For my Child Starting School

For your first birthday I had a cake decorated to look like your favorite book, because you were my only child and I had all kinds of time for such things. The woman at the bakery asked if I had cried yet over my daughter turning one.

That’s silly, why would I feel sad about you getting older? I thought.

I had yet to learn that the days are long, but the years are short. Now I’m sitting here nursing my third baby who is half of a year; while my middle one yells for more toilet paper and you, my love, are writing all nine letters of your name on the last of said toilet paper in preparation for kindergarten and I simply can no longer wrap my mind around where the time has gone. It’s hard to believe that while you were once inside of my body and I gave you life--you must now go experience a place without me. It feels almost unfair. I know that sounds selfish, but if you choose to become a parent, I am certain one day you’ll understand. I cannot tell you what the passage of these past five years have felt like because that would be like trying to describe the wind--it’s something we cannot see, only feel. And watching you start school I feel so many things.

I feel curious for the life lessons you will learn that I was not meant to teach you.

I feel scared for things I cannot even type on this page--things so terrifying my breath catches in my throat. If you are there and I am here how would I use my body to shield yours and why do I have to worry about such things?

I feel grateful to leave the phonemic awareness and pencil positioning to the experts, whom I trust completely with your education, with absolutely no teacher there for the paycheck—I need to focus on being your mother.

I feel excited for all that will unfold in front of you that spans beyond the classroom walls. School is a place that unlocks the jungle gym of your mind and explores new vulnerabilities of the heart.

I feel jealous because there will be pieces of your story, I know, you must write alone.

While I’m here feeling all these feelings, I recognize this is not about me and my blubbery tears, it’s about you. And perhaps you may be too young to understand the enormity of these moments, I can see by the crinkle in your forehead your uncertainty of the unknown and I hope I’ve given you enough tools to withstand the weight of it all.

Most of all, I feel nostalgic for the days that it was just us versus the world and now it’s just you out in the world and somehow I already miss you.

Easy, Baby

There is no so thing as an “easy baby” because raising tiny humans is the hardest job there is. Period. There is only one line in their user manual and it reads: “completely unreasonable”. So this weekend when my cousin with one baby asked how life with three is even humanly possible--I told her having three children is absolutely amazing with one important stipulation: the third baby must love everything. Without this, it would likely be a complete disaster. I recognize by putting this into the universe I am breaking the cardinal rule of motherhood: never speak the good aloud or you forfeit your right to sleep and must do a round of Hand Foot and Mouth as penance—but it must be said: Josephine loves everything. She loves: nursing, vegetables, her sisters singing unreasonably loud 1 mm from her face, pacifiers, no pacifier, sleeping, the front back, her car seat, swimming, baths, and everyone. In a completely unsurprising turn of events yesterday I discovered she loves the swings at the park. The one thing she isn’t fond of are bottles, but even then, she won’t complain about it or cry she will simply eat solid foods and wait without complaint until me and my boobs get home.

Now that mothers everywhere have stopped reading and unfriended me, just know that I know how lucky I am.

I had heard of these mythical unicorn babies before but couldn’t believe they existed or were sure they were exaggerated by delusional, exhausted mothers. After all, I thought Charlotte was a good baby and she had colic for 4 months. Am I being rewarded for having the foreknowledge only acquired through the trial and error of my previous babies? I have absolutely no idea. But I am soaking up every ounce of her little smiling face without ever questioning the magic. Despite her undeniable goodness, you will never hear me call any baby “easy” because the only thing I find simple about raising babies is how easy they are to love.

My Scrambled Brain with a Side of I Already Forgot

I’ve recently come to terms with the fact that I no longer have a cohesive mind. I realize my kids need to wash their hands after they are already eating a fistful of strawberries and spent the morning digging for slugs. I can in one moment be thinking how reasonably King Triton dealt with his mischievous mermaid daughter and suddenly I remember we are out of peanut butter. I will be walking to the refrigerator to grab a sparkling water and then be completely side tracked by the dog or the doorbell and by the time I get back to the fridge, Maddie has nabbed my water and I accidentally call her Alexa—to which Alexa responds, “What would you like to order.” My former UCD-educated-mind, preferably one that remembers all my kids when I’m leaving the supermarket.

So now it seems only fitting I share with you some random occurrence that follow no particular theme or pattern because even if I wanted to follow a logical train of thought, I wouldn’t be able to find my keys to get there.

• Having a third baby makes you worry less about the common milestones like walking or talking and worry more about what age they will start picking their nose and eating it in public.

• Yesterday, I used my hair dryer that I haven’t used on myself in 6 months, to dry off Barbie’s outfit as suggested and requested by my 5-year-old.

• When my baby doesn’t poop for more than 3 days, I will dress her in an outgrown outfit I’m prepared to throw away.

• As I loaded up my herd into our minivan and used my bare hands to wipe someone’s snot, I thought about how my current situation is the exact opposite of whatever it is people do at Coachella.

• While some Mom’s may have been busy the night before Easter filling their kid’s baskets and hiding eggs; I was stuffing Ariel costumes and princess dresses into upper cabinets, so the only outfits my daughters could find to wear were pre-screened and approved for Easter brunch.

As moms we are busy—constantly thinking for or about our tiny humans: I wonder why they act tired but won’t go to sleep and for the love of Velcro and slip-on, “Please go put on your shoes.” We don’t have the luxury of only thinking about ourselves, which leaves us with a brain and life that often resembles an egg; scrambled, over hard, but never over easy.