Five Years

It was a lovely fifth birthday with Drew and Garrett yesterday.  Jim was able to take the day off work, and so we were both able to join the boys for their celebration at school, which was quite special.  They were so excited to be able to go to school on their "actual birthday!", and we were excited to be there with them, to take part, and to have the chance to get a peek into this part of their lives that has been mostly theirs.  Jim and I enjoyed a nice couple hours together while Garrett and Drew finished their day, then it was off to the park for rolling and jumping and other such fun.  After that, home for a whirlwind dinner, CAKE! and presents, then off to bed for all...

These boys are beautiful, maddening, amazing, exasperating, full of life and mystery, and we love them so very much.  Who can believe that they have become so big so soon?  And it is good.

When Make-Believe Goes Awry

"Dear Easter Bunny (Garrett Demko Michael), I want to go to your house and live there. I love you. Garrett told me all about you. Drew"

Garrett and Drew are good pretenders. They are daily making up new games (or replaying new versions of old ones), and to this point they have been on the same wave-length as they have built and outfit rocket ships for travel to Uncle John's house or the North Pole...

I don't know how it began, but yesterday Drew and Garrett started talking about the Easter Bunny and going to visit him. Drew wanted to write a note telling the Easter Bunny that he wanted to go to his house and live there, and Garrett started creating this story about how he had been to the Easter Bunny's house this past Easter. It was so very cute, how excited and earnest they were about it all; Drew quizing Garrett about what he did and all the details of the Easter Bunny's house, Garrett talking with authority about the whole experience. Things reached their most adorable after dinner when Garrett said the Easter Bunny was on his way and there was much squealing and jumping and clapping of hands. And to cries of "I hear him coming!", they ran outside to see...

And, as it's been said... "Sometimes, at the height of our revelries, when our joy is at it's zenith, when all is most right with the world..." Turns out the Easter Bunny was not, in fact, on his way up our driveway. Which Garrett knew all along, as he was pretending. Drew, on the other hand, was heartbroken. For the first time, that I know of, they were not on the same page... In the murky four-year-old world of reality and make-believe, they had missed each other and headed down different paths. While Drew's heart broke at the disappointment of no visit from the Easter Bunny, mine broke at his vulnerability (while also laughing - inside - at the ridiculousness of the situation). It was one of many, I'm sure, moments of pure sweetness and heartbreak, holding this crying boy who didn't understand why the Easter Bunny was not arriving at our house the way his brother assured him he would be.

Staying Home Part Two

A few weeks ago I shared some thoughts about staying home with Drew and Garrett and the mixed blessing that has been. I closed that post with the conclusion that, even given all the struggles, I still believe it is the path, a good path, for us. And with the question: how can I then create a richer, more satisfying life that will benefit myself, and also the boys, while remaining commited to staying home with them as they grow?

Perhaps there were ways that I could have created a better balance all along. I'm not sure. It is something I wonder about and find myself regretting. It is hard, with the benefit of hindsight, and experience under my belt, to stay out of the trap of second guessing my actions, of criticizing myself for doing or not doing things that I see now I could have done differently. But it is difficult to move forward and change, lugging that weight and focus with me. So instead: Breathe. Set it down. Turn the other way, and step.

With the boys in preschool, I now have a real opportunity for a reconsidered focus and intention. A chance to begin to right the balance and give some serious thought to how I can carve out a course for myself that is in some way separate from being solely "mommy". A course that can fill me up, for my own sake, and so I can come to the boys with more to offer as well. To me, the start of preschool feels very keenly like taking a deliberate step through a door into a new, wide open space. I don't know quite what that space looks like yet. There is much to explore, and I have the sense that it will really only become clear as I move out into it. It is a place of learning to trust. To shake free a bit, to relearn how to walk without two little ones holding my hands, and to learn how to welcome those little ones back and send them out again as they learn to walk on their own for the first time.

So how do I begin to create this "richer, more satisfying" life while still committing to be a "stay-at-home mom"? How do I make use of the experience I have gained, and the things I have learned? First I am going to enjoy this time to myself. It has been a long time coming, and I am going to soak it up. I am going to rejoice in it and spend it doing things that I enjoy and that bring me fulfillment and a sense of accomplishment (with perhaps even a "vacation day" thrown in now and then...). Second, I am going to breathe. I am going to try to be more mindful of my days. To work on accepting them as they come, rather than trying so very hard to control them as I am used to doing. To take a step back from Garrett and Drew and try to see them more as who they are and are growing to be and to begin to shift my perception and my role of being their caregiver, protector and provider, to (more so) being their encourager, secure home, and helper. And to give myself the grace to stumble around while I do it.

That all sounds very good to me, and it is my intention going forward. In reality, there are weeks of just trying (and failing) to keep up with life amid colds and roof projects, and on and on. In reality there are afternoons when the boys are out of control as they struggle to adjust to all the changes going on around them and we all end up crying messes. But in the midst of those times, there are also moments when I am able to feel and show more compassion than I used to, to Garrett as he acts out at bedtime out of tiredness and his difficulty adapting to all the change (and, in the first place, to be able to see and understand the reasons behind the behavior). When I am excited to pick up the boys from school, or when I realize with some amazement, that I can look forward to another morning to myself again the next day. When I realize that more than I have been, I am able to let go and put a bit of (healthy) distance between myself and the boys. So I think that perhaps I am on a good path, new and uncharted and sometimes rocky as it may be. For now, it will do.

Staying Home, Part One

I am a Stay-at-Home Mom. It is something that was a foregone conclusion before Garrett and Drew were even imagined. Jim and I both had the gift of having our moms home with us as we grew, and never questioned that we wanted the same for any kids we would have. Yet sometimes, especially lately, I wonder if it's worth it. For the boys. For me. Or are the reasons we decided to do it, our hopes for the boys, balanced out or more by the unexpected wear it has placed on me, which in turn is transferred to the boys? All three of them.

I often feel like a different person than I was before. I know how I want to parent Garrett and Drew. Bridging the gap between that knowledge and reality is another story: so much more than I would care to admit, I have become instead a cranky, impatient and yelling person who struggles almost daily not to yearn for "how it used to be"; for a break, for some sanity and an adult conversation. Only to feel chastened to fail to appreciate the gift I have in sharing so much of the boys' lives. Wondering why it should be so hard sometimes, this job of mine? And how is it that other mothers seem to have it so much more together when my reality most often resembles a roller coaster?

I recently read that researchers have "uncovered evidence that full-time homemakers experience higher levels of psychological distress than working women who also have families. Apparently, multiple roles may be stressful, but they can also lead to richer, more satisfying lives." So would we have been better off if we had chosen to deliver the boys to day care and have me go off to work? Would I be a calmer, more satisfied mother and would the boys be better for it than having more time with me, yet having me be less able to care for them the way I strive to? Why is it that being a homemaker - a Stay-at-Home Mom - in our society would create greater psychological distress than being a woman facing the hands-down difficult task of juggling work outside of as well as within the home?

Being a Stay-at-Home Mom in our time and society is a strange, and strangely invisible position to occupy. The role is held at once as a noble pursuit and as something to feel vaguely ashamed of. Even me, who feels strongly about staying home with Drew and Garrett: when I'm asked what I do, I instantly assume an apologetic stance and sort of mumble that I stay home with my boys, and attempt to move on to other topics and out of the awkward fog that surrounds that line of conversation. Unless of course it happens to be another Stay-at-Home Mom I'm talking to, in which case the fog clears and some sort of mutual understanding is formed.

How is it that there is this dichotomy? It seems to be that those who don't choose to, or are unable to stay home with their kids often hold it up as an ideal, and yet there is an expectation that any woman who is worth her salt only chooses to be a Stay-at-Home Mom "in the meantime". That as soon as the kids are in school, she will surely return to her career. How many times have I had the "what do you do" conversation resolved when the questioner learns that Drew and Garrett are only 3. Perhaps it is that you can't assign a dollar figure to the work (though it has been attempted), so it doesn't fit nicely into society's classification system. Or perhaps it is because while the idealized version of staying home with your kids is seen as noble and worthwhile, when it comes down to it, the actual daily work of it is of much lower status: the jobs referenced in figuring the salary for a Stay-at-Home Mom were by and large tasks that are not given great worth in our society (rightly or not). Perhaps it is too still too uncomfortably associated with a time when women were not given the choice of what path to take in their lives as mothers.

In any case, it has left the path of choosing to stay home with the kids in a bit of a limbo, with a vague sense of unease in a role that receives mixed messages from society, is not well understood by many, and perhaps not well supported or explored by many in the midst of it, to boot (because really, twin three year old boys do not lend themselves to times of quiet reflection readily. Well, at all, really.).

Yet when it comes down to it, I am stubborn and hold tight to the belief that it is a good path and one I want to continue walking, and to the hope that it is worth it and that when Drew and Garrett are older they will see it as a gift as well. So then what does that mean as I live with not just the joys but also the wear of the role? How can I create a "richer, more satisfying" life that will benefit myself, and also the boys? That is one thing I'm thinking about these days. It is a goal, one of many on this journey.