you guys...
i lost my crap the other morning..
and not just a little.
lost.it.
as in, stomped off to my room, threw myself down on our bed and howled until i could howl no more.
kjaer and i used to call these sorts of days D-days (daddy days) after my dad died. it was a code word to tell him it was basically pointless to try and make me happy... because i just needed to be sad and have myself a good cry and move through the day with puffy eyes.
that's what the other day was... a D-day.
if you asked me why... which is probably what you're wondering... i'm not sure that i could even tell you. i mean... i know the incident that set the whole emotional downslide into motion, but it's really a cacophony of thoughts that have been running through my mama brain for weeks now.
that morning, the minor straw that broke the camels back was that i was sitting in our beautiful sunroom trying to wake myself up after a lo-o-o-o-ng night. i can't really describe why the night was so terrible... but it was. it was one of those nights where you are sure you probably got some rest in there, but it came in increments of 30 minutes here, 20 minutes there. henley, who is usually an awesome sleeper, was moaning and groaning the way a baby would if they could toss and turn. i had pulled her into bed with me around midnight and after two hours of (refusing to get out of bed) trying to snuggle and nurse her into submission... i finally gave in and went into the nursery, changed her diaper and nursed her in the chair. she was dead asleep in less than 5 minutes. when i went back to my room i put her in her rock and play... because even though i love having her in my bed, it was 3 AM and i had hardly slept at all. the minute... i kid you not... my head touched the pillow leif started wailing for me from his little mattress on the floor. kjaer was sleepily trying to get up and get to him... but i was up so i decided to be a martyr i suppose. pooooooor meeeeee, i'm a mama and evrrrrrrry bodyyyyy neeeeeeeds meeeeee. after throwing a mini fit into my pillow...i went and laid with him on his mattress and promptly fell into a restless sleep until 5. when i woke up i tiptoed back to my bed... exhausted and ready to soak up a handful of hours of good sleep. about 20 minutes later henley was ready to eat again. so i pulled her back into bed and fell asleep nursing her. i then i had weird dreams about my daddy... whose anniversary of his death is this week.
so... i could feel i was fragile that morning already. kjaer was playing with leif in the kitchen and i had taken henley with me outside in the backyard to let trooper out. as i was out there i just sunk with henley into the grass... it was like i just needed to feel the earth beneath my feet, the grass between my toes... something to ground me. henley seemed perfectly happy sitting in the grass and so we sat... avoiding the clamor that comes with a two year old boy who has just had his whopping 12 hours of sleep. then i got up and moved into our beautiful sunroom... soaking up some sunshine and trying to absorb my dreams from the night before. i just wanted to idle there for awhile. sink into my surroundings and enjoy this place i call home.
so i'm sitting there... and leif comes running over delighted to see me. he's in his santa claus jammies, eating a bowl filled to the brim with strawberries. his blue eyes are sparkling and he has the silliest shock of bed head in his beautiful red curls. he keeps climbing up into my lap and down, pushing and poking at my sack of potatoes that i loathingly call my body right now. i don't mind so much... he's so happy and sweet and kind. the whole time i'm thinking...
damn, that kid is one amazing masterpiece.
and then he cracked my phone.
the back story is that my phone has been broken a few times. we have some service plan that replaces it absolutely free... so i shouldn't really care... except that the employees of best buy mobile are starting to treat me like i'm doing it on purpose. i hate it. i hate it when people assume the worst about me because i am not THAT person. and then they always replace my phone with a refurbished phone with more problems... and it usually takes 3-4 refurbished phones until i can get one that acts like a good phone should. so i'm sure it looks to them... on paper... like i've had my phone replaced a gajillion times over the past two years... when really it's been my fault (or leif's) about 4 of those times.
so... leif picks up my phone... which i had purposely moved out of eyesight 5 minutes earlier so it wouldn't be tempting for him... but somehow he spotted it, picked it up and it slipped from his hands.
i didn't curse... though i wanted to.
i just sat there.
and then i became leif's jungle gym again. he's crawling and poking and prodding and he won't leave me alone. only now it isn't cute. it was then that the cork popped off... i couldn't handle it anymore. i moved leif aside and ran off to my room like a school girl and threw a big crying fit in my bed.
so i'm sobbing on my bed... telling myself that i just need a good cry. but as i'm crying, the intensity with which i'm doing so is ramping up. i feel like i mentally floated above my body and looked down on myself and saw the craziness unfolding there... and i starting flipping through all of the things that are making me upset... because i knew a phone that could easily be replaced couldn't matter this much.
first of all... we have been battling a diaper rash with henley for almost 3 months now. finally... FINALLY... we figured out that she has super sensitive skin and can't even wear the plastic covers that go over her cloth diapers (and disposables have the same effect). so now i have to switch over to wool and fleece covers... which are much more involved than the little plastic covers that we have come to love. and wool is expensive... so it's like we're having to make another small financial investment right before i have to send two children into part time daycare and we're already cinching up our belts. it's a learning process and i just want it to be simple like cloth diapering has been with leif.
and speaking of those two kids going into daycare... one of them REFUSES a bottle. she is the easiest baby i have ever met... except with this one crux. everyone is telling me not to stress... but our daycare provider keeps nervously asking me if henley is taking the bottle yet... like EVERY time i see her (we still bring leif once a week in the summer) and it makes my blood pressure jump. i feel so... pressured.
i don't like pressure.
and then yesterday (*Sigh*) i remembered that i hadn't put my tongue ring back in from my visit to the dentists office last week. i was feeling particularly self conscious... looking like a ragamuffin. and not the cute kind... like all of my girlfriends with the cute yoga pants and tank tops and doo-rags. no... as in giant maternity shirts fresh with spit up stains and water from lanolizing some wool covers, unshaven legs, crazy hair and glasses. so i decided to put my tongue ring back in that i had discreetly tucked into my wallet when they took x-rays at the dentist because i thought it would make me feel a little bit like my old self. it was the only piercing of my many at the dentist's office that i thought, "oh, i'll just do it when i get home." well... by the time i had remembered, the hole was closed. i tried to go from underneath and above. i thought about just ramming it through the new skin. and then i could feel my daddy laughing at me from up above... because i had promised my parents years ago that when i got married i would take it out for my wedding day and never put it back in. then my daddy died (around the time i got engaged). as my wedding drew closer my mom reminded me about "that stupid tongue ring" and my promise. i told her i didn't recall making such a promise and laughingly reminded her that she couldn't prove that i had because the only other witness was dead.
she didn't think i was very funny.
but now here i sat... not one shred of me feeling attractive... and this stupid tongue ring... which must've had signified my beauty and youth was being rejected by my tongue. (who's laughing now, right?)
you wouldn't think it would matter after 15 years... but apparently i had a lot of identity tied up in it.
suddenly all of my sex appeal... or what i had left of it after having children... was left on the counter in the bathroom and my emotions were plummeting. so i did what any depressed and unsexy mom would do.
i went grocery shopping looking like a total wreck.
i mean, i figured i already felt like crap... let's just get this shiz over with.
and then i'm catching my reflection in the dairy cases and thinking, so it's come to this, has it?
here's the thing, people. it's not really about a phone breaking, or a tongue ring that won't go through it's hole. it's about me feeling so unlike myself that i cling to these tangible things that i perceive as "attractive" or "cool" about me. my iPhone isn't fat or greasy... it's sleek and stylish. my tongue ring doesn't have lumps and bumps where it shouldn't... it is young, hip and sexy. i don't have to worry about putting them on diets or squeezing them into too small clothes. they don't have to wear clothes that are wayyyyy to big for them either. they are perfect, unchanging, tiny little objects that i've staked my value on because i've forgotten who i thought i was... or as leif so sweetly proclaims i "got-for" who i was.
i've read the inspiring blogs and articles my mommy friends post to facebook... hell, i repost them too. the ones where the mommy's are proud of their tiger striped stretch marks, their soft bellies and cellulite. i've even been moved by some... the other day i put up a picture of myself on facebook of me at the zoo with my kids... even though when i looked at it i could feel my insides churn at the sight of myself. i've been inspired to wear a swimsuit and not miss out on making memories with my children this summer... except all i have right now is a damn, old lady looking, maternity suit that i feel like crap in.
if i only had money... yes, money would fix all of this. money and being skinny.
and probably wine... lots of wine.
but here's the truth. here's the revelation i'm having. yes i want to be the mama who doesn't care what others think and embraces who she becomes. i will be that mama... just not today. today this mama also needs to grieve what she's lost. i've lost my athletic body... it's somewhere under these giant nursing boobs and post-partum belly. and even though i've been watching what i eat and have started running again... the boobs and belly are still there. my loving husband... who knows me all too well... likes to remind me that i just grew a tiny miracle and it'll all come back with time. he strokes my hair and tells me i'm lovely and not to worry and i want to clench my fists and stammer through gritted teeth BUT I WANT TO FEEL SEXY AGAIN, RIGHT NOW!!!!
even more unfair than losing my image of who i was... is that i lost my daddy and our (greatest accomplishments) babies will never know their opa on this side of heaven. well... i say they'll never know... but leif seems to have some sort of spiritual connection with him. he tells me when we pull up to oma's house "opa is here" or when my mom was watching the kiddos so i could nap when henley was born he looked up from his toys and quietly said, "opa went bye-bye." just yesterday (this probably is also contributing to my emotional train wreck) he pointed to a picture in a book we were reading and said, "that's an opa." and wouldn't you know it... it looked just like him... bald head, happy grin and plaid shirt... even though leif has maybe seen 2 pictures of my dad in his life.
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my dad was the original safe harbor before i fell in love... the OG. if I had D-days like this before he was gone, i would crawl up into his lap and he would anchor me. he was the earth beneath my feet and the grass in between my toes. he may have thought i was crazy or a bit nutty, but i was also his daughter... one of his masterpieces too. so that softened the insanity surrounding me, i'm sure, and allowed him to let me take shelter under his wings for a speck of time while i recovered without too much scrutinizing.
now i have a husband, who my daddy passed his mantle onto rather dramatically, and he is also trying to figure out this parent thing. he's waking up next to this hormonal, puffy woman who goes all sorts of batty when her tongue ring hole closes and her iPhone cracks. he probably doesn't recognize me in all of this either... but he does a fabulous job of holding down the fort while i take a D-day to sort through the emotional mess that is me. he's my harbor... where i dock my little boat and wait out the storm. but i'm also his harbor... so that makes it a different type of relationship than what my dad and i had. we have to take turns losing our crap and picking up each others broken pieces... and i think we do a damn good job at it if i say so myself.
but i haven't fully gotten to the revelation yet, have i?
it is this... sometimes we all need a D-day. a day where all that gets accomplished is having a good cry, making the bed and then watching a movie. a day where we stand with mouths agape as we stare at the scary role of parenthood and wonder if we'll ever survive.
but a D-day is also something else. it is defined as an important day for an operation to begin. it's a day to pull yourself up by the bootstraps (in my case, after laying in a puddle for a bit of time) and take on the role that's been gifted to you. a day to accept your challenge and strategically move on.
so for me... this means i need to accept that i'm not as hip and skinny as i once was (or thought i was). accept that my daddy's physical presence is gone from this world. accept that being a mother is stinking h.a.r.d. and trying to be a good one and a rockin' wife can often leave me feeling like a waste of space by the end of the day.
the operative word in all of this is acceptance... of who i am and what i'm becoming. acceptance of the woman who stands in front of the mirror at the end of the day with no tongue ring, a chubby mama belly and a gap between my two front teeth when i smile. because that woman can conquer mountains. that woman does the best she can every single day by the grace of God. and though there are failures, and tears (and childish temper tantrums that involve wailing on my part), and hiccups... it is ultimately the operation at hand... and nobody said it'd be perfect.
so i tell myself it's ok to fall into a mess of tears and sobs every once in awhile. but after i've exhausted those frustrations, it'll be time to lace up those boots and get a move on girl.
throw your arms around those who love you, lean in and press on.
and one day i'll look back on this challenging season of my life and see it for all of the splendor it really was... the chunk of time where i got to know and love myself for the beautiful mess i am... and embraced it.
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