On Your 44th Birthday

 On your 44th birthday, nothing will go as planned. You'll wake to find your four year old feverish and miserable, dooming those Disney on Ice tickets. You'll scramble to find a duo to join your husband and daughter at the show and sigh with relief that one piece of your birthday puzzle can continue, even if you won't be part of the experience. While father and daughter watch Elsa and Anna and Moana, you'll be snuggled beside your firstborn, who rarely sits still long enough for cuddles. 

You'll watch The Wild Robot twice and at the part where Roz helps launch Brightbill into the sky, worried she'll never see her adopted son again, you'll feel tears creep along the edges of your lashes. 

"This part always makes me cry," you'll say.

"Why?" he'll ask.

"Because she loves him so much."

And he'll smile and nod.

He won't eat the crackers you bring him in a bowl and instead he will request something soft and you will offer to make brownies. It'll be a ploy, of course, a box of protein powdery brownies to trick him into a bit of sustenance. He'll agree and you'll bake what will be your birthday cake, adding chocolate chips to entice the patient. After three bites he will curl up and say, "that was good, I'm done." Starve a fever, right? So you won't push it, opting for apple juice and you will wonder if you should ask your husband to stop on the way home for popsicles, more juice, more tylenol. You'll forget all those things and it will be fine.

Your parents will call, sad for your change of birthday plans, asking about their grandson and his fever. Your mom will muse about what she was doing 44 years ago and you'll agree that post-C section memories are fuzzy 2 years later, much less 44. Your parents will tell you they love you and you will believe them, as you always have. 

Later, from his sad bundle of blankets, with Mr. Fox under one arm, your son will ask for lunch. And when you ask what sounds good, expecting something simple and sickly and sad (maybe applesauce), he'll say, "barbeque chicken and waffles." So he'll be fevered and tired but you'll be happy to have him briefly stand on the chair beside you in the kitchen while you microwave some chicken and he pours some barbeque sauce and proudly mixes his creation. He'll ask for extra honey for his waffles and you'll be proud to know he, like you, prefers honey over syrup. 

Your little sister will call and wish you, "Happy Birthday" and you'll discuss a raincheck for shared birthday festivities, nobody wants a fever. You'll remember, as you always do, that she is your favorite birthday present.

When your daughter gets home she'll proudly give her brother the light up toy (Maui's hook) she picked out for him at the show, which will cost a mere $40. You'll share raised eyebrows with your husband, who was suckered into this Disney on Ice adventure weeks ago, and he'll admit it was fun. 

You'll open presents from your little family, the purse you wanted from your husband, and gifts from son and daughter that your son picked out earlier in the week. Cozy socks you'll wear as soon as you get out of the shower, a sparkly pink Christmas ornament, and a necklace of "jewels" that you know you'll treasure. It's the first time your son will have chosen a present for you and he will be adamant about this specific necklace and you do love jewels (and rocks that look like jewels), and you'll be touched your son knows this about you. 

Your little brother will call on his way to pick up your niece at play practice. "She'll be our thespian," he'll say. And after well wishes and birthday teasing you'll discuss Christmas and the likelihood that one of our boys will sport a black eye by the end of the holiday since we'll be giving my nephew a hockey set and our son an archery set. And you’ll remember, as you always do, that you get to parent alongside your baby brother, though he's hours away, and it will make you smile. 

You'll hug your husband in the kitchen while your elderly dog begs to be fed for the fourth time. "Do dogs go senile?" you'll ask, and you'll make a note in your phone to ask the vet about her growing confusion. She's a good girl, tired, and losing her eyesight, and you'll save that sadness for a day that is not today.

You'll order supper from the Thai place your sister likes and after spring rolls and Tom Kha with enough of a kick to make you cough just a little bit, you'll sit down with your daughter and a bundle of stamps. Your daughter who used to say so little, who struggled to hear and understand, she'll now point to a chair and demand, "sit here, Mama." One by one, you'll pull stamps from her bag and she'll delightedly exclaim, "Fower! Cake! Know-fake! Cockodile! Xylophone!" and the "xylophone" will be your favorite because the stamp is not a stamp of a xylophone, it's a stamp of eighth notes. Little minds are so quick, so exuberant, musical notes are a xylophone, Mama! 

A skipped nap for your daughter, a fever for your son, means they'll both be in bed before 8, a rare event. And you will make a cup of tea using the tea kettle that whistles like a harmonica, a gift from your late uncle that he begged you to return ("I didn't know it whistled like a harmonica, that's ridiculous," he said). You'll have a slice of protein-laden birthday brownie (baked in a cake tin because you couldn't find your square 8x8, brownies just aren't meant to be pizza-shaped but it will be okay) and you will thank God for this sweet little life and this particular trip around the sun. 

BigHeartBabyHeart

My daughter takes her time. She is cautious with her steps, deliberate with her words. Despite some pathologies thrown around ("gross motor delay" for the walking hesitance, "speech delay" for her silence), I've always felt she was, more than anything, her own perfect person. Maybe other parents of more than one child have had the experience of raising children who seemed similar, who achieved milestones at a similar pace, or had familiar personalities, but my experience has been the opposite. Johanna is beautifully, wonderfully herself, and that has forced me to be patient, which, if I am honest, is the fruit of the spirit that I am least likely to cultivate. Unless it's for her. 

Over the last several months we've been going to speech therapy once a week. Sometimes it's me, sometimes it's her dad, but it's a weekly reminder that, so far, she has been quieter than her brother.  There are all sorts of reasons why that might be. Perhaps her incessant ear infections have made her hearing a bit muffled at times. Perhaps the noisy nature of her big brother has left her with the impression that he'll do the talking for both of them. Or maybe she is just waiting. 

Like my first born (and I am also a first born), words come easily for me. They always have. But more than that, I've also frequently used words as a crutch. I've been witty when I should have been careful. I've been aggressive when I should have been kind. I've used my ease with words to get what I want, when I want it, and I've hurt people with my words, too. So as I've gotten older, and especially as I've had children, I've tried to be more deliberate with my speech, more exacting, and I've tried to listen with the same passion with which I speak. 

Many of the speech therapy tools are about waiting, giving Jo room to use her voice, applauding her for each new sound. She understands far beyond what she can tell us, that much is obvious. And we wait for that understanding to take shape, burst forth, tumble out behind a laugh. And in the meantime, we do all the things you do with small children. We run and chase and pretend and play in the sandbox. And we draw. 

Jo loves to draw and over the last few days she has said, "Mama" and pointed to the chair next to her while she colors. She gives me a marker and says, "heart," and I dutifully draw a heart. My habit is to draw a midsize heart and we talk about the color (purple tonight). After that, she says, "big heart," and I flip the page over and draw a heart that barely fits within the space. She grins broadly and then points beside the heart and says, "baby." I draw a small heart beside the big one and she singsongs, "big heart baby heart" and we both laugh. Sometimes she points at the big heart and says, "Mama" and I point to the baby heart and say, "Jojo." And sometimes she just scribbles away and mutters "bigheartbabyheart" as I chase marker tops on the floor. 

She is pure joy, beloved and my last baby. So waiting for her to speak also feels like I'm asking her to grow up, which I'm loathe to do. But I'm also anxious to understand her chatter, to hear the stories she tells her dolls, the fibs she tells her brother. All the speech milestones are pretty logical, stringing words together, forming short sentences. We've had a few ("mine now" is important in our house). But my favorite thus far, by far, is Big heart, baby heart. It's a gloriously full, complex, poetic genius of a sentence. And it's hers. 

The Table and Little Hands

 I was raised in a Southern Baptist family and attended Southern Baptist churches into my young adulthood. While I do not consider myself Baptist any longer, there are certain rules/interpretations of church practice that have remained with me, namely around baptism and communion. With each of these sacraments I'm raising my children in a way that differs from how I was raised. It's a heady thing, to attempt to explain God and faith to children, it feels heavy and impossible on good days, more heavy and more impossible on bad ones. 

I grew up with the concept of "being Saved," a phrase that was part of every sermon growing up. It was a question asked and answered. When were you Saved? I was Saved at such-and-such on such-and-such date. How does one become Saved? One asks Jesus to come into one's heart. As a child this seemed logical enough although I do remember wondering how I was supposed to know when was the right time to make that invitation. I knew I loved God. I knew John 3:16 by heart. I was a champ at Bible Drill (that's competitive Bible quizzes for those unaware that such things exist). But when kids in my Sunday School class were celebrated for asking Jesus into their heart, I was always tempted to ask how they knew it was time. I never did ask anyone. But on my Dad's birthday in 1989 we attended a Billy Graham crusade not far from where we lived in Little Rock. I remember very little of that experience except the feeling during the altar call that it was Time. Rev Graham had invited anyone making a profession of faith to come down the stadium stairs to the field. I turned to my Dad and said something along the lines of, "I'm going down." I remember he asked if I wanted him to come with me and I said I was ok. Looking back he may have regretted that as he watched his 8 year old daughter descend the steps. But he found me a few minutes later, sitting next to a volunteer, and his smile felt like the brightest sunshine. I was baptized a few weeks later after conversations with my parents and pastor. Only then was I able to participate in communion, an event that occurred quarterly at my church.

The church we attend now holds communion far more frequently, weekly during special seasons like Lent and Advent, and a couple times a month when we're not in those seasons. As such, communion feels both more and less special. It feels more holy, more deliberate, more powerful because it is such a frequent component of our worship, it's something we share as a community and so it feels truly foundational to our time together. And it also feels less special, not in terms of its import, but because it is so frequent, so embedded in our worship fabric, it feels expected and established, a comfort. When I was taking communion in Baptist churches, because it was less frequent, it always had an air of mystery and (I cannot find another word) superiority. I remember feeling like a grown up, separate and apart from my unbaptized friends, because I now got to take a cup from the plate passed around. I got to tuck that little plastic vessel in the perfectly sized hole at the back of the pew. I had done something, I had believed. 

I do not think I was wrong as a child. I know that what I felt at that stadium in Arkansas was holy and beautiful. I know that the anticipation of participating in communion was itself holy and beautiful, because it helped me begin to understand what it means to participate in a sacrament, even if I was never taught that word, sacrament. I know my parents and pastor delighted in my growing faith and wanted nothing more than to point me continuously toward my Heavenly Father. I want to do the same for my children. But the truth of it is, my children will grow up differently. They will not be taught that a specific, identifiable moment of "Saving" is the goal, although I fully believe that is how many people first experience their relationship with Jesus. They will instead be taught about the continual grace, continual saving, continual joy of the Resurrection, a journey that began, at least as far as worship practice, the moment they were baptized as babies.

And that brings me to the real inspiration for this post: my toddlers sometimes have a piece of bread during communion and my Southern Baptist self feels things about that. Both Chester and I have strong Christian parents from more conservative worship practices and when the kids receive a blessing, eat their little piece of bread, Chester and I frequently glance at each other with the "our dads would not approve" grimace and half-smile. 

Chester is a better Bible scholar than I am so when I asked him what exactly (somebody is a lawyer) the Bible said about communion, he pointed me to 1 Corinthians, where Paul says "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord...". I don't discount Paul's perspective, but I also don't hold his words higher than Jesus's own, "Take, eat; this is my body." "Do this in remembrance of me." So what could be unworthy? Can a 3 year old participating with his parents be unworthy? If baptism begins the journey in the life of the church, isn't participating in communion at different stages of maturity also part of that journey? 

Chester and I discussed and decided on a plan. A 3 and 2 year old are too young for the discernment Paul preaches, but they are not too young to understand quiet, prayer, love, gentleness, importance. They're not too young to feel part of a whole, folded into the family of a church. They are members of this church, baptized into this beautiful community, and we want them to participate in the ways that make sense to their developing minds.  So whenever we celebrate communion Chester and I eyeball each other. Is this a good Sunday for them? Are they listening? If so, we will tell them, "we eat this bread and drink this juice to remember Jesus." And we will hold their hands as we walk down the aisle and afterwards we will say, "I love you, Jesus." This won't be every communion service because they're still 2 and 3. Sometimes the best we can do is to get them into the church, maybe read a book about Noah, coax them into eating fewer than five donut holes. But sometimes they want to go with us when we take communion, sometimes their bodies quiet ever so slightly as they listen to the music, sometimes they point to a painting of Jesus and say his name. I fully believe the Holy Spirit moves in children, and I believe the table is large enough for little hands. 

Because our kids will likely attend a Catholic school in our neighborhood and because they have Catholic and Baptist and conservative Lutheran family members, they'll grow up with different perspectives on communion. And that's okay. They'll ask questions, some of which Chester and I will be able to answer, and some of which we won't. They'll grow in all the ways children grow and someday they will be old enough to decide when and if they walk down a church aisle and receive the bread, the cup. They will have days when they feel unready or unwilling to participate, days and whole seasons when they question whether they believe in this God their parents taught them to love. But in the midst of those seasons, my prayer is that they will never question that the table is laid for them, prepared for them, that they are continuously invited to remember Jesus and the blood He shed for them, not because of anything they did or words they said, but because of everything Jesus is. 

"Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread." 1 Corinthians 10:17

 

Junior

 

Junior was a gift for my third birthday. I don't really remember what he looked like brand new though I do remember him being taller than me at the time. Today, he is a deflated teddy bear missing an eye, replacement nose crafted from a scrap of leopard print sock. He's stuffed with those pinhead styrofoam beads, the ones that cascade out of the tiniest hole and stick to everything. As a kid, I threw him against the wall when I was angry and sobbed into him more times than I'll ever be able to remember. For years he was being patched together almost monthly and there are threads in some version of brown in sloppy stitches on each extremity. 

He was a gift from my beloved Uncle Kevin and over the years he would tease me that Junior was still around. He drove me to college one year, Junior perched in the backseat, and marveled that his gift was so well-traveled. On occasion he'd ask how Junior was doing, and I'd reassure him that he was doing well, staying out of trouble. When I bought my first home, I took a picture on my front step with the one-eyed fellow and sent the picture to Kevin. Junior has outlived him by several years now. I sobbed into Junior when we found out Kevin had cancer. And years later, after my husband's shirt was suitably soaked by my tears, I cried into Junior when Kevin died. I cried into him when we had our first miscarriage and punched him hard enough to split a seam with our second loss. The bear has absorbed some grief. 

He's also my childhood bear, my keeper of secrets, the reliable comrade who propped me up when I was sick and where I rested my head on many a late night phone call with my best friend. After I married I had a real, live human to cry into, to rest against, and Junior saw fewer tears and cushioned fewer naps. Even more so, when I had children, the complete wildness of my days meant I'd often forget when I showered last, much less made the time to lean my head against Junior and read a book. If I'm honest, while I had hopes that my children might one day love him, I assumed that was an ill-placed hope. They'd have their own dear stuffed friends, their own once-new toys that should, appropriately, be tasked with weathering their own lives. I propped Junior in my son's bedroom corner and tasked him with oversight. 

But Junior has surprised me with a second life. For the last several months, he has laid, smashed and deflated as ever, on the floor by my son's bed. He is, once again, where I lay my head, but now it's for the purpose of singing Twinkle, Twinkle for the 75th time. I'm not sure when he moved over to that perfect spot. I'm sure my husband or I grabbed him one night as the nearest soft object upon which to lay our heads while we prayed for the toddler to close his eyes. And he has remained there, the perfect cushion at the end of a long day. 

A few nights ago, after books and blocks and lots of singing, I laid in the dark listening to my son breathe. My chest hitched, that hiccup of emotion you get when you feel too much too fast. My son was growing, his breath already sounding older than I was ready for, and my head rested on the bear Kevin gave me at his age. I breathed then like my boy breathes now, and at his size my arm wrapped around Kevin's impractical and perfect gift. Kevin, who my babies will not know this side of Heaven. It hurt. But it also radiated, vibrated with knowing. Knowing how delighted Kevin would be to see that ridiculous bear, still holding strong at 39, cushioning my head as I sang his great-nephew to sleep. 

"How's Junior doing these days?"

"He's doing well, staying out of trouble."

Angry Welts

My daughter has a patch of skin at the base of her neck, always pink, sometimes enflamed, sometimes bearing scratch marks from tiny fingernails. At almost 18 months old, this is the last of her stork bites, the others having faded into that perfect skin. And this one may not be a true stork bite, since it's frequently irritated, and may lead us to a pediatric dermatologist for laser treatments. On most days it doesn't bother her, but there are days it looks like the angriest of welts and my own neck tingles at the sight. 

Maybe it's motherhood or maybe it's just me-hood, but sometimes I am so caught up in her bumps and scratches and milestones that I forget to feel the sheer joy of her. I'm busy googling eczema creams and when-do-allergies-start and when-do-I-need-to-worry-that-she-isn't-talking-much. I'm busy buying detangler because her baby hair is finally thick enough to snarl, worrying that the brush I'm using is a bit too hard for that sweet scalp. I'm consumed by correcting the tiny portion of the world I can control, hoping that feels like love to her someday. 

But. The base of her neck will keep itching. Her new shoes will cause blisters. She'll bump her head on the dining table. And still she thrives, tears replaced quickly with that quizzical eyebrow scrunch, as if she dares the world to get in her way. She is a tank, in the dearest way. She plows through every anxiety I dream up, pummeling her big brother with a force that surprises us both. She is fearless when she wants to be and I like to think she gets that from me. 

So I'm trying to feel that fearless joy more often than the ache of anxiety. Angry welts, bumped heads, diaper rashes...all these discomforts when she's so new to this life, and still she cackles when she chases her brother, grins when I ask for a hug. The speed with which she rebounds is astonishing. There is no time for tears when there is a world to explore!  I know the discomforts won't always be minor, won't always be problems I can fix. So for now, I'll enjoy the power I have to soften the world around her, treat her discomforts, and smooth her path. Angry welts are no match for Mama. 

Truman Builds Houses

 The inspiration for this poem is Truman's months-long obsession with houses. What are you drawing, Truman? House. What are you building, Truman? House. He's two and our home probably feels like his whole world. But I can make a metaphor out of anything so it also feels like the genius of childhood, recognizing how essential feeling "at home" is for our happiness, and how innate the craving for home in our understanding of love, of God. Making our house Truman and Johanna's home continues to be the joy of a lifetime.

Sometimes his blocks are unsteady, built for speed

but even the tower in Pisa began its days straight.

It was one of his first perfectly-formed words - House

His voice confident, powerful, small, and yet, great.

He builds slowly when it suits him, when the day feels easy

When the ground is solid, the air warm, houses are pure joy.

Sometimes it is daddy's house, mama's house, rarely sister's

He is an architect, an explorer, a destroyer, a little boy.

What shape a house takes when its creation is delight

When the beams lean against the hips of a mother

What comfort warps itself into these spaces, these sturdy and less sturdy walls

When the hand that shapes them crafts only life, only love, only color.

What a gorgeous, Godly world it could be if he built it

All passion, joy, hilarity, and the "watch Mama" yelled loud

How lovely a seat for Jesus, for Esther, for David, for Mary

All welcome, all laboring, all celebrating, all marveling in Truman's house.

The Weight of You

Not long after getting married, I saw a picture online of a baby, maybe 9-10 months old, a sweet, smiling baby with dark hair and a few new teeth.  In the picture, she was being held aloft by two feminine arms, and the crease in the woman's wrist haunted me throughout my pregnancies. I ached for that crease in the wrist, that weight of a life being swung overhead.  Before Truman was born, I felt that ache like a wound, especially with a pandemic surrounding us, two previous miscarriages.  I worried I'd only know the ache, never the weight of a child in my arms. After he was born, that ache was replaced, for a time, with joy. But pandemic fears, the hustle and exhaustion of new motherhood, I didn't savor the weight of him in those first months. I was desperate for him to be bigger, stronger, to feel less fragile in what felt like an increasingly dangerous world. 

You're different, my girl. You sleep less soundly than your brother, smile more often, and I do not hope for time to speed up the way I did with him. I am not the same woman I was when your brother was born. I am less scared, more hopeful. These last few months since your birth, I've held you, lifted you above my head, felt your perfect weight against my wrists, and thanked God for the miracle of you and your brother. I have treasured you better than I did your brother at this age, and that has allowed me to cherish you both more fully. 

I still think of that picture, still remember that empty ache as I waited to meet you. The weight of you in my arms has rooted me into my own life in a way nothing ever has.  The disappointments of the world lose a bit of their sting when I balance you on my hip, your tiny fingers gripping my hair. And in those rare, precious moments when you rest on one shoulder and your brother on the other, I know I hold the whole world in my arms. Thank you, Johanna, for the crease in my wrist.