Your Mask is Wearing Thin

We are on our first "staycation", certain to be our last. This week began with my parents leaving for a much-deserved vacation - we all miss them. Then Ella came down with a bad virus - we all hurt. When she was finally well enough to venture out again we went to a store where another little one pulled her by her pigtail down to the ground - we all cried. Then came the dreaded phone call that my Aunt Pat had journeyed home after a long battle with cancer - and I collapsed.

I knew that Aunt Pat was in hospice care and finding her way out of this life. My faith tells me she is at peace. But I was filled with such a sorrow, so many regrets - not enough visits, Ella not having met her - and let's call a thing a thing: guilt. Guilt that I had wallowed in the little inconveniences of the week as if they were monumental. Guilt that I had ever been angry at having to reschedule plans, that I had lowered myself to describe a day with my family as "a waste of a vacation day" (yup, I said it, covered head-to-toe in stickers and rocking a baby Dora). Guilt that I was blind to the reality that my Aunt Pat lived every day by: family is a blessing to be enjoyed.

It's been a difficult week by any measure and I'm not wearing the stress well. I pride myself on being a very purposeful person, and a very present parent; I was neither. It hurts to admit - to admit that I'm not nearly as adaptive in a squall as I imagine myself to be when I'm daydreaming through smooth seas. But it is important. It is important for me to admit it, because otherwise I'll remain stuck in that rut. More importantly, I need to admit it to my daughter. I need her to see me struggle...and fail. Too often we wear the mask of parenting as infallible superhero; it is so much more important to be human. The business of parenting is tricky: to teach our children how to struggle, how to grieve, and to grow through it when we're not entirely sure how to do it ourselves.

I spent the first part of this week wallowing, pushing my own agenda, and failing splendidly. In honor of my Aunt Pat and everything that she was, and in consideration of my many blessings, I will be spending the second part of this week celebrating the quiet moments of love stuck in a sick house with my little family. It won't be Norman Rockwellian. We may get to do approximately zero of my pre-planned adventures. We may not even get out of our pjs. And it will be enough. Take two!

I've Been Too Long and I'm Glad to Be Back

It's been 4 years, 1 graduate degree, 1 miscarriage, 3 home repairs, countless hours on Facebook, 6 vacations and 1 healthy baby girl since we last updated our blog. We had a fledgling Apple page that died quickly under the annual cost of renewal....or maybe it was something more. Every time that I sat down to bring the blog back to life I found a reason not to.

In 2009 I found that photos and updates were more easily shared on Facebook and I was rigorously exercising my inner writer through my graduate program. That same year, Dominick and I lost a pregnancy and were faced with the silencing sorrow of mourning a child that we never met. I wanted to so desperately to write my way through it. My heart and fingers ached for me to write, for there to be a literary catharsis; but it never came. Writing has always been a healing and educative exercise for me. When my brain and heart are having difficulty processing something, I can still write it. My inability to write after the miscarriage was more than a block, it was paralysis. The neurons no longer fired, the blank page mocked instead of invited, and I withdrew. It wasn't that the words wouldn't come, it's that they weren't there at all. I was aching, empty and abandoned in almost every sense. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense that I couldn't write during this period of time. The body has a way of insisting that you quiet yourself and heal when you're screaming at the wind. But always better to dump than be dumped I said, so I turned my back on my writing for fear of my mutism being permanent.

The natural opportunity to return to writing came when I graduated with my Master's degree in May 2011. We had a 5 month old daughter and I had been back to work for one month. I was beaming with joy, but also sobbing and groping my way through becoming the mom that I was supposed to be in my head (what I know now: that bitch is a she-devil and not to be trusted). It was the perfect excuse to extend my writing vacation and avoid the question: did my body accidentally purge my voice along with my child?

As so many writers have expounded on more eloquently than I ever will: time does, indeed, heal. So do Dominick, Ella Rose and the many angels we call family; most especially my mother who was brave enough to share her own stories of loss, and to take my anger and frustration on her back and help me to carry it. I owe her as many apologies as I do thanks.

So here we are, a differently shaped family with lots to share and plenty to say. I hope you're still there, growing and loving and praying along with us.

Cheers to the next chapter....

I Stand Up and I'm Searching for the Better Part of Me

I wrote this as a free writing exercise because I needed to release my frustration and give voice to my conflict. While it doesn't represent my proudest moment, it is the truth. So here goes....


I stand confidently at the sales rack, flipping with authority through the discounted baby clothes, wondering why such tiny clothes are full price in the first place. My perfectly choreographed clearance rack attack was honed long ago. I worry for a moment about how dirty the hangers are, realizing that I forgot the antibacterial in the car; I quickly dismiss these worries as a small price to pay for scoring a sweater on sale. My physical memory engages and I am confident, familiar...this feels so damn good. Most of the skills that I use in my daily life now are new ones that I'm still developing a rhythm for. (How do I still sometimes spill milk when making a bottle?)

A few swipes into my quest, a stroller-contained toddler with bright eyes and a screechy voice greets Ella with a series of insistent "hellos". Ella removes her pacifier and responds with her own series of sounds. (Do other toddlers recognize pacifier-removal as the sign of respect that it is?) I am grateful for the happy distraction and try to smile at the Other Mother but she has abandoned her stroller for the swimsuits in the next aisle. As the minutes pass, the girls continue to play with one another and I manage to catch Other Mother's eye. What a lovely little girl she has and how old is she? The requisite questions flow over my tongue, a well-rehearsed mother script that I'm shocked can still pass for sincere. Other Mother responds, "Uh huh...24 months. Excuse me, do you have this bathing suit in a smaller size?" (I scold myself for judging her for saying 24 months instead of 2 years - even after becoming a mother, this still sounds pretentious and/or infantilizing to my ear.)

I wait for a moment for Other Mother to reciprocate; surely she has noticed that I, too, am here with a lovely little girl. Our silence is drowned out by our daughters' excited exchange. I compliment Other Mother on her selection, determined not to leave without a nice word being said about my child. I convince myself that it is for Ella's benefit and not my own. I know the scan is coming long before I feel Other Mother’s eyes examining my engagement ring and wedding band for the 4 Cs, my diaper bag for brand, and my outfit. (I am relieved that I wore my “good” jeans and wonder what kind of strange post-mating ritual we’re engaged in). Other Mother’s gaze finally lands on the cherubic face of the intended recipient of her praise; will she notice her cabbage patch face, her soulful eyes, her curly locks? Ella, in the interim, has taken to expressing her delight by blowing raspberries. Her toothy grin is set atop a pink chin glistening with spittle. Other Mother is horrified, and I am embarrassed....then embarrassed for my embarrassment. She turns on her heel and silently disappears into mall oblivion.

Once we're free of the cramped store I take Ella out of the stroller and we walk hand-in-hand describing our day. She is confident, joyful and entirely unscathed by the Other Mother encounter. Her hand in mine, she is sure of her place in the world and uninterested in outside opinions (for the moment). We talk about how great we are together and whisper plans for our next adventure. Everything true and good and right in this lives in these moments and the world fades away.


I consider this conflict of my own making with new eyes. Even if Other Mother was exactly as I judged her to be (and judge her I did), the delicate dance of peer-mother interactions begs examination. While the compliments that I paid to the sweet girl with the doe eyes were sincere, was my motivation in giving them insincere? Was I driven by the expectation to receive compliments in return, or simply offended when Other Mother deviated from the socially agreed-upon script? Is the script changing?

I don’t have any answers to these questions, but I do think they are important to ask. In the meantime, I'm going to take a cue from my daughter: know my worth and move on!