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Multigenerational Mom Muses on Twin Toddlers & Twenty-Something Daughters

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My Man Mountain

I’m pretty sure I’ve celebrated everybody in our patchwork of a postcolonial family in my blog now except for one key and vitally important piece. Without him, we wouldn’t be postcolonial at all. Without him, our family quilt would be fairly uniform in color and personality (though far from dull because it would be all Southern and Southerners are anything but dull.  We keep a lot of crazy in our closet and we take it out and parade it around with pride on special occasions, like trips to Kroger or booster club meetings, but still…) Without him, we wouldn’t have our usually sweet and sometimes sour toddler twin dumplings. So today, I’m turning the spotlight on the one person who gives our family the diversity and exoticism of the far East and the Up North. The person who gives me, personally, the courage and the determination to keep travelling along this steep and thorny path through life and twindom: my husband, Mike. He is my inspiration, my strength, my champion, my love. He has no idea how many times his random texts, his smile and his sweet notes in my lunch bag keep me going on a daily basis.

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Mike is a giant of a man. He is what the Lilliputians would call a Man Mountain; a Colossus.  He is a mountainous, six foot, three-hundred-pound colossus of an Asian man. Now I know the juxtaposition of giant and Asian may seem like an oxymoron — face it, when you think Asian, you think smart and small, maybe with black-rimmed glasses and awesome, enviable hair. And I’m not saying Mike’s not smart (because he is – wickedly so), but he’s definitely not small (he gets that from his Italian side), he doesn’t wear glasses, and his hair is shaved off weekly until he’s totally and completely bald.  So he’s my favorite paradox — my bald, giant Asian man.  And he is a giant in so many ways beyond just his size – from his generosity to his sense of humor, from his drive and dedication, to his capacity for love.

I’ll start with Mike’s generosity – which is ginormous. He’s like a bald, slant-eyed Santa Claus. He showers me with the sweetest of surprises — little things that mean so much, like buckets of real movie theater popcorn, Reese’s Pieces, and bottles of wine because he knows they’re my favorite combos or big surprises that are just the epitome of perfect, like the flock of flamingos on my fiftieth because he knows I have an unhealthy obsession with pink plastic yard art. And the presents don’t stop with me.  The boys get little special somethings for no particular reason quite often too. Most recently, Tate got a B-I-N-G-O book (his new favorite nursery rhyme) and for Parker, a monster truck school bus (his new favorite vehicle).

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Mike’s sense of humor is boundless – and I do mean boundless.  As in, there are no boundaries.  His languages are English, sarcasm and sexual innuendo. His wit is quick and acerbic and his wordplay is bawdy. He’s a veritable Italian-Korean Chaucer – able to twist innocent statements into double entendre in seconds flat. “That’s what she said,” is still his favorite go-to phrase and he’s always willing to throw in a couple of “deez nuts” for good measure, but he’s definitely not limited to the tried and true. And he picks on anyone and everyone equally, himself included — particularly when it comes to Asian stereotypes. (Just take a look at his celebrity look-alike facebook profile) And the boys don’t escape his jokes either —  as is evidenced in THEIR celebrity look-alikes…

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Now as far as his drive and dedication, it is unmatched — whether it’s in marriage, football, or fatherhood. Mike juggles more than his fair share in all three of these roles trying to be a successful and dutiful husband, coach, and dad. And he succeeds at all three.  On any given day during the season he makes lunches, does laundry, teaches six classes, studies film, grades players, runs schemes, attends practice, washes dishes, and finally, loves on the boys and then me – even if it’s just for a few quick minutes (That’s what she said….) I am truly in awe of his drive, his dedication, and his dexterity (TWSS).

Now if I’m to paint an accurate picture here, Mike’s enormous characteristics are not necessarily limited to merely the positive. He has other larger than life traits, too, like an iron will and a stubborn streak rivaled only by my own. At times, the two of us can reach stalemates that dynamite could scarcely rattle. Usually they’re over dumb shit — like who picks dinner (we both tend to defer to the other – over and over and over) or most recently, over who actually despises Trump more. Oh, and Mike has a super sharp temper that flashes in thunderous rages. It is very rarely seen and never shown toward me or the boys. It usually involves DIY home projects. (If he’s wielding a hammer or a saw, I’m leaving before he finds his frustration threshold. He’s been known to punch walls and put holes in sheetrock.) The only other occasions (besides football) where I’ve seen his fiery temper unleashed is when someone threatens his loved ones. Then, as Mr. T used to say, “I pity the fool…

Which brings me to his enormous capacity for love. Mike is fueled by a love more intense, more protective, more genuine, more burning than any love I’ve ever known. He has taught me what love truly is and what love really means. I believe it now when I see that familiar Corinthians’ passage: love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It always protects, always, trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Because Mike is all of these things for me and for mine.  He is my three-hundred-pound Asian teddy bear. And he’s also my giant, three-hundred-pound Asian enigma — a puzzle of mammoth proportions…

Because he picked me. Me.

He never should have. I am his exact opposite. I’m an eighties girl; he’s a nineties guy. I’m laidback; he’s got OCD.  I played piano. He played football. I was a book nerd. He was a meathead. His family is quiet and reserved. Mine is loud and ballsy. But we did have one thing going for us: some lyrics from a Journey song. Ten years ago, I was just a small town girl livin’ in a lonely world and he was a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit.  And the two of us refused to stop believing.

Just yesterday, I discovered a new song with new lyrics that express exactly how I have felt about my mountainous, six foot, three-hundred-pound colossus of an Asian man from the first kiss, Christmas break ten years ago, to right now, this very second:

You still make me nervous when you walk in the room
Them butterflies they come alive when I’m next to you
Over and over the only truth
Everything comes back to you

I love you, Mike Candela.

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Slimes and Smells and Streptococcus

Never leave a hot dog on the stovetop to ferment in its own juices for three days. Never. The scum that accumulates on the surface of the water is nothing compared with the slime that surrounds its circumference upon extracting it. Not kidding, here. I made the mistake of taking it out of the pot with my bare hand and the slime slipped over it like a mucous-y, amorphous blob. It just kept sliding and slipping until it nearly covered my  wrist. So much slime for such a small, seemingly innocuous hot dog. Mike almost threw up. It was like something out of Ghostbusters or Nickelodeon. But it was nothing — I say nothing — compared with the slime that has sluiced from the boys’ noses this week. I wish I’d thought of bottling it up and sending it to Universal Studios to lend some authenticity to the Kids’ Choice Awards this spring.

It all began on Monday — doesn’t it always? The boys had slept terribly, if you could even call it sleep. There’d been multiple coughing fits and periodic wailing virtually all night long. There’s this feeling I get deep in my mommy marrow when I hear my babies – any of them, whether it’s my girls in their twenties or the boys in their twos — cough that raw, rattily cough. It’s a maternal, visceral reflex – like someone has taken a potato peeler to my womb and is shaving off slender curls of it while I’m simultaneously plunging from a tremendous height. That’s what it feels like — except worse. Because I would rather have someone scrape my uterus with a peeler while simultaneously freefalling than to hear that cough coming from any one of my babies’ chests. Needless to say, Monday morning, even before my alarm went off at 5:30, I decided that I was taking the day off and taking them to the doctor. I figured it would be ear infections – our old, familiar foe.

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Now taking a day as a teacher – particularly a teacher in Bartow County – is no easy feat. The first order of business is finding a sub, and finding a sub in our district is akin to unearthing the Holy Grail in the kitchens of Hell. The task has not always been so daunting… Our county used to subscribe to a computerized system that allowed teacher to post their needs online and allow open and able substitute teachers to log in and select a job at will. That was long before systematic budget cuts and various and dubious central office expenditures. Now, we must call subs ourselves – from an alphabetical sub list that also includes interspersed but clearly-marked food nutrition subs in the mix… and let’s just say, woe to the unwitting teacher who accidently calls and wakes a food nutrition individual at 5:30 in the morning for a CLASSROOM position… Now procuring a sub wouldn’t nearly be as Sisyphean a task if the subs were allowed to work more than three days a week in our county. You see, if a sub works more than three days a week, our school system would then be required to provide benefits. (Heaven forbid! and Thanks, Obama.) So the subs naturally work for other systems when they can, and only take Bartow jobs when the pickin’ is slim. And apparently the pickin’s were bountiful this past Monday morning because I called close to forty phone numbers before I found a taker – almost an hour later. But at least I had a sub – and a work comrade, who just so happens to be my best friend and department chair, willing to leap tall buildings and run copies and keep an eye on my classes. So I had that going for me…

Now chalk it up to Monday morning and being sleep deprived, or to just plain old twinility (the disease I contracted immediately upon turning fifty with twin toddlers), but when Mike asked if he should call in late and give me some help getting the boys to the doc’s I said, “Honey, they’re two-and-a-half now. Surely they will walk themselves into the doctor’s office these days. It’s no big deal. We’ll be fine.”

I should’ve just said, “I can do this hard thing…”

Because hard it was. And do it, I did — extricating screaming twin toddlers, terrified of getting yet more shots from that pesky pediatrician, out of car seats and into the office building, all the while avoiding giant SUVs and juniper hedgerows. Each boy was saddled up on a love handle, and the diaper bag and my handbag were slung across my back. I looked like a pack mule from Nepal. Parker managed to stay in place as I trudged to the entrance, but Tate slid ever-so-slowly down my thigh until I barely had him off the ground, his arms straight above him, his legs kicking wildly as he shrieked like a child sacrifice. I’m sure the white-haired octogenarian who held the door for us thanked her lucky stars right then and there that she was past childbearing days as I bore my children past…

Once we were actually in the office, the clinginess ended (for a little while, anyway) once they spied the vast row of empty waiting room chairs lining the back wall. There must’ve been fifteen of the vinyl-clad things, just waiting for some lads like them. Like American Ninja Warrior wannabes, they promptly began inch-worming up and over one chair arm and under and through the next, giggling like the healthiest, happiest toddlers alive. Nary a cough could be heard. “Can’t you at least LOOK sick while you’re cavorting?” I pleaded.

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Now I’ve known our pediatrician since Caitlin was not even a year old. He treated both my girls until they were out of high school and well into college because they refused to see anyone else. He is a longtime friend and trusted advisor, and I prayed he would remember that I’m generally a smart and intuitive mother. That I’m not the mom who brings her utterly healthy and hyperactive tots to the doc for no good reason and who, therefore, in the most ultimate of ironies, exposes them to some serious seasonal scourge. Every mother’s maternal marrow is bound to be wrong every now and then, right? I just prayed he would remember that while examining my apparently healthy and histrionic twins.

We were only in the waiting room for a few minutes before we were called back. It’s amazing how quickly a toddler twosome can go from charged electrical currents to fixed static cling. They glued themselves to my calves tighter than the compression hose I’d worn while pregnant with them.

Dr. Payne smiled his hellos as he readied his stethoscope for the first squirming, screaming son in my arms. Between the two of us, we managed to pin him to the table so he could get a good listen and look. It was at that instant that not just one, but both boys decided to make the smelliest of deposits. The sound was raucous; the stench was hellacious. It was like I’d fed them both radioactive waste — radioactive waste simmered in cesspool broth. The whole room reeked of it. I swear, I could see the stench shimmering off their shorts. Dr. Payne just laughed it off and pressed on. I did notice he didn’t do any genitalia checks, this time around…

My fears and misgivings proved warranted. My maternal marrow rang true, once again. The boys’ strep tests (which I think they now hate more than the dreaded vaccination needle) came back positive. My diagnosis had been wrong, but my instincts were on point. Their diapers (which I was able to change between the actual swabbing for strep and the final results), came back to haunt me a few days later when I unearthed them from the diaper bag where they’d been festering and fermenting, forgotten, in the back of my van.

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As I pen this post, my hair is greasy, my shirt is caked in snot smears and curry stains, and I’m in dire need of a shower. It’s been a long and exhausting week of sleepless nights, antibiotic-filled syringes, nebulizer treatments and forgotten hot dogs. But I learned two things about myself this week. Ok, maybe three. One: trust my instincts, no matter how hard my children try to prove me crazy. (I should never have doubted myself… I’ve already raised two girls who are quite skilled in coercion and diversionary tactics, after all.) And Two (and Three): hot dogs and dirty diapers do not resurrect well after three days and three nights of sitting in their own juices.

 

 

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You Can… I Can… We Can Do This Hard Thing

This week has been a doozy – and for no particular reason. It’s just been a hard one. Maybe it’s because football is nearing mid-season. The grind is wound up and wearing on me.  Maybe it’s because we’ve now completed the first six weeks of school. The kids are wound up and wearing on me.  Maybe it’s because I’m the mother of twin two-year-old boys. The guys are wound up and wearing on me.  Or maybe it’s because sometimes some weeks are just hard.

And if a week has been hard, then generally, that means that our Friday Night under the Lights was doubly hard (well, I guess with twins everything is always doubly hard), so maybe that makes this one quadruply hard. If that’s even a word. My spellcheck doesn’t recognize it and my number skills are more like deficits. When I tried looking quadruply up, the always wise and munificent Google – eager to predict and please — tried to give me quadrupedally as an option – from the word quadruped. As in walking with four legs – which honestly doesn’t fit our night either because the boys are NEVER walking during football games. They’re either being towed in their wagon to the stadium (thank you, Jesus and Uncle Chan) or they’re being hauled by yours truly up and down the stands, straddling and sliding down my hips like I’m the banister and they are Mary Poppins. And that makes us a sextuped — which doesn’t even exist.  My spellcheck tried to change that one to sextuplet – which is some sort of computer land kernel of encouragement reminding me that things could always be worse and that I need to quit wallowing in self-pity. Which I will do… right after I finish my rant.

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The doozy of a week all began with a carefully-placed, hard, little turd in my favorite bra.  Neci, my old-lady dachshund with spiteful tendencies and great aim, was angry once again. This time it was personal, and it was directed at me. No doubt about it. The dung in the D-cup doesn’t lie. (No, that’s a lie. I’m scarcely a B-cup during PMS week, but I digress…) So, that was Sunday.

Next came Monday and my fellas fighting from the time we hit the threshold till the time I reached my threshold and broke out the iPad restrictions. They had thumped each other’s heads with backhoe blades and potty chair bowls (empty, hallelujah!) one time too many. No iPads always hurts me way more than it hurts them, though. Tablet time gives me time to myself. To do laundry or to do dishes or to do nothing (which is honestly what I really, truly need on any given Monday).

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Then came Tuesday and my own stupidity. I forgot the boys’ after school snacks. Or rather, I forgot PART of the boys’ after school snacks. I had their juice boxes (which is good because I don’t think I could’ve creatively acquired apple juice). However, I didn’t notice that we were out of goldfish snacks (I keep a case-full of them in the passenger seat of my van) until I’d picked up the boys, strapped them into their car seats, handed over their juices, reached into the goldfish case, and… THEN I noticed. No goldfish. Nada.

Denying toddlers an afternoon snack is just not something one does. Ever. Like, Never Ever.

I had two choices: listen to the shrieking of my angry, hungry howler monkeys for the eight miles and twenty minutes it takes to get home or forage on the floor of the van for the flotsam and jetsam of previous weeks’ worth of feedings.  There were plenty of remnants to be found, and I figured — while assuredly stale– they were still relatively germ-free. So foraging I went. Crawling on all fours, I became a true quadruped for that five minutes of shameless maternal scrounging. I spelunked through the cavernous undercarriage of bucket seats and hidden compartments in my Chrysler Town & Country (which comes with LOADS of them) and managed to procure enough to quarter-fill a couple of recycled baggies from my lunch sack. Annnnndddd the boys were satisfied. Mommy for the Win!!!

Until Parker dropped his juice box straw.

Nothing says toddler apocalypse like a juice box with no straw.  I had to pull off the road and locate the missing straw in order to stave off the four horsemen and the breaking of the seventh seal of my last nerve.

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If there’s one tiny tidbit of advice I can give to twin boy moms – well, any boy moms, really – never run out of snacks. Boys eat. A lot. From the very beginning. So you’d best become a walking pantry with wholesale-sized sets of snacks. But I’m also here to say that even when you’re well-supplied and they’ve been snacking the entire four quarters of a football game, they will still pick at the pulverized and granular remains of concession stand cotton candy straight off the bleacher steps — and I can guarantee you it’s not as germ-free as the aged, decaying goldfish in your minivan. But what is one to do? I’ve learned not to sweat the small stuff. I’m building their immune systems, one incipient bacterium at a time.fullsizerender

So during the game, I was dealing with a couple of lads strung out on Benadryl (for snot stoppage) and powered by lost-and-found crystallized sucrose — a combination with the mood-altering, stimulant qualities of bath salts. I had to keep them separated most of the night so they wouldn’t chew off each other’s faces. I was absolutely exhausted.

By the time I got home last night at around midnight, my brain and body felt like a hit-and-run victim. While soaking off the carnage of the night and perusing social media in the tub, I found an interview from one of my favorite authors of all time, Barbara Kingsolver. In it, she talks about her favorite phrase, “You can do this hard thing.” It became her mantra for her children as they grew and faced challenges. I really needed to see that because it reminded me that I’ve been given the challenge – let me rephrase – I’ve been gifted the challenge of raising a set of twins at fifty. And I can do this hard thing. I have already raised a set of girls (not twins, but still), and they turned out alright. Well, better than alright, if I may say so myself… so I can do this hard thing.

And speaking of my girls… Kingsolver’s article also shamed me into remembering the kind of week my girls have had.  Bethany is a first-time mom with a teething almost one-year-old. He has had strange rashes, sleepless nights and mysterious projectile vomiting. Her week has been a tornado of trials and I live too far away to be of much help.  And then there’s my oldest.  Caitlin’s week has been a real and true hard week – a week of real and true struggles in a decade of real and true struggles. She is operating in Burns during this, the third month of her fourth year of five surgical residency years. It is one of the hardest rotations in one of the hardest residencies at one of the hardest residency programs in the nation. It is a physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually demanding rotation for her. Yet that is nothing compared to the struggles of her patients in the Burn ICU. They are so sick, so very critical. They themselves are undergoing arguably THE hardest physical, mental, emotional and spiritual pain that exists on our planet. Four patients this week alone have died. Just yesterday, she lost one of her all-time favorite patients; one whom she had been gifted the challenge of working with, on and off, for four years.  The death hit her so hard. It hit their whole team so hard. They wept and wept. But it was nothing compared to the patient’s family’s sense of loss — of their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual pain.

Yet another reminder – and this time not from Google , but from God — that there is relativity in all things, and that it’s time to pull up my mom jeans and quit my bellyaching and just plain do this damn hard thing.

So for all of you moms out there (twin or first-time or any-and-all-kinds), struggling with the juggling… for all of you teachers out there, chafing from the grading … for all of you football wives out there, going under from the upheaval of the season… for all of you surgical residents out there, defeated from doing daily battle with death and disease… for ALL of you women out there, doing your utmost every day to build a stronger, kinder, gentler, healthier, smarter, better world for all of mankind: we can do this hard thing.

We. Can. Do. This. Hard. Thing.

We can and we will.

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Hummingbirds and Cinnamon Rolls

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I’ve just spent the better part of an hour watching six hummingbirds dance their aerial ballet round and round our feeder. It is the most mesmerizing sight. I rank it right up there with – well, would it seem like hyperbole to say it ranks up there with watching Caitlin graduate from med school or Bethany give birth to Bentley? Does that sound just a wee bit sacrilegious? But honestly, if you’ve never seen something like it, you just don’t know. You’ll just never get it. Six of them. SIX. Pirouetting and promenading up and down the length of our deck, jostling for prime position. The boys and I have been having our hotdogs and Doritos (it’s been a long week and it’s only Tuesday, don’t judge – and besides, I also gave them yogurt – with active cultures, so that cancels out all the bad. It does). Anyways, we’ve been eating our hotdogs and Doritos – and yogurt – and laughing and giggling and smiling up a storm at all the shenanigans. It’s made for a special end to a long and otherwise quite ordinary day.

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At first, I wanted to believe those little hummingbirds were enjoying a random Tuesday-after-work happy hour, dancing and drinking and shrugging off a long day, just like the rest of us would love to be doing if we weren’t saddled up to a couple of high chairs instead of bar stools, mixing watered-down apple juice in sippies instead of full-throttle top shelf in a shaker. But the more I watched, the more I realized it wasn’t really a party. It was more like a feathered facsimile of an Italian and Puerto Rican street fight. I could almost hear the West Side Story soundtrack as they jabbed and jibbed, zigged and zagged, beaks flourished and fierce. They were being territorial. They were being little shits.

Their behavior reminds me of some humans I know when it comes to food… myself included. Case in point: I consider it a sacrifice of the highest order if, when I am serving up my homemade cinnamon rolls (which I don’t make nearly as often as I did prior to the birth of the twins and, therefore, are all the more precious and rare), I fork over the sweet center roll, all soft and drippy with cream cheese frosting and happiness to someone else. And rest assured, it’s never just a random someone else… it’s a someone else of substance and value and absolute import. Namely my husband or one of my children – and by children, I mean my girls. The boys aren’t quite old enough to appreciate the super soft center roll with all the drippy happiness, so that would just be a waste of a really monumental sacrifice. Again, don’t judge. It’s a right of passage — they’ll grow into the privilege.

 

So thinking about these hummingbirds and their propensity to fight over food – and me and my propensity to be selfish about my own food unless it’s with those I love, or really, really like – and then only because I tell myself it’s the right thing to do and that sharing my food is what good mothers and good wives and good friends do because it’s what kind and generous-hearted people do (Is it, though? Is it kind and generous hearted if one has to coerce oneself into sharing?)– calls to mind one of my favorite lectures in AP Lit: Communion.

In literature, when characters sit down to supper, it’s rarely just to eat. If a writer takes the trouble to describe a meal, pay attention, I tell them. Writers don’t write about mealtime because it’s interesting. There’s a whole lot more riveting things to record than somebody chewing their cud. A person eating food isn’t interesting; it’s mundane (unless you’re the one doing the eating); t’s sometimes gross; oftentimes annoying (don’t get me started on smacking and slurping), but very rarely is it interesting. So in good literature, the process of consuming food symbolizes communion – not communion in terms of the religious, holy sacrament — but in terms of the unification and interaction of people on a deeper level. Think community here. If characters break bread together, they are part of a community; they are building or have built a relationship. If during the scene, characters cannot or will not partake of the meal, that’s your cue to search for deeper underlying character and relationship issues. For instance, in my little cinnamon roll anecdote, I just revealed to all of you that I am a glutton. Beyond that, you learned I am a selfish, judgmental glutton with control issues and disruptive eating patterns that can negatively impact relationships. Not really, y’all. I just really, REALLY like the soft gooey middles of the cinnamon roll pan. But still…

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Communion is one of my favorite discussions in AP Lit because kids get it. They understand food. Their social lives revolve around food – from clandestine vending machine trysts, to fiestas in Spanish, to McDonald’s runs afterschool. There’s nothing they love more than an excuse to eat with their best buddies. And they’ll do almost anything humanly possibly to avoid eating with someone they don’t like – look at lunchroom alliances. The lines are drawn quickly and clearly, and rarely do they blur or shift. Just look at the movie, Mean Girls, and you’ll get it. Like tends to sit with like: geeks sit with geeks; nerds with nerds; jocks with jocks; and so on and so on and on.

A few years back, some of our more magnanimous and outgoing students at Woodland participated in a tolerance activity loosely based on musical chairs called Mix it Up. Students abandoned their customary tables and crews and sat with strangers, introducing themselves and looking for common ground. I loved the idea, applauded the concept, was completely in awe of these students and their ability to stretch outside their comfort zones because I know I would have had a crazy tough time doing what they did. I’m telling you, kids these days… they get a bad rap, but they’re truly extraordinary. Get to know some. Sadly, I don’t think Woodland has done it in a few years. Or if we have, I haven’t heard about it.

These little hummingbird hoodlums haven’t heard about Mix it Up either. It’s against nature – human or otherwise – to be too inclusive when it comes to something as exceedingly personal and fulfilling as mealtime. Grown ups are the same way – whether we’re teachers in the break room or business people in office complexes, we are just as territorial. We tend to eat only with our cliques and get our tail feathers in a tiff if somebody else intrudes.

I’ve mentioned in the past that one of my favorite traditions in our new Cartersville football community is the post-game potluck dinners. Cartersville knows how to Mix it Up. To me, these meals demonstrate communion at its best – numerous families gathered together to share a meal and make memories. On any given Friday night, you’ll find a hodgepodge of foodstuffs, from buffalo chicken dip to pot roast to Mountain Dew Cake. And as equally hodgepodge are the people gathered around the tables. Now I know the common denominator is football, but y’all, the similarities end there. Our community is truly patchwork: the coaches(husbands and dads of every age, color and political leaning); the wives (moms, teachers, nurses and activists in an equally varied number of complexions and persuasions); children (from barely walking babes to cleated, sweaty players and even beyond). The food is delicious and the folk are downright neighborly. The whole process is like a warm casserole after being out in the cold, and I am forever grateful that they have welcomed me (an outsider and a nerd) and mine (not nearly as nerdy, more in keeping with the jocks, but with a good, heaping helping of geekdom) into their fold.

I’m so grateful for my new community and their generosity of spirit that I think I could  coerce myself into sharing the soft, gooey cinnamon roll centers  with them. Well, at least the folk old enough to recognize the gesture for what it is – a real sacrifice. Those barely-walking babes won’t know what they’re missing anyways…

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Now pardon me while I go put out some fresh hummingbird nectar for my feisty little friends. I know I should feel ashamed of myself, but it’s still a pleasure tantamount to — cinnamon roll centers — to watch them wage war, one against the other (…five).

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Twin Mommy and Football Wife: Fairy Tale Endings

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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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…

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Goats, Origami, and Vows

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Greek Illusions and Allusions. And Delusions.

 

boysandsinkI’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.

 

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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.

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