Happy Mother's Day!

My first Mother's Day after Will was born, I was awake for the day by 5:30 a.m. when Will got up to nurse and wouldn't go back to sleep.  I remember feeling like it wasn't supposed to happen that way, that Mother's Day was going to somehow be a magical day where I, as a Mom, got the day off and didn't have to do any work.  In a sense, I wanted to celebrate Mother's Day by pretending I wasn't a mother.

That's hard to do when you have a nursing baby, and when you're also expecting your husband to cook a meal for your extended family, thereby preventing him from assuming all childcare responsibilities.  (No really, stop cutting lobster meat and change this diaper, Greg, it's Mother's Day.  And get a move on those sandwiches, we need at least fourteen of them.  Have you even made the fruit salad?)  Not only did Greg make an amazing luncheon for my immediate family and both sets of grandparents, but my mother-in-law actually woke up and cooked me breakfast.  So it was a great Mother's Day, even though part of me really resented my 5:30 a.m. wake-up and stay up.

Just one of the plates of Lobster Rolls last year!

I kind of laugh when I think about it now, and have adjusted my expectations.  I've also grown into my role as a mother, and while I'd still like a few minutes of quiet to myself on Mother's Day to drink a whole cup of coffee while it's still warm or maybe knit more than ten stitches of a sock, I no longer crave a day long break from diapers.  I don't mind changing diapers.  I really don't.  

This year, I've decided to be more reasonable.  Here's how I'm planning to celebrate:  

(And no, I don't feel bad asking for what I want.  Should I?  I'll reciprocate for Father's Day if that helps!)

A Photo of Me with Both Boys: Greg takes amazing pictures, but things are so busy that we don't have many of me with both kids.  I'd love Greg to be in them too, so maybe we can set up a tripod and take some with the timer.  Either way, I'm getting up, putting makeup on, and getting some photos I'll want to look at later!

Almost a picture of me with both boys, but maybe if I looked at the camera it'd help!

Some Time To Myself: Not on Mother's Day, when I'd rather be spending time as a family because Greg isn't working.  No, I've promised myself to get a babysitter a little more frequently, starting this afternoon, so that I can get some scheduled quiet time to look forward to.  And I want to use it for more than folding laundry and taking care of things around the house.  I want to use it to work uninterrupted on a craft project for more than five minutes, to start putting photographs in our family albums, to do the things that never seem to get done because while they're important, they're not urgent.  And I want that cup of coffee I was talking about.

Yes!

No.

A New Child to Sponsor: I am ridiculously lucky.  I have two healthy boys, and not only do they have a safe place to live, plenty of food and clothing, and warm beds to sleep in, but I am also able to stay home  with them.  Many mothers aren't so lucky, and I can only imagine the heartbreak it must cause a mother to see her child go hungry.  I cannot begin to imagine.  So as a small expression of thanks, for each of my sons who have all they need, we're sponsoring a child who doesn't.  It will be something we talk to the boys about as they get older, and it's my way of helping another mother now.  We go through Children International.  The Heifer Project is another great organization to help provide food and income for needy families, and I love its focus on education and recipients sharing their gifts with the community.  Because, as much as I love jewelry, I don't even wear it around my young children.  This is a gift I really need.

Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms!  Hope it meets expectations ;)

Me with my amazing Mom :)

Things That Grow

I'm not just talking about seedlings, although this is a post about gardening.  My kids are growing too, faster than I even realize sometimes.  Will is at that fun stage where he's learning to talk, and it's becoming very clear that he understands so much more of what's being said than he can verbalize.  He can follow instructions like "Go get Mr. Monkey from behind the couch!", or "Where's the red ball?  Can you bring it to Dad?"

So when it was time to sow the seeds for our summer vegetable garden, I thought we should do it together. I expected Will to try to eat the dirt and seeds, dump the watering can on himself, and wander off, but I figured I'd explain what I was doing and give him a chance to help.

And you know what?  He did!

He helped push the peas down into the soil after I showed him, carefully pressing each one into the dirt.

                                                 He watered the seeds and not himself.

He helped carry the seed packets.  He even tried to help turn the soil, but seemed to realize that the shovel was kind of heavy.

The result?  Our seed distribution may be a little special this year, and, well, there were a couple areas that got watered perhaps more than necessary.  But we had a ton of fun, and we really did do it together.  I didn't really know until we tried that Will would be able to copy me and push the seeds into the soil, or help use the watering can.  But he did, and he only ate one, even though peas are his favorite vegetable.  (That's why we're planting them.)

It made me realize that in order to find out what Will was capable of, I needed to give him the opportunity to show me.  If I hadn't thought that he could help plant the seeds, and shown him how, I wouldn't have gotten to see him push those peas into the dirt with such focus.

And now, when we go out every day (even in the rain) to check and see if our seeds have sprouted, I wonder if maybe he really knows what we're doing.  Either way, we're both having fun!

A big difference from the little guy who watched us build our garden bed from a blanket last year :)  Here's to spring, and all the wonderful things that grow!

                                                              Will and me in April of 2011






UPDATE: Our seedlings have sprouted, and the spinach definitely needs to be thinned!  This made me laugh :)  

A Letter To Myself

Andrew and I are taking a Second Time Mom's class at Isis Parenting, and during a conversation about grandparents, someone made the comment that they hoped they would remember all this when their kids have children.

This made me think about me becoming a grandparent. I am sure that I will love my grandchildren, knit them amazing toys and sweaters (hopefully in their favorite colors and not itchy yarns) and spend as much time with them as I can. I'm a little more worried about my ability to remember what it was like to be a new parent, and to be a good mother and mother-in-law.

I am lucky because I have AMAZING in-laws, and wonderful parents, who have done an incredible job at navigating between offering advice and support while simultaneously letting us make our own parenting decisions. I am truly blessed to have them, and they are, quite seriously, perfect.

Since my own slightly type A personality makes it likely that I will NOT be so perfect, I was inspired to write a letter to my future self with some things I hope to remember. I am going to print two copies, and tuck them into my sons' baby books, which will inevitably be pulled off the shelves when they're expecting their own children, so I'll be sure to find them and read them at the appropriate time.

Here's my letter.

To My Future Self
For When I’m Expecting Grandchildren
April 28th, 2012

Dear Kelly,

Congratulations, Grandma! You look great. The streaks of grey become you, don’t dye your hair. Spend the time and money elsewhere, on lattes and croissants and knitting. You’re going to be a grandmother, and grandmothers have grey hair. Remember how Mom embraced becoming Mimi, and the happiness it brought her, and do the same.

I wish you were here, and I know you do, too. I promise that when I’m done writing this, I will hug William and Andrew close, and while I hold them, I will think about how someday I will be you, wishing like anything that I could be back here with them snuggled in my arms the size they are now. Promise me that when each of your grandchildren is born, you will hold them close in your arms, and think of how excited I am to become you, and in those quiet moments of holding someone precious in our arms, we can be connected.

I am writing now because I want you to remember after your grandchildren are born, just how crazy and amazing and challenging it is to be a new parent, and mostly, because I want you to remember that you are NOT a new parent, you are a new GRAND parent. You were lucky to have parents and in-laws who made this transition amazingly. If you can be half as helpful and understanding as Barb and Bill when you are the mother-in-law, you’ll do well. I really wish this for you, but I also know how much you love knowing things and learning things and teaching things, and so I worry an eensy, tiny bit about your ability to remember to let new parents make their own mistakes, and to recognize that “mistakes” are not defined as “any parenting choice differing from how you raised your own children”. I’m serious.

There are some things you need to remember. Remember reading parenting book after parenting book before Will was even born, and taking notes, and coming up with your convictions about the type of parent you would be. Remember how luxuriously freeing it was to finally throw some of those convictions out the window. Remember how much conflicting advice there is out there about parenting. Remember watching your friends parent differently than you and still raise wonderful, happy, securely attached toddlers. Remember all the advice that could have saved you a great deal of hassle if you’d listened to it, but that you didn’t, and couldn’t, because you didn’t know which advice you should have listened to until you’d been through things and found out for yourself.

It may be hard for you to accept that your children and their partners will raise their kids differently than you did, especially since you followed so closely in your own mother’s footsteps as a cloth diapering, breast-feeding stay-at-home mom. But nursing your children was your gift to give them, and staying at home was your choice to make, and neither was always easy even though they were right for you. Remember the long days when it seemed like one or the other was always crying, and if it wasn’t them it was the cat, and how in those moments you wished you, too, could go to work because you would come home missing them so much and feeling so excited to see them, rather than having a nagging guilt because at that moment you’d love nothing more than to get away from them?

You are now the supporting actor and not the star. Ask yourself how you can best support your grandchild’s parents in becoming the parents they want to be. Becoming a parent is the scariest, most important thing that has ever happened to you, and they probably feel the same anxiety and desire to do it right. Respect that, and offer them validation and support. Ask them what they need, and how you can help, suggest ways that you’re willing to help. Child care? House cleaning? Frozen lasagnas or soups? Taking an early morning feeding so the new parents can sleep? Caring for an older child for a weekend? Remember what it felt like to have your newborn handed back to you only when it was hungry, crying, or needed a diaper. You’re probably capable of changing a diaper and shushing a baby that isn’t hungry. Do it.

Ask them how they would like you to care for their child. Don’t hesitate to say that you’re comfortable improvising, but appreciate that consistency is good for children and you’re happy to learn how they do things if there’s anything specific they want to show you.

I know you will love your grandchildren, and I know that sometimes you’ll wish you could be the mother all over again, especially since you’ll have this nagging feeling that you could do it so much better now that you know everything you learned from parenting the first time around. But that’s not your role, and things have probably changed in the world of parenting anyway. Now your job is to be the best grandparent you can be, which is a two part job. You get to have a relationship with your grandchildren, and you get to support the new parents.

Take a deep breath, remember to listen, dispense advice when it’s asked for, dispense love always, and enjoy every minute.

With love,

Kelly

Life is precious... NOT perfect.

I'm a good mom. Sometimes I'd even go so far as to say I'm a great mom. I keep my kids fed, napped, clothed, and loved. But I've got two under two, and sometimes* things just fall through the cracks.

If nobody's hurt, I like to laugh about it. And thanks to the camera on my phone, while I'm laughing, I like to take a picture so I can laugh about it again later, and maybe Greg can get a chuckle out of it too. And Nana. And Mimi. And my blog readers. All three of you.

Here are some of the keepers...**

Will finds Nemo's water bowl while I'm trying to put makeup on for date night.


Turned around to check on Andrew who was sleeping in the stroller. Heard "Hi? Hi? HI?" Rescued Will. After taking a picture.


Will decides to pull his laundry basket into the middle of the room while I'm nursing Andrew, take all of his clothes out one by one, and put them into the drawers in his closet. This is made funnier by the fact that I can't actually see his dresser in his closet, but get to hear the drawers opening and shutting in between him toddling out for more dirty laundry.


No Will! Just because it's soft doesn't mean it's yarn!!! (The cat was fine. He was trying to give her the knitting needles, not poke her with them. No really. She's fine.)


Speaking of the cat... Nemo, you're throwing my focus off. I could make an album with Christmas card photo attempts that match.


Aww, Will is playing with Andrew! Look, get a picture of him offering Andrew the pacifier! Oh wait, in the time it took the shutter to open, it transformed into a picture of Will smooshing Andrew's face. And now you look like a bad parent. Quick, post it on the internet with a disclaimer before someone calls DCF.


Looking through these pictures, they're not necessarily the ones you post online or e-mail to Nana, but there is something special about them. These are the every day photos, the ones of what life was REALLY like in the moments in between the smiles. These are the ones that are attached to real memories of my time with the kids when they're young, the ones that really will make me laugh in a year, or five years, or twenty.

Because it can't always look like this... No matter how good a parent you are.



* For the purpose of this sentence, "sometimes" should be understood to mean daily, usually multiple times a day.

** I have a couple really nasty pictures of diaper blowouts that I didn't include. (I emailed them to Greg at work instead.) You're welcome.

Just Monstrous!

What's monstrous, you ask? Well, two things. The size of my yarn stash, and this little guy.



While browsing ravelry for some new patterns, I came across an adorable monster pattern, Monster Chunks, by Rebecca Danger. (Check out her blog: www.rebeccadanger.typepad.com for some amazing monster knits!)

Not only were my fingers itching to start this cute little knit, but Greg actually thought it was so fun that he wanted one to keep on his desk at work. You can imagine my enthusiasm - I ditched him with the kids and headed straight upstairs to see if "I could find a few odds and ends in the stash to knit it with" because "I bet I already have some yarn that would work."



Gee. You think?

The worst part of the resulting stash reorg was that I didn't even manage to shut the door before Greg saw it. (He was remarkably calm and supportive... I think he'd perhaps suspected that there might be a tad more yarn in that closet than there should be. Also, some of that yarn is his. Like three skeins. And he runs a lot. So we both have our little hobbies, ok?)


My little monster, posed in Greg's car for him to discover on his way to work :)

Luckily for me, there are a lot more cute Rebecca Danger monster patterns just begging me to use up odds and ends of yarn from other projects. And I've got mittens to knit for toddlers that won't take up whole skeins, and an awesome scarf idea that you may hear about later.

Will helps pick out buttons for eyes

My yarn ended up in three categories - partial skeins to keep for little monster projects and crafts, whole skeins that may end up as mittens, hats or baby sweaters, and partial and full skeins that I never want to see again and are going to be donated to the craft closet at the center for grieving children where my sister interns.

I have four new projects lined up from stash yarn, and another one already knit. Booyah.

Plus, this made it easier to finalize my list for when Mom and I go on our annual yarn excursion to the yarn.com store in western Massachusetts next week. I can't wait to buy some yarn!

(You didn't think I'd learn from this, did you?)

Just monstrous.


Remember this guy? Another Rebecca Danger monster pattern! (Iris the Gourmet Monster)

The Little Red Mitten

I am in love with a little red mitten.

This little red mitten is more than just a little red mitten, although if it were just a little red mitten, that would be enough, because the world needs little red mittens.

This little red mitten is the first knit item I have completed on my own at home with the two boys. (I finished an adorable stuffed hippopotamus during the time that Greg, my mother and my in-laws were here helping, which is not the same thing at all.)

This little red mitten means that maybe, just maybe, I can do this. Maybe I can have two kids under two and get something done besides laundry and diapers and making sure no one goes hungry. Maybe I can be the mom I want to be, the mom like my mom, the one who knits not just mittens but sweaters and socks and blankets. That somehow finds time to wrap her kids not just in wool, but in love and their favorite colors. The mom who knits for herself, too.

This little mitten means I refuse to just survive each day, that I will find time for things I love besides my children. That I will do more than just make it to bedtime and start again tomorrow.

It wasn't always relaxing. Sometimes I knit four stitches, picked up the baby, set down the baby, knit another row, picked the baby back up. Sometimes I knit with Andrew in the baby carrier, maybe four whole rows before Will woke up from his nap.

But little by little, stitch by stitch, I have finished one little red mitten. I don't even need this little red mitten this season, it's meant as a Christmas gift for Will, or maybe even a birthday gift so he has it for any chilly November and December days that fall before the receipt of Christmas mittens.

So ahead of time, stitch by stitch, I have managed one little red mitten.

And I am in love with this little red mitten.

Time to start the next one.




The Hippopotamus I knit for a baby shower gift while all my help was here!

Rescuing Mr. Monkey

I have something important to tell any girl who's not yet married. You need to marry a man who will rescue Mr. Monkey.

Some girls put a lot of thought into meeting and marrying Mr. Right. I've met six year olds who will tell you all about their wedding dress and cake. (It might change. But that's true of some brides ten weeks before the wedding, and not the point.) Those six year olds are the twenty year olds who have a list of "musts" and "would be nices" in their marriage material criteria.

I was not one of those girls.

When I started dating Greg, all I knew was that every time I was with him, it was more fun than being without him. So I tried to be with him as much as possible. Four years in, getting married seemed like a really good way to accomplish that. I never questioned it.

Luckily, I didn't need to, because Greg is amazing. Why is Greg amazing? Many reasons. But one of those reasons is that Greg is a guy who will rescue Mr. Monkey.

Thanks to this unseasonably warm weather, we were out for a family walk and taking some pictures on a picturesque campus nearby, when out of nowhere, our adorable and ne'er do-wrong toddler chucks his lovey over a stone bridge into the water below. (He then points and laughs.)







Will might have been pointing and laughing, but Greg took one look at the shock/horror/loss registering on my face and went running for large sticks to engineer his first of many rescue attempts.

Forget that our toddler wasn't even upset. Forget that we have Mr. Backup Monkey AND Mr. Tertiary We Really Need To Do Laundry Monkey at home. Those things didn't matter to Greg, because he knew that I couldn't bear to leave my toddler's lovey floating down a stream somewhere after all Mr. Monkey has done for us. And maybe Greg couldn't either.

There are so many times when I think to myself wow, I lucked out, because when I said "yes" to Greg's proposal, I hadn't given an ounce of thought to what kind of father he'd be. Turns out, he's the best kind. The kind who spends twenty minutes rescuing Mr. Monkey.

Let me tell you something - if you find a guy who will rescue Mr. Monkey, you also have a guy who will get up in the middle of the night five times to rock a toddler back to sleep. Someone who will empty the dishwasher in the morning and make french toast because he wants you to sleep in and have a good day. Someone who will always come home from the grocery store with a "surprise!" for you. Someone who won't say no when you ask them to change a diaper because you just sat down, even if you know it's not fair because they changed the last four.

So if you're still looking... remember to look for someone who will rescue Mr. Monkey.