Record Keeping

I’m not honestly a good writer. I tend to get lost in my thoughts a lot and finding a quiet moment around here these days pretty much doesn’t exist. I’m also the worst at grammar (god bless my homeschooled children) but, I do love to write. 

There is something so special about taking a moment to actually record things. Thoughts, memories, the sound Ana makes outside my window when she’s screaming at one of her siblings. There are so many things I would have forgotten if I hadn’t written them down. 

All day I have been thinking about what I want to write today. I got the itch and it must be honored. 

I worry though about how insignificant my life must seem. I write for mostly myself and a handful of good friends who are willing to read, but this will never make money, it will never go viral, no one will pin this on Pinterest. 

And why should they? I’m offering no advice here, just an observation of my own life. Mostly to just make my own brain feel less cluttered. Just as I declutter my house at times my mind clutter must be cleared. 

Daisy is over a month old now, nearly two months. She is by far the easiest baby I have ever had, or maybe we’re just better parents, filled with more grace. Maybe I’m a different mom because I know I never am doing this again. 

And I am, never doing this again. Steps have been taken. 

Even saying that feels weird. Because we got a lot of feedback. Some positive some negative. Lots of opinions. Lots and lots. And that’s ok, I don’t mind them. Especially when I know we did the right thing for us as a family. 

I don’t think I’ve actually felt like myself for two years…plus some change. Ana had a really tough newborn stage, and once she got out of it, Daddy was sick and then there was death and death and death and another pregnancy. 

I’m not always so sure who I’m looking at when I look in the mirror some days. I just feel like a small fraction of Maddie. 

This feeling comes and goes. It’s not constant which is why it feels so strange to even entertain it. I often remind that person in the mirror how good she is actually doing given the pregnancies, trauma, heartache, and grief she has endured. There are times when the heart can’t convince the brain of the truth, and times when the brain can’t tamp down the feelings of the heart. 

It could just be the week I’m entering. Tomorrow, if my Dad were still alive, we’d be celebrating his 60th birthday. He’s dead though. And the idea of what we could have done to celebrate as a family has taken residence in the back of all my thoughts. 

We kept busy all weekend, but eventually things slow down, or there is a catalyst, or the baby wakes up SUPER early and you haven’t slept well which sort of skews all your thoughts. Maybe that right there is the catalyst…

See I’ve been thinking about all the thoughts I’ve had stored up in my head since Daisy has been born. Some are hilarious, some make me sad, and some just need to take a hike so I can carry on with my life. 

Most of the time I look around at this life I’ve created and love it. I love the chaos and the loud and the hard and the teaching and stretching that Motherhood demands from me. There are many other days however, where I make it to the end of the night, look around and wonder, what the hell happened? 

Those are the nights when the dishes don’t get done and the laundry baskets mock me and the dirty kitchen floor laughs at me while I shuffle around in my slippers. Those are the nights the baby doesn’t want any one but me and her siblings are too loud for me to be able to put her down. Those are the nights when sheer exhaustion defeats me and we pile in my bed for a show while I nurse the baby and beg the big kids to be still. 

By 8 o’clock if the kids are in bed, I am too. Laundry and dishes and dirty floors forgotten in favor of crawling into my bed. 

Daisy gives me the best stretch of sleep first thing. So from 8/8:30 until about 1/1:30, I get sweet blessed sleep. From 1:30 on though, it’s touch and go. I never know if she’ll sleep well in the early mornings or if I’ll be up on and off with her. The person I am when I don’t sleep well is not a person anyone should meet. 

Yet my husband and kids meet that person daily. Ellie has reminded me what we “used to” do, the park, Mimi’s pool,  play dates. I remind myself comparison is the thief of joy and turn my phone off  

There’s so much good here in this house too. Ellie drawing the Mystery Gang, her drawing of Scooby Doo honestly blew me away and I think she’s an absolute genius. Dean with his worn out graphic novels, following the words with his fingers. Ana with her scrunchy nose demanding to hold “my Daisy”, the way this sweet baby loves to be around people and loves her biggest sister…I don’t know what I’d do without Eleanor. She’s my “secret weapon” on the hard days. 

I see all these silly things I do post-partum that I’ve done with all the kids. For example, do you know that scene in Finding Nemo where Nemo is in the fish tank? And the other fish decide to initiate him? They come up wearing their leaves going “wah-he-ha-he-ha-oh-oh-oh-oh”….I burp my babies to that pattern. I have with every single one of them. I play a mental game with myself where, when I throw dirty diapers to the trash can, if I make it, it means we will have a good day and if I don’t I mutter under my breath about how the day is just shot for good now. 

I remember these things right now because they are silly and get me through these long days. The weight of motherhood and nurturing and teaching and organizing it pulls me down some days. Then other days it reminds me of who I was and who I have become. 

The duality of emotions has always fascinated me. Our capacity to feel so many things all at once, knowing that what we say and think might sound like one emotion yet be because of a different emotion. 

My capacity to both love and hate these long days, chaotic noises, and constant need for slippers because the floor never does stay swept, continues to surprise me. 

So the record keeping continues. Even if it takes me days or weeks to finish one blog post, I always seem to come back to it. Each time trying to finish a different thought or wrap up what I’ve been thinking. 

I think I can safely finish this particular rambling up with this: Motherhood has both brought out the best and worst in me and I continue to let it shape and mold me. Keeping these records of both the hard and the easy, the joy and the frustration all paint a beautiful picture. 

One I do not, ever, want to forget.