Rude

Oh Friday night my family went to a trunk or treat for church. The kids were all dressed up and we had a great time. Most importantly (as any parents knows) there was lots and LOTS of candy.

When we came home it was already far past my young childrens' bedtime. We came into the kitchen and I shucked the costumes for the older kids. It was cold that night so pajamas were already waiting underneath the costumes. I wiped their sticky faces while my hubby took the baby up to her crib.

Then I shooed the kids upstairs and straight to bed. (Well, *I* read for a while in bed before going to sleep.)

The next morning I noticed there was mud all over the kitchen and on my stairs. The floors had just been cleaned Friday morning, and now they were covered with mud. Egads!

Mom (yeah, that's ME) was forced to sweep the entire downstairs. You better believe that as I spent an hour cleaning up the mud, I was not thinking kind thoughts about the "mud tracker". I mean, it was possible it had been a kid, but I knew I pulled their shoes off downstairs when I took off their costumes.

If HE had cleaned the floors the day before, you better bet he wouldn't have kept his shoes on and tracked mud all over my very recently cleaned house. I fumed as I worked.

I finally got around to the last room left to be vacuumed, my bedroom. As I sucked up the last bits of mud, I thought to myself, "It's just rude. At least the person who made the mess could do the cleaning."

That's when I saw my muddy shoes parked right by my bed, where I'd left them the night before.

Oops.

The Awakening

Youth is utterly wasted on the young.

I heard that sentiment when I was young and did not (unsurprisingly) understand it at all.

My little brother Jesse and I burned a book while we were in High School. We were forced to read The Awakening by Kate Chopin in English and both agreed it was total rubbish.

The book's protagonist Edna has two sons. Her husband is a total jerk. She falls in love with another man while on vacation. Knowing any relationship is doomed, he flees on business before anything really "happens" between them.

Edna is in a downward spiral, and becomes emotionally distant from her entire life. In the end, after an affair with someone else entirely, etc., she walks into the ocean, committing suicide.

This book embodied, to our teenage minds, every thing that was wrong with the world. Mothers must love their children and their calling in life to care for them. Mothers should not fall in love with other men, commit affairs with someone else entirely, abandon their children, and most of all, they should not commit suicide, leaving everyone else holding the bag on their responsibilities. I still believe all of that.

There was nothing wrong with Edna's life. No terrible trauma, no inciting event that threw her down this depressing path. Her own ennui led to her eventual demise.

And yet.

I decided to have children. I had a career, I had hopes and dreams of my own for another path as well (writing novels) and I had hobbies that I truly enjoyed. I had hobbies I hoped to enjoy later (horses.) I had a man I loved. And we thought, "Hey, let's have some kids. That'll make everything better."

In a way I cannot fully explain, having children was the absolute best thing I've ever done in my life. They bring me deep and abiding joy. They bring me laughter. They bring me perspective. I had to give up almost everything about what made me who I am to be their mother, and it was totally worth it.

Having kids was also the hardest thing I've ever done. Suddenly nothing in the world is about me. I used to have the space to be a great wife and still be Bridget. I could clean up after my very messy male roommate and cook, and clean, and do laundry (which he helped with) and still have time to work, to hobby, to exercise, to love.

Now every single minute of my life is pre-spent on either being a good wife, or being a good mom. I can't shower, work out, or do my hair without scheduling it. I have to stop blowdrying my hair because the baby is crying. I have to run extra laundry because Dora threw up, or Emmy pooped through her outfit. I have no money to buy new clothes because I spent it all on clothes for the kids. Or toys. Or treats.

I cook, then clean, then throw away everything I cooked after they pick over it (without eating any) and start all over again. Five minutes later, they are whining that they are hungry.

!!

I suddenly understand Edna in a new way. I don't agree with her decisions, and I think she would be the first to tell you she made some major mistakes. She didn't know that until she'd already made them, unfortunately.

But.

I get resenting your kids. I get missing the ability to have some small part of my life (or, yes, even a large part?) be about me. I cry a little inside every day as I sit feeding an unhappy child because I can't go get my hair done. I can't go work out. I look like crap all the time, which makes me feel like crap. I feel the little creative person inside me jumping up and down, screaming, "I have these ideas. I want to let them out. I want to do something impressive, and hard and good again."

To that little person I just have to keep saying, "All in good time. Don't go walk into the ocean. Your day will come again. For now, just enjoy the beautiful smiles on those little angelic faces when they paint pumpkins. Enjoy tickling their fat little bellies and washing off the mess they made on their perfect little arms and fingers. Your day will come again. And if you're fat and saggy by then, well, maybe, just maybe it was worth the sacrifice."

Because when I come right down to it, even as hard as it is to squish Bridget up inside while I put my kids first, I still think Edna was wrong. Life is messy but there's no peace to be had in giving up on slugging away at it. The peace comes when you're knee deep in sludge.

The great lesson in The Awakening that I failed to recognize when I read it years ago was that she didn't find peace and joy in leaving her family. When you allow yourself to disconnect, that's exactly what you are. Disconnected. You can't find joy if you only focus on yourself. I mean ultimately you are what you choose to do with your time. Does that mean I am a maid? A nurse? A schoolteacher? A mom?

I think I am what I need to be at the moment. I am a mom all the time right now because my kids need me so much. I have heard older moms (not necessarily in age, but in years of "mom" experience) talk about how their kids don't even seem to need them or want their help anymore. In its own way that would be profoundly painful. It's so hard to have perspective in the moment so I try to remind myself that right now my kids need almost 100% of my time and my husband demands the little bit that's left over. One day I'll be wishing they wanted more of my time.

Until then, little person inside, keep your chin up. Your day will come too. And you'll be wise enough then to take advantage of it.

Jack

I love animals. I really love dogs.

I had a dog when Whitney and I met. We kept Tessa until he matched (for medical residency) to Pennsylvania and we bought a condo out there. I was eight months pregnant and terrified of having a new baby and trying to walk a big dog while my husband worked his buns off in a residency and we lived in a place where we knew no one. My parents' neighbors really wanted Tessa, so we gave her up. I have been able to see her every time we visited my parents and she is always fat and happy. It all worked out. I only had a moderate amount of regret with which to contend.

When Eli was old enough to talk, it became apparent that, whether it was inherited from me or simply the natural love of little boys for dogs, he wanted one desperately. I wanted one too.

But of course, we also had a brand new baby girl, our little Isadora, and a new move coming up. We moved to Oregon and Whitney and I spent a small fortune fencing in our yard. We were finally ready. We adopted a dog. He was beautiful. His name was Jack. He was a border collie and he was almost out of the puppy stage. He already knew how to mind his manners inside and had no accidents. There was a waiting list of people who wanted him and we were lucky enough to get him first.

We had him for two days.

Somewhere at the end of that first day I had my first (and so far also my last) panic attack. We'd just discovered I was pregnant again, and Whit had just started a new job. There was dog hair and smell all over my house and Dora was terrified of him if he ever came close. He was a big dog, relatively speaking, and knocked Eli and Dora both down in his youthful exuberance. He stayed glued to my side, but I needed to be with the kids every minute when he was around to make sure they were okay. I'll admit it. I freaked out.

I called the rescue we adopted him from and they called up the next lady on the list who was delighted to take him. (We periodically saw him going for walks with his mom thereafter. That was a little upsetting to Eli...) So, after a small donation fee to the shelter, and a lot of money on the fence, we were again dog-less.

Then we moved again. We had a six week old baby. Our movers cancelled on us last minute and we had to rearrange everything to move ourselves. Eli broke his leg on the day of the move. The close on our house in Texas kept being pushed back and changed up. Our house in Oregon hadn't sold yet. Whit had orientation here and then went back to Oregon, leaving me here with my parents, remodeling the house and taking care of Eli with a broken leg, Dora (a cute but busy two year old) and Emerald, the six week old for whom I was still pumping. My mom helped a lot, but it was busy. Several weeks later, after working every single day back in Oregon, Whitney drove all the way down to Texas to help us get settled (finally) in our remodeled home. Did I mention I had a part time job I kept doing work for during naptimes and after bedtime to help offset remodeling costs, which just kept rising??

After all the chaos, being settled in at home with a little boy who had recently had his cast taken off, a two and a half month old baby and a two year old... with a husband in residence, thing seemed easy! After seeing a rash of snake-bitten kids in the ER, Whitney suggested we look at dogs. The kids would love playing with them, and it would likely protect them in our enormous back yard, too. One day I took the kids to an animal shelter, just thinking we'd see if they had any likely prospects. We were still waffling about whether to try to add a dog to the family.

They had a little puggle that the kids loved; he was slated to be killed in two days. We took him the day he was supposed to be put down, not because we'd decided we wanted a dog, but because we were all horrified that he'd die if we didn't. I'll save you some of the gory details, but let's just say there's potty trained and then there's Jack Two. (The kids wanted to name him Jack as well.) He peed on my clean and folded laundry basket, soaking everything. He peed in the kids' game room and in the hall. In the office. In the family room. Basically, he peed (and pooped) everywhere but outsidet.

He also kept hopping up on my new sofas. He hopped up on the baby and her bouncer. He scratched on the door when we put him out until he discovered he was small enough to just pop through our iron fence and run around outside to the front yard. Gah! He licked Dora's face (and Eli's, who didn't mind a bit.) We put him up almost immediately after finding him, on craigslist. We spent a reasonable amount on pet supplies and then found him a new home on craigslist.

I had adopted and abandoned yet another Jack. After working through the guilt, I have come to a conclusion.

I look around at church, on blogs, etc. I see moms all around me.

I see Brooke Oldroyd. She's adorable, skinny, together. She has a precious blog, and adorable kids (FIVE!) She does great photos and is generally awesome.

I see Jackie Sarager. She's got three kids, aged like mine, and she makes little crafts, nurses AND pumps, visits family, goes on trips and always always always looks adorable. (Cute hair, cute makeup, cute clothes.) She blogs, too.

I see Natalie Sill. She has four kids, and an ER husband too. Her kids always look cute, the girls' hair is done and she does it all alone most of the time. No nanny, no babysitters, etc. She is always picking up extra stuff for church and doing little parties.

I see Alisha Oldroyd. (What's with that last name and cute moms?) She had three kids under 20 months at one point, and even now they are all under three. She's a great mom, with a cute house, and cute kids. She makes cookies, eats organic and works out all the time. (This reminds me of my sister in law, another great mom.)

I could go on and on. My sister Cassidy, my friend Christine, and on and on and on.

You are all so amazing. I look up to you. I babble incoherent frazzledmom while you ladies seem to do everything so effortlessly. (I know it's hard work.)

BUT.

I sit here thinking of Jack. My biggest failure as a mom, probably. I tried to add something to the routine and I just couldn't do it. I admitted defeat and surrendered, TWICE. I want a dog, I just can't handle it.

I think most of the moms I listed have a Jack. I think they had something that was simply the straw that broke their organized camel's back. Or at least, that's what I tell myself when I think of my failure to handle a dog!

I tell Eli all the time, "Eli, you get what you get and you don't freak out." When she came to visit, Aunt Cassidy had a similar, albeit cuter, saying. Something like, "You get what you get and you're thankful for it." I am holding Eli to a lesser standard. We'll start with not freaking out and work up to gratitude later when I have more energy. I am coming to the conclusion that I have to apply that platitude to my own life. I do what I can do and I don't freak out about what I can't do.

I can't blog adorable blogs like Brooke. I can't effortlessly keep six tiny kids happy like Alisha. I can't plan her cute little outings or Brooke's fabulous parties, either. (I just don't have the patience or creativity!) I can't dress cute like Jackie, or nurse effortlessly like her. I can't travel with fortitude like Cassidy. I'm not as kind and loving to my husband when he's working a lot as Natalie. I'm also not as good at letting my kids work things out themselves.

And there's Jack.

But I am guessing those ladies I admire so much have their Jack too. Maybe I just don't know about it.