know what I mean? I don’t know, maybe one day I will sit down and stop self-editing long enough to just tell the stories without worrying about telling them right; until then I’ll choose an alternative mode for organizing their birth stories, which is to keep making poorly edited movies and slide shows. (Cause if you can’t do something right, just keep doing it worse. I think that’s a saying, isn’t it?)

I know it’s almost March and that means my son turned one almost two months ago, but I finally finished the video I wanted to make for his birthday. This movie is much more intimate than anything I’ve ever shared about my kids’ births or their first few days. I’ve gone back and forth with myself wondering if I should post it at all, if maybe it’s a little too much to give the world. But, Sammy’s life has been shared by many friends and family and strangers even, a whirlwind of prayers bookmarked by two frightening January events, cold days bitter with wind and fear. The video opens with my baby hooked up to IV’s and ends with him hooked up to IV’s, stark images that bring back a lot of feelings.

Due to some complications with my pregnancy and some impossible decision-making, which you can read about here, Sammy was born 2 1/2 weeks early weighing 4 1/2 pounds. That’s a small kid. When I watch his birth video I feel sad for the mother I see on that hospital bed, sick with worry about the baby that she knows is too small and the panic of not knowing why. Nothing was wrong- we just make tiny babies. But I didn’t know that. I just knew that the boy I pulled up onto my chest was the tiniest human being I had ever seen in person, a bundle of bones and tight skin, dark hair and the most impossibly skinny legs. We spent the week in the NICU letting him gain weight and learn to stabilize his own blood sugars, and then took home a four pound three ounce human, ours to feed and nurture and keep safe from a world full of germs and idiots.

It was terrifying. I wasn’t very happy: in fact, I was depressed. I didn’t see it at the time, I just knew how tense I felt about his health and how pressed in I felt for the two months we weren’t allowed to leave the house. But now when I watch these videos, these 3 minute snippets of our new life as a family of four, I can see that tension in my shoulders and the aging on my face. Over the course of the year I watch my baby get fatter and the sun start to shine again and it is a peculiar phenomenon to actually watch yourself climb out of a hole and back into your own skin.
It’s reassuring.
It’s emotional insurance for when dark days most assuredly come again.

It makes me ache for that woman I see on the screen, and it makes me love her very much. For straining towards the light, for opening her white knuckles one by one to let the fear drop like stones into a pond; I want to hug her long and tight. God was so faithful to me this whole year, as I was squeezed and shrank and then grew again, as I learned a new way to be myself and found joy in the morning. Joy in each morning, joy in the letting go, joy in the new life that filled each corner of our house. New life in our children and a whole new life for me as well.

I graduated from college a few weeks before Sammy was born and didn’t look for a job afterwards. We decided to keep our kids home and that meant that I would stay home, after 12 years working and 3 years pursuing my writing degree, after a decade of paychecks and staff meetings and projects and leaving my house every morning with a cup of coffee and my hair looking good; I chose to stay home. This was the first year since I was 15 years old that I didn’t receive any W2 forms in the mail for tax season, and quite honestly, that wasn’t easy for me. Money is such a straightforward measure of success, a spendable way to know you are appreciated. No one pays me for anything I do. No one really knows anything I do, nor do they care. That’s also hard to swallow. It’s not for lack of opportunity- I’ve had job offers almost every month this year, but it’s never been work that was worth time away from our family. So I keep saying no, and I keep wondering what the future holds, and I keep holding tight to these precious, quiet years that I have with my babies. Sam’s job affords me this luxury, and it is a privilege I don’t take lightly, but it’s been an ego and identity adjustment all the same. And I see that too, as I watch this video- I get to see where my time went, get a visual of the dividends I am paying into my family and see fruit from my labor as my children grow and change and live good lives with me, their mother. Not just their mother; a million other things as well, but for now: mother most of all.

The video closes with pictures of Sammy back on hospital beds and monitors, his face swollen with fluids and anesthesia. His infection and emergency surgery (talked about those here and here) were an arresting reminder that his life is completely out of our hands. He started his life scaring us and brought his first year to a close scaring us again. What a potent message from that happy little son of ours:

That no matter what we feed them, no matter how many times we check both ways on the street, no matter the brand of carseat or which direction it faces for how long; no matter what meager measures we put in place to protect the heartbeats of our beloveds, we cannot control their breaths. Each day with them is a gift, truly, even the shitty days, and if I’m thankful for a million things from this last year, the simplest is that their blood kept flowing and their lungs kept expanding.

God brought me back to life after a dark season, and gave me 365 more days with my kids than I could have given myself. So I sing my thanks, and I cry silent tears for the grace of it all, and I hope in the light that reflects on this crashing river of love. Darkness will not win. Tragedy will not triumph. No matter what comes, no matter the loss we carry or the fear we fight, hope will come again. Because hope never left.

This video was so fun to make. Our son was, perhaps, the happiest, easiest baby we have ever met. I forgot how early and often he smiled- it was almost impossible to find pictures of him NOT smiling. Every time I watch this I fall in love with him and that twinkle in his eyes all over again. He’s a lover, that Sam guy of ours!

Protected: 9 things I say to my kids that make God laugh real, real good.

February 26, 2015October 24, 2017 ~ horneymomtellsall

Cause you’re a mess too.

February 8, 2015February 9, 2015 ~ horneymomtellsall ~ Leave a comment

Sam and I used to be minimalists. At least, that’s what my friend Cassidy said the first time she came to our house after Clara was born. Clara was 4 months old, and our house looked very different than it had only a year before. Not just because there was a bouncy seat by the fireplace, or a carseat in the dining room, or a basket of toys by the couch. See, before Clara was born, we sold almost every piece of furniture we owned. Then we bought new furniture. Then we replaced our carpet with hardwood, set up a nursery, and have slowly added shelving, rugs and art pieces the last two years. When Cassidy called us ‘minimalists’ what she really meant was ‘you used to own nothing.’ Sam and I didn’t spend a lot of time at home before our kids were born. We went out a lot, hung out with our friends all the time, and then he worked out of town half the month and I never wanted to be home alone while he was gone. I can barely remember that life. I used to finish work at 6:30 p.m. and be able to do anything I wanted until 10 the next morning. Half the time didn’t even have a husband at home waiting for me. The freedom! What did I do with all that time? Mostly I recall eating a lot of cold cereal and making a lot of plans for the weekend. My gosh! Why don’t I like, know Italian by now? Or have a PhD in something? Young people! You there, the ones with the hours of time dictated by no one. TURN OFF NETFLIX and DO SOMETHING WITH YOURSELF. Love, your old and tired friend, Jessie.

So now, here we are, finally actually living within the walls of our small home in our small neighborhood, living amongst all this strange new stuff. Living with our kids and the strange new stuff that came with them. It’s not even like our children have completely taken over the house, either. We make them share a room so that we can keep a guest room. They have one corner of the living room for their toys. That’s about it. But still, we seem to be surrounded. Tripping over their shoes, cleaning up their crumbs, buying diapers and socks, washing their blankets, reassessing their closet and editing out clothing sizes- it’s never ending.

The other night after a wildly unsuccessful bedtime, Sammy still wasn’t asleep and needed another snuggle. I wrapped my arms around him and then Clara joined him on my lap in their rocking chair. I rocked and sang, smelling their clean hair and rubbing their backs through their soft jammies, still amazed that they are mine at all. There I was, in a big green comfy chair that I hadn’t owned a few years ago, in a nursery that hadn’t existed, flanked by a crib and a toddler bed I had never really imagined, holding two children my body had grown from sesame seed heartbeats to two warm and tired bodies melting into my lap. Their stuff is all over our previously-minimalist house. We don’t have any more empty drawers or cupboards; our corners and nooks are full of our babies.

And it turns out, we don’t mind it at all.

Because all of this stuff? It’s evidence of their existence. It is mostly outside of me in the sense that I don’t use it, unless invited to play; I wouldn’t own it were it not for their presence in our home.

It is silly, maybe, and it is cluttered, at times, but it is there because they are here.

Their voices bounce off the hardwood, just like everyone warned us when we installed it. They smear fingerprints across the glass french doors, they spill food every day, we pick up on their toys over and over again. Two hooded towels hang behind the door in the bathroom, their names embroidered across the terry material. Clara and Sammy. There they are, in our bathroom. Splashing in the bathtub. Sleeping in our bed. Climbing on our couches. Crawling around our feet as we make dinner, crying our names in the middle of the night, laughing as we chase them and complaining as we discipline. They fill up our home with noise and mess and a joy that squeezes us, wrings us out like a dripping sponge.

We used to be minimalists. We used to be free.

We didn’t know what we were missing.

We don’t sleep that much anymore. We don’t go out on a whim, or see many movies, or leave the house without the fanfare of a small, disorganized side show. Our world overflows with their presence. Our home is full of them and their stuff. Our hearts burst with pride and thanks when we see them. Our lives are interlaced with theirs, threaded so tightly together that to pull one string apart would change the entire tapestry.

The inconvenience of loving someone often shows up in the form of their stuff. Their clothes on the floor. Their files of old baseball cards. Their spread sheets and organizational charts, pinned up in the office. Their beer in the fridge, their dishes in the sink, their toothpaste flicked onto the mirror. Their jacket on the chair. Their particular brand of mess, emotional or tangible, probably both, fills up our lives and we make room for them. Just like we want them to make room for us. Even when the mess is too much. Even when the mess has us a little bit buried.

When we love, we make room.

The space that our things occupy is a physical manifestation of the space we occupy. Learning to live with the stuff of others; the mess; the bags on wheels that we all lug behind us; that is love.When we love, we welcome one another, stuff and all. Maybe we sit in it for a while. Maybe we help clean it up. Maybe we point the direction to the trash heap and let our loved ones decide the next step to take, because the hard part is that our stuff keeps changing. Like my children’s blankets and dolls will soon be replaced with school books and muddy soccer cleats, like our home has altered over time, the things we must make room for will change too. A battle will be won only to have another soon waging in its place. My temper will cool over time, I will learn to hold my tongue, and other painful shortcomings will crop up instead. This is the way of life, and it simply must be the way of love. I will love you in your messes, old and new. Embattled and triumphant. Until death do us part.

I think realizing what all we accept when we decide to love gives us a better understanding of how sacred it is to hold someone’s heart, to love with abandon; it’s not to be taken lightly. It is important, difficult work that comes with a lot of stuff. Love doesn’t just see the stuff and passively agree that it exists; love sees the stuff and says “Welcome. All of you. Whether you ever change or go away or get better or get bigger- my love will have room for you. My love will always make room.”

I come with my grandmother’s tea cups, a penchant for breakfast goods, and an unhelpful, selfish avoidance of mundane chores or errands. Sam comes with an absurd amount of baseball hats, an incredible commitment to cleanliness, and an annoying habit of refusing to make decisions.

Clara is a little lady. She has an impeccable sense of order, a tenderness that frightens me with its fragility, and a maddening way of whining and arguing. Sammy brought the summer sun into our home, has a smile that never leaves his face, and recently tore up four beloved books in one infuriating morning.

This is our stuff. This is our family. This is the room we extend to each other, room to be and room to grow, room to rest and room to become the ones we are meant to become. It’s not easy, this love. It’s work. It’s mess. It’s steady, faithful, messy work and it’s worth it, we say. Torn up books, bedtime shenanigans, a tired “I love you” whispered as you fall into bed- it’s all so very worth it.

say a little more.

February 5, 2015February 6, 2015 ~ horneymomtellsall ~ 7 Comments

A few weeks ago, after I wrote those thousands and thousands of words about our ordeal with Sammy, both of my posts sat here, unpublished, for a few days. I felt sick about them. I called my brother Robert, like I do whenever I suffer (my many many) bouts of existential crisis concerning my self-worth and what the whole point of writing even is and why am I even alive or wasting people’s time with these stories? This is the stuff Robert gets hit with whenever he dares to answer my phone calls on a weekday. And if he (wisely) does not answer, then I leave passive aggressive messages concerning his role as a pastor and whether or not he cares for anyone outside his own stupid Boston church, etc etc. It must be such a pleasure to be related to me.

He did answer this time, though, and he told me like he always does to use my voice to tell my stories, because in the end that’s all we can really do for each other anyways. So I did, and I felt like an idiot sharing it. There I was, some 4,000 words deep into a small, albeit frightening, situation with my son. It’s not like he was diagnosed with a terrible disease or won’t make a full recovery; it’s not like other people aren’t going through deeper heartache at this very moment. Where do I get off taking up so much space with my own pain?

Our family lost a dear cousin the day after Christmas. Sam’s young cousin Arman, only 22, passed away. He was the youngest of his seven siblings. His death is a devastation that will continue forever in their family. As one of seven children I shudder to think of life as six, life with a hole in our dynamic and our order, our entire sense of reality shifted by the missing voice of a beloved brother or sister. That scares me to imagine, to allow myself to picture a different future than the one I foolishly project as absolute.

It all seems so permanent, doesn’t it? Until it’s not?

On top of this fresh tragedy in our family, there is on-going pain in circles small and big, in-house and global. Wrecked marriages. Angry sons. Lying politicians. Massacre in the Nigerian bush. Massacre around a French editorial desk. Children forced to be suicide bombers. This is the world we’re raising our children in, this is the hell that goes on and on and on. It’s heavy. It’s terrible. It’s the bad suffocating the good on an hourly basis.

And I dare to spend even a moment of time talking about my baby being sick? This not only feels insignificant in the big scheme of problems, it also seems selfish to write about it. I really struggle with what I ought to write about, if we’re being honest here. I have over 30 unseen essays from the last few years, essays that I’ve typed out and never published in this space because once the words are on the page they stare back at me with cold disinterest, mocking my efforts and with the devil in my ear, all I can hear is,

“It doesn’t matter. You don’t matter. This doesn’t matter. Stop being so selfish. Stop wasting people’s time. Your voice is stupid. Your thoughts are trivial at best, egotistic at their worst.”

This is, of course, all a raging side-effect of my raging people-pleasing tendencies, which burn through my blood and prompt most of my decisions if I let my guard down. I am so deathly afraid of being irrelevant. Most days I feel like I have one foot on the garbage heap and one foot in society, and the wrong word or act will shove me right off to the dump. So, I don’t say anything. I write an essay and hide it away. I ignore a hard phone call. I tell my dreams to wait until I’m more capable. I listen to friends and don’t respond like I want to, even when I know God is giving me something important to say, because I am afraid of being irrelevant. I wrote all of those words about my son being sick because I needed to sort through my feelings and because so very many people had prayed for us, and I wanted to share what happened. But once the words were out there, they seemed useless. Immaterial. Shouldn’t I focus on bigger issues? I berated myself and my feelings, recommending myself to a life of silence and fasting. I squashed my heart and shamed myself into embarrassment at my overreaction to a somewhat stressful but in all actuality fleeting moment in time.

When I went to Boston this fall with the kids, I met one of my mom’s friends, who has since turned into a dear friend of mine. Her name is Cynthia and we call each other every few weeks to talk and pray together. Cynthia is my opposite in a lot of ways. She lives in a big city, she is a working mom to one little boy, she teaches high schoolers in a failing, under-served school, she only recently became an American citizen and her family still lives in Kenya. She married a white man and deals with a lot of questions concerning their relationship; she is tall, black, strikingly beautiful, and shaves her head. She’s kind of a bad ass, actually. She is also obsessive and brilliant and slightly neurotic, breathless with the enormity of life and its many, many problems and decisions. She feels everything more deeply than anyone I’ve ever met, and I love talking to her. We can talk for an hour about the undercurrent of racism in poverty policy making, and then spend another hour debating the ridiculous culture of food and nutrition worship amongst middle and upper class mothers (don’t get me started about raw milk). I wish she would write because she is wise beyond her years, but since she won’t, I’ll just glean her knowledge and pretend I thought of it first. Recently she was encouraging my dreams for the future and my non-existent writing career, and I confessed to her my enormous fear of saying things that don’t matter. She guffawed and said, in her stern and loving way,
“Jessie. Here’s what I’m going to pray for you: That you would have a little courage to say a little more. Because that’s all you need, right? Every day, just a little courage to say a little more. God will do the rest, for goodness sake.”

Cynthia was right, she usually is. Because God gave me a very specific word for this coming year, and in complete vulnerability I’m going to share it here with you:

“Don’t Shrink Back.” That’s my mantra right now, the banner in my sky, the spiritual tattoo on my heart.

I don’t really know what that means. I’m not exactly a wall flower. In fact, I normally go way too far. I send letters I should not send. I make jokes that should’ve stayed in my head. I spew feelings. But what I’ve noticed happening as I get older is that I know myself and I know when I’m going too far, with an argument or my opinion, and I know that my ability with words becomes an easy weapon to fire, both written and verbally. So I pull back. I don’t want to hurt feelings, I don’t want to overstep my bounds, I don’t want to be a jerk. Cause I’ve done it so often already. But there is another step in this maturation process for me, as I try to learn the great lesson of being wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove.

Since I’m beginning to recognize when I’m going too far,
now I need to learn when to go at all.

Rather than operating out of a mode of self-protection and serving that monster in me that wants ALL THE PEOPLE TO LIKE ME ALL THE TIME, I want to serve the Truth. The King of Truth. I don’t want to shrink back when I know the right thing to say. I think the crux of the matter, for me anyways, for this passionate person with this wild imagination and big mouth and sharp edges,

is to say more as in: More meaningful. More thoughtful. More love. More understanding. Say more in kindness, say less in pride.
Not more as in, say anything all the time. Been there. Done that. Reaped the bitter rewards. Over it.

There’s a lot going on these days. There is always a lot going on, isn’t there? A lot of changes. A lot of pain. A lot of sorrow. A lot of good and a lot of bad. We’re here, we’re together in this big mess of a world, and I don’t want to shrink back anymore. I want courage to be kind, and courage to speak up. Courage to support you in your pain, and ask for help in mine.

Have a little courage to say a little more, guys.

But make your more count.
Make your more worth something.

Let’s not be voices in the wind; let’s be the trees. Standing tall, telling the truth. In the wind or the calm, in the storm or the still. Truth doesn’t bend or break- it just is. It will always become clear, and it will always speak for itself. So you can whip yourself into whatever frenzy of the day you want, shouting into the void, drowned out by all the other angry shouters.

But I’m gonna try to quiet down. And make my more mean something.

i choose amen.

January 24, 2015January 24, 2015 ~ horneymomtellsall ~ 2 Comments

Tonight, Friday night, just took a long bath with a glass of wine and expensive-bubble-cake-from-a-store-that-smelled-like-heaven-paved-with-soap-and-lotion-night, I can’t stop thinking about Sammy’s last appointment with the surgeon who worked on his neck. There was a 4th year resident shadowing the surgeon the morning of our final appointment, and Sammy’s entire case was explained to him in front of us. A detail cropped up that makes me wilt when I think about it.

Dr. Garner told the resident all about Sammy’s abscessed lymph node and what they did to rid him of the bacteria, detailing the short surgery and hospital stay, and finished his explanation with this:
“We had to operate immediately because as you know, the infection would have forced its way out of the abscess one way or another, either by oozing out of the skin or breaking into the blood stream. The latter probably would have caused sepsis (infection gone terribly wrong) and the baby most likely would not have survived.”

I guess in all the chaos of what happened, we didn’t entirely realize what was going on, or the severity of his illness. Hearing it in such strikingly clear language shook my core. The way the surgeon softly touched my son’s cheek and looked me apologetically in the eyes as he said those words grip my memory with white knuckled strength. I remember those words and I remember that cold wash of fear, and I remind myself that every minute of every day is precious. We are not guaranteed even one more MOMENT on this earth, nor are the ones we love, or even the ones we cannot stand to be around. It’s a temporary state we live in and a temporary body we inhabit, and whether we mourn or rejoice, wail or hallelujah, shake fists or shake hands; this is all we get. Right now. Right this moment.

And as my beautiful son sleeps in the room next to me, his sister asleep next to him, his father asleep next to me:
I choose thankful. I choose empathy. I choose hallelujah. I choose love.

‘Cause this damn world isn’t getting any easier or any more just, but there are still reasons to sing. And I guess whether Sammy was taken or not, whether tomorrow comes or not;

I still get to make a choice. And for now, for tonight, for this Friday night after a long bath and a glass of wine and a midnight bowl of cereal, with my baby still miraculously breathing long even breaths in the crib in his nursery;

I choose hallelujah.
And amen.

Horney Mom Tells All

stories, jokes, mediocre parenting advice.