Dear me… 4 ish years ago

There are things I wish I could go back in time and tell younger me. “Kate… bitcoin. You have no idea what it is, how on earth it works, or even where it works, but somehow, some way, grab ahold of some nerd and make him/her teach you how to acquire it.” or “Kate.. in 2 years, you’ll want bangs. The hairdresser will advise against it. Listen to her. She’s smart.” y’know, normal stuff. When I was about to have Pickle, I was working at the church, a furbaby mama and a wife that thought our lives were “busy” (hahahahahhhhaaaahhahahahaha….) I remember sitting at my desk, daydreaming about our baby and wishing I could fast-forward past labor and have her in my arms. I remember being TERRIFIED of the unknowns of having a baby. Positive that I would be the one woman on the planet who somehow was unable to deliver a baby and she would just live in my womb until her thirties and then I would have the wisdom and strength to push her out (somehow in the mental psychoticness she was still an adorable little squishy newborn… not a gross slimy Will Ferrell sized grown-up). Like every other woman pregnant with my first baby, I had been on the receiving end of way too many horror stories of what was waiting for me at KGH. Drugs m’friends. Sweet sweet drugs. They were the answer and everything was golden. This is totally unrelated, but I still smirk to myself when I think about the midwife asking me what my “birth plan” was, and I responded “I plan to wing it… and drugs… I plan to have all the drugs” she than proceeded to describe natural pain-relief methods, to which I put said “tut tut tut… don’t need to know… drugs” (sidenote… I quickly realized midwifery care wasn’t a good fit for me and switched 🙂 not saying they are not fantastic at what they do). Anywho. If I could go back to that bright-eyed and rested Kate I would say a thing or two.

Dear me… 4(ish) years ago,

First of all. Be patient with the people trying to give advice and help. I know that you will think that you are the baby expert, and you would be right, you will be, the expert of your baby, because your baby needs you, just as you are. Other moms can’t help it though. Once you are a mom, you speak mom and talk mom and think mom. You are a walking momcylopedia. It’s just what happens. Your world use to revolve around yourself, now it revolves around your baby, and that’s okay, you are supposed to be enamored with that preciousness.

There is no such thing as “normal”. Pregnancy, delivery, parenting… the word “normal” is so vague. It’s so different for everyone, there are so many factors that are going to determine the choices that you make for you and your family and to compare yourself to a book or to someone else is going to feel like you don’t measure up, or you’ll judge people around you and think your way is the only way.

You will be a wonderful mom. Sure, you’ll make mistakes along the way. Somehow, even now, mom of three children ages three and under… I leave the house without a change of clothes for said children and FORGET BUM WIPES!?? What the heck is wrong with me??? Oh right… I HAVE THREE BABIES THREE AND UNDER! I’ll be honest, there are days I’m baking cookies while painting a dresser and singing Moana to my children’s delighted ears. There are other days where I don’t wear a bra from sun up to sun down and I bark orders at everyone like Chef Ramsay – s’all good. When I was about to leave the hospital with Pickle, I just starred with at the nurse with a dear in the headlights look as she checked our carseat, I then proceeded to ask where the screening room was… “S’cuse me… could you point me to the room where they interview me and make sure I’m a fit parent? Also, where can I sign up for the “how to Mom” class and when do I get my license in Newborning?”  – there’s no training program… trust your gut and roll with it. You will be a wonderful mom. An epic mom. The best dang mom that that little baby have ever seen. You’ll be their hero, and enjoy it. Wear your mom cape and stretchy pants with pride, these days go by faster than fast. That Pickle is in school BOGGLES MY MIND. I’m trying to figure out what the crap just happened and realizing everyone was right… you blink.

Finally I would say, don’t try to get back to feeling like yourself again. You won’t. You will.. but you won’t. I remember obsessing over getting back into my pre-pregnant jeans. I would work out. Watch what I eat. Jump on the scale religiously and then stare in the mirror at my stretched out belly and my straggly frizzy hair and think “what has happened to me”- give yourself some grace, a friend said to me “9 months in and 9 months off” as in give yourself as much time to recover as you did to make a baby! Relax and enjoy your newborn, your body will go back-ish to the way it was, but don’t focus on that, focus on enjoying the moments and know that your post-baby body is beautiful, it bears the marks of a journey you’ve been on to not only make and deliver a baby, but also you’ve been transformed from the inside out, you’ll never feel like your pre-baby self again because you are a mom now, your whole worldview has changed and you can’t undo that – you love another human in a way you didn’t know possible and you feel the whole range of emotions in those 8 short weeks post-baby like nothing else. Embrace the season you are in and don’t fight to get back to who you were and the way you looked. You’re perfect(ish).

Be blessed.

Love,

Kate

What the crap just happened?!?

Today shall go down as “the day that must not be named”.. the day that I will forever think of and do one of my deer in the headlights – ‘don’t even… don’t you even…’ looks if people try to talk about it.. it. was. just. THEE. WORST!

Picture this.. you wake up… to the sound of your playful cooing 8 – month old at 6:55 A.M. the same cooing infant who also woke up at 12AM, 3AM and OH yes people… 5AM… that, sweet darling child. You try your best to snuggle her back to sleep, but she’s ready to party and is now attempting to wake up the other two sleeping sweetiecakes with vocal warm-ups. At this point I pulled my frazzled face off the stack of pillows in our nursery, that we have yet to set up. She’s 8 months old and we still haven’t gotten a chance to put away the double guest bed and set up her crib (which I’ve lost every bolt for..) third baby problems people.. Anyways. I pick my half-asleep self up off the half-made bed which oddly has a pile of broken fishy crackers at the bottom of it (don’t ask. I honestly am just as puzzled by this oddity as you are.) and tell myself if I can just make it to the cold leftover coffee in the frenchpress from when my husband got up at 5… I will be okay.. I also know if I stay in bed longer that all 3 of them will wake up and I won’t get an ounce of caffeine into my sleep-deprived body until I miraculous unearth the mystery of what each, very individualistic and particular child’s whims of the day are. I will be like a little mom-slave, trapped in some psychotic Goldie Locks prison… “It’s too hot MOMMY… it’s too COLD… I want the pink spoon! I want NOOOOOOODLES!” anyway… the flash of that scene playing in my bed and the coos of the sweet youngest snickerdoodle, helped me to drag my sorry butt out of bed.

Down to the kitchen to get my blessed coffee… I open the fridge…

No milk.

No coffee cream.

the sound of all of my dreams being dashed to the floor like food that I realize is still having some kind of after party… from the night before, all up in my kitchen.

The realization that our kitchen sink is not hooked up hits me like a wave. It’s too much. I pour the bit of coffee I can. Attempt to put down the sweet little petunia, realize she’s basically glued herself to my side and chug my coffee cowboy style. I’m not gonna let an empty fridge and 2 sinks now being out of commission (again.. don’t ask.) get me down… I’m a mom! I begin cleaning, make plans to go for a walk with a friend and get my bearings.

Get the girls up… get them dress… alls pretty smooth.. go for a walk… go to the grocery store, alls good… come home… alls good… make lunch… not too bad, they eat like 3 french fries and start throwing the rest on the floor. I can deal…

Attempt naptime…

THERMO-NUCLEAR MELTDOWN commences.

Now… up until recently, I was able to get my middlest and littlest to nap. The oldest.. she gave up napping right before or after 2.. can’t really remember. Then a few weeks happened that my oldest and littlest would skip nap and grin at me the whole time like they’d mastermind it together.. this week the two oldest are… you guessed it… giving naptime the ol’ stanky boot. I was doing pretty okay, they were clawing at each other, trying to bite chunks out of one another… I was managing it.. then.. my youngest woke up. Things got a bit crazier and I built the girls a fort in an attempt to contain some of the over-tiredness that was beginning to take over… in the middle of all this, my cellphone died… When I finally got the stupid charger to work, it was around 5 and I figured I would get a message from Mr. Burley saying he was catching his bus home.. instead I had a voicemail from him..

working. until. 9.

At this point, my little mom heart collapsed in on itself like a dying star. My dreams of him installing the kitchen sink and me doing dishes, went down the drain. I don’t know what it is. The construction life. It gets to you. It rained today and I had this little glimmer of hope, maybe my husband will come home early!? Maybe we can get our sink fixed!! Maybe I can do dishes!!? Instead, the worst nightmare of almost any tradesmans wife/stay at home mom… working late. It’s like you have just enough patience and grace for that moment when daddy gets through the door and you have 5 blessed moments without refereeing a fight or trying to figure out what on earth is in the babies mouth.. when you run into overtime though, you just start making crazy calls. It was in the height of said exhaustion and burn-out that I said.. “MOMMY! YOU HAVE GOT. TO. START. LISTENING. TO… PICKLE!” I obviously meant it the other way around. She thought it was hilarious and it just added more fuel to the crazy wildfire that seemed to burn down my ability to keep my crap together. I managed to miss that the 2 girls had coated my entire bathroom with bronzer (my expensive bronzer… the one that I bought like 5 years ago… pre-kids.. when I use to spend money on stuff like expensive bronzer.. instead of diapers… that bronzer) – then in my attempt to contained the mess I barred the bathroom which gave Pea the idea that peeing on the kitchen floor was acceptable (I would go on to later step in said pile of pee and take a good 10 minutes to remember what the mystery spill was) I also used a pan to warm up Pickles milk and spilt half of it all oven my stovetop (it just happens that every last dish is dirty and the girls managed to lock the impossible to unlock upstairs bathroom door where my dishsoap and a working sink are..)

Sweet baby Jesus.

Anyways, they were loving every minute, laughing their overtired, delirious heads off. It was like the more overwhelmed I got and the more chaotic everything became, the more they fed off it. Toys all over… Mommies gone wild!

So what is my point?… I don’t know truthfully.. were getting there. I’m still trying to wrap my head around what the crap happened tonight.

I felt like I blew it. Like if there was a good version of a mom, she’d be all patient.. see things as “teachable moments” and talk softly to the sweet angels who were sweet tender sheep just needing a tender sheep..ist(??) sure… sheepist. That’s a thing right? And then she would show those sweet children a photo of me, hair all wild… bronzer painted across her forehead like some manic tribal markings and yogurt handprints all over the clothes she’s been wearing for 2 days now.. and say.. “see children.. some people in the world have mommies like this” and then they would nod, thier petrified little obedients heads and hug their dear, sweet, organized mother and sweetly say “we love you mommy… you’re the greatest.” as they tenderly and voluntarily began walking up to bed and saying “Goodnight mother”… “go have some tea and eat that pie that’s been sitting in the fridge since you threatened daddy to bring it home from work or else deal with the conviction of the Holy Spirit for the rest of his days..”

Barf.

Anyways… I felt like I blew it tonight. Like I couldn’t handle a night on my own and I just let everything go to crap while I felt sorry for myself (still feel sorry for myself?? maybe a little… if I’m honest??) and just … yelled up at Jesus saying “are you seeing this!??!!”..”HELP!???”

Okay. So here it is.. the lesson?? I guess? My husband works hard. Like REALLY… hard. I thought I could whopp his butt with my stepcounter.. he walks 25,000 steps… daily. He hauls concrete, works in the HOT, hot sun and then takes a bus home, tonight the girls were in bed, but normally to 3 babies, all clamouring for his arms and his ear. And honestly? I can’t even count on 1 hand the times he’s complained about all of that. He just keeps going. He has this drive inside him that can only come from The Lord. He takes care of us constantly. Makes sure we have what we need and does it with joy. Yes, today was hard. Really hard. BUT… honestly, I have so much to be thankful for. This man loves me. Loves us. Loves The Lord with a depth that I want. He constantly sees the best in people and is constantly demanded of a lot at work because he is counted on and known to be a hard worker and a kind man. How incredible.

There are women who are doing this mom-life solo. I cannot even imagine. They don’t have daily reinforcements. I have friends whose husbands need to go away for work. They are on their own for long stretches. I blew it today because I was focused on what i was lacking rather than what I have. SO MUCH. God didn’t answer me when I was yelling up at my second-floor ceiling. I wouldn’t have heard Him. There was too much of me and my voice was louder than His could have ever been in that moment. It’s in the quietness that God speaks to me. This season, with my girls being so small and yet so busy and demanding has led me to put my business on hold for a season (still finishing up work for 2 clients) as I give them my focus and attention. They are so little and while it is all consuming right now, I know I will blink and the days of the 2-year-old tantrums will be behind me and my little Petunia will be walking the opposite direction rather than clinging to me. These are precious and fragile years. It can feel like you’re blowing it one moment and on top of the world the next. It really is a ride. Somedays I have it all figured out. Other days, like today, I am spending the end of the day on my couch, box of timbits in hand, not even knowing where to begin as a look around the chaotic mess that is my home. That’s honest and real-life. It isn’t always perfect.

I do find it hard to not have the time with The Lord I want, to crash in my bed rather than on my knees after what feels like a never-ending list of tasks and chores have absorbed another evening. I know that the sinks will get fixed, the dishes caught up and the laundry put away… but what will matter? None of that, but how I treat my children, honor my husband and see that Jesus is just as much involved in the macaroni-milk-spill covered floor as He was in the season when I could spend hours in prayer. The Lord gently leads those with young children because He see’s it. ALL of it. I am needing Him more now that at any other season in my life. I think the lie that can consume overtired and stretched moms.. is that you somehow are not spiritual or Holy enough to be with Him. To call out to Him.. Like you have to earn and deserve His ear. That’s a lie. He is as close as the mention of His name, wanting to draw near as you call on Him. Religion will tell you that you have to be perfect or at least be striving towards it.. to have that closeness, it’s a lie. He longs to be in the middle of our mess with us. He’s so good. He’s given me the exact man that I needed for me. I’m so thankful. My husband is a strong man. He can take my meltdown days and my mountain-top days the exact same, calm and consistent way. In all of my life, I will never know why he puts up with me, but isn’t that what love is?

I’m thankful for the crap days. They remind me of how flawed and weak I am and put Jesus back where He belongs, as Lord of my life. Humbling but real.

Be bless and if you made it to the end of this post… you just read 1958 words. Congrats.

Love,

Kate