one of those walks

Tanner’s interview in Kansas City went amazing.  I don’t want to talk about it too much (superstition, you know) but Tanner loved every thing about the place, the campus, the staff, the city.  It feels really good and right and we want to get in sooo so badly.  We should hear back in 2-3 weeks or less.  Stay tuned!

Whenever we go on a walk, on the way to wherever we go, Camryn is focused, directed, speedy.  She can cover 6 blocks or so really quickly, cruising ever onward, stopping every time she hits a street for me to hold her hand and help her cross. It’s painless and lovely.

But on the way home, she is an entirely different creature.  She’s suddenly little miss detective/explorer/curious tortoise/out-to-drive-her-mother-crazy.  She has to stop for absolutely every. single. thing.  She wants to turn back the opposite direction and down any street except for the one that leads home.  She freaks if I try to prevent her from running blindly into the streets (which I do, never fear, every time). I play the roll of patient adoring mother fostering her imaginative, investigative spirit–that is, until I lose it and  just really want to get home because I’m bored or hungry, have something to do, or am just dying to move on towards 5th east since the block from 3rd to 4th has already taken us 34 minutes.  That’s how it goes.

Let me demonstrate with a slideshow taken to entertain myself during one such walk:

First up, the wall.  Can’t pass up a wall, can we?

the bars

the puddle

campaign signs,

pretty leaves.  we must investigate pretty leaves

gravel pits!

another wall

checking out the pumpkins. . .

and all other unidentified objects. . .

she likes to check out strangers porches and sit on their furniture if I don’t stop her

the all important snack break

and the part where she throws a tantrum if leaves are stuck to the bottom of her shoe

When it starts to feel like the walk that never ends, and I’ve given up using reason and persuasion to get her to walk the direction I need at a reasonable pace, I typically throw her over my shoulder kicking and screaming and commence the walk of shame for the remaining blocks home.  It’s a broken system, but we’re working on it.

love that baby

Having a sick baby is no fun, but the adorable tiny raspy voice and a willingness to cuddle are definitely silver linings.  Camryn is not a cuddler and I haven’t rocked her to sleep in ages, but tonight I did.  Tonight she was all sorts of falling apart.  She cried floods of gigantic sick-baby tears and everything I offered her was answered with nothing short of utter devastation.  And so we cuddled in the chair, read an entire 6-book Curious George anthology, and I rocked my baby to sleep.  Make that my toddler.  I watched her sleep, such a rare occurrence, and I thought about a conversation I’d had with a friend at the park.

My friend had two–a toddler and a nearly newborn.  She expressed with honestly her struggles with the toddler–hitting and pushing other kids, yelling at other kids, shattering bottles of nail polish on Walmart floors–the works.  She gazed at her new baby adoringly and said “please can you never grow up to be 2!”  Obviously, she loves both of her children, but she said that right now, her newborn was just easier to love.

It made me remember the first days, weeks, and months of motherhood.  There were many many moments of complete adoration. Moments of staring at my baby with total amazement and awe that I had created this human being.  Of just swelling with pride and joy–her eyes are perfect, her nose is perfect, her hands are so tiny! She’s amazing!  She’s mine!  I have the incredible blessing and privilege of caring for this little girl every day.  I felt so lucky, so happy, so amazed.

I still feel that way about her, but there’s no doubt things are different.  Toddlerhood–it’s tough.  She pushes my buttons and patience to the max every day, and with her on the move I’m more inclined to be annoyed that I can’t get things done, less inclined to sit around loving her.  But I want to make sure and take the time to just watch her sleep or play or laugh.  I want to be amazed by how beautiful her smile is and all of the sweet things she does. To sit still and stare while my heart fills all the way up and spills over.

And there she is crying again. . . I think it’s going to be a long night.  Such is motherhood.

7 quick takes

I’m linking up with Jen for 7 quick takes

1.  TANNER HAS THE ENTIRE WEEKEND OFF.  As in, when his chemistry lab ends at 3:00 today, he doesn’t have one single class or hour of work until 9:30 Monday morning!!  That probably hasn’t happened since the weekend we went on our honeymoon and probably won’t happen again until we celebrate, oh, our 10th anniversary?  So we better have us one heck of a good weekend is all I can say!

2.  We’re going rock climbing this afternoon 🙂  Like, real outdoor rock climbing with friends who have equipment and know what they’re doing.  We picked today because obviously, freezing and rainy is ideal outdoor rock climbing weather.  And the ironic part is that this is a raincheck from last Friday when it was also freezing and rainy.  So all of those glorious sunny fall days in between and after last Friday and this Friday can just go jump in a lake because this is the only day we can go, ok?

3.  Does anyone else’s husband have a shameless crush on Katie Perry?

4.  I went to yoga last night for the first time in way too long and it was awwwwweeesome.  So far in my life experience, there is nothing a little yoga can’t fix.  It was a free class (free yoga?  yes please.  Provoites, just ask and I’ll tell you where to find free yoga twice a week this month)  and at the end she did this awesome thing during shavasana where she had some strongly scented something on her hands, gave me a slight massage and and moved all my limbs and oh.  oh my.  practically put me into a coma.  I will be going back to that yoga class.

5.  After yoga, I picked up Camryn at Ryan and Kelsey’s place.  Two things to say about that.  1) Camryn had all of her fingernails and toenails painted for the first time in her life because Aunt Kelsey is way more fun than mom.  2)  Their apartment complex has BATS.  As I walked up to their 3rd floor apartment I was trying to figure out what the weird sound was and told them “uh, I think there are birds nesting in the roof over there.”  They informed me that no,  they weren’t birds, they were bats.  And after living in oh so many 100 year old apartments in Provo, I thought I’d seen everything in the book, but this was new.  They laughed as they told me about another tenant who had knocked on their door petitioning them to please send in a maintenance request about the bats because she’s already sent 7, they’d been ignored, and she was trying to gain strength in numbers.  She had a list of all the reasons why this was really important and why bats are dangerous, their toxic poop, etc.  And all I can say is that if I was living in that complex too, I would be that girl.

6.  I’m having a fall sale in my etsy shop! 20% off all notebooks this week.  You should probably go check it out because I’m pretty certain you need a notebook.

 

7.  My toddler is on a tantrum rampage.  It’s the worst.  Instances for tantrum include but are not (even close to) limited to:

• When it’s time to leave the park
• When it’s time to leave the library
• When I dress her
• When I undress her
• Everytime I open the fridge and wont let her inside
• when I won’t let her drink the toothpaste
• When I won’t let her knock on strangers doors or go into their backyards
• When I change her diaper
• When I put anything on her high chair try that isn’t one of her 8 foods that she’ll eat
• When dad leaves for class/work
• When any other baby or toddler touches any of her toys
• When any other baby or toddler sits in her high chair
• When mom shows any kind of love and affection towards any other baby or toddler (we’re looking forward to her first sibling, let me tell you!)
• The grocery store
• Church
• when I cook

I’ll stop now.  but I could keep going.

Here are a couple cute pictures of her mostly to remind myself that sometimes she isn’t screaming.

 

This is her and her friend Lily helping me clean the floor

 

And her and her friend Mac chatting on the phone.

 

happy Friday!

Summer vacation 2013

Here is a slideshow of our August Southern California vacation in all of its photo-dump glory.  I usually love taking pictures and think I’m halfway decent at making sure I get good, balanced, aesthetically pleasing documentation of our trips, but for some reason that didn’t happen here at all.  Sorry if you spent 3 or 6 solid days with us and didn’t even make the photo dump once.   It doesn’t mean we didn’t love and appreciate your prescence! My toddler doesn’t ever let me do what I want might have had something to do with it.

First on our calendar of events was the wedding of my littler brother Ryan and his wife Kelsey in the beautiful Redlands CA temple

And this is our perfectly behaved daughter having a not-at-all-melodramatic meltdown on the grounds of said temple.

What we didn’t know is that this was the first in a series that resulted from a 2-day nap strike that was delightful for all parties involved, I assure you.  I was terrified that this is what I had to look forward to for the entire 10 days we were to be in California, but thankfully she wised up and started taking her naps.

I neglected to get a single picture of just the bride and groom.  oops.  

this is their beautiful garden reception at Kelsey’s parents house.  It’s laughable how little justice I managed to do it with my camera.  A shame really.  

Newport beach with my family

that’s my mom.  and she’s smiling!  not that she never smiles, because she does, except that for the entirety of my existence, anytime I’ve pointed a camera at her she’s given me a raised eyebrow “I hate it when you take my picture” look.  But sometime in recent months she must have realized her smile is much more attractive than that face and maybe she’d like her posterity to remember her this way instead.  good job mom!

This is how the Bramhalls do vacation:

We got to meet Owen!  Alison and Zach’s baby that they adopted in April.  he’s CUTE.

After staying with my family for a few days, we drove about 15 minutes to where Tanner’s family was staying for the next 6 days (which was hugely, awesomely convenient timing/location and I can’t believe it worked out that well)

With them we spent 2 days in Disneyland and 1 day at California Adventure

Who’s happier to be here, Camryn or her dad?

ya know that iconic picture of the kid konked out their stroller after a long day at Disneyland?  this is Camryn at 9 in the morning after a grand total of 2 rides: Peter pan and the teacups.  I guess it was all just a little overwhelming.

We realized after about oh, 1/3 of the first line that Camryn was at just the age to have a REALLY hard time waiting in line for 3 days.  Pretzels and goldfish only got us so far (and girlfriend ate a LOT of pretzels and goldfish on this trip)  so for days 2 and 3. . . we got a toddler leash.  Judge away, but that thing was a life-saver.  And really cute if you ask me.

in line for Toy Story with grammy (Tanner’s mom)

and the whole gang

Waiting for the World of Color show to start which was AWESOME.  Of all of the times I’ve been to these amusement parks, I can’t really ever remember going to many shows (just riding as many rollercoasters as many times as possible.  that’s how we do) , but this time around they were my favorite part.  There was a little “princess theatre” we took camryn to that does plays of different disney movies,  we went to Aladdin at a big theatre,  the fantasma (fantasmic?) show, the world of color, and they were all awesome.   And they helped break things up so you weren’t always in line or on a ride–which, you know, isn’t bad, but if you have more than one day there, it was a really fun change of pace

i also don’t think i’ve ever been to toon town.  we definitely  skipped that on our college roadtrip disneyland excursions

A lot of the time, Tanner’s parents would take everyone’s tickets and go get fast passes for the good rides.  I think there were 17 of us, half of which were too short/young for the rides we had fast passes for,  and then some of tanner’s siblings don’t like some of the bigger rollercoasters or get sick, so sometimes we got to ride 2 or 3 times in a row with fast passes.  it was awesome!  thanks mark at jana!

our nieces went to the “bibbidy bobbidy boutique” and got the beauty shop treatment from the fairy godmother hairdressers.  so cute.

we had some great pool days

Somewhere in there I also got to go out to breakfast with Corrie, hang out at the beach with Lyndi, and spend an entire day on Huntington Beach which somehow didn’t get a single photo.

and since I love to end things on a negative note, then there was the drive home and that middle of the desert gridlock traffic catastrophe that made me question my willingness to ever drive that far again with children

The end.

Can i go on vacation again please?

be careful

When I was about 10 years old, I hiked Angel’s Landing for the first time with my dad and brother Andrew (2 years older than me).  If you’re not familiar with this hike in Zions National Park, there is quite a ways where you are hiking on a path as narrow as a few feet wide with sheer drop off cliffs on either side.  There are chains provided for you to hold on to, and things can get sketchy, especially if there are lots of people. Tragically, from time to time, someone falls to their death while hiking Angels Landing.  The first time I did this hike, I remember my dad sitting my brother and I down right before we reached the dangerous section and telling us a story about when he was a young kid on a scouting trip.  Their group was on a hike to some waterfalls, and one of the scouts in their group fell down one of the waterfalls and died.  He told us this not to scare us out of our wits, but to make us understand that we needed to be so careful.  Terrible accidents really do happen, even if you think they will never happen to you.

So why am I telling you this story?  Because I almost watched a little girl fall to her death on Saturday while hiking the Y.  And it was scary.

I woke up Saturday morning without any plans and Tanner was working at the hospital until 3.  I decided to break my no exercise streak and take Camryn for a short hike up to the Y.

This is the only picture I got, I kind of forgot about my camera.

That hike is short but it is steep and hiking it alone is a whole different story than hiking it with 25 pounds of toddler on my back.  I kept thinking “man, I’m out of shape”  and then I’d remember, “No.  Wait, I’m not out of shape.  I’m actually in the best shape of my entire life.  I biked 160 miles 2 weeks ago, why is this killing me?”  You’d be (and I continually am) so surprised how little biking “in shape” translates to other things.  A month ago I ran about 3 miles (while we were on vacation without our bikes) and was sore for almost a week–longer and more sore than I was after even the day of Lotoja.

Anyway, I made it to the Y and there were tons of people there, it being a beautiful September Saturday morning.  The Y painted on the mountain is a steep concrete slab 380 feet high (I googled it)  and Camryn and I were at about the midpoint, standing not on the Y (where a lot of people were sitting), but off to the side, where Camryn was throwing rocks (her #1 favorite pastime)  I’m not really sure why I was looking up the Y, but there was a big group at the very top and this girl about 10 years old started walking away from it straight down the Y.  Her walking quickly turned into running.  She was gaining momentum fast and obviously unable to stop herself.  I could tell she was going to crash into the back of someone and tried to yell to warn them, but she hit them anyway and tumbled.  There were a few people about 5 feet down from there (right about the midpoint where I was) and then no one and nothing but concrete for 200 more very steep feet.  She was going so fast that I was sure I was about to watch her tumble all the way down that Y and I was too far away to do anything about it.  I screamed and she landed on her head hard and right about then a man grabbed her and was able to stop her.  She had a cut on her head that was bleeding pretty bad and some scrapped up legs, but she was okay.  Thank Heavens!  I was so confused as I watched her dad slowly (seriously, zero urgency!) walk down to where she was.  I’m sure he hadn’t seen what I saw because that girl honestly could have died if she hadn’t been caught.  With how fast she was falling and so far to go with nothing to slow her down, she’d have. . . . well.  It gets gory in my head.  I’ll stop there.

The dad carried her piggyback back down the mountain, certainly on their way to an emergency room.  There was a doctor there (an eye doctor, but still, they know things) who said she’d probably need some staples in her head and she was screaming “I don’t want to get staples again!”

I was really shaken up and I’m fairly certain it has something to do with my motherhood status.  I’m not a particularly emotional person, but when you are a mother, the thought of any mother losing a child just hits something in your heart.  It awakens your absolute worst fears, starts your imagination rolling, and taps into a reservoir of grief that you hope will never be your cross to bear.  It’s in the voice of every mother yelling “be careful!”

As I walked down the mountain, my mind flashed forward to the many years I hope to take my many children hiking, camping, biking, skiing.  It’s one of the things I look forward to most about motherhood:  teaching my children to love, appreciate, and experience the outdoors.  But I pray to God that I will never lose a child in such an accident.  I’m sure I will get many a grey hair watching my children navigate mountains and warning “BE CAREFUL!”

That Girl puts Stuff in the Wrong Places

Alternate titles:  My Little Hoarder Baby,  Is This Normal?

Camryn has developed quite the. . . pastime.

She’ll choose a hoarding location in our apartment and walk around the whole place collecting anything and everything she can find, and gather it all in her “place”.  When she first started doing this, her location of choice was the garbage can, which was obviously problematic, and I have no idea how many items we threw away before I found my makeup bag and one of her sandals in there and realized it was time to move the garbage can out of her reach.

Sometimes it’s the middle of the bathroom floor, sometimes the gap behind the couch, once it was the tupperware cupboard (took me SO long to find my keys there)  the laundry basket (I couldn’t figure out where all the forks went).  Toys, books, socks, shoes, utensils, headphones, remote controls, keys, jewelry, clothes.  These piles can get pretty big depending on how messy our place is.  She works so purposefully, with a deep concentration, babbling to herself seriously as she goes like this is all very important business.

Last week I went to a bridal shower and was letting Camryn walk around the small apartment.  As we sat for presents, I noticed Camryn take a shoe from in front of the door and walk off with it.  I followed her and watched her open the cupboard under the kitchen sink, stash the shoe there, and close the cupboard.  So then I opened it back up and found the shoe’s match, another full pair, my necklace, my car keys, her sippy cup, the half peanut butter sandwich that I thought she’d eaten, and a Curious George book from out of the diaper bag.

The title of this post comes from the 5 year old neighbor boy who heard me telling his mom about this, and the next time he saw us he pointed to Camryn and yelled “Mom!  That girl puts stuff in the wrong places!”

Yes.  Yes, that girl does.

     

Dear Husband

how is work this fine evening?  I wish for the restaurant to be full of people without children, foreigners who understand that we tip in this country, old ladies with no interest in chatting at their table for hours after their meals are gone, and just easy, well-mannered, couponless customers in general.  But who are we kidding? it’s a Tuesday so. . . godspeed.

Oh wait!  duh, Tuesday nights you’re at the hospital now so . . . I hope none of your customers die?  Hmm, not as easy to make fun of that job.

The big news of the night is that I was just sitting in the kitchen minding my own business when I heard a loud rush of air which just happened to be all of the air quickly and loudly rushing out of my back bike tire for no reason at all.  So it’s official–I’m cursed!!  I don’t even have to ride my bike in order to get flats.

Camryn used her serving of yogurt at dinner as–lotion.  It was fun. I took her to 7 peaks and decided that we really need to replace the floaties I lost, because she would rather drown than let me hold her hand in the kiddie pool.  Maybe all the swimming genes on my dad sides will reemerge after a generational skip (me) and she’ll be a swimmer?  Oh—and I googled it.  That girl who said her 18 month old knows 100 words is either lying or has a nerd baby. Camryn’s 6 is just slightly below the 12 they say she should know by 18 months, thank you very much.

I know you’re really disappointed that you’re missing an evening of watching 2 hours of So You Think You Can Dance with me, but I guess you’ll have to get over it.  I’m watching it with Camryn instead who dances through every song, claps at the right times and is just all around adorable about the whole thing.  Except for when she gets ahold of the remote and pushes all the wrong buttons at crucial moments in the show.

I’m off to investigate my rouge tire (it’s gotta get me around the Alpine Loop tomorrow!), and bind a couple of books over So You Think You Can Dance.  Let’s have you be a kind of doctor that doesn’t work nights, ok?  ok.

I love you!  I miss you.  And the house is clean because I am awesome.  See you later, love.

ain’t nobody happy

Morale is low at the Staples place.  Well, I guess technically speaking, since Tanner isn’t actually at the Staples place, and Camryn is asleep with positively no morale issues whatsoever, I’m the only one here with low morale.  But gosh dang it if I don’t have enough of it to fill up all the rooms, so it feels like I can speak for the whole place.  Don’t you worry, it’s a temporary sort of low morale, but it sure has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week over here.

Tanner is working his first ever “on-call” shift at the hospital tonight.  It’s a 7 p.m.-7 a.m. shift and the optimistic part of my brain hoped that he wouldn’t get called in at all but, at 6:55 as we made our way out of the canyon coming from a father’s day picnic with my family and regained cell phone service . . . ring ring, “come to work” and *pop* there goes my bubble bursting along with any hopes of quality husband time, a relaxing brass band in the park or the post-picnic steak dinner I was going to cook that happened to be the only thing I managed to plan for father’s day.  (I didn’t even manage a card, but if I had, it would have said something like “the house is clean and your daughter is alive, sorry that’s the best I could do, happy father’s day!”)  I heard a med-school-wife rumor that “on-call” was just a euphemism for “really terrible & long shift that you will be called in to work almost without exception” and I’m going to continue to really hope that’s not true even if it’s unhealthy to harbor irrational hopes.   I’m not the one who should be complaining though because I’m not the one who has to be working even though I’m exhausted, was kept up all night by my wife hacking her lungs up, and didn’t even get my father’s day nap or steak.

This week has just been the perfect(ly awful) storm of Tanner working really long hours and me being sick.  (and severe flat-tire blues, but I’ll rant about that later) If you don’t know me at all, I’M A HUGE BABY ABOUT BEING SICK.  And what do you do when it’s 6 a.m., the baby is crying and ready to be up for the day, the husband just worked a 14 hour day and has another 12 hour one coming, but the wife has been coughing all night, feels suuuuper lousy and needs her sleep to recover?  whose turn is it?  It’s kind of a lose-lose because either I do it, or I feel guilty the whole time that Tanner is doing it.  (my little sister said tonight in her best sarcastic voice that we make parenting look really appealing)

Here are some good things though since this post is turning out to be a real downer and I keep being reminded that people have much bigger problems going on aaaand I once read that self pity is the most unattractive of all traits and that sounds like it’s probably true.  1) 3 different people made me dinner this week because I know some awesome ladies.   2) I had this epically awesome realization around 11:30 last night that I am no longer pregnant or nursing and therefore I CAN TAKE NYQUIL!!!  there was much rejoicing and choruses of angels because people, I haven’t popped so much as an aspirin for the past 9+14+3 months (pregnancy+nursing+time since I stopped nursing).  I know there are some medications you can take, but I never know which ones (& they’re not the good ones) and I usually steer clear of medication anyway if I can help it.  So it didn’t even once cross my mind until day 4 of my cold that medicine exists and sometimes sick people take it to feel better.  And nyquil is my best friend!   (apparently though it worked only well enough to keep me unconscious but not well enough to keep me from coughing all night)

Completely unrelated:  here is a super classy photo of my baby.   I’ll be in a better mood next post, promise.

The end.

7 quick takes

Linking up with Jen at conversion diary for 7 quick takes

1.  I can’t stop eating.  Biking this much has proven to leave me more ferociously hungry than either gestation or lactation (I almost said combined, but let’s not get carried away–I was one starving pregnant lady)  We may need to double the grocery budget for the next few months.

2.  We had a positively lovely family picnic in the park today, which proved to be the boost I needed between Nap Avoidance Battle Royale #1 (morning nap) and Nap Avoidance Battle Royale #2 (afternoon nap) It took quite a concerted effort to convince Tanner that our picnic would be more fun outside than just eating in Subway because in his words “it’s a trillion degrees out here”  (the high today was 75) but I guess that’s just part of being Mrs. Staples.  We always set up our blanket half in the shade, half in the sun so that I can enjoy it, and so he doesn’t die of heatstroke/complain the whole time that he’s dying of heat stroke.  It’s a nice compromise.

3.  pictures of the picnic  

that’s ice in her lap

I’m not in any of the pictures because I’ve fallen into the role of mom who is always the one taking the pictures so is never in any of the pictures unless she hands dad the camera and says “here, take my picture”  meaning even when she IS in the pictures, it’s always awkward and overly posed. That role.  

4.  The mountains in Provo are really green and out of control beautiful these days and there is a long sappy romantic love letter in the works from me to Mount Timpanogos, so you can look forward to that.   Here’s a photo that doesn’t do those green mountains any kind of justice:

5.  Tanner got a job as an orderly in the hospital!  Which is awesome and really hard to get since there are (it feels like) fleets and verifiable armies of ambitious medical student wannabies (wannabe’s?  wannabe plural?) in this city vying for such positions so they can brag about them on their med school applications.  It’s part time 24 hrs/wk, so he’ll still work at Outback a couple nights a week, but this is good news!

6.  When he got home from work late last night, Tanner heard a too-long perfectly fascinating story from me about how we went to the park and ran into Stephanie who was watching Mandy’s kid and we had to hurry and leave when Kara called me, and in our hurry we lost a little sandle and couldn’t find the sandle anywhere, but it’s because Stephanie found it and left it at Mandy’s house for us. . . .blah blah blah and then I got hear an equally long and just as fascinating explanation from Tanner about server hierarchy and section rotations in a restaurant.  And the point of this whole take is me wondering have we really gotten this boring this young?

7.  Tomorrow (which is almost today)  I’m part of a giveaway on Camppatton and I’m pretty excited about it. Please go enter!  and thanks for supporting my shop! (even if you never purchase anything, just telling me hey dana, your books are cool is greatly appreciated support, so thanks for those of you that do :))

happy happy friday.  May your Saturday include sleeping in and more leisure than mine probably will! (read: toddler+LOTOJA training=exhaustion)

motherhood

This post has been marinating for a while.  I’ve let it sit and sit and whenever I’m feeling frustrated I’ll add to it or change something–maybe that’s why it’s so disjointed.   Camryn has been an absolute sweetheart lately and these hard days are much fewer and farther between, but today I got a little piece of it again and thought it’s probably time to post this.  I kind of don’t want to because it’s such a downer (warning!)  but I think it’s worth it just in case it strikes a chord with someone and makes you feel a little bit like someone else is in your boat.

Sometimes it feels like we’re on opposing teams.  Like my child’s sole objective and purpose for living is to thwart, delay, and frustrate each and every single item on my life’s agenda–from showering, eating and brushing my teeth, to writing, shopping, and exercising –even when most of the agenda items on my list are acts of service for her.  It’s a give, give, give relationship, and sometimes it seems so unfair.  Like when I spend hours meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking healthy meals and being creative about what I feed her, and then she throws the food on the floor and rubs it in her hair.    Like when she flails, twists, and flings herself over the edge of the changing table as I attempt to change her diaper,  stands up while I try to put on her shoes, just plain freaks out while I brush her teeth.

It’s like she’s constantly thinking, “what can I do to make what mom is trying to do harder?” it’s demoralizing and defeating and even though my intellect knows this isn’t the case, sometimes it feels intentional.  Mean-spirited, even.  As if the sound of mom relaxed and enjoying herself is audible and irritating to her and she feels the need to search out the relaxer and make all relaxing cease immediately.

When she refuses to sleep or let me get something done, it’s so frustrating.  It’s like I’ve given her everything from my first waking moment and her nap refusal is her saying that’s not good enough.  It doesn’t matter that I’ve given up my body, my time, my talents and attention, my schooling and career aspirations–everything has been sacrificed for her, and sometimes all of that isn’t enough and she demands more.  She demands all of me when I have nothing left–even the 90 measly minutes of “me” time I have been looking forward to, leaving me, for the day, feeling bereft of the last bits of my sense of self.  It feels like something I deserve has been denied me.  It feels like I’ve been doing everything to fulfill her every need, but then the one little thing I need, whatever it may be that day, doesn’t matter.  It’s so hard when it feels like what I need is so little to ask but I still can’t have it.  Like I can wake up in the morning with only one measly item on my to-do list that should take 1 or 2 hours and I still can’t even get that thing accomplished.  

Motherhood is sometimes selflesslessly, lovingly serving yourself into exhaustion and then having your offering thrown in your face and stomped on.    It’s constantly forgiving when no apology has been offered.

Sometimes I want to throw my own tantrum.  Just throw my hands and say “I cannot be this selfless.  I can’t!”  I rarely feel this way, but it’s little parts of every day.  Or one big part of a bad day.  I know that so many have it harder–more kids, babies that are harder than mine, sleep less than mine, demand more than mine.  But I do feel this way.  And it’s worth it, obviously, one thousand times over no doubt about it, but that doesn’t change that this mothering thing?  it’s hard.