Things I Didn't Understand Until I Birthed A Child

I probably should pull out the old baby monitor & start using it as a walkie-talkie.

26 Jan posted by heirtoblair

901a8c6c456611e1a87612313804ec91 7 300x300 I probably should pull out the old baby monitor & start using it as a walkie talkie. I try to be all badass Super Nanny but this crazy thing happened once I got all healed & whole & less twisty inside – I cannot bear to hear my child cry. & not in the way that sent me screaming for the shower every night at six months postpartum, but that it feels like my gut has been ripped out & flipped over my head & I’m wading knee-deep in my uterus. THAT is what it feels like when my child cries for me.

So when Harrison starts screaming at bedtime & I’ve told him firmly to get back in bed three separate times, he stares up at me with tears falling & says, “Up!!” oh, my heart.

I find myself all sternly inner-dialoguing how I’m setting us up for failure when he’s three as I make my way to the rocking chair. But then I remember how I’m knee-deep in my uterus & how soon, Harry will be going to sleepovers where he will be embarrassed to ever admit he was rocked to sleep & I can’t help myself. I sit & I rock & tell him stories about the man on the moon until he’s calm. His heartbeat slows & his breathing steadies & I know he’s asleep because that’s the kind of thing that mother’s just know.

He’s drooling on my shoulder. It’s time to put the kiddo to bed, but in his earlier rage, all blankets & pillows ended in a pile on the floor. Which means that I have to get up from the chair & put the bedding back together with 30 lbs of live ammunition on my shoulder. Doug to the nursery, I think into the universe. I wait a few minutes. Hey, buddy. To the nursery for pillow recon.

I contemplate the length of my legs, wondering if I can grab the pillow corner with my toes & toss it into the bed. If I can do that, then I’ll have a legit excuse to run away with the circus. I feel the drool seeping through my jammies. The kid stirs & I freeze & send imaginary red flares into the sky. & I’m all WHY IS HE NOT READING MY ESP?! DOUG TO THE NURSERY! DOUG TO THE NURSERY!

What good is being married almost six years if he can’t read my mind?

HeirtoBlair500x150 v41 I probably should pull out the old baby monitor & start using it as a walkie talkie.

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Filed Under: Harry in General, Life in General, Never Have I Ever, Pass the Unisom, The I Do's, Things I didn't understand until I birthed a child, Things that aren't perfect despite my best efforts, Toddlers eat your brains, Unpopular opinions

The magic of Christmas Eve & Santa.

30 Dec posted by heirtoblair

: 11:45pm on Christmas Eve, putting in the 417th screw & an empty whisky glass beside me.

As I said a wee bit ago, we do Santa in our home.

When I wrote that little manifesto, I held so much anticipation in my heart for the coming Christmas Eve.

That night, we sang by candlelight in church & ate spaghetti with family around the dining room table. Later than normal, Doug & I tucked a very sleepy Harrison into bed with Christmas jammies & The Polar Express. After changing into comfy clothes & pouring whisky & gingers, we sat down on the living room rug with Santa’s presents. We began with the most challenging piece, Harrison’s play kitchen. Over the next two hours, Doug & I laughed & talked about the past year. How much Harrison has grown, how he will love his new toys, how this season has been so amazing with his ability to participate. With Christmas carols playing in the background, I really got it.

Watching the presents come together, presents I bought for my little boy, carefully selecting what I thought he might like. I realized that these twelve hours between bedtime & Christmas morning were a parent’s best part of the year. The sacrifice & joy & complete infatuation with my child, all coming together on one day. When we laid down a little past midnight, I felt more excitement as a parent than as a child on Christmas, simply imagining his reaction at the gifts by the tree.

& Harrison’s smile on Christmas Day did not disappoint.

p.s. there are 360 days until harry is three at christmas & i cannot freakin’ wait.

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Filed Under: Adult Club, holidays, Life in General, Things I didn't understand until I birthed a child

When life spills over & over & over.

6 Dec posted by heirtoblair

I’m having trouble writing.

Not because the thoughts aren’t there. They are there, spilling over madly because this blog is the capture of life & oh, life is being lived right now.

The up & down & GO GO GO! of life where I am sitting in conference rooms at 8:30am & shoving a sandwich in at my desk, prepping for the afternoon’s conference call. A new assignment that has me flattered & overwhelmed, determined to show the boss that yes! I can do this! The texting of insurance cards & jotting down ideas & making sure we have all the ingredients for dinner & no, Harrison, you cannot have a cookie for dinner.

The epic meltdown occurs & I’m standing there at the end of the day, shoes kicked off & button-down blouse still on & stirring boiling pasta. I look at him & close my eyes, taking deep breaths & trying out that 1-2-3 magic but on myself. He is maddeningly two & woke up this morning on a mission to test all the limits. A piece of me wants to throw up my hands in frustration, but I look back down at him & all I can do is wrap him up in my arms.

He’s here tonight. My friend Beth is not so lucky as her little boy Keegan went to Heaven today. Keegan, not three weeks older than my own little boy.

I am undone. Completely raw for the day in my stocking feet & a little boy who does not understand why his momma is hugging him instead of using the usual exasperated tones at dinnertime.

I put him in bed & pull the red & aqua cover to his chin & I think that I cannot handle Chicka Chicka Boom Boom one more time, but then I remember the momma’s who never got to read it, or who won’t get to read it. I wonder if it would be silly to ask God to maybe read Keegan Chicka Chicka Boom Boom one night, just to let him know we’re thinking of his momma’s heart? & so I pick up that board book, starting to show signs of wear after only a few months because it is loved so.

& my heart, showing signs of wear because it has loved so.

So yes, life is spilling over & I am left breathless & awkward in it’s path.

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Filed Under: Adult Club, All about BA, Fears, Finding Balance, I have real-life friends, Oh em gee, Things I didn't understand until I birthed a child, Toddlers eat your brains

Where my heart still counts my little ones.

22 Nov posted by heirtoblair

Lord, make me a rainbow
I’ll shine down on my mother
She’ll know I’m safe with You
when she stands under my colors
~The Band Perry, “If I Die Young”

Three years later, I remember rolling over in bed one morning in September & I gasped & held up the pregnancy test, saying “I think I am pregnant!” That little pink line flung open doors of my heart that I did not know existed & love flooded through my veins & heart until the little heart inside me also began beating with its own thump-thump rhythm.

Three years later, I remember lying back on the table, warm jelly & cold equipment pressed to my belly. My husband & I clasped hands through our smiles of joy, laughing over the tiny bean of life we created. Weeks of morning sickness & maternity jeans & a stroller chosen. A few scares, but always a reassuring heartbeat on the screen. We broke the happy news to family & friends.

Three years later, I remember the terror gripping my heart as I stared at the blood, freely flowing. The fear in my voice as we rushed to the emergency room that dreary & cold Saturday morning, fitting for the events to take place. My tears poured as the doctor confirmed that our baby, my baby that I had come to love so fiercely, was gone. The cramps & contractions ripped through my lower half as my heart split in two, but I laid back on the operating table & thanked both God & the doctor for the medicine to drag me under, away from the pain.

Three years later, I remember lying on the couch with a laptop perched on top of blankets & pillows. My fingers frozen as my mind wheeled, but my heart spilled onto the pages of the Internet & I labeled it “Empty.” I was empty. Alone. Terrified. Horrified. Angry. Hours spent in the shower, sobbing my grief & anguish despite a doctor’s assurance that the tiny life I carried had been very sick & this was “for the best.”

Time passed, snow fell heavy one weekend & three weeks later, we found ourselves expecting another baby. With steady joy but unsteady hearts, my husband & I relived pregnancy but this time, the same doctor that placed her hand upon my tear-filled cheek in the emergency room stood at the foot of the bed, holding my newly-born son. I cradled him & felt that he was the greatest gift, bought at the highest price. Without losing our first baby, we would not have our beautiful, wild boy.

But it’s this same truth of the heart that turns my thoughts to my first baby, wondering if I am the only one that remembers that sweet life, cherishes the moments, rather than negating the loss for the gift of Harrison. Maybe it’s simply the heart of a mother to count all her little ones the same.

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Filed Under: Miscarriage, Things I didn't understand until I birthed a child, Unpopular opinions