Three

My dearest girl:

I had the best intentions to write this on your actual birthday two days ago, but you'll find out all about best intentions and where they lead - and all too soon... So I'm a little late, but not at all any less blessed, looking over the last three years that you've been with us.

You were born two weeks past your intended due date (probably because you thought combining your birthday with the rest of noisy winter holidays was low on your list of wishes) - and even then you had to be convinced to join us. You're no less spirited now than you were then.

You're a beautiful, sensitive, kind girl. This year, among the things I'm most grateful for, for you, are your health, and the way we can now talk. I can TALK to you. WITH you. I can hear you tell me about your day; or tell me you don't feel good; or, as in that one random incident when I checked in on you in the middle of the night, you can whisper in the dark in your tiny raspy voice: "I love you, Mama."

You have acquired a brother. I'm very thankful for your goodness with Jack. True, you've had to grow through some resentment toward us for all the attention we had to give to Jack - and some that took away from you. But even at three years of age, you're not unreasonable. You're still sweet and gentle with him, and you've let go of the worst of your temper once we figured out that all you needed were a few extra minutes of our time each day, and words of love and praise (forgive us - we tend to be REALLY slow at times, with catching on!).

You're an agile, active spirit - I'm convinced that left to yourself, you'll dine and sleep under the stars outside. Well, maybe not in the middle of this winter - but at any time the weather is warm. I'm so glad we brought in the new playset for you in the back yard - I can't WAIT to see you spend hours playing outside when spring returns.

You've learned to count and to sing your ABC's. You've watched your first long movie (Monsters vs. Aliens) and you can discuss relative merits of both.

I have begun a stash of your artwork - the kind you'll never understand why I kept. That's alright. One day you'll start a stash for your own kids.

You've weathered Jack's time at the hospital, and the huge change his birth and surgery brought into our family. I still remember coming home at various time of day from Le Bonheur, only to be greeted with your tiny, excited 'Mama!!!' - and there you were, twirling around the room, restless to show off anything you've done that day, wanting to share so much, wanting to spend time together. You have no idea how your love helped carry me through.

You've enjoyed your holidays this year... you're learning the perks of everything from Halloween and Christmas to birthday celebrations, and it makes all of them more meaningful, to relive them through your eyes.

You're still growing like a weed - a slender, curly weed. My favorite dandilion. I've loved watching you and Daddy continue to be best buds... trust that if there ever lived a Daddy's Girl, you're it.

Now you're three. I would try to make out all my hopes and dreams for you - but more than anything, I'm fully certain that your growth and progress are under God's control. How safe it is to know that... I do my best to be your Mama, but I have, and I will, fail you. I will be too harsh or too soft - or I won't be there when you need it. I will midjudge you. I will fall short of your expectations. That's a fact. But I am sure of this - with God's guidance, I pray to be the best mother I can - and pray that He is and will be your God to make up for all of my inadequacy.

Keep smiling, Sweet Pea. Happy Birthday.

Picasso days

Allan:
"Drawing with Maya is challenging. I have no creative freedom! Overwhelming artistic direction..."

On the list of unfinished tasks, somewhere there's a mental note to record our experience with Jack at LeBonheur... I'm still so afraid to forget the details, to move on so completely that I leave behind those meaningful three-four weeks...

Winter parenting

I don't know how real 'SAD' is. That's as in Seasonal Affective Disorder, which simply means one reacts very poorly to change in seasons, particularly to short, crummy days of winter. But I know winter makes me plain... sad at times.
I'm sure I have to own up to the fact that I don't make things better by choosing to eat junk and by wallowing in stressed-out thoughts instead of releasing at least some mental tension in the 'Let go and let God' kind of way.
This winter hasn't been terrible. At least I certainly believe last one just about had the best of me, and being then in my first trimester with Jack just made it worse. But this winter has its own twists.
Maybe it's not winter, however. Maybe life with two small children is simply ten times more challenging than with one, no matter what the weather is. My biggest challenge right now is a complete lack of time to, well, complete anything. I fall further and further behind on simple basics like keeping the house clean and paying bills on time, which snowballs into major internal crises. I feel unorganized, overwhelmed.
Not inadequate, however. I know if I had double the amount of hours in a day, and quadruple the amount of energy, I'd do it all and be caught up in no time. But those circumstances aren't going to pass any time soon, so without a way to seriously boost up resources, I grow frustrated at things left undone by necessity.
So I try to prioritize. Kids first. Food, hygiene, laundry, rooms clean (if not uncluttered), sleeping hours observed, noses wiped, doctors' appointments honored. I feel fine about taking care of them. But that by itself consumes most of the time I have outside of work. Plus I always, always wish to spend more time with them - just time playing or talking or hugging it out, not just orbiting them while having to do something else...
Work. Going back has been tough, and not because I don't like what I do, or because I would prefer not to work at all. Complications are in the commute that eats up to three hours a day (if daycare detour is involved) and how intense work was straight out of the gates. Intensity may subside on and off, but travel and getting-ready time doesn't...
Household. Groceries, cooking, keeping at least some areas in acceptable daily shape. Mostly kitchen and living area. Cats' stuff out of necessity because I wouldn't have time to clean up if they rebelled over dirty litter box and went elsewhere. Food because they'd make too much noise over that. I sound like a perfect animal owner, don't I? Don't tell PETA.
Anything that has to do with my own slice of life and things I need to do (hello, green card application!!) - by the wayside. Not in a drama kind of way. It's just a fact. I'm almost used to all of that, totally at the bottom of any totem pole - but the immigration stuff and not having yet done it stirs up the firestorm in me... I'm literally risking my job if this isn't done in a few days. Plus I have to arange for last year's taxes... this year's refund will take care of that, but if IRS doesn't know that, they're quite fond of sneaky maneuvers like wage garnishment - the last thing in the world I would need this winter/spring.
I feel like in a way I'm living out a soft lie... a $100K+ young professional on the surface, with a white-trash situation at the house (our Christmas lights are still on...), not enough well-fitting clothes to last me a week in the office (pregnancy pounds), floor covered in two months' worth of dust and debri, and dining room stuffed to the rafters with unopened bills and mail.
I'm feeling pretty low at the moment. I'm making it - but barely, and only in essentials. I don't have high expectations! But even with low ones, the current state of affairs is very depressing to me.
With Allan sick most of the last month, our marital bliss has been anything but. It's very tense very often, and it's definitely affecting at least Maya, throwing yet another stone into my pond of pessimistic life outlook.
I can feel myself coming up for short breaths amidst all of this, when a certain song on K-LOVE hits the spot, but it doesn't take much for me to sink straight back down - feeling slighted, overlooked, underappreciated, and simply overrun.
I keep writing, hoping toward the end of the post I would have conjured up a solution, would have realized something profound that moves me forward with renewed energy, and none of that is happening. I can't even feel or see God for these trees, not very often.
Jack's total adoration when we do get a couple of minutes together is the one thing that is most powerful to reset this failing mechanism of mine. His total, absolute lack of concern for all my concerns, but in a good, innocent way, restores me while I just look at him and realize the power and miracle of holding him, hearing him.
I really am surprised that my body has not yet failed me in a sudden, traumatic way with what I feel is a supremely weak immune system this winter. Maybe it's simply the fact that if I go down, there's no more recourse, and thus the flesh keeps powering through. Thank God.
I used to feel slightly better by telling, reminding myself that all this is temporary. Felt like knowing that should keep up my hope. But I have not had a good day, in some fairly ordinary definition of 'good', in what feels like a long time. And my resistance is starting to fray at the edges.
So now I'll just keep hoping that all of this is simply ... winter. That with the first warm day, things will miraculously clean themselves, file themselves, pay themselves, pick up themselves, heal themselves... and I'll have an unbroken night of sleep, while I'm at it.
Kiddos - since I started this as a parenting blog - I still love you more than life. I just have a presently strained relationship with just about everyone else.