I CAN DO IT MYSELF; Children and Independence and The Slanket As a Swaddle for Grownups

You know that thing where kids grow up and insist on selfing by themselves?

Ugh. Emiright?

As a parent, it's difficult. It means they don't need you as much. It means they're moving away from your loving bosom. And it means it takes 3 damned hours to walk from the car to the freaking house. 

Henry is fairly independent now. He still relies on us for emotional support and some basic needs (toast), but he's pretty much a full person. Anna is in the I DO IT MYSELF trial period, where she sort of kind of can do it herself, but also sort of stumbles and loses focus and ends up picking dandelions when she's supposed to be doing anything else. But you can't help her. Oh, no. I pity the fool who tries to urge her along or pick her up or distract her from her distraction. She will cut any bitch who tries. 

It's also hard to trust their independence because you're still on the hook for their safety. We've recently transitioned from both kids in (iBert) bike seats to Henry always on his own, on his own bike (First Bike balance bike for now, new bike with pedals coming soon). Even for long rides, across busy streets, in traffic dense areas. It's time. He's ready. He's too big for the bike seat and HE CAN DO IT HIMSELF. It's a huge leap of faith for us, because it just takes him being impulsive once or unaware for a second for disaster to occur. But he can do it, and so he should do it. No matter how scared it might make me now and then. 

I know there's driving a car and going to college and getting married and all that on deck. This early childhood stuff is just getting us parents ready for that stuff, I guess. 

"Parenting is to decide forever to let your heart walk around outside your body" wrote smart author, Elizabeth Stone. 

It's a delicate dance. Encouraging your kids to explore and challenge themselves, but also keeping them safe and helping them make wise choices. I find it's a lot of biting my tongue and reining in my inherent neurosis so as not to get in their way as they do big things. Sometimes, despite myself, I get in their way and make it worse. I make them hesitate or doubt themselves and it causes them anxiety or interference. Occasionally when Anna is trying to leap from tall buildings BY HERSELF, the more I try to keep her safe, the more she trips on her cape and comes tumbling down. It's a fine line, though, because I've also saved her little blond life many times. 

Being a kid is cool. You get to learn about all the things in the universe, most importantly who you are and how you work. Being an adult parent person is exactly the same, but now you think you know some stuff, and you are legally bound to assist small people with their own development, too. 

If you're like me, mostly watching your kids grow up and become their own people is fantastic. Still, there are times you wish you could keep your kids swaddled in your arms forever...and there are way MORE times you wish you yourself could be in a ginormous swaddle (and rocked in huge arms like God's or Patrick Swayze's). 

Lookie! I Wrote a Piece for The Naked Writing Project

I wrote a guest blog post for a friend's 'Naked Writing Project.' It's unedited, raw stuff, shared without messing with it much. It was a neat experience. I wrote about anxiety and parenting because these are things so very special to my hearty heart. 

Because I am a dedicated artist, I wrote it pantsless. She kept telling me I didn't have to do that, but, no, I said. When I do something, I do it right. And also I don't really understand metaphor. 

Anyway, I made her let me add an addendum/apology on the end because it didn't have my usual jazz hands, but it's all real and messy and me. 

Check it out. She's going to have a bunch of contributors. Message her across the intertubes if you want to play. 

https://jenkinney.com/2016/05/27/naked-writing-guest-post-you-can-feel-panic-and-thanks-at-the-same-time-its-called-parenting-or-panks/

I Went Bra Shopping Today. It's No Big Deal.

I went bra shopping today. I never go bra shopping until the one I'm wearing is held together by a single thread and its burden is too great for it to bear. Little more than a nipple cover now, its yards and yards of useless material having lost all tensile strength and desire to live.  This sad old bra limped into the mall on nary a prayer, begging for a quick, merciful end to its suffering. 

It's like an old farm horse who's been faithful and true all these here many years, plowing and pulling and carrying the immense weight of the family business on its shoulders (straps). But low, over the years, its back has stooped, it's jaw has slacked, and its once beautiful black sheen has now faded to a sad, dull gray. 

I'm now told by the bra shop lady that the average bra lifespan is about 6 months. 

Well. 

I guess if you're a rich, fancy lady that might be true. It's also like how the eye "doctor" claims contact lenses should be changed every 2 weeks. Try 20 weeks, loser! No, you're showing signs of irreversible calcifications on your corneas! I'd high-five myself but I can't see so good. 

Anyway. Bras are expensive and fickle. The same size bra in two different models is Joe Versus the Volcano. One makes your breasts look like a toned, young Tom Hanks. The other one, they're running down a hill and ravaging a city. And definitely scaring the virgins. (Actually, I wonder if demonstrations of extra long mom boobs might be a great teen abstinence or contraception campaign. Note to self: Show. Teens. My. Boobs.)  

Hmmm. It's OK. I'll change that later. 

For now, I am skipping through the sunshine in my spanking new $60 bra with 'advanced support technology.' That's right, now that NASA isn't letting anyone go to space, they've turned to my frontier. 

And it's spectacular. 

Wearing a good bra makes all my clothes fit like they don't hate me. It gives me such confidence and poise. A well-fitting bra makes me feel so bold that I could sassily walk down the street buck-ass naked. Except for the bra. Obviously. And possibly some support hose.  And obviously pants because I'm not a lunatic. And probably a poncho because of melanoma and everything. But I would be looking fierce under that poncho. 

As soon as I got home, I dropped the old bra into the trash can. I should have had a ceremony for Old Buck. I should have probably built a rudimentary cross and found a nice shady spot in the back yard. to bury him, but no. I think being retired to the landfill to be the perfect padded nest for a mouse family of sixteen would be the way he'd want to go. 

Seriously. The difference between the old bra and new one is incredible. 

I'd take before and after pictures for you, but I don't think they allow pictures of boobs on the internet. 

Laughter is to Pain as Aciclovir is to Herpes Simplex Virus: It Doesn't Kill It, But Keeps It at Bay

I just keep re-watching the same shows that I know won't break my heart. It's absolutely a protective move, and it's total weak sauce. I'm watching Rori graduate from college for the 14th time ("Gilmore Girls," 4eva, no you're a nerd, no one likes you, be quiet) and missing out on beautiful, insightful, triumphant new art because I am a weenie. 

I've had 'Twelve Years a Slave' out from Netflix for about 6 weeks. That's, like, a $20 rental, if you're doing the math at home. I know it's excellent. i know it's eye-opening and life-changing and horrible and wonderful and all that. I just can't bring myself to even watch through laced fingers, since I know the sounds of pain will ring between my ears for too long afterwords. 

Why are people so awful. Why. Why do we always fear and use and hurt each other. How can I apologize for what's been done, make it more right now, help turn mine and the next generation toward empathy and connection and healing? Then it brings up those (<---) questions, and I'm back in that quagmire, wondering about human nature and God and what the point is to any of this, and I'm lost. 

I keep turning to comedy because I know it's safe. We can all laugh together in this shared language of relief and it keeps the feels from burying us. I think comedy has some big healing juju. Especially when it's exploring the hard stuff, honestly. A common theme from comics doing  standup comedy is mental illness (their own) and addiction (also their own). It's like a confessional where they're paying their priest in giggles instead of penance. They get to unload their shit on us, but because they've found a magical recipe of words, it's palatable to us. It's funny, it's surprising. It's relatable. 

That's a big gift, from one to another, on both sides of the mic. 

Or, on both sides of the pen? I'm hoping this is a bit of what I'm doing here? We share with each other and give a bit of peace?? Tell me if I'm wrong like Paul Blart: Mall Cop II, OK?

I'm allowing myself to be a little more discerning about what information through media I let in. Because my therapist told me I could, and she is a very, very smart, nice, pretty lady. (It might be time for a refresher of the boundaries speech). 

I tend to follow, on FaceBook and through email, organizations that promote human and animal rights and social progress. AND SO, I find that my 'quick phone check' at midnight before I fall asleep, will include such gems as "Animal Gas Chambers?" and "My Mom is in Prison, Can you Help?" and so, so much about campus rape and institutional racism and police violence and breathtakingly disheartening politics. And then also, I tend to follow sarcastic, satirical, ridiculous comedy stuff, so I get, like, cats farting into bagpipes as a Prince tribute, or mash-up jokes about the current political climate and Slytherin house.

It's jarring. 

It's emotionally exhausting to see a friend's new baby pics and then read about genocide. 

That's life, though, right? I mean, at any time, in any place, there's huge joy and also unimaginable suffering. But, I don't know that I have to open all those bags at once, because then I get this upper/downer salad and end up with a confused and broken heart. 

I'm a privileged, wealthy, comfortable, safe, well-fed white person in America. I feel guilt about that, because I didn't do a whole lot to get that pile of treats. I also feel like there are all these things left undone on the to-do list of the world, and since I'm obviously failing to fix any of them,  the very least I can do is be aware enough to add more, maybe? 

But my therapist says I don't have to solve all the problems, and actually can't, and definitely will be less anxious and more peaceful if I accept that. (PS- she told me to tell my kids, when they ask, that when I go to my appointments, I'm going to "The Feelings Doctor." I think that's 35 kinds of brilliant. She's so great. Maybe I should go show up at her house with blueberry muffins). 

Anyway. 

I'm trying. So my first world problem is how I can chill the fuck out about the real, terrible third world problems. Neat. 

I don't want to be blind, I don't want to be cold, I don't want to be useless. But I get that I can't be anything valuable to anyone, including my immediate family of needers, if my heart is in pieces all the time. 

Is it totally dumb that I'm just going to try to keep writing? See if maybe my comedy and/or whatever else this is that I do might make someone a little less miserable? Humaning is hard. Can I help anyone make it less hard by sitting on my ass on the back porch in my bathrobe in front of my Ipad like some sort of hillbilly done won the lottery?

 We'll see, I guess. 

Ernest Hemingway said: "Write hard and clear about what hurts."  I can't stop thinking about this quote. 

I want to. I'm going to keep practicing. Thanks for being my people who read my attempts. 

 

I Think I'm a Stay at Work Mom.

I was sitting in the doctor's charting area in the Emergency Room a few days ago. Not because I broke in, pantless, as patients are oft to do, but because I'm a Physician Assistant and was there in the ER seeing a patient with some part gone bad. 

Chatting and joking with a few of the PA's and MD's, we talked care plans, caught up on charts and drank coffee. (Coffee is what runs the hospital. You think it's the giant power grid, the brainy innovations or the computer matrix, but nope, it's coffee).  

Talk of blood products somehow reminded one of us of something our kid did, and soon there we were, moms sitting around sharing cell phone pics and ridiculous tales of the small people who run our homes. 

It got me thinking. We're all "working moms." We're trying to be good providers to our patients, assets to our employers, and also great moms. We share a common grief and relief at being away from our kids for parts of most days. "It's hard" is commonly agreed, but almost all of us do it very deliberately. 

This topic, and even the phrase "working mom" has been criticized and bantered around the internet a lot. It seems dismissive to the shit-ton of work the moms who stay home do. It seems old-fashioned, too, conjuring images of skirty business suits with tennis shoes and determined, big hair. 

Moms get picked apart for everything, all the choices we make. All too often we're doing the picking (for shame, lady folk!) I just want to point out real quick that there's no term "working dad." There is the term stay-at-home-dad, or (most offensively all around, nice one, Michael Keaton), "Mr. Mom." 

I certainly don't mean to jump with both feet on the big red button, but I've been giving it a lot of thought lately, because for now, for the foreseeable future, I'm the breadwinner and Robb is staying home. 

We're not the first to go through this transition. I know many friends and family members who have had to figure out resource management and have ended up with one parent home with the kids and one out making the money. Every family has its own best way to keep the lights on and the fridge full, while giving the kids their best care and keeping the house managed. 

Single parents have to do all of it, all of the time, which is why they are the uncredited heroes of the world who get the cushest of all the cush gigs in heaven when they're done, I'm just sure of it. 

Robb being home has been complex for me. I knew it would be. Although I always planned to work, I guess I always assumed he would, too, or that if anyone was going to stay home, it would be me...because traditionally the woman has, I guess? 

He's starting a business, so now his week is divided between actioning that small business and wrangling the kids. The kids are now in daycare just a few days a week instead of full-time. 

I have always wanted to work. I am proud of being a PA and being a social worker before that. I love my current gig with a two-armed hug. I am proud of what I do and I do it well and I positively impact my patients and practice. The kids are too little to know how hip it is that I work in surgery, but for now, they know Mommy works at the hospital and she "helps fix tummies." (Eventually I'll have to break it to them that I'm talking pelvic pain and vaginal bleeding, not real hero stuff like the plastic surgeons do. I'll let them have their dreams a little longer). 

Starting a business is slow, grueling work. Robb is handling it well, but it comes with a lot of uncertainties and forced lessons in patience. There are the dreams, and then trying to build a bridge to carry you from now to those dreams. It's a lot of planning and re-working, learning constantly. What you gain in excitement and personal growth, you lose in dollars in pockets. 

I feel the responsibility of having the only income, health coverage, etc. Somehow the same job that I have been voluntarily doing with zeal for a long while, now feels like a bondage of absolute necessity. I still choose to show up and I truly enjoy it, but I also really, really HAVE to show up. 

On my best days, I like this situation. I'm happy Robb and the kids get to have this time with each other. Henry starts real school next year and this is a precious window we're in. I'm excited about the business. And I feel like the ultimate feminist power house that I can support my family of four (kinda sorta) at the life style to which we've grown accustomed (so much fancy food).

On my bad days, I'm bitter and jealous and feel like this isn't fair. He gets to hang out with the kids and go to the park and the zoo and make cookies. I have to wake up early, work all day, then come home and still mom. I know he could write a parallel post about how much more exhausting it is wrangling the two minions and trying to score small business loans than it is going to an office (or hospital). 

Fortunately for him, he has some good allies and mentors who can help through it. Blessedly for me, I am surrounded by good role models in female MD's and midlevels who are the money makers in their families. It's becoming another version of normal. Also, his being home has afforded me more time to write. Somehow the laundry is always done and there's fresh, good food...being tossed off the side of the table by Anna. 

As I type this, he's folding laundry (and watching this bitchin' BBC series, 'Africa' on Netflix. That's Netflixing and chilling, right? Laundry and warthog documentaries?)

I like that I get to be a PA and a mom. I miss them and sometimes wish I had more time home with them, but I don't want to change much. And I want to give Robb the space and time to make his dreams happen. We can do it. We will do it. It's just scary and new today. It doesn't even bug me that Henry now calls me DADDY-I-MEAN-MOMMY when I get home from work.

Doesn't bug me at all. I need more coffee. 

 

 

A (Late, of Course) Mothers' Day Poem from Your Toddler/Infant

Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mooooommmmmy, 

Daddy already got you smelly bath stuff, candy or jewelry, 

But we both know none of that stuff was really from me. 

He says we have to be quiet and let you sleep in today,  

Something about hasn't slept in 3 years, and episiotomy? 

My gift from the heart would be abrupter and grosser, 

Like a nice used tissue, a mystery sopping wet pant-leg or a new paperless wall poster!

You are pretty and funny when you make all those faces.

Especially when I hide to poop in creative new places!

You know I love you because I remind you when you forget, 

to hurry up and get me my snack. Chop, chop, be quick.

I think that you're brilliant, I ask you all my questions all day long, 

But your judgement about when I need to sleep is all wrong. 

That's OK, we can't all be perfect. 

But try harder. 

And seriously, with the snack. It's just an apple. Hurry up. 

I would also settle for candy. 

I Have the Mother of All Mothers' Day Miracles To Share with You

I have a miracle I get to tell you about. 

I can't talk about this without crying, so just understand that as I write, I have snot and tears rolling down my face. 

OK. #snottears

There are these favorite people of mine whom I've loved for a long time. They are having a miracle baby. But it's not just any 'ol miracle baby. It's a whooooooaaaa nelly miracle baby. 

My tale of their miracle baby will include a bunch of stuff about me, too, because I'm a fat head and it's how I do. 

We met them at a bible study thing about 7 years ago. It was my birthday and I didn't want to be there. I had just gotten out of the hospital, where I'd spent a week in the ICU for a zombie bite/viral bug thing and lost a pregnancy. Robb made me go in, but we sat in the car outside the house for a long time arguing about whether we should just turn around and go home. 

I'm awful glad we didn't.

The pastor, this very sensitive and kind guy, perceived that I was a fucking trainwreck that day and wasn't speaking up about it...he pried it out of me and I cried all over myself to the group. At some point I realized that the blubbering was in stereo, and it turned out that this beautiful lady in the corner, and her adoring husband, were crying about similar horrible bullshit. 

Turns out, that was my Mandy and Jason. 

They had been infertile for a long time. They had no reason for it. They'd seen all the fancy crotch doctors and no one could tell them what was wrong. 

So we ate cupcakes and cried and later we ate sushi and cried and Thai food and cried...and when I had my second miscarriage a few months later, she was the first to say "WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT HELL?!" and made me laugh, and realize it was OK to feel perplexed and pissed. She always says the perfect, most pirate thing. 

And their infertility persisted, as that bastard sometimes does. 

They decided it was time to adopt a kid, while they continued to try to make one.

There was a very, very dark time when an adoption of a little guy was at their fingertips and then stolen away. Tears came hard on that one. So hard that there was vomiting in a kitchen trash can as the grief squeezed so hard and so suddenly, as that bastard sometimes does. 

After all those years, hope had kicked them in the nads. 'WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT HELL?!' I said, because I knew it was the perfect pirate thing to say. 

And then, out of this blackness, there came a little golden ray of sunshine. They were matched with a healthy, perfect, baby girl. And it stuck. That adoption stuck. And thank the Lord it did, because she is hilarious, brilliant and strong as hell, fitting right in with her mom and dad. That kid. She is perfect. She made them a beautiful three. 

But they'd planned for a big family. They'd planned to have their kids close together in age. They'd planned, planned, planned. But infertility does not care for our plans. 

Through the course of 8 (eight) years, they had over a dozen unsuccessful attempts at IUI (intrauterine insemination) and one very gory, exhausting and financially draining IVF (in vitro fertilization). There were so many big needles, full of big hormones. Mandy's feet grew out of all her lovely shoes, as sometimes happens when women have babies....but still no babies. Just the hormones, and their changes. Son. Of. A. Bitch. 

They tried all the hippie methods, too. They ate bear meat and dandelion stems and drank the pee of unicorns, filling vials with their spit and taking a million pills a day. 

Science and "science" failed them, too. 

Have I mentioned yet what rockstars they are? This shit implodes marriages. This constant disappointment and longing and grief wrecks a person and each side of that marital bond. Each 30-day menstrual cycle that doesn't end in a positive pregnancy test seems like an indictment, a little piece of death. But they've persisted. They've clung to each other. They've kept smiling, and, instead of folding in and falling apart, they've both thrived as partners, as parents, as friends and family members, and in their careers. They've both taken advancements and done great big things in the midst of this pain.

Mandy is the classiest lady I know. She's always so glamorous and put-together. And laughing. She's always laughing. It's marvelous. I can show countless pictures of her looking like a movie star, but my best memory of her is in her pajamas and headgear, at my back door at midnight on a school night to stay with Henry while I went to hatch Anna at the hospital, because my family lives across state and I needed the help. She's my family here, now. She always says yes. And she couldn't have been more enthusiastic and loving, while I went and had a 2nd baby while she longed to birth her first. That's grace right there. 

We prayed. We begged for God to put a baby in belly. They had many friends and family praying all over, for baby in belly. We made a prayer group online, dedicated to baby in belly. We got as many people involved as we could. Sometimes we concentrated on praying at the same time together. Sometimes we just found "keep the hope!" bible verses and reminded each other to keep focusing prayer their way. I found 'the Jesus prayer' (in reading some Salinger, actually) and kept meditating/chanting, "Come, Lord, Jesus, have mercy on them. Come, Lord, Jesus, have mercy on them."

And then....and then...8 years after they started trying....5 years after their daughter arrived on the scene....discussing whether it was time to somehow give up the dream, or find funds and patience to adopt again? Try IVF again?.....

Suddenly, spontaneously, there was a positive pregnancy test. 

The first one. Ever. 

Not just one, but many. Followed by positive blood tests and ultrasounds and thumbs-up from the experts. 

(Her actual urine droplets, in her actual bathroom. This is exciting like reality TV)

 

They're about 14 weeks along now. There's still a long way to go. But...there's a baby in that belly where for so long there was none. 

I will never know if it was the prayer. But I know it wasn't the fancy technology and science that made it happen. 

My faith changed the day I found out. I'm listening, believing more now. I always wanted "it" to be true, now I'm really suspicious it might be. 

Come, Lord, Jesus, have mercy on them. And thank You. 

It's OK. I'm Here.

This morning, around 6am, while I was getting ready to leave for work, I heard Henry rushing down the hallway saying, ANNA'S CALLING FOR ME! I HAVE TO GO HELP HER. I trailed him into her bedroom, and watched him crawl into her bed where she was sitting there upset, and fold her in for a snuggle. He kept saying to her, IT'S OK. I'M HERE. I'M HERE.  

When she wakes up, any time of night or day, she's taken to calling for 'MOMMY....DADDY....HENRY...GRANDMA...' she goes through the list of possible people who will save her from that treacherous sleep. 

They stayed like that, him holding and kind of petting her, for a good 4 minutes, which in kid-time is like 6 months. It was amazingly sweet. All day at work I could hear his urgent whispers, IT'S OK. I'M HERE. 

So much love. These tiny people are keeping my hope for humanity alive. Frankly, adult humans are kind of a shit show and if you believe the hype of the news, it's only getting worse. But kids, they're alright. They just want to take care of each other.  

I really hope these kids always use each other for best friends, anchors, rescues. As I moved through my day, I kept imagining them as big kids and grown ups, bailing each other out during breakups, failures...of jail (Anna. My money's on Anna). 

Just this week we've started keeping them home from daycare a few days/week with Robb. It's been going great so far. They historically have been pretty nice to each other (with some exceptionally nice moments, as above), but I anticipate that now that they're around each other this much more time, they might start fighting more, since they won't have their classmates to unleash their aggressions on, they'll probably start fighting more between them. Anna obviously has to have the sweet feeling of human flesh between her teeth now and then, and if Henry's is the only flesh available, so be it. And Henry will fight to the death for the toy that he just found way under the couch that no one has played with in 2 years but now is his everything. He used to have classmates for that, now he has only his sister. 

Bless their little union, with its ups and its downs. They keep talking about how they're going to marry each other. They both talk a lot about who they're going to marry. I blame the end of every Disney movie for their infatuation with marriage. We have to tell them that so far in this country it's not legal for siblings to marry...although since they are of opposite sexes and both white, that may shortly be approved by the impending administration, so they'll have to wait and see. I guess if I got 2-headed grandkids, it would just be more to love. 

Did this post get weird for anyone else? Remember how it started with a precious moment between my kids? Pretend I stopped at that and concluded with something beautiful about how we all have each other's backs in this crazy world and we're a tapestry or something. 

#tapestry #notincest