Motherhood and Technology: It’s Okay, Really

31 Thursday May 2012

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I feel as though I have been reading a lot of anti-technology, put away the smartphone, the laptop, the Kindle Fire and pick up your kid blogs as of late. And I get it. I definitely do. My children are only children for this moment and I want to be present.

I want them to remember me as being with them, not as looking past them to a smartphone, playing Draw Something while they’re trying to show me their latest hula hoop trick.

And even for me, I want to be here and now. I want to remember that hula hoop trick and the grins on their faces when the hoop finally shakes its way down to the ground and they run off to their next adventure.

This is not in defense of texting during your kid’s tee-ball games or playing Words with Friends during church – but I have to say that I don’t want to be made to feel yet another layer of Mommy-guilt for having Facebook open on my counter while I am making lunch.

So, this is a little shout out to technology, because I distinctly remember the long dark winter days when I was home – alone – with my first son. This was in the days before Tweeting, before blogging and Facebooking. He may have even preceded that glittering mecca of Myspace.

While my friends were still out there in the real world, I slowly adjusted to my new life at home, buried beneath mountains of laundry, catering to the whims of a miniature person who couldn’t even give me the courtesy of a thank you smile when I wiped his bottom for the thirtieth time in a day. Somehow an email or two from friends or a Nextel Walkie-talkie style How’s it going from my husband just wasn’t cutting it. I was in the pit, so much so that I can remember getting weepy watching VH1 Behind the Music.

Emphasis on: I was watching VH1 Behind the Music.

Sure, it could have been hormones and the bumps of adjusting from a 9-5 life to suddenly living a 24-7 life of laundry, bottles and poop, a life of financial frustration, all while starting my master’s degree remotely. But really, I think I was lonely. Being a new stay at home mother is long, lonely work.

Then, I stumbled upon blogging. Now, Alex, (or, The Boss, as I dubbed him) had a larger audience than just me. And now I had a connection to a world of other people who understood right where I was coming from, because they were there too. From late night feedings to the sweet joy of an afternoon nap beside my baby, they felt me. From laundry cluttered, kid-overrun living rooms everywhere, we united.

And so, thank you, technology, thank you internet and blogosphere, thank you Mark Zuckerberg and Flickr and WordPress. Thank you for helping me stay connected with friends I would have probably lost touch with long, long ago. And thank you for creating spaces for me to reach out with other mom’s in the battlefield and for the other artistic friends I would never have met had this creative, open space never been founded.

Thank you, for helping me forget that VH1 is even still in existence (it is, isn’t it?) because my life is too full for lame television. My life is lived here, in this house, with this family.

And also a little out there too, so that if there’s ever another lonely stay at home mom in need of a lifeline, I’m here to say, you’re not alone (and that laundry can wait. You go enjoy your baby, every single moment you have.)

Self-Advice

25 Friday May 2012

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Alex came in from playing outside and was helping wash down the kitchen table before dinner. In the background, a melodramatic old man read Ephesians via Bible Gateway’s audio tool. Children, obey your parents, his voice shuddered gravely. I turned and gave Alex a teasing nod, which sent him scuttling across the kitchen to the laptop, where he peered at the screen as though awaiting instruction.

I smiled and turned back to the sink.

Fathers, do not exasperate your children, the voice bellowed. I winced and shot Alex a quick glance, half expecting him to be giving me the same teasing nod toward the screen. He didn’t, but most likely only because he doesn’t yet understand the word exasperate.

But I do and those words are coming back to me this morning – after a race to the bus stop that included a quite thoroughly exasperated seven year old flopping with great force into his booster with a giant huff of resignation, a shoe not yet tied and a backpack half zipped.

Turns out, listening to, meditating on, or reading great advice or instruction is just another way of filling my day with noise if I’m not writing the words on my heart and acting them out with my life.

Melanie, don’t exasperate your children.

These are the words for my heart.

Melanie, be present with your children. Be giving, be open, be calm, be with them. Be ticklish when Lila tries to make you laugh with her fingers up and down your forearm. Laugh when Alex’s joke isn’t funny. Be patient when Asher is discerning over which pair of underwear has the most green in it (and will thus be his selection for the day.)

Melanie, don’t exasperate your husband. Take the trash bag out of the can when it is too full. Be patient when he has to work late. Be calm when he is at a board meeting until it’s nearly your bedtime. Be loving when he walks through the door, still in his stuffy work clothes after a twelve hour day. (But mostly, take the trash OUT, so he won’t have to.)

Melanie, don’t exasperate yourself.

You are one person, a vessel. Carry what you can carry, lift up what you cannot. Be present in your own life. Be open, but not aimless. Guard your mind, write His love on your heart – live out the words with your hands and feet.

Remember to make sure you’re raising your children to know that a missed school bus, or a messy house or a baby disturbed from her nap by the noise of her siblings – these are not the worst of life’s troubles.

And, above all, forgive yourself when you fail.

Because you will.

(But that’s not the worst of life’s troubles either.)

Mosaic

23 Wednesday May 2012

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I remember wooden church pews, wrapping my arm around my mother’s arm and watching her hands as they rested on her lap or turned through the delicate pages of her Bible. I remember holding mine up beside hers and studying the two: large and small, mother and daughter, same but different.

I remember her back, standing at the stove, at the dishwasher, raising her arms up to the shelves of the cabinets, in a blue cotton bathrobe, stirring a cup of coffee.

I remember her lightly slapping the bottoms of my feet for walking across the tops of the couches after being told not to do so for the hundredth time.

I remember sitting on the couch in our living room after bedtime, and the weight of her sigh as she sat down beside me. I remember that I was being punished for something, but I can’t recall what. Instead, I remember staring straight ahead to the stairwell as she spoke. We need to talk, because I want to have a relationship with you, I want to be friends with you when you’re all grown up and that starts now. With talking.

I remember blinking, consciously so, as though my eye lids could flutter a response that my stubborn lips weren’t willing to give.

I remember her counting invisible fish on the ceiling of our bathroom as she poured water to rinse shampoo from my hair.

I remember her silhouette blowing goodnight kisses from the doorway. Goodnight, sweet dreams, God bless you, I love you.

I remember being my mother’s daughter, in a mosaic of moments.

On Monday, I took Lila out for a date, just the two of us. We ate a light lunch of soup and smoothies. She seemed more interested in the width of her straw (which was actually quite wide) than in our conversations.

We went to get our nails done, something I don’t normally do, something Lila has never done. I watched her as she held her small hands up for the manicurist to work. As they rubbed pink lotion over her fingers, she stared over their heads at the giant, glittering wall art. She watched the ladies across the room, getting their pedicures, Mama, she whispered, leaning close, that one lady fell asleep getting her feet done. She watched the fish tank, the manicurist, the muted television hanging overhead. She watched my hands, nodded in approval at my color choice as they began painting.

Lila had intricate flowers dotted on each of her thumbs and I smiled as I watched her stare down at them. There’s a memory for her, I thought. Her first manicure. What else would she hold onto from our afternoon? The green glittering wall art? The massive fish floating up and down the walls of the fish tank? The purple sheen of her new, glittery nails? The giant straw from her smoothie?

When we were finished, we sat across from each other at a table with a space for our hands beneath gently blowing fans to dry our new beautiful nails. I turned to look around the salon and when I looked back, she was gone – well, her head was. I could see her flip-flopped feet dangling across from me, but her head was ducked down. I dropped my own head down and peeked at her, smiling at me there in the space where our nails dried.

And so, for five minutes as we waited, we played a simple game of peek-a-boo.

That was my favorite part, Lila told me, sliding her hand into mine as we left the salon.

What was? I asked, your nails? They do look so pretty.

Playing peek-a-boo with you.

Our smiles finding each other across the table as salon workers watched with small smiles of their own and fish bubbled and bounced along beside our table.

Mine too, I realized aloud.

And just like that, I it happened. A mosaic moment. A happy little cutout from our growing relationship, something smiling and simple and wonderful – frozen in memory. For both of us.

How to Assess My Daughter

18 Friday May 2012

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Lila had her kindergarten screening.

I don’t like the wording, don’t like to consider my daughter something to be “screened” and placed as part of a track, especially one based on how well she can parrot back her ABC’s or if she draws all ten fingers on her stick figure person.

I don’t like the idea of someone comparing her to other children at all. And so I’m bracing myself for what’s to come. And by that, I mean, I don’t want to compare her to other children, even my own.

I remember Alex’s assessment, how he was smiling with pride as he returned to us, how the guidance counselor hugged him and told us how wonderful he was and told him how excited she was to have him joining their school family. I remember his kindergarten teacher raising her hands in the air at our first parent teacher conference, What more can I tell you? He’s wonderful. And then rifling through her paperwork, charts and drawings, assessments, Top of his class, top of his class. Always friendly, always helping other students. I love him. And I see his perfect report card every time I open the refrigerator door – 99th percentile for reading, “Advanced” across the board, long teacher comments dotted with smiley faces and exclamation points, singing his praises.

Those are big shoes to fill, big footsteps for Lila to follow. Big footprints for me to ignore. Because she does not need to follow his path, she is her own person and will make her own way. It is me who needs to shelve the expectations that I have for Alex as being unique to him and embrace Lila for who she will be as she starts school.

And, having grown up in the shadow of a 99th percentile, intelligent, hard working older sibling in a small town where people know who your siblings are – I know that it’s an expectation that teachers might have for her as well. I still remember the coffee breath blowing over my forehead as a teacher leaned down and asked me with an ugly expression on his face, Aren’t you Gwenne’s sister? Can’t tell. (Because I wasn’t as mathematically inclined.) Things like that, they linger.

 

Lila came out from the assessment with her head down, eyes on the floor, fingers at her lips – nervous. She did not make eye contact with the screener, who was not terribly personable herself. She gave me the routine We’ll send you the results in July, things to work on. She did a nice job. Thank you. Good bye. In a nutshell.

As we walked to the car, Lila had her arms wrapped around her chest, her chin buried down. Are you okay?  I asked, how did it go?

I don’t want to talk about it, was all she gave me.

This is not my daughter.

And so, my Small Town Public School, here are the things your fifteen minute assessment of my daughter’s capabilities won’t tell you:

*She was walking and talking before she was twelve months.

*She was the toddler who took her older brother by the hand and helped him feel comfortable with going to Sunday School and Children’s church.

*She will remember every conversation you have with her and analyze it as she sits in the back of our minivan, looking out the window, (occasionally asking me questions that point me in the direction of where her mind is wandering.)

*She is easily encouraged and easily discouraged. Encouragement will get you further.

*What she thinks is beautiful is different than what you think is beautiful. Her outfits and hair styles will most likely reflect this on a daily basis.

*She likes to wear glittery shoes and then jump in mud puddles. She picks up her baby sister every morning and runs to her when she is crying. She dances with her little brother and goes to dreams of princes and getting married in a blue Cinderella gown. She still sleeps with her favorite blanket.

*Her socks will never match and she does not care one bit.

*When you do embarrass her, she retreats into herself, locks the door and hides the key until she has time to lick her wounds. (Or until you do something foolish enough to make her smile and forget.)

*She knows more, and can do more, than she is telling you.

*She keeps a little pot of gold deep down inside herself and if you are lucky enough to earn her trust, she will show you glimmers, but not everything. She guards her treasures close to her heart.

*I am hard on her at home so that you shouldn’t need to be. (You’re welcome.)

My daughter is smart and witty and amazing and you (I) need to assess whether you (or I) are even up to the challenge of her wonderfulness.

Not So Much Cosmic Whimsy

18 Friday May 2012

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It’s a smooth rectangle box with flowers on top. It plays Edelweiss when it is wound-up and it has a miniature skeleton key that fits in a small lock. I don’t wear much for jewelry, but it holds the few things I have. My high school ring, my father-in-law’s martial arts pin (safe keeping for Vinnie), an overly creased and faded slip of paper with the address of the host family I lived with in Sighisoara, a pendant from my first Mother’s Day. It holds pieces, it holds stories. Really, it isn’t a jewelry box at all, but a story itself.

We honeymooned in Italy and as our trip wound to a close, we wandered the streets of Venice in search of the perfect mementos for each of us. Vinnie chose an Italian leather wallet and I set my heart on finding a jewelry box, one of the smooth lidded musical boxes at every street market in the city. I didn’t want just any box, I wanted a brown rectangular one, a medium sized one, nothing big or gaudy, and most importantly, I wanted it to play Edelweiss, because it reminded me of a childhood toy record player that played that song in the same tinny, music-box tone.

We scoured every market, every shop, every table with goods to be sold, but found none with the precise combination of shape, color, size and song.

Six months later, on our first Christmas morning, we exchanged small gifts.  We sat on the floor of our tiny apartment and took turns unwrapping each others offerings. We didn’t have children yet, but our income was small and so gifts were accordingly so.

I can’t even remember what I wrapped and put under the tree for Vinnie. Probably something relating to shaving. Maybe a DVD? I don’t recall.

But Vinnie, he had remembered, everything. And I unwrapped exactly what I was unable to find those months earlier. He had it custom made for me and paid the shipping from Italy. I cried when I turned the key and heard Edelweiss. If he never buys me another gift as long as we are alive, I am satisfied.

Lila asked me to wind it the other day and as it began to play, I started to tell her a little of the story behind the box.

Oh, she humored me only briefly, I’m going to dance like a ballerina now.

All she needed was the music, the story can wait until she is old enough to understand it, or better, to appreciate it.

And I get that.

A friend recently posted this profound and “fun fact” on Facebook.

Every elemental particle, Oxygen, Iron, Carbon… everything that exists in your body, every one, was created in the middle of an ancient, gigantic star.

And perhaps this is me, changing the subject because I would much rather be a ballerina for a few minutes like my daughter, but I just don’t find it all that important or mind blowing.

I don’t mean to be overly simplistic and I certainly don’t want to seem as though I am not in awe of the complexity and wonder of how the universe, the world, this ground I’m standing on, these hands I’m typing with, came to, well, be.

Because I am, in awe, that is. I am perplexed and in wonder at how amazing creation is. Who isn’t?

I just prefer to think in terms of the relationship behind us being and the purpose behind our creation. And honestly, I prefer to consider myself as greater than a random act of particle ignition.

I am not random. I am not cosmic space dust that haphazardly warped and evolved into a heartbeat, a brainwave, a conscience. I am an intelligently and lovingly designed individual and my foundation is there, set in stone, not cosmic whimsy.  (And even if all that cosmic dust did turn into this world – the creator behind it, he knew the very shape of my soul long before that ancient star was ever created and sent into course.)

And for me, that is enough. I can live with it, I can dance to it.

Truth is, even I don’t need to know how the jewelry box got to the spot under my tree. I don’t care what wood it is made out of or how the pieces were cut and carved and formed together. I don’t need to know the mechanics behind how the miniature music box works or which flight it was on as it traversed the globe to find itself unwrapped in my lap that Christmas morning.

What I do care about is that out of his love for me, Vinnie searched far and wide to find a box that played the song that I wanted, that was custom made in the muted tones I preferred over the garish blues and greens and pinks we found in Venice. I am touched that he imagined this gift on his own, without any nudging or gentle suggestions on my behalf. And I love that it was a totally unexpected surprise, one that carried meaning for both of us – it was a story from our lives, from our romantic just-the-two-of-us-before-this-crazy-life-happened history

I care about the relationship.

And I think, in my own can’t I just dance, mentality, that is what God might just care about too. I marvel at his creation, but I marvel even more at the ways he designed my heart and mind to be uniquely, me. And the fact that he is interested in all of the silly small goings-on here in my silly little life? Now that, for me, is mind blowing.

I’m not saying I have any answers as to how he did what he did, I am just more concerned with what purpose I can fulfill since I am here, than how I got here.

Of course, we all have different perspectives and minds that work in different ways. Some people love this sort of thing, love puzzles and putting together that which seems inexplicable. Some people love to talk the science of creation, and that’s fine too. More than fine, it’s marvelous and amazing how different we all are, how there are people on this earth who have the drive and capability to envision and create something like the Higgs Bosson machine – and that there are also people like me, and people like you, whichever category you fall into (or not.)

Life is a gift. How we choose to delight in it, either through careful analysis or beat-of-our-own-drum dancing, is up to us.

I’m just content to wait until I can hear it from creator himself, how he envisioned the worlds he created, how he made something from nothing, how he made Vinnie and I and how he knew our children’s names before we had even held hands, and long before we ever wandered Venice in search of Edelweiss in a perfectly designed jewelry box.

Sad

14 Monday May 2012

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I awoke to Alex at my bedside, rubbing his eyes. As I squinted through slumber, I saw his fidgeting shadow, his hands rubbing his eyes.

My body wants to cry and I don’t know why.

Oh, honey, come on up. I slid back and made room for him beside me. He laid down and I rubbed his arm, marveled at how thin he is, how though he is my oldest and my go-to helper, he is still, well, small.

Did you have a bad dream? I whispered. He shook his head to say no and that was all. He didn’t cry, only fell back to sleep, leaving me with the lingering image of him, inexplicably, sad.

Later this morning, when I went climbed into the car to meet a client, I turned on the radio only to have the image of him, like a wounded bird, again on my heart. I turned off the music and did what most mothers do, I agonized over every possible thing that could be making him sad, and every possible way that I am either the cause or could be the cure.

You see, I don’t mind sadness, so long as I can fix it. I want a reason for it, I want a bully to glare at (okay, okay, or to use as an experience for Alex to learn deal with less than pleasant people with patience and love) or even a belly-up goldfish that leads to conversation and growth. What I don’t want is sadness that stems from somewhere unexplainable, somewhere inside. The sort of soul weary sadness that artists have, that I have from time to time. The sadness that, without the counterbalance of joy, can be crushing.

How can I heal something that I can’t see?

In the car, when my mind was finally exhausted, there was silence. Lord, I prayed, he is my son, but you know his heart and I trust him with you. Please protect him when I cannot. Please comfort him when I am not enough.

When I am not enough. I am not enough.

But it is going to be okay.

It’s always in the letting go. Everything is. The freedom of knowing all that I have is in his hands, the peace in knowing that I don’t have to be enough for my children, the sadness in remembering that though I am his mother, there are places I can’t go, wounds I can’t heal.

My only power is in lifting him up and letting him go – and in doing so, letting myself go from the guilt of wondering what I did or didn’t do wrong, to the father who already knows both of our hearts, and our late night sadness, our early morning grumpiness, our joys, our weaknesses and our strengths and everything in between.

Pray. Let go. Repeat. Rejoice.

Berry Patch Lane

11 Friday May 2012

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It’s a road on my GPS, a small curving line on a map, surrounded by greens and yellows. But to me, the words reads like an escape: Berry Patch Lane, a wondrous place that smells like sweet strawberries and where time slows down like an old Country Time Lemonade commercial. Tire swings. Fireflies.

It’s everything that my neighborhood is not.

My neighborhood is house upon house. It is parents with beer bottles behind their backs as their children trick or treat. It is a dog in a dress, standing on the corner, unattended.

My yard is a crowded swing set and neighborhood girls in neon get-ups and giant sunglasses, whooping and hollering while testing the limits of our little exercise trampoline.

Inside my house is not idyllic or neat. There are no quiet corners. It is constant commotion, constant cheerios on the floor and puddles on the bathroom floor.

Oh, Berry Patch Lane. You little curve of wonder on my GPS. How green are your yards and how spacious and clean are your houses? How many quiet minutes could I have in a day, if only my house was large enough for me to slip away and close a door. If only my backyard was peaceful enough to hang a hammock.

But my life is not in serene neighborhoods or hammocks. My life is here and now.

Here and now, I am the sandwich maker. While working on lunch, I hand my one year old a corner of bread to hold her over as I spread the peanut butter. She takes the small piece in her little fist and then lurches forward in my arms, grabbing after the entire loaf.

She swats at the loaf of Wonderbread until she has it clenched in her fist and I gently pull it away. You have all that your mouth can handle, Baby Goose.

It’s her thing though, always taking what she is given and tucking it into her chest while using her free hand to grasp for whatever is bigger, better, not hers. Goldfish, crackers, cheese, she does not discriminate. Chew one bite, peek around the corner to see where you’re hiding the good stuff.

It’s remarkable how someone so small and innocent (and painfully adorable) can be so innately selfish. Or how someone too young for words can be already so keen to the idea that no matter what you have in hand, there is better to be had.

It’s human nature. It’s my nature. And before I can marvel at her discontent, I have to wonder: how often does God look down with bemused wonder at me, busily eying what might be in his other hand or tucked away behind his back. How often does he need to whisper gently in my ear, all that I have is already yours.

I am already beyond blessed – I have a roof, a full fridge, a yard full of children and a bathroom with running water – more than I need, enough for puddles on the floor.

 

Driving to a portrait shoot, I turned down Berry Patch Lane.

Turns out, it’s only a road – there isn’t any scratch and sniff strawberry pavement, there are not pies cooling on every (or any) windowsill, in fact there isn’t magic at all. Berry Patch Lane is asphalt and sidewalks with weeds pushing up through the cracks, it is boring greenish-brownish lawns and Home Depot inspired shrubbery dotted with This Home Protected by ADT signs.

A larger house. A newer car. More money in savings. A few quiet hours to myself. Berry Patch Lane. These are my bags of Wonderbread. These are the illusions I reach for when I take my eyes off of all that I have already been given.

And the funny thing is, all the days that I long for an hour of peace and quiet or a weekend of solitude, in the short moments when I am left to my thoughts, I miss the hum and patter of kids around me.

I miss being needed. I miss my crazy, messy, simple little life.

For me, nowhere is better than my neighborhood and nowhere is better than my home. Nowhere is better than where I am supposed to be, at this moment in my life, with these people who call me mom, wife, sister, friend.

Letters to my Daughter: The Wall

09 Wednesday May 2012

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Oh My Dear Bean,

You wrote on the wall last night – the recently and beautifully repainted wall. A series of windows in shades of green and yellow crayon running in a line beneath the windowsill.

While I was in the other room, explaining the difference between truth and lies and disciplining Asher after a two hour battle in which there was screaming until his face turned purple, peeing of pants, a cold shower, more screaming, and the eventual throwing away of his Scooby Doo Mystery Match game (which if he had only picked up the game pieces to begin with, all of the following drama could have been avoided) – you were quietly channeling your inner Picasso on the walls that your uncle so lovingly painted for you, just two months ago.

And as much as I want to know what you were thinking – what could have possibly spurred your five and a half year old body into thinking this was in any way a good idea – instead, I want to tell you what I was thinking (beyond what I said, which I believe was something to the effect of: “REALLY, Lila? WHY would you do that? The walls are not for writing. You ruined your beautifully painted bedroom! Here’s a sponge, you clean that mess up, scrub hard.”)

And there is the kernel of why I want to tell you what I was thinking. No sooner did the words “you ruined” come out of my mouth, that I wanted to suck them back in. I wanted that sponge I gave you to scrub them from the space between us. You did not ruin anything. You are not a ruiner or a bad child and there is nothing tangible in my life that I would put ahead of you – not even nicely painted walls.

As I returned to my bedroom to continue the process of dressing your three year old brother and see where he was emotionally after the long hard afternoon we had – what I thought to myself wasn’t Why did Lila make that bad choice, but rather: Why did I make that bad choice?

You are five and a half and want my attention.

I am thirty two and know the power of words on a child’s heart. I know, because I remember being told I had ruined things. It’s a harsh word, one that could stay with you, haunt you, make you believe things about yourself that simply aren’t true. It’s a word that that neither you or I deserve.

I was speaking as an exhausted mom, fighting a cold and cough and a three year old who is firmly asserting himself AS a three year old (least favorite age – ever. One day, you’ll see.) I was speaking as a human who makes mistakes and sometimes forgets herself, that words cannot be easily sucked back up into the atmosphere or erased.

This morning you are fine, happily eating cereal and bananas and giggling with Asher. You were fine five minutes after I handed you that sponge. You scrubbed the walls, the doors, the posts of your bed, everything you could find to “give a good clean” you scrubbed. Because you are good. You are sweet and helpful and kind. You just made a bad choice – or perhaps even a conscious one, a calculated risk to get my attention.

And so all this is to say, I hear you, I see you and I love you.

And someday I hope you have the joy, frustration, exhaustion, exhilaration and confusion of raising such a brilliant little girl yourself.

Because then we can really talk.

Open

08 Tuesday May 2012

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Ten years ago, I sat at my desk in my closet-sized office, typing fiction and quickly reopening work related windows whenever my boss would pop in to ask a question or check on how my projects were coming along. I would share writings maybe with my sister or an interested friend, but otherwise they remained locked away on my computer.

Seven years ago, Alex was my pint-sized boss and I blogged about him and our life as a family of three, working toward my MFA and bouncing from condo dwelling, to homelessness (living with my parents), to buying our current home – all from the comfort of anonymity online. Aside from a small handful of actual friends who knew about my blog, I was free to be open, but hidden.

Today, I’m scribbling stories and taking photographs of all my imperfect glory and posting them here there and everywhere and it has me wondering why I wasn’t always so just open and out there. Why I spent any energy at all trying to keep myself, well, to myself. Especially now that I know better, now that I realize that there’s freedom and laughter and friendship in openness.

I think I have motherhood, even more than age, to thank for this revelation.

Giving birth itself, both both the physical act (why, hello stirrups and good afternoon everyone and their mother who is coming in and out to check on my business) but also the emotional act, shifts something in you. Like an old wooden door that has swelled and no longer fits quite right in its frame. It’s subtle, but once it happens, the door simply won’t close.

I know my world cracked open, split right down the seams, when I had my first child. It was something that no doctor could stitch back up good as new, nor would I have wanted them to if they could. I was made vulnerable to the whims and beating heart of person outside of myself, who did not choose me, but who needed me more than anyone in the world.

There is an intimacy and tenderness that comes with all of the small acts of motherhood. The newborn finger grasping and the warm breaths on your collarbone as they nuzzle down to sleep. The soft bodies that come to find you in the dark, tucking themselves in beside you. How the word Mama can be spoken a thousand times in a day, but somehow seem brand new and wonderful, like they invented it just for you, by the next morning.

 

Turns out there are a million keys for opening my heart and to each child, I have endowed a set.

 

And, of course, there are the far less eloquent ways in which motherhood can crack you. Right off the bat, there’s the poop and the spit up and the vomit (and the hundreds of other ways your children can find to leak fluids onto you in the middle of the night) as you turn into a human tissue/napkin/diaper.

Then there are the daily squabbles and cries of urgent need that always come the very second either the telephone rings or the bathroom door closes. There are the moments of pantslessness when you’re digging through a pile of laundry only to turn around and see your three year old staring at your bum, wondering why you haven’t poured his cereal yet.

So, yes. The quiet, I don’t want to share, close-all-the-writings-down-when-someone-steps-behind-my-shoulder, woman has left the building. And, I think I have motherhood to thank for that.

For me, the experience is a daily practice in letting myself be okay with being myself – and only myself – for my children. And to know that they accept me, even love me,  in all my shower-ever-other-day, yoga pant wearing, silly sing-song rhyming, Kung Fu Fighting dance moves while serving fish sticks on plastic plates, glory – well, that’s good enough for me.

This isn’t to say that motherhood has eclipsed me, it has enhanced me.

And, if I’m being honest, I just don’t have the energy to be someone different for the world than I am for my family. I don’t have the time to compartmentalize myself, nor do I feel like I need to anymore.

I’m not a writer, a mother, a photographer, a friend, a Jesus follower, a wife, a blogger – I am Melanie. And the Melanie that you meet at the bus stop, wearing pajama pants and an oversized tee shirt, is the same one you’re going to see at Alex’s baseball practice and she’s the same one you’ll see singing in church on Sunday or doing portraits at the park.

Perhaps the only difference – I’ll always be wearing pants. Only my poor children (who need to learn to knock before entering my bedroom) need bear witness to that. That’s a promise.

Know Your Role

02 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in Myself, Spiritual

≈ 7 Comments

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I answered the phone because the caller ID said it was my husband. On the line though was a female voice, laughing and asking me if I wouldn’t mind confirming something Vinnie had told her. It was his coworker and they were apparently in a small circle chatting when Vinnie had made the offhand comment, in jest, that as his wife, “knows her role.”

Now, because our house is small and I am the mother of small children and it was the morning when I answered the call – I was in my pajama pants, barefoot and in the largest room with coffee to be had (the kitchen) with a baby on my hip.

Barefoot. Baby. Kitchen.

I am woman, hear me…know my role.

Of course, I’m making light of the comment and my husband knows me well enough to know that I would. He knows that I am a co-provider for our family, that I am his helper and partner and that while we do each fall into roles that may or may not be gender clichés, such labels are not what define us as people.

Thing is, I love many of the clichés of womanhood. I love cute aprons and baking and the satisfaction of a clean house and a bed made. I love greeting Vinnie at the door with a gaggle of kids who go running to him when he comes home in a suit after a day at work. I even love that I am soft and vulnerable and that Hallmark can reduce me to a confusing mess of tears of joy and sadness, nostalgia and hope, all in a thirty second spot for Mother’s Day cards.

If this is one of my roles – being a homemaker, mother, misty-eyed mush on the couch – so be it. Glad to have it.

But it’s only a small part of what makes me who I am. Each little role that I take on – the boo-boo kisser, the toast burner, the writer, the photographer – each one on its own is not enough to define me. And I know that the end of the day, a simple equation of:  Daily chores + Job + Family = Melanie – is just plain bad math.

My role, my purpose, is larger than any label can fit and it is more complex than any character in a script that any a pen could draft.

And yours is too.

This morning over coffee, I read Ephesians 4:1: “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”

Boom.

The verse brought me back to the silly conversation I had with the coworker and the broader stroke of the word “role” seemed far more important than the kitchen-bound wife one we were joking about.

And the question: Do you know your role? splintered into a dozen more.

Do you know your purpose? Are you open to your talents, your blessings, to the ways you can be useful?

Are you designed for motherhood? God bless – be the best mother you can be. Are you designed to be a servant in a remote village in Eastern Europe? God bless – get your hands dirty for His glory. Are you designed for public speaking, worship leading, soup kitchen pot stirring?

Any or all of the above? God bless you in your willingness to play a part.

Are you worrying about shortcomings or areas where talents are lacking? You’re off key, you’re ineloquent, and you’re not smartest or the best at anything.

Stop worrying about the many roles you don’t fit and fulfill the one that you do. You don’t need to carry a tune or be the fastest or most eloquent; you just need to be yourself. (When did we get so fooled into thinking that’s not enough?)

The only thing you can’t do is nothing – because none of us are called to complacency.

Live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

How’s that for a challenge on a Wednesday?

I’m going to need more coffee.

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