The 3rd Child

You know what I love about having a third child?

#1:  I value our time together a little more than I did with the previous two because I know how quickly it goes. When I lay him down each night, I take it all in because I know when he wakes in the morning, he'll look different. He will have grown up a a little bit more. If I blink, I might miss something. And I don't want to miss anything! Even as the baby is suffering through his first cold and fever of his short little life, even though he's waking us up every hour (Or as Brad says, "It's pretty hard to say he's "waking us up" when we never even get the chance to go back "down"), there is such a tenderness in the wee hours of the morning. As his fever broke around midnight and he was wide awake and the happiest he had been in about 48 hours, he was pure sweetness. I couldn't turn away, I couldn't force him to go back to bed. I just laid on the floor with him and listened to his coos and gurgles. This too shall pass. And I don't want to miss it.

#2: I don't worry as much (or maybe at all!). I don't rush him to the pediatrician at the first sign of a fever, I don't bundle him up as if we live on the North Pole, I know that letting him cry for a few minutes is not going to hurt him nor make him reject me. I don't worry about development anymore. When other babies his age are reaching their milestones faster than him, I know it will come...All flowers bloom in their own time...And, he, too, will grow into his own in his own time.

#3: Probably the most important lesson I've learned is one the older kids have taught me and it's the one I value above all else. Each child is born with their own personality. Their own unique way of seeing the world. And no matter how much I may have envisioned them differently or thought our personalities would mesh better one way or another, I have realized I can do nothing to change who they are. I just have to let go and ride the wave and find the little things about each of them that I love. And when you focus on all the little things you love, you stumble upon something big...

Date Night

Ever since having Baby #3 more than seven months ago, Brad and I just haven't had the opportunity for many date nights. Ok, truth be told, we haven't had a single date in over a year. I know this sounds neglectful of our marriage and we've heard all the agruments: Take care of your marriage for your children's sake, the best gift you can give your kids is two parents who love and respect each other, and (the scariest of them all) you'll get divorced when the kids have grown because you've forgotten how to be husband and wife. Plus, we've recently been told by lots of friends (with the best of intentions, of course) how we need to plan these formal date nights twice per month complete with a sitter to keep our marriage on the right track.  And it got me thinking...

There is lots to be said in regards to some alone time with your spouse. I completely understand. It does renew our sense of purpose and goals. It does help us to realize, once again, that we do like each other and we're married for the right reasons. It does validate our relationship.

And while a formal date night here and there is nice, it's not always realistic. There are schedules, money, and needs to be met. And I'm just not very good at leaving my kids in someone else's care. It's a fault of mine, I know, but I have to know and trust a person fully to comfortably leave my kids. No mere teenager will do. Also, a date night twice per month gets extremely expensive, even if everything we choose to do is free, there is still a sitter at my house getting $10 per hour. So, this got me thinking about our life and how we can economically meet our needs as husband and wife. Then it dawned on me, really...Almost like a brick falling out of the sky and landing on my head! We may not get many formal "dates" but we carve time out of every single day to spend time together alone. It may not be fancy, it may not be formal, but it does work for us. We have always found time, even if it's only a half hour, to connect emotionally to one another. To sit on the couch and rehash our day, to hold hands and make eye contact, and talk. It is the secret to our happy life together. We make the time every.single.day.

Texting....

Texting just may be the BEST invention EVER!!!

I've realized since I became an avid "texter" that I don't really like talking on the phone. In fact, when someone actually calls me, I look at caller ID and think, "Now who in the world is actually calling me? Text me, for crying out loud!"

This is what I love: It allows brief conversations that are very much "to-the-point"...I mean, is there anything more annoying than small talk? For instance, when the University of Mn calls me and I answer and they say, "Hello, Mrs. Garry! How are you?" As if we know each other...it annoys me. Now, if the nice U of MN employee had just text'd me, it would go something like this, "Hey! We looked back through our records and it looks like you graduated from our fine university in May of 2000. You should be making tons of money by now, so how about a donation of some kind?" Then I could text back and say, "Sorry, no one pays stay-at-home moms very much. Maybe next year!"

The Perfect Mother....MYTH #2

The "perfect" mother keeps up with scrapbooks, fills the baby book with important dates and milestones, and she DEFINITELY saves the downy clippings of baby's first haircut....

Guess where my baby's clippings are? In the garbage!

But before you judge me, let me make an important argument. My mom offered me my clippings as a full-fledge, been- married- a- long- time, mother-myself adult and I immediately threw them away. I didn't feel any sort of connection to my first clippings. There wasn't an "awww" moment but more of a "Wow! You saved this for all these years? Why???" moment.

So, while I love my children more than my own life, they are just going to have to realize that I'm not perfect, hence, they will never receive little bundles of hair  from me. And don't even get me started on saving gross baby teeth...Not in this house! Not EVER!!! The tooth fairy will stop and make a visit and on her way out the door, she will drop those teeth in the garbage!

Someday

I know the day will come when my kids will realize they like me too...Maybe even as much as they like their father.  I just sometimes wish that day was sooner rather than later...

Here's an example: London really wants to see "Dolphin Tale" and my husband truly believes it will be a waste of precious pennies and time to see it in the theater. So, I offer up my pennies and time in hopes of seeing her eyes light up at the opportunity. I bring it up to her....

Me: London, I've really been wanting to see that movie too. Will you go with me?
London: Um, Ok....Will daddy be coming too?
Me: Not this time honey because someone needs to stay home with Leyton. Babies aren't allowed at movies.
London: Hmmm...Ok. (I can totally tell she's not convinced I'm the epitome of "fun")

About an hour passes since this conversation...

London: Mom, are you SUUUURRRREEEE you want to see this movie? After all, it's really sad and I don't think you'd enjoy a sad movie.
Me: You really want Daddy to go with, huh?
London: I'm sorry, mom, but I kinda do.

Sigh....Someday!

The Perfect Mother...MYTH #1

Today, I was asked the question, "What kind of myths did you have about "The Perfect Mother" before you actually became a mother?" Oh wow! This is a loaded question...where do I begin?

For starters, I was a much better mother before I actually became one. Does that even make sense? I was pretty certain I had it all figured out. And for those of you leaving full shopping carts in the middle of an aisle to take a screaming toddler to the car? Well, you obviously have it all wrong and that was NEVER going to happen to me! Ha!!! Then my own children were born....And with them came their own personalities, their own joys and challenges, their own rewards and disappointments, their own temperaments. And no matter how much "nurture" you bestow upon them, they still have their own unique "nature" running through their veins, which can either work for or against you at times.

MYTH #1: The Perfect Mother Stays Home

When I was in 5th grade, we had just moved to a new city for a job transfer. This new job (actually business ownership) meant my parents were both working long hours, which was an adjustment from the old schedule I was used to, so I had more "alone" time than I did previously. I remember walking home from school during the first week of Fall with a new friend. I asked her if she wanted to come over to my house and play. She said, "Well, I have to go home and ask my mom first." I remember this pang of jealously. I've never forgotten it. I was envious that she had a mother home while I was left digging in the bottom of my backpack for my house key. She came home to somebody, I came home to an empty house. And as any dreamy 5th grader, I envisioned her mom in an apron, baking cookies, glass of milk on the table, eagerly awaiting her daughter's arrival home from school. Now, I highly doubt any of the above happened, but I believed  she was FAR luckier than I was and the grass was definitely greener! So, since 5th grade, "the perfect mother" stayed home with her kids. She didn't work.

For the past 11 years (the duration of my "motherhood"), I have bounced back and forth between working and staying home. No matter what position I've held at the time, stay-at-home mom or career woman, I've always felt a sense of guilt that I wasn't doing something right, fully, completely, or correctly. If I was here, I wasn't there. If I was home, I wasn't contributing to the family budget. If I'm working, I'm not fulfilling anything 100%...Everything and everyone is only getting partial attention. And while I'm so thankful staying home is a choice I have (but like I've said in many, many previous posts, it's not one that doesn't come without some serious sacrifice, both emotionally and financially), I've realized that this chapter in our life is so short. There are times (ok, maybe most of the time) where it feels like we'll never sleep again, we'll never stop buying diapers, we'll never be able to pick and go without taking everything but the kitchen sink, we'll never get another date-night, the house will never stay clean for more than an hour....But time does march on, and sooner rather than later, the house will become eerily quiet and it will stay clean and no one will need me on the same level they once did. So, while I do not believe one must refrain from working to be the perfect mother, I have realized that I don't want to miss one bit of this time we have together. I have my whole life to work, I have my whole life to clean my house, I only have a short time to cuddle kids and hold babies and kiss boo-boos and wipe tears and blow kisses.  There are times where this feels endless and mundane and I often wonder, "Does it even matter to them?" and the answer to this question is, "Maybe it won't matter to them. But it matters to me."

Mom,

It has been four years since you passed, yet I still have moments where I have the desire to pick up the phone and give you a call because I haven’t heard from you lately.

• I want to tell you how nerve wracking yet exciting it is to watch Logan pitch.
• I want to tell you how funny it is to see London run down the soccer field while waving and giving me a thumbs up, completely ignorant of the soccer game she is supposedly involved in.
• I want to tell you how Leyton is still not sleeping through the night, how tired he has made Stac and I (I now understand why Mt. Dew is necessary in the morning), and how smiley, talkative, and generally happy he is after a downright challenging start.
• I want to post new pictures and new videos of the kids and get an immediate response indicating that you can’t stop looking at the pictures and watching the videos.
• I want you to say how much Logan reminds you of me now that he isn’t carrying around five pounds of hair.
• I want you to see Logan catch a 24-inch walleye, northern pike, and bass and come home to tell me that we have to get a boat like tomorrow.
• I want to tell you that Leyton giggles hysterically for some reason every time I pull up his arm up to get him dressed.
• I want to tell you about all of the wonderfully insightful things London says on a daily basis.
• I want to call up and just complain about how our van is rusting, how our grill is rusting, how the driveway is breaking apart, how the paint is coming off the porch, how we woke up and realized we had no hot water this morning, and how the out of pocket costs associated with having Leyton increased 30 fold over Logan.
• I want you to call up and say you think your computer is almost out of space only to have me look at it and realize you’ve only used 3% of your hard drive capacity.
• I want you to look at Leyton’s feet and pudgy legs and say how I looked just like that.
• I want you to see Dad, Mikey, Logan and myself all tee off for a round of golf.
• I want you to call up and ask if there are any treats you could bring to Logan’s birthday party.
• I want to tell you that after watching Logan mow the yard for the first time, Dad must have been really nervous every time we called him up at work and told him that we mowed the yard for him.
• I want to say thanks for prodding me to ask out that girl from Video Mania that kept coming in and talking to me for hours at a time. You were obviously right that she was the perfect fit. Stac may not have been all that similar to you, but together we produced a daughter that is very much like you. I wish London had a chance to spend more time with you.

Most of all, I just want to let you know that there are now a few days on which I finally have an answer other than “Fine” to your daily “How was your day” question and an answer other than “Nothing” to your daily “Did you learn anything” question from back in high school.

There are now a few times each year where my day was “Not so fine” and I learned that “I still really, really miss you.”