I can't even pout through my smile.

This morning I was walking on air because 1) the results of last night's presidential election and 2) because my husband is in town and was able to take my daughter to get a long over-due haircut. Last time I took her and had to come home to take a Valium. I am sure the poor, young hairdresser had to do the same. For some reason children like to put on a show for their mothers to express distaste about things like haircuts. A crying, screaming, you are hurting me show, while for Dad they will just sit quietly, sip apple juice, and let the scissors work their magic. For the same reason children learn that squeezing mom's boobs gets them all the attention that they have been looking for, even if it is angry attention, but they never learn how to kick daddy in the nuts.

However, lately we have learned from our daughter's daycare provider/sitter, that we can make her smile by telling her not to smile. Genius! If she is pouty and whiny, we say "Doooooon't Smile!" and she will be in stitches in seconds.

When my daughter arrived home happily chirping about the blue blanket she got to wear as a coat, I struck the following conversation with my husband:

"Where do we buy flags?'

He froze and slowly turned to face me. "What kind of flag?"

I can hardly blame him for this question. I once asked him if it would look weird to fly the flag of Spain by our front door, or if changing our citizenship would be that big of a deal. This time I was serious, "The American Flag. Stripes and stars and things like that."

He tightened his arms around our daughter and started to back away. "What do you want to DO with the American Flag?"

I shrugged, "What do you mean? Fly it outside our door or maybe run down the streets and do cartwheels while waving it."

"Amy," he whispered, "are you proud to be American?"

I tried my best to smirk, but I can't seem to get the stupid smile off my face.

Change, it's the new status quo.

During my run this morning, I was shocked by the weather. I live in Cleveland. It is November and it is 75 degrees and sunny. Running felt downright balmy. However, everything will be status quo by Saturday...cloudy and snowy.

I also was shocked by how I got hornswaggled into voting today. My husband called me from our polling place to say that there were no lines, and you could just walk right up to a booth. With a dramatic roll of my eyes, I walked out the door, still wearing what I slept in last night, to go across the street to the school to vote...not even 100 yards from my house.

Teenagers greeted me at the door to ask if I knew what precinct I was voting in...to which I almost replied, "No. I don't even know why I am here," but luckily I was distracted. It was hard to ignore the state of that musty public school that I only look at and think please, please, house sell, so I don't have to send my daughter there. I noticed that families were there with children. Large, extended families from this area where we can hardly boast about affluence. People were quiet, but expectant. I saw hunger and exhaustion and desperation in many faces, I heard hunger and exhaustion and desperation in the voices of teachers and students that haunted the school hallway.
My God, I thought, they actually think that this matters.

Which, in a way, is everything.

Breathing in the "..."

Phew. Halloween is over. Now the year will start to wind down, but in a fast-forwardy sort of way. This is because every week marks some sort of event: election, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and all the preparation and travel that is required to make these events happen. Because I am brilliant, I threw training for and running a marathon into the mix. Brilliant.

Now that I am aware of life via the eyes of a two-year-old, I look back on Halloween as sort of a warning. Here is how I think my daughter perceived the day: waking up to find a carved pumpkin that was instantly her best friend...Thanking daddy when he woke up for "putting the Halloween on her pumpkin."... Being told that it was the day of trick-or-treating, and not really knowing what that means...Getting shuffled to daycare...having fun friends visit at daycare...watching a Halloween parade...getting picked up at daycare--but not to go home...Going to Aunt's house to a pre-trick-or-treating party, what ever that is...Having mom stuff her into a Barbie and the Diamond Castle costume...running around to houses that apparently have not felt the economic squeeze because their Halloween decorations totaled more than our monthly mortgage payment...having to say "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" over and over...Ending up at a post-trick-or-treating party... Back to Aunt's house to get a small sugar high on...going home only to be put to bed...

Exhausting to read, even. Maybe because I overused the "..." in that paragraph, but that "..." resembles everything that is real and exhausting to write about: the smiles and laughing that we did, the tantrums we all threw, the tantrums we watched every other kid throw, the pooping in our pants. The real stuff. The stuff that makes us crazy and joyful and tired. The stuff you cannot capture in a photograph.

The thing about the "..." is that those are the times we catch ourselves breathing and looking around. The "..." woke me up from the Halloween hysteria when I realized that my two-year-old did not want makeup on her face and did not need it to complete her costume. It woke me up when I realized that we over exhausted ourselves, and I had to bag the trick-or-treating and carry a limp and cranky toddler down the street.

It tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, "take it all in, next year she will be too big to carry that way, so don't miss it now."

As I face the fast-forward effect of the upcoming holidays, and I jump from event to event, I will remember to stop in the "..." and not miss a thing.

To my 28-month-old

Dear Sophia,

I know, I know, I said once you turned two I would stop counting your age in months. And I have, but once in a while I have to think about it in that way to remind myself of how young you are. You don't act that young. In fact, you act older than most adults that I know. This includes the tantrums that you throw, oh, ten times a day.

You have changed in so many ways in such a short period of time: You know every word in the English language and half the words in the Spanish language, thanks to Dora and Diego. I have never seen anyone, besides me, get so excited about peeing and pooping in a potty. Plus, you have become quite the negotiator. For example, when you threw a book across the room and it hit me in the face, your reaction to my exclamation of pain was, "It's okay, it's just my princess book." When I stepped on something while trying to get to my computer, again yelping in pain, you said, "It's okay, it's just my plastic kangaroo." When I entered the room while you were eating lunch, and asked why the floor around your booster seat seemed like it was covered with glue, you shrugged, "It's okay, it's just all of my apple juice."
There is no way, no possible way, to be 10 steps ahead of you.

Part of your development is learning fear. You suddenly say you are scared of things, even though I have tried to enthusiastically shrug off most things as not scary. Halloween has had a lot to do with it, I think. Last week when I took you down the Halloween aisle in the drugstore hoping to find some new candy that I could not live without, about 1000 animated decorations started hooting and howling and groaning at us. All you did was jump in my arms, while I took off running. I have always hated Halloween, it demeans the paranormal and the spiritual, but that is a conversation that we will have when you are a little older. When daddy is not around.

There is really nothing to be scared of in this world, sweets. Besides Republicans. We are given the capability to endure anything, that is what I want you to know. But there is absolutely no way you can know this without learning it first hand, and I hate it, I hate that I have to stand by and watch. I think you woke up from a bad dream last night, so I had to hold you and rock you and rub your back for a while. Then I did the unthinkable: I put you back in bed. You wailed and screamed, "Don't leave me, Mommy!"
I know it seemed like I did leave you. But you have no idea, kiddo, the tears I cried while standing outside your door for the five-minute eternity that it took for you to fall back asleep.

Then I smiled, as I pulled a card from your deck. Into the dark, I whispered, "It's okay, it's just a hard lesson." For us both. The truth behind that lesson is that there is no possible way that I could ever leave you.

Love,
Mom

Oh, so now I am THAT person

Before we had a kid, my husband and I used to marvel at how parents could tune out the incessant naggy, whiny voices of their children while engaged in conversation with other adults.
"How does that happen?" we asked each other, wide-eyed and dumbfounded, when we would leave an engagement that involved such parents and children. You see, back then we were the "other adults."

Now I am a parent, and my child talks ALL OF THE TIME. My ears are constantly ringing at a pitch that mimics the voice of my daughter, even when she has been at daycare for hours. The last time we slept over my sister's house, after a night of drinking some (lots) of wine, a collective attempt to knock the voices of all of our children out of our ears, I jumped out of bed in the middle of the night because the smoke alarm was running out of batteries. It was chirping at the very same pitch as her voice and I thought she was calling to me. If you have ever heard a smoke alarm chirp, you are getting the picture of this torture.

This morning, as I was dropping her off at the day care/sitter's house, I was trying to have some much-needed adult conversation with the sitter. I was talking and laughing until I realized that during the entire conversation, my daughter was whining something at me over and over. The problem is, she was whining about picking up the bag of toys we brought, and I did not realize it, did not even hear it, until her sitter bent over to pick it up for her. As I rewound the moments and tuned in, there was that chirping, "I want that bag, I want that bag, I want that bag, I want that bag, I want that bag. Get me that baaaaaaag."
The sad thing is, I was holding my daughter the whole time, which means her mouth was about 2 cm from my ear.
The sad thing is, I have no idea what else I am tuning out in the world.
The sad thing is, I am really missing her pinball-like movement around the room right now, and yes, even the sound of her voice.


About this photo: Taken last weekend at a local park, she is holding a tiny leaf, explaining to me that it was falling, falling, falling from the sky, how it lived in the clouds, in a castle on top of a beanstalk, that you had to climb, climb, climb and be careful of the BIG GIANT that says fo fum and stomps, chirp...chirp...chirp...chirp.

Dear Michelle, Dear Karla,

What a week you two have had, huh? Michelle, you said goodbye to the matriarch of your family, the deepest root of relation that you know--your grandmother. Karla, you welcomed your second daughter into your family.

I have experienced both events like these in my personal life, and I can't help but think of the raw emotional roller coaster that you both are still riding. Strangely enough, you are both riding in the same car, and the fact that you are close friends is not the reason.

Death brings such sadness with the hole that it leaves in our everyday lives because of the inability to see the person that we loved and lost on this Earth. That feeling of helplessness, that surrender. The odd moments you find yourself laughing, the times you can't stop crying. It seems like a mess, but it is God's perfect mess. Michelle, you have told me of the time you have spent with your family in the past week, and how it has been filled with joking, with stories, with remembering...

Birth is a blessing that does not need to be disguised. A new life! A growing family! The end of a long pregnancy (wink)! However, as mothers, we experience a loss. We give up so much of ourselves to our children--our ability to rest, our sanity, our personal space (I have not peed alone in 2.5 years). I can only imagine that you are starting to feel like the juggling act cannot work, and you are starting to ask the questions, "Am I giving enough to my first daughter? Am I giving enough to my second daughter? Am I giving, giving, giving enough to anyone?" Ah. Motherhood. I remember by the end of week one I was lying in a pool of tears and breast milk wondering how it was going to possibly work. God's perfect mess again. I can only hope that your hindsight saves you and gives you the knowing that no stage lasts forever, and there is very little you can do wrong.

Every moment, even the hard ones, especially the hard ones, are a gift. God's mess.

Okay Michelle and Karla, it may not feel like the most fun roller coaster in the world, but you are on it next to each other. I am behind you, of course, my hands are on your shoulders. Your hands? Throw them up in the air and enjoy the ride the best you can.

Love,
Amy

In Love

Perhaps I feel the need to follow up from my last post by saying this:

You know that you are still in love with your husband when he is out of town and when he sends you an email, your stomach does a little flip-flop.