Honeybees, Communion and Ponderings.

This is strange new territory we are in right now.    Familiar and yet, kind of like returning to your college campus, things are not quite the same and your vague recollections will get you to the right area but not quite the right location.    "Didn't we used to do...?",  "Wasn't there something that worked...?"  These half thoughts and ponderings fill our days now.  "What did we do with the first two?",   "Is this normal?  I don't remember so much (sleeping, pooping, crying, etc.)"   We thought it would be easier this time around because we were experienced, but what we've learned is that in three years the IOS (infant operating system) has had an upgrade and our memory banks have become slightly inadequate to the task. 

This is how I started a blog entry about four months ago.  You may notice you have not seen it before.  True.  You got me there.  I started it and it took me three days to write that paragraph between trying to balance the start of first grade for Miss Six, adjustment issues for Little Middle and can we just talk for a second about cluster feedings?  

Things began to level out and feel like familiar territory right around week ten which is ironically when I returned to work.  Suddenly we were right back in the land of chaos and unhappily so on my part.  I was beating myself up daily for the ways in which I was not up to the task:  forgotten lunches,  barely brushed hair, "good enough" clothing matches, forgetting about meetings, missing a form, forgetting my name, resenting my spouse who continued to just roll with his schedule uninterrupted on a work day.

We are blessed to have a home childcare provider who loves our children as her own and this made the return to work as easy as it would ever be, but I still drove away the first morning in tears.   And let's be honest it's really hard to be a nursing mom at work.  While no one will tell you that you can't take a break to pump, in my case, there isn't a guaranteed space throughout the day and the job pace doesn't really include breaks at the right times, and how many times do I want to bring my boobs into conversation, even if indirectly, by asking others to leave my "designated" space for ten minutes or apologizing for being late because I was pumping in a closet with my back against the door that doesn't lock?  The guilt over wanting to be a nursing mom and then the guilt over feeling it would just be easier to hand over formula in the morning and not have to sit exposed several times a day at work.  The guilt.  The great big, bone-crushing, soul-sucking guilt.

And then there comes the introduction of growth into the equation.  We are doing one of many of our push-pull dances with Miss Six.  Her darling little mouth has taken on a sassiness that stops me in my tracks.  She exhibits weird, graceless "rock star", (her words), poses that involve shaking of a booty she doesn't have.  I have recently had a conversation that included the following "Unless you are a honey bee, we don't communicate in this house by butt waggling."    And trying to help her find boundaries.  Yes, we can have fun and giggle about bathroom humor in the house, but no, you may not take it to school and share it with your teacher.   Yes, I will check your backpack every morning from now on because you have hoarding tendencies and I do not want a repeat of day two of school.  (For those of you who are curious, Miss Six took a collection of tampons in a tin box into school and asked her teacher of two days what they were.  UGH....No, I didn't skip parent conferences, but yes, I wanted to!)

And my house.  There are interventions for people who are not yet at my stage of disorganization.  Mine probably involves a torch and a rebuilding plan.  My living room can hold twenty six-year-olds based on past experience.  Right now, it just looks like they all came home from boarding school and got naked.  Laundry as far as the eye can see...Always.  Never-ending uphill climbing, nailing of Jello to a tree, cat herding.  And if by some grace of divinity I get it to the upstairs, one of the Bigs will need the pair of undies at the bottom and suddenly it will all be on the floor indistinguishable from the clothes that were on the floor needing to come down to be washed again.

 And into this mix, I decide that it's time to reintroduce church to my children.  The first attempt was on Communion Sunday.  In our previous church, children were downstairs in the children's room.  This was Miss Six's first experience.  As the bread was passed, she had many questions about the little cubes and why could she only have one piece and was it really made of His body?...  When the passing of "wine" came around, I expected her to react more strongly to the idea of his blood...Not a peep.  Thinking myself in the clear, I took a deep breath and as the congregation sat in silence she faux-whispered "That wasn't a very good snack!"  We have some work ahead of us .

 So, in the event that it is another four months before I get a chance to post again.  Have a fabulous holiday season, winter season, and early 2014.

 Much love and  exhaustion,

Mama