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Twinnis Elbow and other TWINges

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I have twinnis elbow — a malady common to mothers who perform heavy lifting of twin toddlers, repeatedly. The condition manifests when twin boys mature to the solid, hefty sum of thirty-two pounds and still love their mama’s arms as much as when they were newborn lightweights. It is a painful and beautiful thing. My specific ailment originated from a robust bedtime routine… one I refuse to give up, regardless of the carnage.

I am one who believes in the sanctity of routines. The girls had them — bedtime ones, bath time ones, weekend and weekday ones. And while theirs were enforced, I was a bit more flexible with them than with the boys – as was my mind and body some twenty-three years ago… Because according to twin parents everywhere (and if you’ve survived twins, you’re my go to guru; otherwise, just walk away) without routines, I would be nuttier than our ultrasound on gender reveal day. (No, that’s not quite accurate because on gender reveal day, one of the boys’ turtles was shy and tried to disguise itself as a hamburger — ultrasound speak for boy and girl parts. Which means we thought we had both Almond Joy and Mounds babies (remember the jingle? Almond Joy’s got nuts. Mounds don’t.) for approximately two weeks. But I digress…

From 4:30 until around 6:00 there’s no real set schedule. And it almost kills me and my twinnis elbow, but there’s not much that can be done about it. There is a constant frantic flurry of me heaving boys in and out of car seats, up and down my hip from stove top to watch pots cooking, to sink side to wash hands a gazillion times –because either they love the feeling of running water on their hands like every other toddler on the planet, or they are developing their father’s OCD –and then there’s more launching into and out of high chairs. By 6:00, my elbow is a fiery fulcrum… And this is where routine comes in to both help and to hinder… it helps my sanity and hinders my joint health.

From 6:00 until bedtime, the routine is solid and unwavering (except on Friday nights during football season…). They get their tablet time from 6-6:50. It is a welcome respite for all three of us. They love their iPads, and when I say love, I mean nothing comes between them and such youtube favorites as “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and any and all fire engine assembly videos. I mean nothing.

Like literally, I mean nothing to them when they are plugged in.

But that’s all well and good because iPad time is when I get laundry, dishes, and maybe a couple of blog paragraphs done. But it’s also the time when my elbow gets the opportunity to cool down. And you quarterbacks, pitchers and moms know it’s never good for your muscles to relax and cool down, mid-game. There’s a reason heated arm sleeves are worn on the sidelines… Raising twins is a heavy contact sport. I may need to invest in some occupational equipment…

Anyways… once the iPads are put away, the heavy lifting begins again. Carrying the boys, with arched backs and flailing legs (that’s them AND me, by the way) into the tub, out of the tub, onto the bed and into PJs as tight as sausage casings can all do a number on your humerus hinge, folks. And it’s not funny.

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The boys go to bed at 7:30 pm — without fail. Because if they don’t get a full eleven to twelve hours of sleep at night, their tantrums would register on the Richter scale. So at 7:20, after they’ve been bathed and brushed, we head to the kitchen for a rich, sweet, conventional-and-unconventional-all-at-the-same-time tradition that will be fondly remembered by all of us—including my achey joints. We cop a squat in front of: the dishwasher. Why, I have no idea. It just sort of happened once and has kept happening forever after. So now, in keeping with the sanctity of routine, it can’t be changed. Therefore, the three of us huddle on the kitchen floor, sip our warm milk and read our bedtime stories. Tate usually picks a nursery rhyme book that simply MUST be sung, and Parker picks a truck book. So we sing one, read one, and then it’s off to bed — and the closing ritual that really delivers the one-two punch that nearly puts me out of commission every night.

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Parker’s little bedtime routine is fairly simple. He gathers up all of his various and sundry fire trucks, and then it’s a quick snuggle, a goodnight kiss, and in he goes. Even Tate’s nightly ritual SEEMS innocent enough. He scoops up his books, two or three at a time, along with his Mickey Mouse. But then comes the The Holding Pattern — the single-most sustained piece of heavy lifting I do all day. Tate wants me to stand at his crib and rock him in my arms for a full four minutes and forty-seven seconds while Jewel sings Brahm’s Lullaby. It is the best of times and it is the worst of times. It is best because Tate snuggles and nuzzles and inhales deeply. (No lie. He sniffs long and he sniffs hard. He smells me. Weird, but precious.) And then he pats me on the back until the song ends. If it “ain’t over till the fat lady sings,” then the fat lady is my left radial nerve, and boy, she’s hitting a High C by the time Jewel is through.

And speaking of fat ladies, a quick side note… I added insult to my twinnis injury yesterday afternoon while dressing for football pictures. Instead of wrestling my customary twin opponents (I left them to their father), I attempted to wrestle my fat ass into a pair of Spanx. I headed into the privacy of my bathroom, praying for a little leniency from a very worthy foe. I’ve gone the distance with Spanx before and it’s never an easy battle. This time was no exception, but with my injured arm, the battle was bloodier than ever (in the oh-so-English sense of the word.) Let me tell ya, these undergarments really hit below the belt. I wriggled and pulled and kneaded and squished, my tendon screaming in anguish. The Spanx tightened and tortured, mangled and marred– and at one point, the slimming intimates very nearly snapped off a bit of my tender intimates right along with my tendon, but eventually I found myself hermetically sealed in a cruel and sadistic nylon cocoon. Success!! But at what cost? For a slimmer, but disabled, silhouette? My body is not as young and taut as it once was. Nor are its muscles and joints as supple and stretchy. So battling gravity and age with weaponry that hurts more than it helps makes zero sense. Goodbye Spanx, and good riddance. I’m saving my elbow for the heave-ho of my junior welterweights. Because if anything is going to take this body down, it’ll be the ones that I love, not the ones that I hate.

The boys and their bedtime routines create carnage on my body, that much is true. But I wouldn’t change a thing about their bedtime ritual. Not a single, solitary thing. The twins are worth all of the TWINges they bring along the way. Because we are creating memories. Sweet memories. And sweet memories become kisses from the past. These memories are worth the pain. And that makes all the sense in the world to me. So night and sleep tight, my Bug and Bear. Mommy would give her left elbow and right wrist (but that’s another story) for you. Nightly. Forever and ever.

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August 1, 2016 0

Mommy Fail

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I failed at this whole mommy thing. Again. The boys had a birthday party to go to – a party for one of their favorite people in the whole, wide world. The one who introduced them to Elsa and taught them to love Disney princesses. The one who gave Tate his first kiss and taught Parker to nap in his birthday suit. They love her as much as they do each other. Probably more — because they don’t shove her nearly as much as each other. I was so looking forward to it for them…

When we got the invitation — only the second social engagement to which they’ve ever been invited — I put it on the refrigerator. Prime time and center stage for all super important things in the toddler universe, and I told myself I would rsvp when it wasn’t the middle of dinnertime. But my brain, saturated with July heat and humidity became a casualty amidst the conquering of Santorini and the inception of the school year and the commencement of football season. Weeks went by.

And then, yesterday, on facebook, I saw the sweetest, little princess with the biggest and best baby cheeks and sassy smile staring down the face of a Mickey Mouse pancake breakfast. Mickey was sporting a birthday. She was downtown in one of Cartersville’s local landmarks and the entire restaurant was singing just for her. She puckered up to blow out the candle and my battered and bushwacked brain managed to stir up a memory – a memory of a palm-treed invite to sweet sissy’s soiree. In the immortal words of Donald Duck, OH, PHOOEY! (Although I’m not necessarily vouching that those were the words I used…)

Do you think… is it too late… I think maybe… I messaged her mama. It’s not too late to rsvp, her mama assured me. YES!!! So I told her we’d be there. We wouldn’t miss it for anything – except, apparently a negligent mother with a tendency to live life like a Waffle House plate of hash browns: scattered, smothered and covered. A hot mess of shredded good intentions.

Fast forward to today, when I’m leveling bookshelves and scavenging countertops looking for the invitation. I can’t find it. I message her mama again to ask the time. Wait a while. Try someone else. Wait a while. I’m certain it’s this afternoon – late afternoon. Pretty certain, anyway. Fairly certain. Mike suggests trying another friend who always has her phone on her. I do. And… we missed it.

I’ve cried off and on for two hours. The boys have no idea yet. They’re still napping. I had told them we would see their Sissy and Hunny today. To the boys, their Sissy and Hunny are better than Disney. Better than Mickey Mouse and Elsa and even better than ice cream. They knew about the party this morning. I told them. Hopefully they’ve forgotten by now. Hopefully when they wake up, we can get them out of the house to do something fun and they won’t remember the wonderful afternoon they were supposed to be having. With many of the people they love the absolute most. Maybe they won’t remember. But I will. I feel so very guilty. I’ve said about a half-dozen of my favorite swear words out loud to the dog and cat. They haven’t flinched. They’re used to it. But they haven’t helped — the animals or the cuss words.

So, to our beloved princess and sissy, I am sorry. So sorry. Your brothers wanted to be there. To her sweet and generous-hearted parents, I am so sorry. I’m not usually like this. I swear (and I’m really good at swearing, so please believe me). To our boys, who were so very pumped – in the jump up and down and shout at the moon and sun and then throw in the better than popcorn kind of happy — that’s how pumped they were… I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I am just sorry.

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And I know it’s not the first time I’ve failed at mommyhood and it won’t be the last. And I’ll try to do better. But that doesn’t mean that this time, like every single time that I fail as a mom, it doesn’t feel like total and complete phooey. Phooey with a capital F – and a few vowel and consonant substitutions…

July 30, 2016 0

Rise and Grind: Challenges of a football widow

God and football, that’s what I was raised on in Texas. The only thing stronger than the lure of the lights on Friday Night was the alter call in church on Sunday morning. For me, church was always bookended with football. Coin tosses started the weekend and the Cowboys finished it. I became the devoted disciple of Roger Staubach, Tom Landry, and my next-door neighbor, a high school safety and hometown hero. For me, the two most beautiful sounds on this planet earth will always be the clash of helmets on the gridiron and a choir singing Amazing Grace.

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Now being a football fan and being a football wife are two totally and completely opposite entities. I am still a fan, but I am also now a wife. Allow me to explain how that changes things… As of 7:45 yesterday morning, summertime ended. Mike started back to school, and I start tomorrow. (Ugh.) I am officially a football widow and my little lads have become football orphans. Again.

Every weekday from here on out, Mike will leave us around 6:30 AM and he’ll make it home just in time (if we’re lucky) to give the boys their warm milk and kisses for bed. And this will go on from here until — we sincerely hope— the middle of December and a state championship. This is our goal. This is our life. This is our truth. A half a year, folks. A half a year of mothering without Daddy. Of navigating housework and tantrums, mealtime and bath time — and sometimes even bedtime — without Daddy. Of cooking with tired, hangry kids hanging off my belt loops or clinging to my ankles as I navigate from fridge to oven, to sink, to stovetop (which is good, I guess, because it cuts back on my use of the dust mop). Of juggling soapy, slippery, uncooperative boys from tub to towel all by my lonesome. Of refereeing shoving matches and toddler torture while maintaining our laundry and my sanity.

There will be days — many of them — when I will wonder if I really have what it takes to be the mother of toddler twins and the wife of a football coach. If I have enough patience and perseverance to give my boys all that they need to feel loved and cared for in the midst of an absent father. If I have enough courage and strength to support Mike — to encourage and love and cheer him on in the midst of what will feel like an endless drought here at home. If I have what it takes to bolster my daughters’ confidence and be there for them, despite the distance and the exhaustion and the feelings of my own inadequacies. If I have what it takes to be an effective English teacher with a gazillion essays to grade, along with a gazillion students to nurture. If I have what it takes to be a responsible and caring daughter who does more than just check in on her parents with a quick phone call. If I have what it takes to be a loving and generous sister and friend who supports and motivates when the need arises. And I truly don’t know if I’ll have what it takes to maintain this blog any longer. I’ll barely have time to let my dog out too pee during football season. So you see, to be anywhere near effective in any of these roles will just plain seem impossible on some, if not most, days. I know, because I’ve been here before. This ain’t my first rodeo.

But in a way, it feels brand new. This year, Mike is coaching with the Cartersville Purple Hurricanes, a winning program both on and off the field. The staff and players have made it a point to embrace not only Mike, but also the boys and me. There is tradition and there is family here. Lots of teams say that, but with the Canes, it’s not just lip service — they mean it.

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Last year, I spent a very lonely season, just me and the boys, a stroller loaded with a pantry full of snacks, and a haunting suspicion that in the whole, grand scheme of things, no one on the staff besides Mike gave a damn about whether or not we were ok. I saw on my Facebook news feed this past week a story about a rental car employee who helped a mother of twins hold one of her sons while processing her paperwork. A simple gesture — most people wouldn’t even consider it newsworthy. But that mother of twins considered it monumental. Because, you see, when you are out by yourself in public with twin babies, every single thing you try to do feels impossibly dangerous. For example, the other night I took the boys to Ingles on my own. When we came out it was raining and there were cars pulling in and out from every direction. I was trying to keep the boys dry by shrugging an umbrella between my shoulder and ear while holding their hands and trying to open the van door… and then I had to keep one boy wedged against the wet van with my knee so that I knew he wasn’t running into traffic while I strapped his brother into his seat… Like I said, the tiniest tasks for most people become monumentally, impossibly dangerous for mothers of young twins. So last season, as the boys and I hunkered down in the far corner of an end zone because we couldn’t dare navigate stadium risers on our own, as we dodged band instruments and blazing-fast receivers in search of touchdown passes, we would’ve appreciated a small, simple gesture such as the one that rental car employee made. A gesture that family members wouldn’t hesitate to make — but on that team, there was no family.

This season, though, is already so very different. This season, there are potluck dinners in the field house after Friday Night games. There is connectivity and support amongst the wives – from a welcome note in the mail the first week, to season survival baskets, to group texts for reminders and updates. Oh, and just one more small, but significant item that completely seals the deal for me and shouts that we’re home. Every home game on Friday nights, under the glow of those stadium lights, in the midst of thousands of devout fans singing along, the band plays Amazing Grace. God and football. I’ve come full circle. My faith in family has been restored.

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Because at Cartersville, they truly know and understand how the game can make or break not just the players and coaches, but wives and families, as well. You see, in football culture, there is something called The Grind. It has to do with owning and embracing the hard work and brutal sacrifice that football demands. It has to do with mental and physical toughness, with drive and desire and deep-seated commitment, with privilege and with pride. The Grind weeds out the unworthy. It leaves the weak in the dust. It is well understood that for any team to be successful, every single one of its members must embrace The Grind. Because what seems insurmountable as an individual is totally and completely attainable when you are an invested member of a team. And as wives, we signed up for The Grind too. We are fighting the good fight and we are giving our all. We surge with the highs and we batten down with the lows. We get the goose bumps, as well as the goose eggs — just like every other participant. Cartersville is the first and only program I’ve ever been a part of where the wives and families are truly acknowledged as being willing participants in The Grind. It’s more than nice to have a team acknowledge the wives as a part of it all – and not simply after it’s all been said and done at the tail end of a speech at the banquet (every football wife knows the line I’m talking about…).

So goodbye, summer and hello, fall. It’s time to Rise and Grind.

But before I sign off, I just want to make certain that all of you know how much I really, truly do still (and forevermore will) love the game — despite the hardships of the season. Because it’s the love of the game that keeps all football widows going. It’s the Friday Nights that sustain us, that feed our souls from week to week with glorious, sensuous bounty:

It’s the home crowd blazoned with team colors and spirit. It’s the flavors of fall — the boiled peanuts and corndogs, dill pickles and coffee. The blur of a perfectly passed ball from pocket to end zone. That delicious thump when the kicker hits the sweet spot and nails a 52 yard field goal. A flawless on-side kick and the ensuing chaos of the opposing team. The apple-crisp nights with the chant of the crowds in the air and a win on the books. That fluttering belly tickle I feel when I catch my guy’s wink as he heads to the coach’s box. And finally, the very best of the Friday Night feels – that proud, tight familiar swell of my heart when our own little guys storm the field with the rest of the team families after the game, running headlong into Daddy’s waiting arms. Now THAT makes this whole widow and orphan thing worth it. Time to Rise and Grind. daddysarms

July 26, 2016 0

The Convergence of the Twain

The renowned poet Thomas Hardy once wrote a little diddy about an iceberg and an ocean liner called, “The Convergence of the Twain.” Twain is an archaic word for “two,” and since I’m an archaic mother of two, I find it an accurate description of this week’s events. Suffice it to say two tough and sturdy bodies on a collision course can leave a heck of a lot of damage and debris in their wake. Just when I was starting to feel like I might actually have a grip on this whole Twin Mom Thing, just when I had the audacity to tackle homemade baklava and the final bits of housecleaning before Lauren’s shower, someone cued the Jaws theme song and piped in “My Heart Will Go On.” I witnessed my best laid plans get laid to rest in rapid succession; they faltered, fell, and flat-lined under the sharp and steady onslaught of toddler twins.

There was no red sky of morning to make me take warning. But there were lots of torrential tears and tantrums from pretty much the moment they woke up until the moment they laid down for the past three days. No lie. No exaggeration. I swear it. I was ready for wine at noon every day, since their whine was flowing so freely. But I managed to abstain – at least until after I put them to bed, which has shown remarkable restraint on my part. Just saying.

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There were so many fights: fights over books and dump trucks, socks and cereal, seats and sippy cups. There were even fights over whether or not “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” or “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” was the appropriate dinner music to accompany pot roast. There was hair pulling and there were shoving matches. It’s only a matter of time before there will be fistfights. I know it’s coming. And I know a lot of this territory comes with being a Boy Mom, but I also know, that a great big majority of it comes from just plain being a Twin Mom. I’ve had singletons. I know there is a tremendous difference between parenting two, three years apart and parenting two, one minute apart. And while, yes I had girls first, and yes, girls are calmer, and yes, they sit and color or sit and play with their baby dolls, and yes, they nurture more than they annihilate, and yes, they might be made of sugar and spice… I’m also here to say that, NO, that “everything nice” line is total and complete bullshit. While hair pulling is their weapon of choice, they, too, can throw a really mean punch. And they are consummate, bonafide professionals when it comes to bickering and spatting.

So I feel fairly confident that my boys are not simply being boys – because unless my girls were “just being boys,” I’ve lived through all of these stages already – just not at the same time at the same age. And that, my friends, makes all the difference in the world. Because as a wise woman once told me, “One is one and two is ten.” And she was spot on. With two to three years between kids– heck even nine months in between – someone is always older and can (possibly) be reasoned with. But there’s absolutely, positively no reasoning with them when they are at the exact same stage at the exact same instant. None whatsoever. I am completely and utterly out of my league.

I used to think I could handle twins. After all, I’m a teacher. If I am the successful teacher of ninety-some-odd squirrely seniors, roughly the same age (most of them, anyways), with roughly the same burning desire for instant gratification hardwired into their cerebral cortices, I should be able to handle twins, right? I thought I had this. And weeks like this one have shown me how wrong I truly was.

Almost every day has been the same this week, so I’ll give you a quick overview of Tuesday, the start of the maelstrom. By 11:50 AM July 19^th I was still in my PJs – for the third day in a row. I’d managed to get one-half of my precious pair dressed, and that was pretty much all I’d accomplished. (By the way, I include things like changing diapers and brushing teeth on my checklist because with twins, every single success deserves a cross out. It’s a mental boost. And mental boosts are huge when you’re dealing in deficits the way I’m dealing in deficits.) So one-half of my duo was dressed – and by that I mean that each boy was HALF dressed. There’d been fierce negotiations with Parker over which motorized vehicle shirt he would wear for the day. Ex-nay on the racecar shirt, the double-decker bus shirt and the motorcycle shirt. I finally got a go-ahead on the fire truck shirt, only to be met with a roadblock on shorts. Tate then took his brother’s lead and stepped in to argue that Minion PJ pants are way better than fire truck shirts, and that unless he could wear his Minion PJ pants, he would just lie in the floor and scream, come what may. So may came. And then June. And there we were, damn near at the end of July, and we still didn’t have a general consensus. So I gave in. I felt like a terrible parent – but I hear it’s all about small victories (at least that’s what I tell myself). So Tate wore Minion PJ pants with no shirt, and Parker wore a red fire truck shirt, with no pants…

Which brings me to my next Twin Mom Fail – although this one might fit best under the more general Boy Mom Fail category. It’s the All Hands on Dick phenomenon. Sorry, I just couldn’t mince words here… You see, Parker hates shorts because they hinder his access – his veto of shorts was quite calculated. So herein lies my query to all you Boy Moms out there… please, please tell me when your sons started clutching their crotches and holding onto their wee willies like they’ll walk away. I know boys have handles and therefore they feel the need to … handle … but good grief! At age two and a quarter? And what do I do about it? Do I ignore it? Do I slap his hand? Do I duct tape his diaper? Which, by the way, wouldn’t do the trick because if he can’t gain access from above, he goes in by way of a leg hole. (Once my mom thought he was horribly chafed when she changed him. Nope. He’d just manhandled himself while eating spaghettios.) Please, please, PLEASE tell me what I should do about Parker and his… exploration. Quick. Before Tate discovers the tantalizing territory of his South Pole.

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So, here I sit, two days later, still in my PJs. But you can’t tell me I can’t learn from my mistakes. I may still be in my PJs, but today, Thursday at 4:30 PM, so are the boys. (Parker can’t plunder his nether-regions if he’s in a zippered onesie). Mike has come and gone… on his way to his coaches’ retreat and away from storm center. The shower will be here in two days. Boo Boo and Bentley are here. Jo Jo and GiGi arrive tonight. Cay Cay comes in tomorrow at noon. And my house and I look like a trauma scene, thanks to the Convergence of the Twain.

I was told once that I shouldn’t complain because I sound ungrateful when I do– that I am blessed beyond all measure and that I should remember that. And I do. Every, single second of every, single day. Even while I am rocking in a corner, a total and complete hot mess, trying to control a hot temper sparked by yet another tantrum – this time over which boy gets to sit in Baby Bentley’s exersaucer – which he inherited from my boys, and which they NEVER played with when it was theirs. Even then, I know and understand that my blessings are abundant. They, quite literally, are chasing me down. So I take a time out. I put myself in a corner. I count to ten, I pen a blog or two, and then I follow Dory’s lead (another woman with mental deficits), and I just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming — as I get knocked upside the noggin by the wreckage of the latest convergence of the twain. I’ve got this. I do. As surely as Parker has his zipper down and his rod in hand…

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July 21, 2016 3

Goats, Origami, and Vows

Today is Mike’s and my seven-year wedding anniversary. Our wedding was a lot like us – eclectic and quirky.

We wed on a goat farm under a giant oak next to a babbling creek. A thousand paper cranes bore witness, along with about fifty of our most cherished family and friends.

There was a belt of active thunderstorms all day long (we got rain on our wedding day – excellent luck, I hear), but a donut hole of blue skies kept our ceremony dry — or as dry as a muggy, mid-July night in Georgia can possibly be.

One of my favorite wedding photos is of Mike and me from behind, his hand at the small of my back, while sweat pearls on my shoulders and beads on my spine. It’s not glamorous, by any means. But it’s real. Like our love.

We put the wedding together in a few, quick weeks. You heard right — weeks, not months. SIX Weeks to be exact.

Mike proposed on Memorial Day (to my dog, by the way) and we didn’t want to wait until the following summer, so we crossed our fingers and made it happen. Apparently we thrive in chaos. I guess it was our trial run for raising twin boys. If we could pull off venue and invitations, dress and catering, cake and honeymoon — the whole nine yards — in a month-and-a-half, we could handle anything.

So yes, Mike proposed to my dachshund. I guess he knows how much I loved the little wiener (No, that’s not an Asian joke!). And while he didn’t EXACTLY propose to her, somehow in my misguided and vodka-fogged, post-Memorial Day party brain, I thought he was talking to her when he dropped on one knee beside me on the love seat. I very nearly missed the question, the question I’d been anticipating for a while. (We’d been dating quite exclusively and seriously for four years, after all.) Sometimes I’m a dumbass.

Anyways, once all that got cleared up and I said yes, the game clock began. We knew we had virtually no time, but we also knew we wanted all of our choices to mean something. (Sounds ironic, coming from a woman who thought her future husband chose her dog, but still…)

I knew I wanted cranes: 1000 origami cranes, to be exact. As a nod to Mike’s Asian heritage. 1000 origami cranes threaded with fishing line for the illusion of flight, and strung here, there and yonder-where.

And I wanted a post-Edwardian era gown — the time period of Downton Abbey’s glory; the time period of Agatha Christie’s country house mysteries; the time period of my beloved grandmother’s youth. Those were my two wishes. The rest could fall as it may.

The dress came easy. I found it online. When it came, it fit perfectly. The only dress I ever tried on. I felt delicious and decadent — like Lady Mary or Clarissa Dalloway. So the dress came easy.

The cranes… eh, not so much. Anything mathematical is not my forte. And origami, whether it actually is or is not, felt mathematical to me – all those congruent right triangles and bisected angles. I just couldn’t seem to grasp it.

That is until my seven-year-old nephew Jackson taught us how to make them over a veeeeerrrryyy long weekend in Scottsdale. Jackson is an origami wizard. He can craft the Taj Mahal, if given ten minutes and a tissue. He tutored us patiently and precisely, and with a lot of help and some martini time outs (for me, not him), I finally mastered it. Which meant we only had approximately 999 more to go before game time.

Now the goat farm was, quite simply, destiny. For some odd and glorious reason, goats have played a pivotal role in Mike’s and my courtship, from the goat raffle (yes, you read right) I was running when I met him that first football season (we’re weird ‘round these parts) to the charming and bizarre Goats on the Roof general store we visited one Spring Break, we sort of have a weird and wonderful connection with bearded billies. Combine that with the fact that Bethany’s best friend’s family has a goat farm and BAM! Goat farm, it was — complete with tire swing.

The rest feels like a blur. A big, glorious purple and gold blur– Mike’s college colors and our chosen palette. The ring bearer’s “pillow” was a prized football. We used books and borrowed vases for centerpieces. I found the perfect shoes – which were plain and simple pumps, laced up and layered in all sorts of awesomeness via Etsy.

Family from near and far arrived to help steam dresses, arrange flowers, decorate the venue, cook Korean BBQ, and participate in the ceremony. One niece played the violin; another read e.e. cummings. My nephews lit the lanterns; Mike’s carried the rings. My brother-in-law, a film editor in Hollywood, shot the video.

Everything, I mean everything, just folded together into a masterpiece. Like our 1000 cranes, we layered, creased, pressed and adjusted until, “Voila!” — dream nuptials in a nanosecond.

My girls were my bridesmaids, and while I don’t necessarily recommend the turbulent and tumultuous past required to use your very own daughters in your bridal party, I must say… I must explain… well… when I try to voice what it felt like — having them stand there at the altar with me, supporting and loving me, supporting and loving Mike; opening their arms and hearts and lives to allow him to join our intimate little clan of incandescence and joy… words fail me. I’m at a loss. Let’s just say, it was THE special ingredient, THE added love element that made the wedding as absolutely perfect as perfect can be.

There are so many other tiny tidbits I could share, including my grandmother’s posthumous contribution, our extended Peters metaphor, hangover knavery, and inadvertent F bombs, but I think I should quit while I’m ahead. Let’s just say that as Mike and I celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary, I was reminded of how unbelievably blessed we truly are. Our wedding was perfect because of our families. Correction… Family. Our nuclear and extended crews melded into a giant conglomeration of love and crazy and talent — and helped us pull off the impossible: a wedding in six weeks.
And on that sublime and sultry July night seven years ago, we were folded, pressed, and pleated into a multilayered, multifaceted masterpiece of a fine, new family.

July 16, 2016 0

Greek Illusions and Allusions. And Delusions.

boysandsink I’ve been getting ready to host a bridal shower for my darling niece Lauren. I love Lauren, and I love parties. I love hosting parties for Lauren! Lets’ face it, I love hosting parties. Period. When my girls were small, we had birthdays with themes: Hollywood galas, scavenger hunts, murder mystery dinners. I would plan for months and months, then execute with nary a hiccup. Pomp and circumstance had nothing on me. Fluff and accouterments were on my speed dial.

I decided on a Greek-themed shower — a nod toward the island of Santorini, where Lauren and Crimson will honeymoon. Just like when the girls were little, in my heyday of party planning, I’ve been doing my homework. Only now I’ve got the added benefit (or curse) of the World Wide Web, the modern-day Arachne, where all sorts of provocative party ideas are continuously woven and spun. Pinterest and Etsy are the hostesses with the mostesses in this seductive web, shouting “Salutations!” at every click of my mouse. I have found myself mesmerized by fruit-infused waters and Mediterranean food platters, cream-centered cupcakes and burlap bridal bunting. And now that it’s just under two weeks till go time, I have found that what I thought were friendly salutations by a couple of mild-mannered Charlottes were really charlatans of the ““Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly” variety. I am wrapped tighter than a tick in a tourniquet. I am destined for a Pinterest Fail.

What was I thinking?!?! I have twin boys, for God’s sake! Toddler. Twin. Boys. The Scylla and Charybdis of party planning. You know, those two sea monsters Odysseus managed to outsmart — pretty much the only mortal to ever do so? And here I am, the good-intentioned sailor out to navigate waters I think I can handle because I’m experienced. I’ve thrown parties before. I’ve done shindigs. Hooplas. Gatherings. Should be smooth sailing. But I’ve underestimated my opponents. They’re Scylla and Charybdis, for the gods’ sake. And I’m the foolish mortal insane enough to think I can pull off a shower, a BRIDAL shower — with cocktails and place settings, menus and color schemes — amidst the tandem whirling, twirling tantrums and takedowns of Scylla and Charybdis! What was I thinking?!?!?!

Cooking is pretty much nonexistent in our household. Not because I can’t cook, but because I CAN’T cook. I can’t open the pantry door because the boys come running like a herd of hungry Hydra heads. They want chips. They want fruit. They want Oreos. They want cereal. They want bread. They want. They want. They want. We keep a lock on the pantry door. No lie. My husband has to run interference when I need to get out the ingredients for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I’ve never seen anything like it. So how do I prepare a Grecian feast, replete with olive-cucumber bruschetta, spanakopita, orzo salad and baklava (Damn you, Pinterest, and your trembling, silvery siren song!) if I can’t even open the refrigerator unless the boys are out of hearing distance?!?!?

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My housekeeping is not a total loss, mind you. I’ve gotten good at diversionary tactics to gain an advantage and win small, incremental victories. Laundry gets done because the boys love to forage in the garbage can. It usually buys me the time I need to open the laundry room door and get things out of the dryer. I make sure there’s nothing too dangerous in there before I give them access to the rubbish in Pandora’s box, I promise. A few banana peels and eggshells never hurt anyone, salmonella aside. But why use a decoy for the LAUNDRY room, you wonder? Well, the brooms hang in there… and my boys will fight over the brooms for hours on end. It’s like a Clash of the Titans remix. I also have a few tried and true tricks to get things done in the bathroom. While I wash my face, they surf my vanity. It’s only three feet high and they do have young, flexible bones. And I don’t think it’s too terrible that I let them suck toothpaste out of the tube so I can have four minutes to shave my legs. I only let it happen once a week, after all. The rest of the time I’m a close cousin to a Centaur, which I think Mike is okay with… since a Centaur is a sexy beast. Of course she is.

So while I’ve carved out a few precarious routes to housekeeping and hygiene success, I am still very concerned. If I can’t open the pantry or fridge, how will I ever cook up a formal Greek spread? And if I can’t shave my legs, much less apply makeup and do my hair, how do I possibly think I can get the house decorated and presentable enough to warrant the kind of celebration my sweet niece deserves? There’s not enough garbage and toothpaste in the universe!

Did I mention the shower color scheme is cobalt blue and chalk white — I’ve been painting wine bottles white and hording Skyy vodka bottles since April. It has been my favorite activity, procuring these bottles. Only one glass of wine a night. Ok, sometimes two… And speaking of painting, while spraying some wrought iron chairs this weekend, I inadvertently painted the balls and heels of my feet a sparkling sapphire, simply by walking on the drop cloth. To borrow a friend’s comment, I looked like I’d been making Smurf wine. Tate couldn’t stop staring. And touching. Parker was slightly afraid. Two days later, they still randomly ask if my feet are “stinky” and my toe creases still have flecks of Santorini in them – and so does the floor of my tub. I’m counting on scrubbing bubbles to come to my rescue, if I can ever find three minutes and our lost tubes of toothpaste to work on it…

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On Sunday, for some glorious reason, the boys were exceptionally well-behaved, so I took the opportunity to do a trial run on the cupcakes and gyros. There were merely two broomstick battles and one table dancing injury, thanks to Mike’s generous assistance. It only took me seven hours to complete the recipes. Seven hours. To make two recipes. Out of eleven. Next weekend — shower weekend — I will have no Mike. He will be at a coaches’ retreat. I think he’s quite happy he’ll miss it, my attempt to outsmart Scylla and Charybdis. But I won’t be alone. I’ll have a whole houseful of out-of-town family, including my girls, my grandbaby, my baby sister, my mom and my beloved niece. Together, we must create Santorini-in-a-shower, complete with blue domed cupcakes and a spread fit for the gods. We can do this, right? We can juggle babies and burlap, bar drinks and baking. We can avoid a Pinterest Fail and conquer the universe – or at least a picturesque Greek island in the Aegean. Right?

I think I need more wine… bottles. I need more wine bottles.

July 12, 2016 0

A Mother’s Prayer: stop hurling hashtags and hate and understand that Humanity Matters

I penned this one year ago today, and I am sad to say that the racial strife and violence has not gotten any better. This is still one of my most fervent prayers. I wish we would all see each other’s humanity — not skin and uniform color. The shooting of the San Antonio police officer Miguel Moreno earlier this month and the recent jury acquittal in the Philando Castille murder trial are two recent examples of how we are still so divided. I believe in the power of love and empathy. Humanity Matters.

July 8, 2016 “A Mother’s Prayer”

How do I possibly write warm twin mommy morsels when my heart is so very bruised and battered this morning? How do I dare think of my boys and their future when I see how horribly dark and diseased our world appears to be at the moment.

I write about my boys often, but you all know that I am also the mother of two amazing twenty-something daughters. Being the mother of girls is a worrisome thing. I stress about the intentions of others toward them each and every day. They are beautiful and they are strong and they are passionate, but there are predators out there — predators who are attracted to their strength and beauty and passion because they want to own it, control it, damage it. All girl parents know this fear. Are they home safe? Are they making wise choices? Are they being cautious or are they being carefree while out in this world of breathtaking beauty and breath-taking destruction?

Worry for a mother of any child, male or female, is a very real thing. We all know the saying about having a child—about making the momentous decision to have your heart forever walk around outside your body (Elizabeth Stone). But these last few days, in the horrific aftermath of all of the violence being reported, I have tried to put myself in the place of terrified black mothers everywhere and I have tried to put myself in the place of terrified cop mothers everywhere.

I am not the mother of young, black sons. I know fear, but I don’t know that I can truly understand THAT fear. My child doesn’t venture out into the world every single day and willingly walk into a world that so often despises them for the color of their skin and the youth in their years. I have never had to worry about that fear with my daughters. Or the fear that some people will judge my child as a threat because she’s wearing a hoodie. Or that someone will twitch and shy away from her as she walks down the sidewalk. Or that someone will assume she is a troublemaker because she has a concealed carry license. Or that someone will assume bad things about her because she wears a baseball cap and carries a bat. All mothers have fears, and many of those fears are the same, and some of those fears are unfair and unimaginable and almost impossible to breathe through.

I also am not the mother of police officers. I know fear, but I don’t know that I can truly understand THAT fear, either. My child doesn’t suit up at the oh-dark-forty hours of the morning and willingly walk into a world that so often despises them for the color of their uniform and the symbol of their authority. I have never had to worry about that fear with my daughters. Or the fear that some people will judge my child as a threat because she’s wearing a badge. Or that someone will twitch and shy away from her as she drives down a side road. Or that someone will assume she is a troublemaker because she has a state-issued firearm. Or that someone will assume bad things about her because she wears an officer’s cap and carries a nightstick. All mothers have fears, and some of those fears are the same, and many of those fears are unfair and unimaginable and almost impossible to breathe through.

I am not the mother of black sons and I am not the mother of police officers. But I am a mother. I know and understand what it feels like for your heart to walk around outside your body. I know and understand THAT worry and THAT fear. As mothers, we all want the same thing: peace and respect, love and goodwill toward our babies. How can we protect all of these mothers’ hearts making their way through the world as it spins on its insane axis? I’ve taught thousands of mother’s babies in my career. I teach the children of afraid, black mothers. I teach the children of nervous, targeted officers. I see and hear these concerns every year, hell, every day. I see and feel these pains every day.

#BlackLivesMatter #BlueLivesMatter. All of this hurling of hashtags (which I’ve done, quite recently too) seems to only exacerbate the violence. Black and Blue. The colors of bruising. And we’re bruising one another. Even worse, we’re killing one another. And I don’t even like #allLivesMatter because it has become a band aid to slap over an open wound. It is causing even further divides. Love one another. Respect one another. #HumanityMatters.

There are bad guys on both sides. And there are good guys on both sides. And the good guys outnumber the bad in every direction. So what can we do so that all the good guys win? God I wish I knew. But I do know it has to begin with empathy. Empathy: putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes as best we can. Listening to their stories. Hearing their feelings. Understanding their needs. Acknowledging their fears. Respecting their lives.

Our fears are all different, and our fears are all the same. It’s Einstein’s theory of relativity. And the physics doesn’t stop there. Newton’s third law comes into play, too: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And right now, the action has been violence. And the violence begets violence. The injustice begets injustice.

We need a sea change – in other words, a major transformation. And without empathy we’ll never get there. It takes one empathetic soul at a time to bring about change. And one feels like such a drop in the ocean. But with every drop, with every person who tries to understand, to put themselves in the “other’s” position, the tides can change.

Now I know that practically no one ever changes his or her mind through political FaceBook posts. I know people like their opinions (and only THEIR opinions) in sound bites – and this has been far longer than a sound bite — but I’m hoping someone out there has heard. One soul. Because first one and then one and then one and then one… and suddenly empathy has met Newton’s third law, and we have a Sea Change. Or should I say, we See Change. God knows we need it.

This is my Mother’s Prayer.

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July 8, 2016 0

Nitwits! Boppies! Ointment! Tweak!

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Breastfeeding. Just typing the word makes me feel all warm and cozy and capable. To have my arms cradling a sweet little one while it draws milk from my body, to feel the letdown – which is such a crazy term because it is NOT a letdown at all – is quite simply the greatest maternal high in the world. I can’t even put into words the feelings the word evokes. God gifted me with two mammarian green thumbs, and I have been fortunate enough to use them for not one, not two, but FOUR little ones.

So today, I devote my musings to the nursing of twins. Some people will tell you it is impossible. Still others, when they learn you’re doing it, will tell you you’re crazy, or heroic, or unbelievable. I’m here to tell you that you are none of those things. You’re just doing what you’re doing for the good of your tiny twosome. And I’m also here to tell you it can be done. Don’t listen to the naysayers. DO listen to the cheerleaders. Gobble up the kudos and the accolades – to carry you through the tough times — because there are plenty of those. But keep on giving it a go. It is so, SO worth it.

Now nursing twins is a bit more of a challenge, it’s true. I thought I used lanolin cream on my nipples for just one!!! I should’ve bought stock in the stuff. (And I highly recommend roughing those milk makers up early – wet washcloths and heavy tweaking as early as you can. You are in TRAINING mama!) Which brings me to the football hold that you’ll need to master if you feed them at the same time, which I highly recommend — otherwise, you are a 24-hour diner for cranky customers with the mega-munchies. (As it is, it’s STILL feels like that sometimes…) For tandem feedings, clutch those little suckers (see what I did there?) so that their noses face your underarms, their legs wrap ‘round your back. The football hold felt odd at first. I was used to babies being able to stare up at me with their sweet little milk-glazed eyes while they nursed. With the boys, I could still see their tiny faces – just not as easily – and I often had to be content with rubbing their fuzzy bird-heads instead. But what better way for a football coach’s wife to feed her mini linebackers?

Just like in football — where pads are a prerequisite — nursing twins requires additional gear: an ample, sturdy pad called a twin boppy. Now there was no such thing as boppies when the girls were babies, and I had absolutely no idea what one even WAS going into my final pregnancy. (I still don’t know why it’s called a boppy — it sounds violent and Flintstonian to me, like something Bam Bam would carry around) But I do know I couldn’t have nursed my boys without it. It saved my back, shoulders and neck from traditional football mayhem. A twin boppy is truly not like the other, singleton varieties. It is firm, flat-surfaced and fits squarely around you, latching at the side to provide the babies their own solid latching surface. We got ours from Baby’s R Us, and while it didn’t have all the latest giraffe or chevron patterns or come in poetic colors like teaberry or silver mist or pink pebble (‘twas a plain pale green), the functionality is what matters most.

Deciding to nurse and finding the right boppy is the easy part. But I’m also here to tell you the dirty truth. (And there are lots of dirty little truths to reveal.) It’s not all soft lighting and rocking chair dreams. There’s a whole lot of shit-storms (breastfed babies have WAY MORE dirty diapers than formula fed ones – and they are mustard yellow and climb up baby backs like alien life-forms almost every single day), spilled milk to cry over (that old adage is bullshit) and clogged ducts (I sported a clogged duct that turned my right breast into a cauliflower wedge for days. I packed cabbage leaves in my bra, expressed milk in a hot shower, and even nursed the boys upside down — nothing worked until, miraculously on the morning of the third day, I rose and it had vanished. I had harrowed hell), and don’t EVEN get me started on going without caffeine and hard liquor for nearly two years…

No, nursing twins is not easy. Now with the girls, nursing was fairly trouble free (self-imposed prohibition, aside). My milk supply was abundant — to quote my grandma, “I could’ve squirted a stream clear across the room and blinded a man.” When letdown hit, I would darn near choke the girls. They would sputter and mew amidst a milk facial nearly every morning. And I never, ever had to use a supplement. The boys were another story, though. Getting enough milk to feed them wasn’t the problem — but getting enough milk for storage through pumping was another story entirely. Nursing one, you can hook up the other udder to the pump and BOOM, you’ve got six to eight ounces. Not so, when there are two. For a while I tried pumping after the boys were finished nursing, but I just wasn’t getting enough to sustain them for very long once I went back to work. So I began reserving one feeding session a day for formula so I could pump and store. Besides, because the boys were in the NICU for about a week, we were required to give them supplemental formula in the beginning to insure they were getting a certain amount of food in their tiny little systems. So we chose the bedtime feeding, and Mike or my mom or visiting sister or kind-hearted friend (or any other kind, charitable soul who took pity on us in those early days) scored the sweet pleasure of feeding them and tucking them tight into their swaddles, truly one of the most magical of moments.

10301495_10203583767627316_7331122009769522744_n Now part of what makes breastfeeding so wonderful is the convenience, along with cost-efficiency. Heating bottles of formula is hard enough when you have one wee bairn, but it is downright torturous when you have two, colicky, howling lads on your hands. And buying double the amount of formula can put a family living on teacher salaries in the poorhouse. Thankfully, we didn’t have to supplement with a lot. Still, it was enough that when Mike and I discovered the Baby Brezza within that first month, we were more than over-the-moon happy; we were game-winning-Hail-Mary-touchdown happy. Simply put, the Baby Brezza is like a baby Keurig machine that mixes the formula with water and fills the bottle to the appropriate amount at the perfect temperature in seconds. It is a mechanical wonder cow worth every single, solitary, exorbitant cent. (It ain’t cheap, let me tell you. Put it on your shower registry. Like now.)

Oh, and since breastfed babes are far less likely to sleep through the night (breast milk breaks down in their systems faster and they get hungrier sooner), we strategically chose bedtime for formula time. We were playing our odds, hoping for a few more precious minutes of shut-eye. Unfortunately, I think the boys saw our hope and raised it, then watched it come crashing down like a house of cards as they jumped up and down on it for good measure — to the tune of sixteen months of sleepless nights. Now sixteen months with no sleep sounds bad enough, but quantify by stating that sometimes they were up seven times a night (times two, mind you), with us only getting fifteen to twenty minute snatches of sleep at a time, which all equates to Mike and I being up twelve to fourteen times a night for months and months and months… the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts. And by greater, I mean mammoth and brutal. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Now I’m not saying that they would’ve slept better on formula. I have no idea. I will say that nursing them when they woke up that many times a night was by far so much easier and less time consuming than preparing a blasted bottle every single time. I am saying that. Absolutely. So that’s something…

But perhaps the biggest of hurdles we ran into while breastfeeding twins had to do with Parker’s milk protein allergy. Poor little Bear just couldn’t process dairy. It caused him horrible belly cramps and constipation. Before we figured out what was wrong, there were long and torturous nights when we thought for sure that our baby had a kink in his colon or a hole in his intestines, he was so inconsolable and so contorted. Once we discovered the truth, we could only use Nutramigen formula as a supplement– which costs even more than traditional formulas – and I could no longer have any dairy at all. Now that might sound innocuous, but let me tell you, it was pure devilry, the things I had to give up. (I had thought coffee and vodka were tough!) Not only was milk now off limits, but all kinds of favorite foods: blue cheese, Greek yogurt, vanilla milkshakes, classic pepperoni pizza, mozzarella-slathered lasagna, cookies chock full of chips, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, fresh-baked banana bread… Lets’ face it, the baked goods hit me the hardest. Cheesy foods were difficult, mind you, but my sweet tooth is legendary. It’s insatiable. I bake – I learned early so I could soothe the savage bicuspid. I have a red velvet brownie recipe that could achieve world peace. I make chocolate chip scones that could bring the Brits back to their sensibilities and reverse the Brexit vote. I thought I was a goner when I learned I had to give up my sweets. The only thing that got me through that dietary drought is Oreos. Oreos! Milk’s best friend! (oh, isn’t it ironic???) Oreos are dairy free — completely and utterly. They are also my choke collar for a savage sweet tooth that hates to be denied (because me and a hangry sweet tooth are truly a force to be reckoned with).

11229825_10206173595651398_2595925631929835405_n So what makes nursing twins worth it, particularly in the wake of food allergies and strict dietary restrictions, football holds and sleepless nights? What makes having the equivalent of four little parasites hanging off my teats (as my physicist/farmer father would say) for the cumulative sum of four years worth it? When I try to rationalize it, at least for the boys and the twenty three months that I nursed them, I tell myself that I was giving them as much of me as I possibly could for as long as I possibly could because the girls will always have twenty seven years and twenty four more years’ time with me than the boys will. I was trying to make up just a little of that quantity with quality.

I also tell myself I nursed for the medical reasons we all have read about: how our bodies produce the perfect infant nutrition; how nursing reduces a mother’s risk of breast cancer and female babies’ risks later in life; how it’s easily digestible and comes in a ready package; how it boosts infant immune systems resulting in less sick days for parents and babies, etc. The list goes on and on. You can look up the research yourself. And I’ll even admit right here in black and white that I’ve squirted breast milk in all four of my children’s eyes and ears to help combat pink eye and ear infections. – with success, mind you. And while I think all of these are part of it, it still doesn’t truly explain why breastfeeding twins and singletons for so many years of my life made it worth it. Ultimately it’s the connection that is made. And that connection is impossible to understand, much less verbalize. There is some sort of emotional and physiological cocktail created, a narcotic that hooks a mother to her child in the strongest of bonds for all of eternity. The connection is emotional, physical, and spiritual. Those babies are flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood, consuming the God-given milk and honey of my temple. It is like no other communion in the universe. It is the holiest thing I’ve ever done.

So yes, while breastfeeding twins is hard, it is not impossible. Still, it is a pretty exclusive club. If you think about it, only one-half of the population can nurse a child (and while I feel sad that father’s can’t, I must also admit that I’m selfishly happy that God made us the ovens and gave us the food trucks). Of that half, only a small portion have twins, (although the number is growing rapidly, thanks to IVF, etc). And an even smaller portion of those twin mothers actually breastfeed. So it’s an exclusive club, but we’re accepting new members every day. Come on, join the N.I.TW.I.T.S.: Nursing Infant TWins Into Toddler Stage. (So, maybe it’s not the best acronym, but I kinda like it… If it’s good enough for Professor Dumbledore after sorting first years into their respective houses (Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!), it’s good enough for us (with a slight adulteration): Nitwits! Boppies! Ointment! Tweak!

July 6, 2016 0

House of Figs and Hope

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Today, I celebrate my youngest baby girl. Not such a baby anymore. As a matter of fact, she now has a baby of her own. And as I watch her mothering that darling baby boy, I know that she has found her place in the world. (But I will talk about that precious acorn in another post.) Today, I celebrate Bethany.

Bethany Hope. She used to tell me she wasn’t too fond of her name. So many times at school, teachers and other students would call her Brittany. She argued her name was too different, too weird. Why couldn’t she just be a Brittany, like everyone else? Teachers and students called her that all the time anyway… But you know what? She is, and has always been, colorful and different Just like the rest of us in our crazy, quirky, love-jangled family. She’s a spitfire. She has the energy of the sun harnessed with a generous soul and a ready smile. When she laughs, the world shimmies. She’s that charismatic. She’s that passionate. She needed to be a Bethany. (And to tell you a secret, it’s still my favorite name of all of my children’s names.)

The name Bethany means House of Figs. Or House of Dates, depending upon what source you use. That’s part of why she didn’t like it so much. A fruity home. Really? Other people had names that symbolized beautiful things: pearls or flowers or truth. But her middle name she found a little more acceptable: Hope. That meaning goes without saying. But string those names together, and magic happens. Bethany Hope symbolizes sustenance and optimism. And sustain and uplift me, she always has. She is my baby girl. What I thought would be the last of the fruit of my loins. (Boy, was I wrong on that count.) And she is irreplaceable.

She swam into this world on a four-hour tidal wave of hard and fast labor. I kid you not, as her father and I shot down the interstate toward the hospital at 2:00 AM, I felt her shouldering her way through the birth canal and I didn’t know if we would make it on time. She burst into this world a short time later with a flourish of zest and gusto, coal black curls, and wide eyes open. My little carpe diem girl.

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Let me tell you, she was one cute kid. Her nickname isn’t Betty Boop for nothing. She had the sweetest little square noggin with brunette spit curls and china doll skin. That noggin was tough, though. And still is. I remember a few fits (she was a champion tantrum thrower) where she flung her head forward with the shining force of an electrical storm, and I’m pretty sure the neighborhood rained sparks when it hit the pavement. She was a pintsize powerhouse. Rounding out her fiery features were bottle green eyes that shot galvanized currents of pure sass with every blink, a tiny shadow of a nose (barely a line, really) and a plump, pouty lip that could curl up or down in a fickle jiffy. I’m telling you, she was Betty Boop in bambino form.

Now my grandmother would argue she was HER little carbon copy; her spitting image, a chip off the old block. And there’s no doubt she carries in her my grandmother’s genes for telling a great story, dancing a wicked jig, and for never meeting a stranger. Just like Grandma, she feels loves fast and hard, would scale mountains for family, and will break someone’s ankles if you do her or her kin any wrong.

As a second child, Bethany often found herself slipping into the cramped crevices of a busy life, the all too familiar curse of the second child, bless her. Life was busier once she came into the world. There were full-time jobs for both her dad and me by then. And day care and dry cleaning and Disney princesses and drive-thru dinners. (No, just kidding. I cooked — most of the time.) So life was life. And it was crazy fast. I remember one specific instance – at Christmas –when she got lost in the holiday shuffle. We were hanging ornaments and singing songs and nibbling cookies and taking pictures and humming right through the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. I felt she was still too little to hang the blown glass ornaments – my Christmas prized possessions – and so we let her big sister hang all of Bethany’s very own Betty Boop blown glass ornaments. Bethany quietly took a stocking from a box, a big, fuzzy felt one with white fur at the top, and slid it over her head. She slipped into a corner, stood dejected and demeaned, and sobbed. It broke my heart when I realized I had broken hers.

When you are little, when Christmas is the biggest, the best, the most amazing and blissful part of your life thus far… when you believe with all of your heart and soul in the spirit of Christmas and the mythical Rudolph of holiday specials … when your family roasts marshmallows over open fires and sips cocoa while icing star-shaped and sleigh-shaped and Santa-shaped cookies in brilliant reds and greens… when your mother spends weeks hunting for that oh-so-perfect ornament to give you the Friday after Thanksgiving just to usher in that most magical of seasons faster… and then your family, in particular your OCD mother with her Martha Stewart tendencies and her picture-perfect propensities, forgets what the whole fuss is about in the first place… Why celebrate a season of love and hope and life, if we are too self-absorbed and caught up in the hoopla to remember what love and hope and life means? If we are so blinded by the “beauty” of what we’re creating that we crush the toes — and hopes and dreams and passions — of the ones we’re creating it for. Again, why? So I gathered up my little pintsize powerhouse, my child of passion and sass, who feels so very deeply and loves so very hard (and bruises as a result) and I vowed I would never break her spirit again.

I’ve tried, from that day on, to not let the busyness of life overtake me. To not forget to love on all of my babies in equal measure. To not let the current craziness of twin toddler boys deflect any energy from my other beautiful offspring. And I still fail. I still find myself scooping up one or the other in my metaphorical arms (the girls both live miles and miles away from me, after all) and try to shower them with love.

So today, I celebrate my second born. My beautiful House of Figs and Hope. My baby girl, who sustains me and uplifts me in ways she will never, ever know or understand. I just hope I have shown you half of her love and energy, my shining, sparkling Bethany Hope: sparkplug of passion and sass and pizazz. She is irreplaceable.

Bethany

June 15, 2016 1

postmodernfamilyblog

Multigenerational Mom Muses on Twin Toddlers & Twenty-Something Daughters

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