How to make a face mask for your local ER, EMS or for yourself

My husband is the medical director (and an ER doc) for a rural hospital. Many ERs around the world are overtaxed right now, and they don’t have enough PPE. (Personal Protective Equipment). They are wearing masks non-stop, but they are only getting one disposable N95 mask to use for the duration and one (non-N95) disposable mask per day. My husband got a basket of handmade masks dropped off last week and it boosted morale. But... they didn’t all fit quite right and they used elastic over the ears. That has fit issues and it also bothers their ears in a rather short period of time. So, I posted a Facebook post with some tips. A bunch of people asked for me to do a pattern of the masks we are making.

I am not an expert. I am not a seamstress. My mom sews quite often. I am doing the best I can and trying to help. Your local ER is giving out masks to everyone who checks in—and the mask shortage may only exacerbate. But a lot of people want to help. So I hope this helps. Here are our steps.

Please keep in mind that multiple sizes of mask is super helpful. My hubby is large. Others are larger. Many many are smaller. And there are a variety of ways to do this-and many other patterns. Here’s ours but don’t think it means yours won’t be helpful!

Materials list:
Pins (flat pins for sewing)
Sewing machine and thread
Bias tape (or fabric strips!)
Cotton fabric (or something that holds up to washing)
A filter of some kind (we used washable coffee filters. I’ve heard vacuum bags are awesome and close to N95!)
Scissors
Iron and board if possible
Measuring tape
Wire/twist ties/pipe cleaners/tomato wire

Okay step one: cut the main mask fabric. We cut in 8.5x14.5” rectangles. We used cotton fabric. You could use anything that washes well. Also. I’d recommend making some an inch bigger on all sides and some an inch smaller all around. We varied our sizes some so that docs and nurses and EMS personnel can find some that fit their face. :)

Step two: optional nose piece. One of the issues is that masks need to fit tightly around the face to be effective. I’ve heard people use twist ties and pipe cleaners, and I bet they work fine! But we had a bunch of tomato twisting wire we got at the dollar store. We cut them in 7” strips and doubled it over. Then we sewed a 4” strip of bias tape along the inside of the back of the fabric square along the crease. I think the videos show it much better than I am explaining it.

Step Three:  After you make the nose piece, you will need to pause to do the straps that will tie the mask. We had bias tape and it is super easy and makes great ties. I took the double and sewed it, the single and sewed and folded it over, etc. then my daughter cut it into 16” ties. You need four per mask.

Step four: after the nose piece and strings are done, you get to do the hard step. We integrate the coffee filter and strings to the mask here. So we take the filter and put it on the bottom. Then we line up and pin the ties into the corners. And you sew around it all, backstitching over the straps or ties and leaving a 3” space at the bottom to turn it inside out. Here you can use a coffee filter, or a double piece of fabric, or a vacuum bag. Whatever you have that works. Make sure the person you donate to knows the material and whether it’s washable. If it’s not, you’d need to engineer a pocket. :)

Step five: trim the coffee filter and turn it inside out.

Step six: sew around the whole mask, backstitching over straps

Step seven: pleat and sew pleats

And done!

All the moms with older kids lied to me

I vividly recall the time before I had my first child. I couldn't wait to have a baby, start a family and become a mother. It would be magical. It would be life changing.

I was right about one thing. It changed my life.

But I didn't realize how bone-wearyingly exhausting it would be. I also didn't realize how very little positive feedback I would receive.

Don't get me wrong. I loved my babies, and I have loved being a mother. But it was NOT magical. There was too much poop (and attendant constipation, dirty diapers, blow outs, etc etc etc), too much spit up, too much crying (SO MUCH CRYING), too little sleep, and perhaps hardest of all. . . I began to count time in tiny, unpredictable blocks. I was never sure if I could sleep, or make jam, or accomplish anything at all before a baby called me back to immediate service.

I was invited in those early days to a play date. Mothers there had children ranging from newborns all the way up to pre-teen. For many of them, they had several children, including a baby.

[I should preface this with a caveat: I do not handle babies well. When I am not getting six hours of sleep, I am crabby and borderline depressed. When my house is a mess, I want to curl up and cry. When my plans are derailed, I do not handle it with aplomb. And I never, ever, successfully nursed. Those things may have colored my view on all of this. For those of you who do handle it well, BRAVO! But I think there are a lot of people out there like me. Babies and toddlers are HARD.]

I asked at one of those play dates (while sitting there, thinking, "Why did I even come to this? It's so much harder to care for my colicky newborn at a park than it is at home!") "When does this get easier?"

The mothers gathered around me laughed. "It doesn't," one of them said. "It only gets harder as they get older."

That was a horrible lie.

I don't think they meant to lie to me. Motherhood is taxing and it is always difficult in many ways. But I was in the middle of drowning. I was asking if someone could toss me a life preserver. I wanted to know when life would feel like LIFE again, when I would have someone to tell me I was doing a good job, when the diapers and the drudgery and the constant mess clean-up would ever end. They told me that as my children grew, my difficulties as a mother would also grow.

Now cut to today. When people find out I'm an author, and that I put out eight full length novels, edited three rounds, polished and launched. When they find out that I do it indie, so I make my own covers, I create and run my own ads, and I manage. . . well, everything. And then they hear that I have two horses. Five kids aged 3-12. Church responsibilities. That I'm a lawyer who still works. When they hear I have chickens, cats and a border collie... they say "HOW!? How do you have time?"

To that, I will always reply, "My life is so much easier now than it was when I had one newborn. When I had a newborn and a toddler. My life is so much easier now that my children are older."

Because it's absolutely true.

Today I was out sweeping the very messy barn because the vet is coming today to float one of my horse's teeth. I didn't want him to judge me too hard. :P And my son came by, as he always does, on his way out to the bus. He saw me sweeping and. . . he grabbed the other broom. He swept until he saw the bus, and then he sprinted out to catch it. This is the same son who cares for his dog. He unloads the dishes every morning. He bathes and dresses and reads stories to his three year old brother. He loads the dishwasher at night. He practices piano, violin and does his homework without being asked. He reads morning noon and night because he loves it. His lowest grade in Pre-AP/GT classes at school on his progress report was a NINETY-SEVEN.

I'm not bragging. I'm telling you: the hard, exhausting, bone-wearying work that you do as toddlers PAYS OFF. And you get to SEE that happen! It is glorious! It is fulfilling! And yes, life is busy. And yes, they ask you questions that are harder to answer than, "Did they have the color blue when you were a kid?" And you have hard decisions to make all the time. Does he get an iPhone? When? What rules will you implement? When do you trust and when do you monitor? How do I respond when he makes mistakes? (And they make mistakes, large and small!) How do I teach him about the gray in the world? (Black and white is easy!)

But they grow up. They start helping YOU. They tell you they love you. They bring you poems dedicated to their love for their mother. Your heart soars.

And they wipe their own bum. And if you're lucky, their little siblings bums too.

So to the mothers out there in the trenches. To the mothers with a newborn. With a toddler. With two toddlers. You hear about my zoo, and you say, "I don't know how you do it. I can barely handle my (one, or two, or three.)"

Here is my message: Your life is as hard as it's going to get. If you can survive this stage, if you can hold the line, teaching your children that if you say something, you mean it, enforcing bedtimes so your children learn a routine, IT IS ALL DOWNHILL FROM THERE!

You are struggling? That's okay! I struggled in a very similar way. It's exactly what happens when you're right where you are. But the rainbow is REAL. It's there. At the end of that very long tunnel.

Hang in there. It will get so much better, and so much more beautiful one day at a time. I promise.

Smell the Flowers

This afternoon, like many afternoons for me lately, was a frenzy of activity.  Feed the kids, get them to practice piano, bathe the younger ones, make sure the older ones shower, help with homework, review papers from school, check on library books, urge kids to unload the dishwasher, reload the dishwasher, etc etc etc.

To add to my general sense of urgency, I had a meeting tonight for church at seven, for which I needed to leave around six-thirty or so.  I also had a homework assignment for myself due (I'm taking a writing class).  I mention this so you will know that I was in a hurry.  I had been hurrying people all afternoon.

I have one child (my oldest) who is like me.  He has a list of things to do and he works on them quickly and efficiently, for the most part.  When I rush him, he usually just says, "Oh yeah, sorry," and gets right on it.

My second child is not like my first.  She is always fiddling around, always playing, and consequently, always happy.  She takes ten minutes to do something I could do in thirty seconds, but she always has a smile on her face.  Tonight, I had just finished helping her with her homework, and I asked her to unload the dishwasher.  (Her chore, but she hadn't done it in the morning because she dilly dallied so long before school she ran out of time.)

She danced her way over the kitchen, and opened the dishwasher.  Then she stopped, and came dancing around the other direction.  I took in a big breath of air to yell at her to get a move on when I heard her say, "I'm just going to smell these beautiful flowers dad got you before I unload."

Part of me was annoyed.  I wanted to yell, "SMELL THE FLOWERS LATER! UNLOAD THE DISHES NOW!"

But a larger part of me remembered a cliched phrase.  "Don't forget to stop and smell the roses."  It really hit me hard, mothers around the world (and fathers, too.)  Sometimes we get so caught up in our deadlines (real or self imposed) that we lose sight of finding the joy in life.  Dora is not the fastest child.  She isn't the most efficient, but she is my happiest child, and there is a reason for that.  She always makes time for the things that bring her happiness.

My message for you tonight is so simple: before you do the dishes, stop and smell the beautiful flowers.  They won't last, but your happiness will, if you don't get too caught up in the things that don't matter.

The greatest mother ever known

Mother's Day has certainly been a theme this week.  I appreciate the existence of a Mother's Day, if for no other reason than to get people thinking about their mothers.  Some of us have good moms.  Some of you have bad ones.  Even the bad ones managed to give birth to you, which I will testify is a difficult thing.

If you are a mother with young children, you almost certainly received something saying you're the best mom ever.  Either that, or they are upset with you because you took away their lollipop and they think you're the worst.

This morning, on this particular Mother's Day, even though he worked Easter, my husband had to go in to work at six a.m.  And like always, I had church at 8:30.  I woke up at seven, only to discover the big kids had let the dog out of her room, but not outside.  She had peed on the floor by the door.  Then I went upstairs, where I found my three year old had wet the bed.  Next door, I got my two year old up, and before I could help her up on the potty, she peed on the floor by the toilet.

I thought my pee troubles were over by the time we reached church (late!).

Near the end of sacrament meeting at church, the three bigger kids all went up to sing me a Mother's Day song.  I was getting all teary eyed thinking about how wonderful it would be, because this is truly my favorite part of Mother's Day, hands down.

That's when my two year old began to freak out, and I DO mean freak out, about not being able to go up to sing.  (They start with that in our church around three years when they graduate from the "nursery" into the "primary" program.)  She WOULD NOT calm down, so I spent the rest of sacrament meeting out in the hallway (or outside entirely) and missed hearing the song, getting a rose and anything else that the church group did for mothers today.

Then during a very long, very exhausting nursery day (I run the two year old nursery program at church), one of the kids peed on the floor there.

Which is how, after a few hours of exhausting mothering, I came to think about who really was the greatest mother of all time.

It certainly isn't me.

I've always kind of thought that Mary had it easy.  After all, her kid was perfect! But today I gave some thought to Mary's path.  She was chosen to be the Mother of God.  As such, she was certainly a beautiful and worthy daughter of God.  She then had the task of raising a perfect child.  I am not sure that was the bed of roses I always imagined it must have been.  Thinking back, this little nugget was there in the scriptures all along.  Think about the story of when Jesus stayed all day long talking in Jerusalem at age twelve.  His parents had no idea where he was! They didn't find him for THREE days according to Luke chapter two, at which point he was apparently just casually sitting with some doctors asking them questions and listening to what they had to say.

I would have lost my mind.  This makes me believe very strongly that Mary was honestly the best mother in the world.

When you think about your life (as a mother or just a woman), think about how much you judge yourself.  Think about how much others judge you!  Why just this weekend, I had some delightful octagenarians tell me that I had "brought my children into their hotel and let them come down to breakfast and run wild, effectively ruining the hotel, their furniture and everyone else at the hotel's breakfast."  I felt pretty judged.

I am sure that most of you have felt judged, but even if you haven't, I bet you judge yourself.  I lose my temper, I fail to complete basic tasks.  I fail to complete the extra tasks.  I am not a pinterest mom.  I lose count of the ways I fall short, which is probably a failing in itself.  My girls frequently have hair that is not combed.  I miss out on chances to teach, I miss nights of scripture study.  I use bad language on occasion (like the worst word of all--STUPID!)  My children remind me when I fall short.

I can only imagine that Mary, the mother of Jesus, fell short as well.  I think it would be very difficult to raise a young child who was perfect and I developed some empathy for her in that, today.  But my true thoughts went to Mary as a mother of an adult Jesus.

Have any of you mothers had a child who became injured?  A child you watched be bullied at school?  A child who had trouble making friends?  All of these things are so much worse as a mother than they were as a child experiencing them.  I am filled with rage if someone is mean to my child.  If my baby is hurt, I have a strong desire to end that child's pain or suffering, but sometimes there is nothing we can do.  I have suffered with my babies in their sickness, in their injury, and in their hurt feelings.  I have even suffered the loss of an unborn child. (Miscarriage) I know many mothers have suffered far worse things than me.  I am not at all trying to compare.

But none of our pain or our hurt can compare to the sorrow Mary must have felt when her perfect child, a performer of miracles, a God by birthright, was taken by wicked men, sentenced to death, whipped, tormented, mocked, and then hung on a cross.  But she was there, watching him during most of this, supporting him as best she could, loving him every second of it.  She had to know the importance of his sacrifice, she had to see the brilliance of his light, but notwithstanding those things, watching this must have torn her apart.  The best mother ever, the mother of Jesus.  She is an example to me.

Murillo's famous painting of the Crucifixion, with Mary at his feet

I am so blessed in my life, on this Mother's Day and on all other days, to be a mother.  It brings me joy, it brings me pain, it brings me accomplishment and it teaches me sacrifice.  I would like to wish every single mother, and every single woman who is not a mother on this earth a very Happy Mother's Day.  To me, Mother's Day is not about growing a child in your womb, but it's about the divine spark within each woman on earth that helps to uplift us, and all of mankind.  I am so grateful for my mother, my grandmothers and my mother in law.

I hope we can all take joy today, even when we are wiping up pee, in our divine calling as mothers.  I also desperately hope we can all be a little less judgey with our friends, our neighbors and our family.  Maybe we can go a little easier on ourselves, too.  We love our kids, and we are doing our best.  I think the real title of greatest Mother of all time goes to Mary.  But I believe that we can all look in the mirror and see the very best mother for our kids every single day.

How we're failing our kids: Managing Disappointment

Today I went to school to take food to my kids' teachers for teacher appreciation week.  I decided to take lunch to my kids, too.  My second grader and my kindergartener were both thrilled.  They don't really understand why I don't do this all the time.

I took my two and three year old along with me because dad was working.  Once we reached the school, my two year old freaked out, as usual, and insisted I carry her all the way to the cafeteria.  I felt this was an understandable reaction to a strange place, so I carried her.  And two bags of food, two drinks for the teachers, a purse full of food, and drinks for the two babies.  It was not an enjoyable walk.

Food drop-off and lunch with Dora went great.  Then we waited about half an hour until my son's lunchtime.  By that point, the girls were tired and whiny.  They wanted to go home.  They were fighting over a scrap of paper--literally.

Poor Eli did not have a wonderful lunch.  Tessa was crying because Emmy wouldn't give her this scrap of paper.  I offered a finger puppet, a bracelet, a plane, candy, and another scrap of paper (the contents of my purse.)  None of these things could compare to the joy that the yellow piece of paper Emmy had would bring to Tessa.  She was not to be satisfied with anything else.  Lots of crying.  Finally, about 2/3 of the way through lunch, Emmy was waving this very amazing paper in Tessa's face and little sister snatched it, and promptly tore it in half.

Whoops.

Emmy was disappointed.  If disappointed means that she threw herself down, screaming and throwing a tantrum.  Did I mention how much I love three year olds?  Half the moms in the cafeteria were beside themselves, and I feel like most of them felt I was not doing my job as a parent.  They offered several solutions, all of which basically involved replacing the paper.

Technically this is Tessa throwing a fit here, not Emmy, but you get the picture.

I could have replaced the paper, except I think replacing the paper is what's wrong with America.

When I was little, if I was being a brat, my mom told me to suck it up.  I could cry and throw a tantrum, but eventually I'd realize that being a little brat wouldn't work.  I learned something valuable: how to manage my disappointment.  Things did not always go my way when I was growing up.  Sometimes I got a bad grade.  Sometimes a teacher didn't like me and wasn't fair.  Sometimes I had trouble finding a job.  Sometimes I just didn't get the particular princess crown I desperately wanted.

It sucks, but it's life.  And it only gets worse as you get older.

These days, the second a kid cries, mom or dad rush to provide the child with whatever caused the tears.  Every little disappointment must be avoided.  If I'm at a restaurant and my child is distressed, people rush to me, just as they did today at school, eager to help me give my child whatever his or her heart desires.

This is not okay.

Our job as parents is to prepare our children to become adults.  I recall being desperately sad in tenth grade when I did not land a significant role in a high school play.  I knew my sorrow was justified because my mom had told me about all the plays she acted in during high school.  She was a star.  Why was I a failure?  She sat me down and explained that for the several notable roles she landed, she failed to get far more.  She also explained that her school was smaller, with much laxer competition.  She told me that if I wanted to get some good roles, I needed to put in the time, work harder, and the opportunities would come.  She was right.

That was an important teaching moment that made sense because mom had already taught me that I couldn't win every time.  Children must be taught that when things don't work, they need to respond positively and then work harder, if they want better results.  If we keep giving our kids whatever they want, we are teaching them two very bad things:

1. They don't have to work because if they cry hard enough, someone will give them what they want.
2. They can throw a fit every time they are disappointed.

If you're an adult, you know these things are not true.  You have to work for anything of value, because by definition, if you don't work for it, you won't value it.  And disappointment goes hand in hand with every valuable venture.  You need to learn to react positively to disappointment, or you will never succeed in life because: NO ONE LIKES A CRYBABY!!

The next time your child starts to cry, dare to do what I did today.  Explain calmly to the child that the crying won't help.  Let them throw their tantrum until they calm down enough to  listen to your explanation.  My children know that when we are at home, if they react with a tantrum, they go to the laundry room.  I set them on the floor and close the door until they have calmed down enough to talk.  Resist the urge to give in because it's easier for you.  I know it sucks, and when you aren't at home, people's judgement is frustrating, but as a parent, you must hold the line and take the time to explain this to them now.  It will save you a lot of headache and your child a lot of heartache in the future.

I almost gave away my dog...

It's true.  I bought a puffy little ball of fluff at the beginning of the Christmas season in 2013.  I adore that dumb little dog and she is WONDERFUL with the kids.  I should give her some credit.  She is a tiny thing--was only three pounds when we bought her--and she has put up with a remarkable amount of love from the kids in a variety of dog-unfriendly forms.  Look, wasn't she cute!?

Now that she's grown, she is patient, fun, bouncy, and she does tricks.  She plays fetch with me and the kids.  She lets my two year old carry her toys all around the house, and plays grab and tug with her, which both of them love.  She stays downstairs all the time.  She stays off the furniture.  She only chews up and plays with her toys.  Honestly, she is a really, really good dog.  She is also always so very eager to please.  But we struggled to really get her housebroken.  They say, in her defense, that it's harder with small dogs.

I do not handle pee and poop in random places in my house very well.

However, over time, Foxy improved drastically.  I finally had her almost entirely housebroken around July.  Our move to a new house was a little confusing and stressful, but we survived the confusion and Foxy was really doing quite well.

December was a crazy time.  That is probably true everywhere, but my sister had her wedding here at our home in mid-December, and things were even crazier here as a result of that.  Around the end of November/early December, I began to find puddles of pee near the back door.

!*##!&!&#!!

I was not happy.  I talked to a professional dog trainer.  She told me the dog was trying to get outside (hence, pee by the door) but that she needed to be entirely retrained, as though she was a puppy.  I would need to get a leash and keep her with me at all times so that if she decided to go, I could (calmly, yeah right) take her outside.  I was not happy to hear this.  It was only two weeks until my sister's wedding and I did not have time to deal with holidays, wedding preparation and all my kids, as well as train my dog to do something she should have figured out by now.  I mean, seriously.

The trainer mentioned that Pomeranians who are as cute as Foxy, and good with kids, are hard to find and she had at least one person, possibly two, who would be delighted to adopt her from me if it proved to be too much.

 I gave this some very serious thought.  I was beginning to wonder if perhaps this particular dog was just too hard for me to handle.  I truly almost gave her away.

Whitney reminded me of how great she is with the kids, of how much they love her, of how sweet she is, and how she stays off the non-leather furniture, never chews and stays downstairs.  He reminded me that every dog has its foibles and if we have to keep cleaning up pee by the door from time to time, it's probably not the worst thing.

See how cute she is??

I decided to keep her on the leash for two weeks.  BLARG.  I did it, while Whit worked, while the kids ran amok, while I decorated for Christmas, I kept that furry little fluffball with me every second. She did wonderfully.  She gave me a lot of very pointed looks that said, "Mom, what exactly are we doing here?  Why am I on this leash inside?"

I ignored them.

I was honestly a little baffled by her perfection for almost a week.  I was about to bag the whole thing when somehow we ended up with a little puddle by the back door.  I wracked my brain.  When had we been over there?  When had she been off the leash?  How had she peed there?? I could not remember.  I did not know.  But OH was I mad!  I yelled and yelled at her.  I might have rubbed her face in the pee and put her outside. (Which, by the way, is one of the dumbest things I have ever done.  Not only does it completely not help, but then I had to BATHE THE DOG.  IDIOTIC.)  Poor pee faced Foxy looked very sad.  I felt angry and sad and (guilty and) frustrated and I seriously considered, again, calling the lady and having someone else adopt her.  Even on the leash, even with me, she managed to pee on the floor.  GOOD GRIEF.

But I kept her.  I kept on trying.  That's what we do, right?  When things are hard, we say, just one more hour.  Then just one more day.

The next day, she peed in the bathroom.  And there was no doubt in my mind we had been no where near the bathroom.  I had not let her off the leash.  I had been 100% diligent.  I had been watching.  I had taken her outside.  I was truly perplexed.  It was that afternoon I noticed that Emmy was playing by the back door, where there is (incidentally) a toy bench the girls play on, and I saw her pull her pull-up aside under her dress and pee on the floor by the door.  She left a puddle, but her pull-up was dry.  Not unlike the other puddles I had been finding.

So, yeah.

It wasn't Foxy.  It was never my poor, loyal, true little maligned furball.  It was my devious, lazy little three year old, who explained when I asked why she never admitted to making the pee puddles that "she didn't want me to rub her face in it and put her outside."

Uh huh.  So that was my bad.

I don't have a moral here.  Honestly, I could come up with one, I am sure.  I just don't want to.  This is just one of those things that is hilarious, and sad and pathetic all at once.

Luckily, it's already become one of those stories.  "Oh yeah, remember that time we thought Foxy was peeing all over, but actually it was EMMY?"  Geez luiz.  Freaking kids.

I will say this: I am glad I didn't give away the dog.  HA!

Go have kids. Right now. Go.

Last week's post had an unexpected response.  People seemed to believe I was anti-kids!  Or somehow they felt that because my kids "ruined" my career, I needed to be reassured that kids are worth it and that I didn't make a mistake.

Let me be clear: the single best four things I have ever done in my entire life are named Elijah, Isadora, Emerald and Amethyst.

There is no contest.  There is no question.  There is no doubt.

Okay there might occasionally be doubt.  Like Sunday afternoons when all the kids are cranky and whining, and fighting and crying and did I mention cranky?  Ugh.  As a parent, there are beautiful, perfect days, and there are horrible, hard days where you want to cry in your soup, big messy, unattractive tears.

Why do I love them?  Why is having children the best thing I ever did?  Why will I recommend it to absolutely every person I ever meet?  Explaining the reason children are so wonderful, so vital, so beautiful seems like a monumentally difficult task to me.  How can you reduce it to words?  I am going to try.  Please don't mock me when I fail.  It feels like trying to describe what "salty" tastes like without using the word salt, but here goes nothing.

I went to Italy last fall.  It is a beautiful country.  I'm an uncultured swine who knew next to nothing about art and who breezed through the Louvre in Paris (both times) in little more than a half day.  It's kind of embarrassing, but there it is.  When I went to France years ago, all the paintings sort of looked the same.  Before we went to Florence, I bought some books and read up on some of the paintings in an attempt to be one tiny notch above completely clueless.

I am not sure whether it worked.  I recognized some of the paintings and sculptures, but I certainly didn't fathom their majesty.  If I'm being honest, some of them freaked me the crap out.  (I am sorry but the paintings of Jesus as a baby breastfeeding, or even worse, just holding Mary's boob are strange.)  Also, the ones where key religious figures look like emaciated corpses, and the beautiful, incomparable works of some of the masters, depicting everyone naked?  I can't help it, my eye goes right to the bits we cover up in everyday society.  I am not classy.  Sorry!

Which leads me to my point.  The David.

Right about now, you are thinking, crap, Bridget, I am so embarrassed for you.  This post was supposed to be about kids, you moron.  (Maybe I got confused and mixed up my posts!)

I have a point, I really do.  Thank you for bearing with me.  

I knew nothing about how the David was housed prior to my arrival in Florence.  I bought a book, though, and read all about it the night before.  I read about how some of Michelangelo's unfinished works (the slaves) lined the walkway up to the main room where the David is housed.  I had seen photos, so many many photos.  I had seen drawings.  I knew what to expect.  I even saw a reconstruction someone made in the square--so theoretically, I had basically seen the David before I walked into that room at the Accademia.

None of it prepared me at all for seeing the David in real life.

It is vast, so so so vast.  It is beautiful.  It has gorgeous lines, majesty and nobility.  I know that I am utterly incapable of doing it justice with anything my untrained fingers might type, so I will stop there.  Any art scholar is laughing at me.  Unless they've seen it, and then I will hazard a guess that they know exactly how I feel.  

You walk past the "slaves" on your way to the David.  They are basically big chunks of stone.  Sections of them are completely unformed.  They are blank and you can imagine when anything could have been carved from them.  You can see that on some, Michelangelo began with the head and worked down.   On others, he started with an arm, or a leg, carving out the main shape, and then coming back to finish details.  I am going to toss in a few photos I took (I am not a photographer, so don't judge these photos, but I felt moved to try.)

Here is the walkway, a few chunks of stone in.  Pardon Whit's silly pose, but you can see the David (really tiny) behind him. In this first slave, you can see that the head is completely unformed.  But the leg and most of the body are rough hewn.

Similar here, you can see the slave emerging from the rock.  The back side is completely untouched.

 This guy has a leg, an arm, and his stomach.  The rest is not shaped yet.

 And now, here are the photos you have been waiting for!! My exceedingly amateurish efforts to capture what I felt when I saw this work of art.  It was so far above my head, both figuratively and literally, that I can't express what I felt.

 But you can see in this the detail, of the sling over his back, of the veins in his hand.  The hairs on his head.  This was lovingly depicted in every way.

This, my friends, this experience I had at the Accademia, this is what having children is like, it is a walk down the hall from the unformed blocks of stone to the awe inspiring, indescribable masterpiece that no one can fully understand.  Only, instead of walking, we are preparing them, we are carving them, shaping them, helping them emerge from the stone that is surrounding them.  They are born as these little smooshy lumps that cry and can't do anything.  They require constant care, and slowly, but surely, they grow, they emerge, they develop.  

Our children are just like those vast blocks of stone, but every single one of my children is becoming something more beautiful, more indescribable than the David.  Part of this, bear with me, is going to feel religious, or spiritual, but I think that's inextricably linked for me, with being a parent.  Being a parent is what makes me understand God just a little more.  We are His children and He loves us (I believe) and I can comprehend that a little more after having my own.  We have the task of helping them emerge from that block of rock to become the masterpiece God intended.  

Being a parent is a front row seat to a miracle.    

My little angels ask me things every single day that leave me to marvel.  They grow up in leaps and spurts, staying the same for days, lulling me into a false sense of safety, that they might be mine forever.  And then I turn around and they've grown a year in the space of one day.  It breaks my heart and at the same time fills it to bursting.  To see them becoming that perfect creation I know is inside, and to watch them moving to where they will no longer need me is the juxtaposition of all that I love and all that I fear.  Joy and sorrow and a sense of wonder I cannot describe.  

Let me be crystal clear on this:  I still believe a child will wreck everything in your life.  My grandfather always said, "You can have nice things, or you can have a kid.  You can't have both."  He is correct.  They will wreck your body during pregnancy and after.  They will wreck your checking account, your schedule, your career and in short, your entire life.  And you will be so sick and tired of the whining, the crying and the frustration you will want to scream.  No scratch that, you will scream.  

Because carving stone is hard work, and it's messy.  

Just as my photos, my book, my study did not prepare me for seeing the David, nothing you do, no blogs you read, no advice you receive will prepare you for becoming a parent.  Some days you will want to quit.  You will want to throw away those carving tools, and throw away the industrial sized broom and dustpan you need to clean up the mess and walk away and never come back.  But then, oh then, you will return.  You will never give up because you know that eventually, on one terrifying, miracle filled day, you can stand back and see what you had a hand in creating.  You will never, ever, ever be the same, and you will not regret the time, the pain, the difficulty and the horror of the carving.  You will only ever regret missing out, or not being there to see it happen and to lend a hand.