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2011

I started reading again. Thanks to boys troubled with sleep and summer sunlit evenings, I’d sit in Owen and James’s room, quietly reading in a rocking chair until they drifted off to sleep or the room got so dark that I could no longer see. And I still read many evenings, even though they sadly, gratefully, no longer need my presence to secure sleep.

I ate a dreadful amount of popcorn. And cheese.

I watched my baby boys turn into toddlers, with little boy haircuts, little boy temperaments and little boy language. Bottle parts no longer litter our countertop, all furniture is something to climb, the arms of chairs are roadways for small trucks and a moon sighting can make even the most tantrum-filled night happy once again.

I accepted my stomach. Mostly.

I fought back happy tears while watching my children witness the ocean for the first time. Perhaps it was the bigness of the body of water or the bigness of the moment but I understood why writers so often like to make hearts swell because mine, that day, did.

I watched my little girl grow, both inwardly and outwardly, into someone who is both physically taller and mentally deeper, someone who I love to listen to sing when she doesn’t know I’m listening, someone who wrote her name on my Christmas gift tag this year, someone who exhausts and exhilarates me, someone who I love more, more, more.

I ended my milk-making days and with that has come more time, (much) smaller breasts, no more bottles or pumping accessories to clean, a body that no longer allows me to eat ridiculous amounts of food, freedom and sadness.

I wrote an essay that’s been published in a book. I tackled more freelance work than I thought possible. I also reached the won’t-this-number-be-impressive-when-I-do-publish-my-first-children’s-book rejection status.

I helplessly witnessed grief envelope people I love, seeping into every crack of their everyday lives—losses of parents, a sibling, a son. It has made the mundane seem silly, the shortness of life seem shocking. And yet, it also has made the everyday—buttered toast and a hot cup of coffee, a cardinal on a tree branch, a small hand tightly clutching mine as we cross the street—greater.

I gave up on socks. For the last six months everyone’s clean socks have been tossed, mismatched, in a laundry basket in our bedroom. And every time I had to find six socks I cursed the mismatched pile, wishing I was the type of mother who found time to match socks and put them in sock drawers, which, I’m sure, would take much less time than spending five minutes searching for three matching pairs in that (insert curse word here) laundry basket every morning.

I found time to shower—almost daily.

I held my two-day-old beautiful, crying niece in the middle of the night, so amazed with my sister and so full of memory, of the feelings of sleeplessness and helplessness yet also intense love. I became an aunt and my sister became a mom—a most amazing mom.

I walked Brooklyn’s streets with my brother, through pouring rain, learning about his life, then—where he lived, where he bought his food, where he grew his food, where he biked, where he walked, where he ate a bowl of rice or a plate of hummus, where he put his wet shoes to dry. He’s moved and his neighborhood has changed. I want to do that again so I can better envision his life again. I miss him.

I wasted time watching TV. I had almost daily three-on-one tickling sessions on our living room floor. I spent entire dinners trying to convince Sophie to eat broccoli. I cleaned dishes. Picked up toys. Mowed the grass. Got the oil changed. Bought new mascara. Organized the coat closet. Forgot to take out the trash. Enjoyed quiet evenings with Andy. Argued about taking out the trash with Andy. Pleaded with a child to please go back to sleep at 3am. Let Tucker out. Let Tucker in. Nuzzled my face in my children’s hair. Dined with friends. Dined with family. Left a Chinese restaurant minutes after our food hit the table because our children were behaving so badly. Bundled up all three kids past their bedtime so they could catch winter’s first snow on their cheeks. Buckled and unbuckled car seats again and again and again. Drove to preschool. Drove to therapy. Drove for peace and quiet. Embraced joyful screams.

Here’s to health. Here’s to more of the comfortable sameness Tuesdays bring. Here’s to more happy moments than not. Here’s to another year and all the goodness a year can bring.

“Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.” —Benjamin Franklin

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This entry was written by kara, posted on January 1, 2012 at 12:42 pm, filed under All and tagged 2011, 2012, new year. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
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     Owen just came down (he’s supposed to be asleep) to tell us he forgot to do his homework (he said he was done) but as he was plugging in his school iPad (which he had upstairs because he was reading a book on it, instead of sleeping) I saw what he created for his home screen and it’s so cute I swear ... this kid ... I’m no longer mad.  Relationship tip: Don’t tell your partner that “this is your favorite part of Christmas” and immediately follow it with “I want to do this with you every year until we die” while he’s experiencing a thousand needle pricks due to being over-meticulous about the lights while you’re sitting on the steps drinking Chardonnay (with a couple ice cubes) out of a Christmas mug with a sexy reindeer on it (Vixen, of course).  Picked the kids up from school and took a beautiful drive to a 100-acre tree farm in Ohio (thank you, friends, for the recommendation!). Way better than last year’s last-minute Kroger lot tree. Andy may grumble about my refusal to get an artificial tree every year but he said he had fun today. He secretly loves the long drive and the sawing and the cost and the prickles and the tying it to the van and the falling needles due to our neglectful watering all December long .... Our antenna is broken so instead of listening to Christmas songs on the radio I serenaded the family the whole way home. And yelled LOOK! CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!! every time we passed a festive house. I don’t know about everyone else but I loved today.  My mom has made many Christmas bags over the years — she and my dad wrap all their presents in them to reduce waste. Some of her bags feature little surprises like this — that’s me, Katy and Kyle, 1980-something.  My sister and Tom hosted a beautiful and delicious Thanksgiving. I’m sad to leave! Thankful for family, sweet sweet potatoes, hikes, wine, warm fires, early birthday celebrations, plays, and new and old faces willing to seek seashells hidden around the house with the kids.   This world can be so cruel. And our actions ... my worry lines deepen daily. A trick I use to keep myself from crawling into bed and refusing to come out (which I’ve tried, with little success) is to remind myself of something my mom once told me: Soldiers, she once read, were sent a recording of children laughing — nothing more, just happy squeals. And it helped them all. It’s genius, really. Who doesn’t like the sound of children laughing? I like to think about all the little things we humans share in common. Take fire, for example. It draws people in, for survival in the early days, yes, but still, the next time you’re close to (purposeful) fire, watch how people are attracted to it, as if we are nothing more than moths drunk on the flames. And although many may ignore it, no one curses a beautiful sunset. Each of us has a least one smell that brings on a good memory. Everyone loves zoo babies. And finally reaching that itch that needs scratching. And the joy of embracing someone they love. We all have a song that gives us goosebumps. And a cat video that makes us laugh. And something that makes us cry, privately. We all share in the goodness of drinking something cold when parched, taking our shoes off after a long day and wrapping ourselves in a blanket when cold. Each of us finds connection in eye contact resulting in unspoken conversation, witnessing a sweet reunion at the train station or airport, and in niceties — waving someone on, a sincere apology, holding open a door. There is privilege in my words, yes, and I know I experience the world quite differently from someone who is, for example, autistic (but I know there are shared experiences there as well). And please don’t mistake this for a “we should all just get along” post. Because some of y’all have beliefs I will fight until the day I die. But this Thanksgiving, especially this Thanksgiving, I’m grateful that we as humans have some things that bind us. For it is there I find hope that we may one day find ourselves on a better path for all humanity. Think this is a stretch? Ask yourself this: Have you ever met anyone who doesn’t like having a back scratcher when they have a hard-to-reach itch? No.  Io was home alone a long time today. He found toilet paper rolls (and a shoe, a watch, a package, two books, a large ice scraper, socks ...). And copious amounts of glitter. If you use your imagination really hard, it’s like glittery snow, all over the first floor of our house. But it’s not glittery snow. It’s all the toilet paper rolls from both baths torn into tiny bits and ACTUAL GLITTER all over the rugs and hardwood and furniture and given that the candle sticks are askew and glittery at one point he must have been ON THE DINING ROOM TABLE in a self-induced frenzied dance of glitter spreading in every creak and crevice of our house. Me, two weeks ago: “He’s such a good puppy! He’s hardly chewed anything!” 🧻✨  Lost electronics for the night, spelling lists with all those tricky silent k’s and b’s, a patchwork dinner of stir-fried rice and veggies and odd chicken and naan (all lazily pulled from the freezer), angry yelling (regretful), a clogged drain, a curse word and then another, a tiny, soft splinter, a (sad) no, a sierra of laundry, and this guy, who stinks. Hoping tonight’s winds blow all these bad vibes away along with the leaves. Grateful to have tomorrow.  Snow meant three separate requests for hot chocolate today, requests I was already on top of thanks to my mama intuition and a grocery run the night before. Most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing during these intense mothering years, especially with the big things, but 11 years in I can finally say I’ve mastered (a few) little things. I’m counting on those adding up in my favor in the long run. ❄️  Snowy Night, by Mary Oliver “Last night, an owl in the blue dark tossed an indeterminate number of carefully shaped sounds into the world, in which, a quarter of a mile away, I happened to be standing. I couldn’t tell which one it was – the barred or the great-horned ship of the air – it was that distant. But, anyway, aren’t there moments that are better than knowing something, and sweeter? Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness. I suppose if this were someone else’s story they would have insisted on knowing whatever is knowable – would have hurried over the fields to name it – the owl, I mean. But it’s mine, this poem of the night, and I just stood there, listening and holding out my hands to the soft glitter falling through the air. I love this world, but not for its answers. And I wish good luck to the owl, whatever its name – and I wish great welcome to the snow, whatever its severe and comfortless and beautiful meaning.”  It’s hard work waiting for the kids to come home from school and play.  Today is my dad’s 65th birthday. All summer long he fills our kitchen (and others’ and the food bank’s) with his garden bounty. Almost every time the boys ask him to play baseball (even if it’s the third time of the day) he says yes. I can’t count the times he’s lent me his truck (and time and hands) to help me move things or pick up my crazy Craigslist finds. He dedicates a ton of time to our Unitarian church (just last week he spent the night there while the church offered shelter from the cold). “No problem” is his response to everything (even if he’s silently rescheduling things to make it work). All summer long he plays baseball with the Cincinnati Dragons and listens/watches the Reds play (and still finds time to watch our kids play). I’m so grateful to have him in my life and today was such a good day. Happy birthday, Dad. ⚾️  Friday night II ❤️  Friday night ❤️  I got a new phone (and I adore the camera, thanks again for your help, @jjmenk !) but I’m changing carriers (to Tello, it’s so inexpensive, check them out!) and apparently my phone number is “porting in” which “can take up to 5 business days” (maybe this is why it’s so cheap) so email me if you need me. Also, Sophie looks way too old in this picture!  Today was a good day.  Every great once in awhile it’s good to test the solidity of your marriage by moving a large piece of furniture, such as a couch with a bed tucked away inside of it and a chaise lounge attached to it. #WeAreStillSpeaking #INeedToUpMyWeightsAtBarre  Happy Halloween! We had two Reds players, a zombie and a black cat this year. Io (you can see him in our front door in one pic) ran away from the door anytime someone knocked wearing a mask.  Sophie went to the other side of town with friends, and the boys wanted to go all on their own, wearing a batting glove on one hand and a baseball glove on the other to keep warm. Everyone refused their winter coats bc they’re ridiculous. And I’m over that argument. So I let them be. The boys collected their candy in their baseball bags.  It was windy and cold but no rain!  Last-minute trip to Neltner’s last week on a gorgeous weekday after school.  Skateboard: 1, Sophie: 0. Thankfully it’s just a buckle fracture so no cast! Ignore the messy house. I have another kid with a fever and another one who had to write an apology letter to our neighbor re his baseball and their car (hopefully there’s no damage). It’s been a (Mon)day!
    TAP
  • Favorite Essays

    Choosing Compassion in a Culture of Fear

    Seeking the Bigness in the Everyday

    The Love in Trying

    The View from Up High

    Season of Innocence

    The Huffington Post guest post: Apologies to the Parents I Judged Four Years Ago, a TIME's top 10 opinion piece in 2012

    Simple

    Changing Love

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