This too shall pass (or why parenting young children is like passing a kidney stone)

It has been one of those weeks. My eight month-old, Avriana has eyes like the moon and a sensitive stubborn spirit like her Mama, only more so, if it is possible. She staunchly refuses to let me help her sleep, day or night. She is a wriggly, gorgeous caricature of the painting you saw in high school art class called "The Scream."

Similar, my toddler, Gabriel bangs on the door during "nap" saying, "open the door, mommy. Mommy let you out." When I let him out, to see if he has any actual needs there are two possible scenarios:

1) He has pooped and it's gross and I have to change it, which usually results in flailing and wailing that wakes up his sister, who has, perhaps finally fallen asleep after two hours of guttural screeching while I sat in her crib gently but firmly soothing her (and trying to do yogic breathing.)

2) He smiles, says, "Good morning," even if it is two o'clock in the afternoon and starts incessantly asking for "Frog and Toad."

When I pick up my five-year-old Nika from school, she is angry because her brother is kicking her. Also I didn't pack TWO juice boxes. I try to take an interest in her life: "How was art?"
"Yaga. Bobby."

Baby talk.

The last thing I need from my one child who is supposed not be a baby, except of course the other two seem so successful at taking all my resources by acting like babies, why wouldn't she try? And the poor thing, it's hard to be one whose always being asked to be a "big birl." I miss my Nika.

Frankly, Mama is tired of being a big girl too.

I take Nika to Barne's & Noble, for a brief outing together, despite the fact that I feel and emotionally physically that my heart is utterly tired and I am not sure I can go on, literally.

On the way, I get in the shoulder lane a few driveways before B & N, and out of one of them, an idiot driver decides to start pulling out -- I honk -- a collision is barely avoided and I practice yogic breathing, as we pull into the bookstore parking lot. I'm ready for a steamer. I see flashing lights. Whadya know? Apparently it was my fault that the other car almost hit me because I got in the shoulder lane too early. I cried when the police officer took my info, both because it was impossible not to, and also I have heard it helps commute tickets into warnings. I got a summons anyway. And as I breathed, filling my belly with all the weeks labor pains, I wondered if this kid-ney stone will ever pass.

This one will, I imagine, glimpsing ahead through a peep hole in my mustard seed binoculars, and there will be new kid-ney stones ahead. I only I will have the grace to make alters out of them as they pass, to remember where God has met me in my hour of need and created beauty, healing and love from the labors which invite our utmost and highest, even when we're at our weakest and lowest.

May God bring out treasures from this fragile jar of clay, and those entrusted to her care. Amen.

What am I (doing) here?

I am enrolled in seminary, but I'm not at all sure what I'm doing -- if I should even be there, if I'll finish my program, switch my program or drop out after a year of acquiring experience.

The natural thing seems to be to drop out after a year. But is it natural because it's right, or because it fits with my family's style of of flirting with success, yet avoiding it? What is the block of fear that I feel about going for an Mdiv, that I don't feel about spending a year in theological learning, followed by a time of letting go, just being in life and seeing about my next step? Is it an unwillingness to follow through? To be constrained by a process rich in bureaucracy, with abundant hoops through which I'd be expected to jump? The desire to not be like everyone else? Or is it a gentle reality that my way takes me on this road for a little while, leading me to another path? In this, where will I discover Christ's face? How can I listen to the Spirit when my own heart is so complex and my hearing muddled with many voices and feelings?

Can I balance education with family, when I am the primary parent while David is in med school? Can I live with letting my aspirations come second to my man's for a while? Can I let go for the proper reasons? Might my aspirations turn out not to conflict as much as I thought...perhaps I actually want to let go and be home with kids? Am I the only conflicted mother out there?


Can I write my life and live it? Can I create a life of celebration and learning?

Med School Wife, day 24

The weeks are going by, and by miracle or survival, I am adjusting...getting used to things, my new role, the constant rearranging of time; the ebb of changing schedules and the unpredictable cycles of play and work, waking, sleeping, alone and together, family and independent me and the kids. I am getting better at this.

Something I discovered is that it is not a very big shift from being miserable and content, between angry angst and simple ecstasy. They are always there, each present in every single God blessed or damned moment (we get to decide,) maybe one at the front door, ringing the door bell, one at the back entrance standing next to the hose fixture, waiting like a friend.

So why do I look for someone else to make me happy? I never realized I could do it for myself, for one. Also, I always thought someone else should make me happy, like it was there job. And if I think someone's not doing their job, then I darn well am not going to let them off the hook by doing their job for them. If someone else is supposed to clean up, I have always chosen to live in a messy house covered in rotten food and shit stains on the toilet, rather than simply clean up. Does this make sense?

And so this is exactly why I have insisted on remaining an old version of myself.

Is it someone else's job to make another happy? It's not all or nothing. In an ideal world, you love someone, you do things that make them happy, or at least that will eventually lead to their happiness. But that doesn't account for the vast majority of actual life, in which people are suffering so much they cannot make themselves happy, much less do it for you. So I've decided to go ahead and do it myself and I like my decision, which is really tons of tiny decisions I make during moments of my life. Of course sometimes I still opt for self-pity and feel upset, but I try to be compassionate with myself and become more aware of the choice and what it entails.

The best part has to do with sex: Since I've stopped looking for David to make me happy and decided to do it on my own, we been doing it alot together, if you know what I mean, which of course you do. Yes, despite being more tired than ever, we're getting hornier. Sleepy horny, i is the phrase we've ascribed to the state of things libido. The pressure's off him, so he's free to love without feeling like I'm sucking it out of him, and my happy life becomes all the full and lovely because of someone absolutely amazing who loves me and wants to have this adventure along with me.

Funny, I feel similar to when we were first falling in love and I worked really hard to be independent -- sharing things with my guy, but only after I'd dealt with it a little myself first. Intimacy, rather than dependence, or something. Of course now we know each other better, love each other more truthfully because of the better knowing. It seems our lives and bodies are entwined more profoundly -- with two more cute babies as evidence. I sometimes fold his scrubs so they don't get wrinkly, even though I am not naturally domestic; he sometimes surprises me with flowers and declarations of love, even though he is not naturally expressive of his love, which normally he takes to be assumed.

So learning to arrive at being fine, or on my way to fine without turning outward first for deliverance is uncannily helpful. Possibly the ultimate secret to happy relationships. Cause I've noticed this: When I take care of myself apart from my love life, my intimate relationships becomes fresher, freer, more fun and lifegiving, because it's not having the life sucked out of it with the weight of baggage better sorted through before the trip. Whoever knew giving up on being rescued could be so romantic?