Tuesday musings

Good grief. Parenting four small children is ridiculously tiring. Fun. Eye-opening. Tender. And so, so tiring.
We went down to Watsonville this weekend in celebration of my 38th birthday. The last time we were down there was for my 36th birthday and I was pregnant with Lily and Cyrus, though we didn't know they were Lily and Cyrus yet. We didn't know their genders and we certainly didn't know their personalities--we just knew that Baby A (Lily) was squashing Baby B (Cyrus) up under my rib cage on the right side. Several of our friends were with us and many were pregnant. We had a great time and once or twice looked around the group, already full of little kids, and marveled that were we to return in a year it would be with five more children. Fast forward two years and we brought six children under two, just between me and my sister. Yowza.

True to form, despite the many thoughts that run roughshod through my mind all the times I am not able to sit down at a computer, now that I have a moment I can't come up with anything.

So, on to bullets.

-I think I've got internet privacy backwards. I post pictures of myself and our kids on Facebook but I feel strange putting them here. It is so hard to imagine a life where your baby pictures can be found by strangers on the internet. What is a respectful way to handle this? Please advise.

-I will get back to the food topic. My last two posts made me feel so self-conscious. Surprisingly slow, actually. Rather than push through that feeling I took a step back and took a break. Then life took over and weeks passed and life kicked writing right in the chin.

-Anne Lamott is so right about the hardest part about writing is getting your butt in the chair.

-I wonder what it is like to be my kids. They get so much attention when we're out in the world. They seem to take it in stride but it must be strange to sit in a stroller and have people ogle you and exclaim about your existence.

-We shaved my son's head. Not bald but a buzz cut, soft and prickly to the touch. He looks so much older. His eyes are luscious and deep and chocolate. He drank a bottle while his dad used the clippers. Then I stripped us down and took him into the shower to wash the hair off his body. In a moment I was back almost two years ago, holding his tiny, tiny body in my arms under the shower spray. He hated baths for a while. Screamed when we put him in the water. He has always been a sensitive guy, turning at every little sound in the NICU. We thought a shower might be less overwhelming than a bath. He was into it and he turned into a slippery little seal pup in my new mama arms. This time he was big and heavy and long-legged, still resting against me, still turning his head to check out the spray of water. Watching children grow is just. . .the fastest slow motion experience of my life.

-Several people in my life are dealing with very hard things right now. Sickness and new babies or the hopes of new babies. I am holding space for them and it reminds me of how much energy we have to share with others. I feel them in my heart and in my shoulders.

-Motherhood is the one thing in my life that I knew for certain I really, really wanted to do. I longed for it, I chose or unchose people based on it, it affected my career decisions. Now it is here and it is so much more in reality than it was in theory. It is ass-kicking and also rich and delicious. There are so many things I thought I would do, so many ways I thought I would be as a mother that I do not, am not.

              * I thought I would breastfeed for a long time and that it would be the most amazing connection to                   myself and to my babies. I did not and it was not.

              * I thought I would wear my babies and go on walks with them snuggled into slings. I rarely wear                    any of them and when we walk it is always with a stroller.

             * I can't think of or remember any of examples at the moment. Because my brain is a big ball of                       mush.

More later, at some point. Off to the doctor. All babies sleeping and Stephanie the magical babysitter is here. Deep breath. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.