Idle Hands

So its been awhile since my last post. But its a good silence, I'm thinking. I'm rediscovering that if I keep myself busy enough, the mind can turn off for long stretches. So I figured I'd fill you in on what I was doing to turn off the little voice in my head.



















I have a strong feeling that I'll miss these summer days when they're gone. The weather is already turning cool and I've seen the leaves dropping in a few places already. Can't stop time from moving on. But at least we can look back at the pictures.

Belly Blog

I should be old hat at this stuff by now, right? I mean third time is the charm and all. It still never ceases to amaze me how much your body becomes possessed when you're carrying a child. Maybe not quite as Linda Blair as you're thinking, but my mood swings do make my (and everyone else in proximity's) head spin with their intensity, the projectile vomiting (which was probably mislabeled "morning" sickness by a man! It's really "all first trimester" sickness) I am thankfully over, but these stupid cravings still linger. Giving me out of body experiences all day long. I mean who wouldn't be going crazy all day trying to type up a report at work while the chanting in the back of your brain is saying "espresso brownies! espresso brownies! espresso brownies!"

So far the cravings have manifested as anything Tex-Mex, cherry slurpees, cheese danish, and (of all things) coffee! Why that one surprises me is that I am a hardcore tea drinker. Like, tea house visiting, tea party throwing, scones and imitation clotted cream tea drinker. All coffee attempts from middle school through college resulted in headaches and heartburn, but add a dash of gestation and I'm consuming at least one decaf-half-milk-three-sugars a day. Like I said. Possessed. And now the espresso bean brownies have taken up the call. The only place I've ever had crave-worthy ones is through this corporate baking company we were given a gift from by another company after the successful completion of a project we were collaborating on. I guess it only takes one time for the taste to be ingrained in the memory bank. So tempting. They could even be delivered to my door if I didn't feel like trekking the 40 minutes to scour the nearest Whole Foods in a vain attempt to not look like a deranged pregnant woman on a mission.

My only gripe is why I couldn't be infused with some positive personality traits instead of being confined to the mentality of a food hoarding squirrel. Some optimism and patience would be welcome treat instead of the persistent call to the nearest Quick Chek. But, c'est la vie, I guess. And so here I sit, scrolling through baby names on the internet and trying to resist channeling Ashley Judd's character in Where the Heart Is by naming baby #3 something like Praline or Brownie. Mmmmm, brownies. Espresso bean brownies. Must. Stop. Thinking. About. Brownies.

Better Half

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.” ~Jalal ad-Din Rumi

My husband was sent to me. This I believe wholeheartedly. God, fate, my mother, SOMEONE, up in the galaxy tilted the gravitational pull of the Earth and pulled him into the orbit of my life. One slow night after we first started dating, we actually tried mapping out all the different possibilities and ways we would have met, a 'la Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. I think we stopped around the thirteenth scenario because we started to get a little freaked out. Inevitable is a word that comes to mind when I think about us getting together. And I couldn't be more grateful for that.

Some people get insulted when their spouse or significant other is referred to as their "better half," but I'm a realist in my world, and will be the first one to affirm that term for him. He is the Roy Croft quote come to life; "I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you."

When I'm frustrated with a project and ready to throw it against a wall, he's the first one to pry it out of my hands so I can go take a breather before I do anything I'll regret later. When I'm wound up and angry, he knows how long to stay silent before offering a lame joke to break me out of my red haze. When the kids are making me climb the walls, he usually manages to pop in with a distraction so I can go hide in the stairwell and take deep breaths to get myself under control. And lately, when I'm depressed, he knows just how to hold me, or compliment me, or lean down and talk to the baby in my stomach, to get me to see the light again in the self-imposed rabbit hole I fall into. Even though somedays I feel like we're doing such a good job raising our little wildebeasts as a united front, and others it feels like a baton race, I never have to wonder who or where my partner is. He is all around me, keeping me up, watching my back, leading me on, and best of all, at my side. Coaxing me to enjoy the view.

Never fully dressed

When I have weeks that involve stuff like this happening, which is totally out of my control; (that crack is in my car's front windshield, by the way)


It's nice that I can come home and spend 2 hours making a dress that makes my Monkey smile like this;


Or set up a $10 slip n' slide that can elict shreiks of glee out of Scootch;

Sometimes on my darkest days, I think that if I just keep looking here, at the personifications of my heart, everything is just going to work out. If I can just keep myself smiling, it will have to turn out for the better. For them.

The Science of Solace

In any man who dies there dies with him, his first snow and kiss and fight.... Not people die but worlds die in them. ~Yevgeny Yevtushenko

It has not been a good past few days.

The mood swings from my lack of meds is frightening. The kids are wound up tighter, most likely due to the beautiful weather outside and their lack of playing in it. And on Tuesday it was my birthday. Not just any birthday, but the last birthday before I cross that prime meridian in my mind where I will be on this Earth for more years without my mother than I will have knowing her. My personal Y2K crisis.

But its things like this that really bring home how much I'm missing my mother.


Fallen cupcakes might not make much sense to you, but my mother was both a baker and a scientist. When the cookies came out flat she knew that I needed to add more flour. When my boxed cake didn't come out right, she could tell I was being impatient and didn't mix it for the whole 2 minutes the package directs. When she fell in love with a batch of orange muffins while we were on vacation, she went home and made up a recipe for them. She knew relationships that existed between baking powders and sodas and salts and flours, and I was content as a child to be honored when I was allowed to lick the beaters.

How I wish back for that lab time now. There isn't a recipe that I try to make for Scootch that has come out right yet. Pancakes, boxed cakes, scratch cakes. Modified, fortified, and verbatim. They all crumble, fall, or fail to rise at all. I used to love baking. My husband used to brag I was good at it. But lately it just feels like I'm failing a midterm anytime I lug out the Kitchen Aid. And as much as everyone is sympathetic, I just have this feeling that if my mom were here, she would fix it. She would HAVE a recipe that wouldn't fail me. Possibly multiple ones at this point. In all kinds of flavors so her grandson wouldn't be missing out on what red velvet or devil's food cake did to your tongue.

My only small solace is this;



At least she left me the means to still decorate my disasters.

Hurdles

When the world says, "Give up,"
Hope whispers, "Try it one more time." ~Unknown

I like to make plans. Maybe its due in part of my OCD nature, or maybe its because I grew up in a boating family that charted and plotted a course in the summer before undertaking it. Either way, I've grown up to be a planner. It helps to keep the anxiety away when I think I know what to expect. But its becoming more clear that I should have taken up a sport like track and field in high school instead of indulging in something safe and choreographed like the Drill Team I was on. Hurdles seem to be a common fixture in my life.

When my husband and I got married, we had a plan to stop at three kids. Plans changed after Scootch was born, and I found myself unable to function or leave the house without help. So we decided it would be best to change the plans and stop at two. We've made plans since then, we just recently tried to start up our own business, bought a car, and basically have tried to stick to the plans. Apparently, though, someone else has different plans for us.

Two Fridays ago, I just got confirmation that we'll be expecting baby #3 in December, despite the measures we went through to ensure a limit on our family numbers. The anti-anxiety medication I've been on will have to be stopped for the baby. I'll have to quit my day job and hope that we'll still survive without my additional income paying for the food and utility bills since the business isn't pulling in any money yet. And I'm already stressing over having to remove my kids from their wonderful school, and turning their days full of friends and learning into being walled up at home with an over-anxious mother.

Its hard to keep feeling like I can keep it together when so many things start spinning out of control at once. And as much excitement we're feeling over actually getting the 3 kids we originally planned for, the hurdles are looking a little daunting and numerous. But I'm hoping. I'm hoping that whoever changed our plans will also point us in the direction of the solutions. I'm hoping this is an experience that might help me recover some strength against my fears instead of further exiling me to the shadows of my anxieties.

I'm hoping that hope will prevail.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

This is where the magic happens. (No, that's NOT where I'm headed, just keep reading!)
This is where dressing rituals become tickle matches, where fortresses are built, or rivers are explored. Where refuge is gained from scary sharks and alligators. Where sheets become cavern walls, or parachutes, or dresses, or bridal veils. Where pillows are seats, or airplane wings, or the coal car behind a train engine. This is where hiding in plain sight is still the best game, with only a thin sheet between you and the world that seems safer than the thickest steel wall. This is base when playing tag. Where mornings are started with giggles and peek a boo. Where talks are shared, and reprimands, and make-up kisses and cuddles. This is where sick restless nights are soothed into quiet daybeaks. Where daughters watch mothers transform into princesses before their very eyes.

This is where I lie awake at night and turn over my blessings in my mind.

This is, by far, my favorite place in the house.