postmodernfamilyblog

I just poured myself a shot of wine. Yes, a shot. In a shot glass. Feels more like communion and less like compulsion that way. Body of Christ… grant me patience and perseverance… It was a rough week. Meetings to attend and essays to grade, lectures to deliver and tempers to be checked (both my students’ and my own). Add to that the care and keeping of twins and the day-to-day maintenance of a household and some days – even weeks — feel like defeat. This was one of them. The boys have been going at each other like Ali and Frazier — over cookies… over iPads… over who gets to touch the refrigerator.

This week’s twin mom demands were nothing too spectacular, so I really don’t know why I cracked under the pressure, but crack, I did. The battles seem small in comparison to some of the other hurdles I’ve met. Colic and teething were rough; the sleepless year-and-a-half with a twin hanging off each udder to keep them pacified was just plain mind-altering. (I will never get that gray matter back.) The norovirus that lay claim to the boys’ and my guts for a prodigious three days and three nights until we were turned nearly inside-out from the heaving definitely ranks up there. But I think the constant chipping away of my confidence and composure this week thanks to angry little elves in toddler frames took its toll. I tipped over the precipice of sanity on at least two occasions, becoming what I lovingly call the raging, radioactive Mothera…

There’s a really cheesy, really dumb movie from the early 90s called Godzilla vs. Mothra that Mike made me watch once. I thought at the time that it was a complete and total waste of two hours that I would never get back. Turns out, I now live the plotline and it has been retitled Brozilla vs Mothera – and Mothera appears to be losing ground to my dynamic and devastating duo. I really should have paid more attention to that movie. I don’t remember who finally gets the upper hand… So I scoff no longer… but I do take shots — when the kids are safely ensconced in their cribs.

This week was especially hard because after Saturday night, the boys only saw their Daddy for thirty minutes or so every morning all the way up until Thursday night. A couple of nights, while putting Tate to bed, he snuggled up under my neck and said, “I miss my Daddy” in the saddest little voice you ever did hear. Poor fella. I do too, Tate, and so does Parker. They definitely are confused and acting out as a result. And so is the blasted dog. Friday afternoons, I have exactly one-hour-and-a-half to get snacks organized, sippy cups filled, diaper bags packed, boys bathed and dressed, me changed, and the car loaded for the football game. This week, while trying to fix the side dish for our post-game, field house soiree, Neci the dastardly Dachshund decided to take a dump right where she knew we’d walk in it. Unfortunately, I was not the first to find it. While I was running around like a train derailment in the kitchen, the boys, unbeknownst to them or me, trampled the turds from living room to kitchen, hitting two rugs, a scattered stack of storybooks and a stretch of hardwood floors in the process. I didn’t discover the devastation until we had ten minutes and counting to be saddled into car seats and out the door. I may have cussed a bit. Just saying.

Football wife had her share of hardships this week, as well. Friday night was our first football game of the season, and it rained. After a high of 90 some odd degrees of blistering, summertime heat in Georgia, it rained. You can imagine the sauna that ensued. I’m talking, soul-sucking heat and humidity. Toddlers clinging to my neck, right along with wet ropes of hair and soggy bits of goldfish crackers. I looked like Monica from Friends that time they vacationed in Jamaica. My hair was a humidity-powered helmet out to rival any player’s on the field. And my makeup… let’s just say Alice Cooper, godfather of shock rock and mascara mayhem, would’ve run screaming from my visage, half-sunk amidst the scattered remains of my foundation. I was a sight. I thank my lucky stars that Mike is apparently love-drunk — or a true Southern gentleman raised in South Detroit — because he never said a word about how hideous I looked after the game (so I had no idea until I got home and saw the devastation). When we left the house, the boys and I were cute. It probably didn’t last through the first quarter, but we were cute. Tatebug in his bug shirt and Parkerbear in his bear one, me in the one and only purple shirt I own –blissfully unaware of the fact that I had two gaping holes in the shoulder until around midnight, when I had absolutely, positively already turned into a pumpkin puree’… I was a Cinderella Swamp Monster.

But back to Game Night: the umbrellas were out, the handheld fans were oscillating, and the far from fair-weather fans were abuzz. This was a battle of the best the state has to offer: reigning 4A and 5A state champions, opening up the 2016 season together, going at it for the unadulterated rigor and vigor of competition… and, let’s face it, bragging rights. It was a great game, and a sloppy game. A great, big sloppy game. There were touchdown passes that college crowds don’t see the likes of, thanks to our young quarterback with a cannon for an arm and an offensive army to back him. And the defense! Our Canes defenders rode out the majority of the game clock, meeting a so-called smash-mouth offense and giving more than they got.

The Hurricanes were churning it up on the field and it was a sight to see… only Tate was much more mesmerized by the suicidal moths flirting fatally with the stadium lights. He’s not our Bug Boy for nothin’. He wanted up there with the “itsy bitsies,” as he called them. There were a couple of close moments there when I thought I was going to have a screaming toddler amidst a stadium of tightly-packed athletic supporters (tee hee) — no, seriously, we were jammed in there elbow to elbow and kneecap to backbone — but I managed to redirect Tate’s energies by freely handing out dum-dum suckers, one after the other (to his brother, too, I might add), just to keep the peace. It’s easier to deal with the dental bills later.

The boys were sweet for the most part, but a challenge, nonetheless. Getting them up and down the stands in the rain and mug was exhausting. That, plus them turning into the 35-pound equivalent of lap dogs the entire game, and I hit a wall round about the end of the second quarter. I didn’t think I could muster the energy to breathe the sultry, steamy air a minute longer. I was fading and fading fast. But it’s amazing what a wink and a smile from your man can do to recharge your spirit. He stopped by our seats on the way to the coaches’ box after halftime and suddenly, all was right in this swamp princess’ world. I don’t know what I ever did in this lifetime to get such a solid man (and he would insert some fat joke here, I’m sure, but that is not what I’m saying, at all…) I’m thanking my lucky stars every, single night. He’s got that certain, special something, that magical, mythical ingredient that makes swamp ass and strained nerves vanish, makes flying solo during the season while braving toddler twins and a lonely house so totally worth it, and somehow he makes a girl with helmet hair and Alice Cooper eyes still feel sexy. He loves me, even when I’m a crazy, raging Mothera. Even when I’m a Cinderella Swamp Monster. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know why it happened. I don’t know how I deserve it. But I have my soul mate. And yes, he’s gone a whole awful lot. And yes,we miss him.  He’s a helluva coach and a helluva man. But he’s a heaven-sent Daddy and a heaven-sent husband. And I am one lucky woman. One very blessed wife and mother. I win.

Oh, and so did our team. Go Canes!

 

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.

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…

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.

 

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?!?!?

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…

        

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.

 

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.

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.

I’ve dedicated the past week’s blog to the assemblage of ingredients and bake-ware necessary to bring my twin boys into this world, but today, I want to focus on my firstborn: the beautiful baby girl who started this whole motherhood thing off while I was barely out of swaddling clothes myself.

Caitlin Anice. Named after a childhood bestie and a beloved doctor aunt. Her destiny — as friend and physician – was sealed at birth, it would seem. As opposed to the boys, she came into this world in the old-fashioned way, a completely natural conception, easy-peasy pregnancy, and drug-free childbirth. Now that’s not saying labor was a cinch; she clung heartily to the cranky, contracting warzone of my womb for twenty-six hours before making her grand entrance. It was like she was memorizing every stage and step, in case there was a test later. I should’ve known right then and there just what this little one was made of. Simply coasting is not her style. She works hard for every single accomplishment — and accomplished she is. But I get ahead of myself…

Her hair and eyes were dark at first, like clouds at midnight, but as she acclimated to those long June days after birth, she began transforming. While nursing, her warm little body nestled up next to mine, I watched her midnight blue eyes absorb more and more light with each knew understanding. She learned sounds, then faces, then language and more. With each new skill, those eyes crackled and sparked. Out of the darkness and into the light, a child after Prometheus’ own heart. She loved to learn.

At twenty-one I was almost as much of a baby as she was — and this little girl, this little spark plug of passion and piss, taught me far more valuable lessons than I ever taught her. She taught me how to mother.  From Caitlin I first learned about the tingly descent of ants stinging my breasts during letdown; how to successfully diaper an infant, midstream; how to bandage boo boos and bolster bad attitudes; how to sing lullabies and read storybooks and rock a baby to sleep in the soft, gentle breath of dusk. She taught me patience and perseverance, strength and resolve — lessons that have gone on to serve me well with both her siblings at home and my high school seniors at school. But back to mothering my girl.

I failed quite a few times. Caitlin, though, was a master teacher from the beginning. I’ll never forget the time as a baby she soared off our front porch in her walker, ass-over-teakettle. Somehow she survived, and I never made the same mistake again. Or the time as a toddler she stood amidst a swarm of yellow jackets that branded her with a dozen stings before I could reach her. I swear she wiped my tears before I wiped away hers. Or the time she contracted the shigella bacteria as a preteen. Poor girl, sick at both ends in the most violent and non poetic of ways. But as soon as the bags of fluids and fever and lethargy had passed, her loving aunts and I composed the “Don’t Cry for me, Caitlin Hester” shigella theme song and our entire extended family serenaded her during our beach reunion. It was funny; it was creative; it was in poor taste… and she was not amused. Like I said, I failed her. Sometimes shamelessly. But the ever-patient teacher that she is, she guided me right back to the drawing board, knowing I would get it right eventually.

Patience and perseverance, strength and resolve: Caitlin has them. Right along with gumption and grace, know-how and knack, compassion and courage. Her motto is “Love All,” and she lives it heartily, scattering warmth and love in her wake, and washing everyone in its sweetness and light.

For a while, life was easy for her. She basked in the summer sun of youth. She soared through elementary and high school, winning the Principal’s Award and high school homecoming queen. In college, and even med school, she rarely stumbled, light and love pouring out of her.

Now though, as an adult, she finds herself setting her courage to the sticking place and doing battle with her fiercest of competitors: general surgery. She’s been wrestling her way out of the war-torn womb of surgical residency, a long and arduous birthing process, for three years now. It is dark there. And deep. She is battered. Her light is dim. But she’s on the cusp of fourth year. She should begin seeing the light – the light that has never stopped burning inside her. The light she absorbed in those mid-June mornings in the procreant cradle of a mother’s love. After fifth year, she’ll shine that light into the dark black night of the licensed surgeon and she will soar. She will be ready. After all, she is a child born of the clouds of midnight, infused with the early summer sunshine. She has balance and grace. She has chosen the road less travelled — and it is lovely there, but it is also dark and deep – and she still has miles to go before she sleeps. But she is a child of Prometheus. She’s got this.

My little girl who taught me so much — is still teaching me so much today. She is the model of true strength and courage, patience and resolve. And she has the most incandescent heart I have ever known. Happy Birthday, my mid-June Monkey Doodle. You have never failed me. You are my sunshine.