Safa is 1

Every year on their birthdays, I take a picture of each girl in a dress that used to be mine. Ava's is a dress I turned into a skirt and wore often while I was falling in love with Erik. Eden's is a black camisole that my mom and I both used to wear, and a long purple-blue tafetta skirt that I never wore but always wanted to. For Safa, I chose this red, strapless that I wore this Christmas.

What Five Looks Like on Ava

We ended up taking Ava's birthday dress pictures on Safa's birthday since we didn't get to do it on her birthday. What kept striking me was what a dreamer she is. She has this face in almost all the pictures. She's so far away. She just enjoyed the wind and the birds. Here are some things she has said to me lately...

"You're mine." and gave me a big hug.

"I like to see the world." She's been saying this for a long time.

While looking at the moon, "The moon is golden in my heart."

Ode to a Village

On Saturday, February 10th Ava, my first baby, turned five. And I missed it because I was sick. Really sick. The sickest I have ever been in my life. I missed everything. I missed her birthday breakfast, the dino hunt in the woods, watching her enjoy her party, blow out her candles, singing "Happy Birthday". I missed her birthday entirely. It was heartbreaking. Five has always seemed to me a milestone birthday. It is the closing of a chapter, the beginning of a new one. There is nothing of the toddler left, a big girl is beginning to emerge. I had been so looking forward to celebrating this big day with her. Now, I am generally a person who just powers through and asking for help is hard for me, but if you can't make it from your bed to the couch without almost passing out, then powering through and not asking for help isn't really an option. I realized quickly I was going to have to let go. I would not be able to micro-manage this no matter how I tried. So I did something crazy and drastic---I surrendered control. I asked Erik to call Shannon because I knew she would Marge-in-charge the situation for me. My sweet husband heroically took on the day solo, as I tried to squeak out instructions. When they got home, Erik told me about the party---Ava had a great time with her friends, Eden rode the Ferris wheel alone, Safa let Amy carry her around for awhile. Then he told me how everyone helped. The party became a team effort with everyone pitching in. People kept an eye on my children and made sure they were safe (three small children in a place like Kiddie Acres are hard to keep track of with only one set of eyes), they helped set up the birthday table, distributed tickets, kept track of presents, loaded the car, carried my baby, handed out juice, ate crappy birthday cake--- generally were extensions of myself as I lay in bed at home. They held up Ava's 5th birthday.
"It takes a village" has now become so overused and trite it's almost silly. It's also true. You know the cool thing about a village? They don't think they're doing anything at all. They just see a need and fill it. If you have a small child or children you need a village. So do your children. I foolishly think of my village as pretty small, but that's not true. If you're lucky, you have one whether you have small children or not. If you're even luckier, like me, it's even bigger than you think it is. Shannon, Amy, Amy, Craig, Marnie, and Jeff ---the village that helped Ava celebrate her birthday---from the bottom of my heart (and rattling lungs) I thank you.

How Scared Should We Be?

Yesterday, Safa made Eden cry. Eden. The same Eden who at about 16 months pushed Ava and knocked her flat on her ass. Safa turned 11 months old yesterday. She is the only baby I've ever known who retaliates. If her sisters take a toy from her she gets mad. Really mad. She screams and tries to scratch them. All other babies I've known might cry, but most just look a little bewildered and move on to something else. Safa has a bit of that third baby scrappiness you sometimes hear about. I don't think we need to worry about her holding her own as they get older. But the other two might need to sleep with one eye open.

First Icicles

Sharing Icicles

The girls were well enough to go to school today. The entire time I was getting them ready I was feeling something. Was I getting sick too? Too much coffee? Need to eat? I said good-bye and watched them walk up the driveway with Erik and my eyes filled with tears. I felt actual, physical pain in my heart. I closed the door and wondered around my filthy house. Safa is napping. A quite house. The very thing I've been waiting for. The thing that rarely happens. And so now I have it and all I feel is lonely. And not lonely because I'm alone. I love being alone. Lonely because my girls are gone. Lonely for them and their silliness and their voices. Sometime, later today, when they are back home I will forget having felt this way. I will feel overwhelmed and tired and someone will cough in my face. Do I possess the self-awareness to stop and at least remember this moment? I think I do. Will it open my heart and draw a compassionate, measured response in the face of whatever I'm in the face of? We'll see. What I feel right now, as I sit in a quiet house with a heavy heart is this: I am tethered to my children. And they to me. And their distance is a reminder of that tether. It is long and it is strong.

Newest Quotes

Ava (filling up the sink with water) said in a panicky voice, "I don't want it to ovary flow!"

I was changing Eden's diaper and she had a bad diaper rash and was remembering powdered Desitin. She was crying hard and said in a desperate voice, "I want some Splenda on it." I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. This would certainly be the cause of Child Protective Services descending upon us if this were to happen at school. I think I was able to clear up the confusion, but you never know...

I'm pretty sure Safa called me a "f*cker" yesterday. I apologize for the language. I'm just reporting the facts.

Hence the Fantasy

My children are sick. Again. Hacking, coughing, snotting, (yes, that can be a verb) all over everything. As I told a friend the other day, I'm two wet coughs and one sneeze in my face away from giving Erik two-weeks notice. Just kidding. Kind of. The illness coupled with the ice means the girls have not been to school, nor has Alice come in a long while. And let me just be completely honest here, coughing is a pet peeve of mine. Ok...so it's more like I have to clench my teeth really hard and take a deep breath for my head not to explode when a person is coughing a lot--- including myself. And when three persons are coughing a lot (in my face), and I've had no sleep (because of all the coughing don't you know), well then, my friend you've got a situation on your hands. But then Safa will look so pitiful, and Ava will be shockingly sweet despite feeling like crap and then I remember a quote Erik told me about having children: "The days are long and the years short." Indeed.