Book it!

A book meme.

I am trying to get back into reading which has been hampered by two things - no time and excruciating lower back pain in bed. The delicious Hotfessional tagged me for a book meme. This is after more bloggers than I can count joined Goodreads and tried to get me to join in their reindeer games. Update after update came in, "So and so has added new books," and "So and so wants to share her current reading list (of 57+ books)." The inadequacy was suffocating.

The Hotfessional told me not to worry, just have fun. So, here goes.

1. List three books you’ve always meant to read, but haven’t got around to them

How to choose, how to choose? How about the books I have meant to read but simply could not stay awake through?

Wuthering Heights.
Empire Falls.
Any employee handbook I've ever been given.

2. Share the two books that changed your life

An Unknown Woman, Alice Kohler - This woman sort of owns her mediocrity and then takes ballsy steps to change her course.

We Were the Mulvaneys, Joyce Carol Oates - I read this during a very dark period in my life. It was darker. I wouldn't ever want to read it again, but it did force me to tread water a little harder and get my head out of a dangerous place.

3. Recommend the one book you’ve been talking about since the very first day you’ve read it.

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris - I am trembling with laughter just typing this. Funniest book EVER.

I am not tagging anyone as I found this one really hard. If you are reading a good book, I kind of envy you, if you have a Me Talk Pretty Book experience, please share it with me, I'd love a grand slam of a book to have by my bed when we bring our littlest daughter home.

Oh, and one more thing as we talk about daughters. I think sometime around the 57th idiot commented on what having three daughters was going to mean, I realized that there were some things I would need to take control of myself. Society has come a long way and there are incredible opportunities for women, but if we don't' take accountability there are huge perilous chasms just waiting to swallow our daughters whole. I stumbled upon an organization called About-Face they make some incredibly strong points and serve as a great reminder to not tune out to what it is in front of us, our girls (and boys for that matter) are taking in everything. Be aware.

You ever hear the one that goes , "Noooooooooooooo. No no no no no no!"?

We had a glorious morning, Dad entertaining the girls and eliciting the peals of laughter that make the walls wend inward ever so slightly as if to take the joy in to the very marrow of the house, Mom slept in, the sounds from below caressing her, and then later, the living room drenched in mid-morning sun reflected off the still impressive snow banks, we frolicked. Laughter, conversation and overriding parental pride. It was a perfect Sunday morning.

Enter nap time.

Dancing eyes quickly became murderous glares. Giggles and whispers became screeches and screams. Feet stomping, lungs pumping and indignation swirling, Avery refused to sleep. Briar served as line judge, declaring the latest protest and act of nap time rebellion with a a voice that seemed hard to believe was not amplified by megaphone and a stadium sound system.

"AVERY IS NOT SLEEPING."

"SHE IS BANGIN' DA WALL."

"AVERY IS SAYING 'NO, NO, NO TO DAD AGAIN."

"SHE IS BEING A BAAAAAD GIRL."

The explosion lasted 10 minutes, after which reserves were sent in, more tactics were employed and the announcer called:

"AVERY STILL IS NOT SLEEPING. SHE IS NOT GOING DOWN." "Not without a fight," we shared silently through a look.

We held up a good front, but when all was said and done, the best strategy was one of inspired acquiescence. Exhausted with repentance welling in her eyes, Avery's head collapsed in my lap, I caught Sean mouthing, "Go ahead and rock her," and I did. She was asleep before I'd had my fill, Briar's head popped up and she smiled before slipping under her covers and rolling toward the wall and sleep.

It is perhaps not the way the books would have us do it, but nap time is something that defies logic and, though it has its merits, is something I will one day rejoice in no longer having to enforce.

Sympathy Incontinence

Briar is a classic first-born, desperate to keep everyone happy. Lately she has been very focused on my belly, asking about the baby and delighting in the movements she witnesses. She has also taken to asking if my belly hurts or if my back is "achin." It's pretty sweet and I encourage her participation.

I am, however, a little concerned at how two days running she has turned to me and said, "Mom, I have to pee," and quickly following it with, "Oh, oh, oh my goodness, mama, I am peeing right now!"

Puddles, tears and mild hysteria...just like me most days at work as I weigh how badly I need to pee against the spiral metal staircase standing between me and the bathroom.

Reckoning heartbreak

There is nearly an entire wall of glass, beyond which there are oddly industrial yet romantic fire escape ladders. The sun pours in, washing the entire space in a honey glow. Beneath the window is a run of pipe, shuttling hot air from the radiator to and fro across the back wall, above it runs another pipe, tailor made for little kids to shimmy and scurry along.

"Look at me, mama? I'm a'walkin'."

Along another wall there are bins and baskets filled with toys. Mismatched, bedraggled and forgotten, until the sun hits the chime of the tambourine just right and they careen as one to the trove of neglected fun, reviving it in an instant with their squeals of delight.

"Ooh, looky-dat, a Buzz Lightyear."
"A 'nudder one, Buzz Lightyear."
"Bawbie."
"Cah."
"A ball, let's play and kick'a da ball."

They scamper this way and that, one giving chase while the other speeds away, then in an instant a juice box breaks the spell, they collapse drinking the juice as ferociously as a runt finally finding its way to nurse. The satisfied grunts and gasps make me smile. They are happy. My fingers speed along the keyboard, clackety clack clack clack Sun splashes across my desk top, a caramel wave that warms me.

This is my perfect. My work, my girls, my triumph.

And yet there is more, a different kind of light, a shadow really. It is the truth of what is best. Are those beams of light truly so magnificent, or are they relief, obscuring what is really before me? Are my girls playing in the water or are the buoys, bobbing and brushing against a line that is more tether than plaything?

This afternoon, snacks arranged, toys gathered and reserves thoroughly replenished from hours of family time, we were there. Together. Me at my keyboard and they at play.

But the words didn't come so easily, the silence between the squeals grew longer and longer.

"Mama, I just wanna go home."
"I just don't wanna be here anymore, Mama."
"Mom? You hold me?"
"You just stop working and you hold me?"

My agony splintered, a hazy mix of defeat, resignation and fury. I have always known that there would come a time when it would not work. I thought that I could eke by for a while longer. Parts of me still raw from the clawing this route, I am not ready to give way. Time has changed and I have slowed my feet, not wanting to match pace with a truth I refuse to see.

I cannot have it all, this I know, but letting go of it, even though it's long since lost, is harder than I thought. Perhaps it would help if I said their names.

Briar.
Avery.

They are my core, nothing less. And though in many ways I am still their axis, I am not enough. I can no longer fool myself that they can play at the office. They cannot be expected to stay quiet during phone calls, to play independently. They need engagement, each craving challenge and surviving on questions and conversation. They need me to be there or to let them go.

I want it to be true that they are better off with me, that a sitter is a substitute, but the truth is, somewhere along the way, I lost myself, and all that's left is a substitute. I'm a jumbled mess of mouse cords and princess ribbon, from which neither mother, nor professional can truly be found. And this afternoon something about the timbre of the plea to leave broke through. This wasn't about office or home, sitter or secretary, this was about us.

"I just want you, mama."

I need to be here. There. I need to be where I am. Nothing less is fair to Briar, Avery or even to me. Sean and I talked tonight and as his eyes reflected a compassion, he spoke slowly and quietly

"I'm glad you are realizing this. This is a good thing, babe."

I wanted to scream, wanted to push the chair from the table and knock it behind me. I hated what he was saying, despised him for saying it. I wanted to explode, but those blue eyes shone back at me, he never looked away as my anger flashed silently across my face. I sat so still and then, more than seeing the truth, I felt it. Sean, the one that hovered beside me, encouraging me as our girls came into the world, the one that held me as I sobbed the night before my first day back at work, has paced me stride for stride. Tonight he held my hand and gently led me off the path, It's time to stop running, old girl he seemed to be saying and suddenly I realized how tired I was.

And so I pause. I need to take a long, hard look at what is going to best for Briar and Avery and their mama. We need to carve a new way, one that allows each of us to dance in the afternoon sun and release peals of laughter, together and alone.

Cabin Fever Update

So I got outta the cabin, but whoa, there are certain people that make a gal long to be at home and quarantined instead of out with the masses who all appear to be unshowered and meriting a quarantine. The aisles of Target were teeming with the slow and inconsiderate and even the people who appeared to be normal, like the clerk at Guest Services, were really just Target enjoyment impediments in disguise.

The $20 gift card 'just for a little virtual shopping,' turned out to be so much more costly than that. I should have walked away when the clerk with the kind eyes blinked, smiled and then blinked again as she looked at the card, shrugged, giggled and said, "I've never seen this before." We paused, it was a standstill. She looked at me and I stared back, certain that she would do more than admit ignorance.

Sean was watching from a distance and called out a, "I'll just take the girls and get going," as he threw me a look somewhere between, 'I knew it wouldn't be easy' and 'I'm gone.'

"Ok..?" I said, trying to lead her somewhere other than complete inaction.

"No, really, never seen it," and tried to hand the card back to me.

"Ok, well, if you look right here, the card says, complete a baby registry, print a copy and visit Guest Services to have your card activated as a $20 gift card." I handed her the email confirmation of my Target Baby Registry.

"Uh-huh?" It was a question. I didn't know how to respond to that.

"Well, I printed this out and thought that since it has the registry number and it says 'bring to Guest Services' that this would work." I said it as almost an apology.

"Ok. What I'll need you to do is go to a computer and create a registry." She said in a way one might describe as knowingly.

I smiled, happy to be able to explain that I'd come prepared and done that. "Here, this is a print out. My registry number is right there."

She looked at the email as if it were a stone tablet bearing ancient hieroglyphics. "Oooh-kay. If you can jut go over there to one of those computer and start a registry it'll print it out for you," and she kind of shooed me toward a bank of smudgy, sticky looking monitors.

"Oh, no right here, see, it's my registry," I answered evenly.

"Oh, ok!" She chirped.

I sighed with relief. "If you go over there you can pull up your registry and it will print the list and you can shop from that," she explained as she slid the card toward me.

"Ok, I don't need a list and I am not shopping off the registry, I just want to get the card."

She looked at me and hissed, "I need a bar code. Print something off of that computer."

I walked away, face flaming. The first two computers I worked did not in fact start with a touch to the screen or the pressing of any key. The third worked and I quickly called up the registry and followed the directions to make it print. Would it surprise you if I said that after 5 minutes that felt like 20 it still hadn't so much as burped? Yeah, I didn't think it would.

I walked back over to her, disregarding her pathetic attempts to studiously ignore me. "It isn't printing and if I don't get to my kids they are going to melt down before we finish our shop." I thought she might respond to this as when I had walked over to her the girls were with me and she was talking to her husband who had brought in her two young sons to see her.

"Well, I'll have to call Guest Services over here," which confused me as she was clearly the person working in Guest Services.

"Ok, I can just go. Maybe you can work on that and if it's done when I get back I'll use it, if not, no big deal," and I meant it, $20 seemed insignificant and her genuine bafflement was not something I was not enjoying.

She looked at me, looked at the card and I am fairly certain that the thought running through her head was, "I don't ever want to see this woman again." She opened the drawer by the register, took out a gift card, loaded it with twenty bucks with a wave of her wand, took the card I had brought in and tossed it in the trash. "So do you need this?" She asked indicating the email I'd brought in.

"No." I said.

"Great," she muttered as she chucked it and turned away from me as if to help the next person even though no one else was around.

I left feeling slightly dirty, as if somehow I had done something borderline dishonest. I suppose she knew on some level I was going home to bitch blog and she resented it, what I hadn't expected was to understand as clearly as I did, that she would be doing the same.

Cabin Fever

There is light at the end of the tunnel, the stomach bug, which gripped our house for so long, seems to be lifting. No more glassy eyes, relief from the side-splitting cramps and, most importantly, a shower. I have to admit to being too nauseous to have taken one and so this morning I washed several days of sick and yuck off. I feel renewed and am chomping at the bit to get out.

The girls and I will be cutting Easter eggs forms and bedazzling them the old fashioned way, with bits of glitter, sequins and ribbon and then hanging them in the window. Sean and I have a project planned, taking an old glass cabinet door from what used to be our dining room and turning it into a massive picture frame. I'll post pictures when it is complete. Later I have plans to make homemade french fries with the girls and maybe take a walk around the block if the sub-arctic winds ever let up.

I have a stack of diaper and wipes coupons waiting under a magnet on the fridge and Target sent me a $20 gift card, the only hitch being I had to make a registry. Seriously, you want me to virtual shop (an activity I hold dear to my heart, all the fun of shopping without the pinch in the pocketbook, something my new definite-friend-material-almost-pal-Amy enjoys too!) and in exchange you'll give me a $20 gift card? 15 minutes for 20 dollars, dee-licious!

So this afternoon I'll take the girls to Target, Briar will hop on the big red concrete ball outside the entrance, Avery will grab something totally untoy-like such as her beloved Swiffer and call it her present, and I will roam the aisle, delirious with being out of the house, showered and armed with coupons and 20 free dollars!

It's enough to make a gal kick up her heels!



I love a day filled with simple things making me happy. What's making you happy today? C'mon, share, it feels good!

The Many Faces of Ave

Mama's Turn

Each towel, sheet and nightgown that was hurried out of the room was done so without a second thought. I don't regret a single kiss or cuddle. Even now I wouldn't go back, except perhaps to not make corn the night before the bug hit. I am sick, the kind of sick that makes you tread softly for fear that any undue jostling might lead you into a dizzy fall, landing you smack in front of that impossible to hug at 8+months pregnant porcelain throne.

I cannot eat, cannot drink and cannot get the throbbing in my head to go away. I am also decidedly out of sorts. Whiny and unhappy, so desperate not to feel sick or further compromised in what I can do physically. Too yucky to read, too uncomfortable to sleep, plenty energetic to weep at the injustice of feeling so crappy.

The one bit of humor I did find was in responding to a voice mail from a local newspaper reporter. He was sleuthing, wanting to talk to a local doc about the recent stomach bug that impacted an area resort. This paper, and in its defense, most papers, are seeking out the negative angle of everything. It's kind of exhausting deflecting far fetched ideas time and again. I told him that I was in fact home with the bug and had not been near the resort to which he admitted he was actually finding and hearing from the Health Department that it's flu season. People get sick. No real story...unless of course you are me and desperate to blog.

Here's hoping I am back soon with a better story.

Gurgles

Gurgles, little bits of sickness, little bits of sentimentality and bigger bits and all that is to come.

Sean and I spent the morning working on the kitchen and playing with the girls. We took them to Nana's at 2pm. Avery still punctuated each sentence with a sniffle, tilting her head down and building up with such force that she would end up on tip-toes. Briar, neck looking impossibly long and her dress hanging loosely on her angular frame, has been eating sporadically, each bite tentative and gentle as if she might wake up the 'hiccuping' muscle.

We ran errands, picked up lunch and headed for home. "I love having time with you," Sean said, one hand on the wheel, the other holding my hand. "I love our girls, love playing with them, but I love having time with you, too. I love you."

I watched his profile, little flutters in my tummy, not from the baby, but from the 25 year old I was when I met Sean. "Oh, babe, I love you too...am in love with you." We held hands the rest of the way home. I carried our salads in the house and began setting them up on the table. Sean set out the three stools we bought for the island.

Three.

He had said to me in the store, "So, you like them?" pointing at the stools.

"Yes," I chirped and pointed to my favorite.

"We'll get three?" He asked to which I said, "Three?"

He smiled at me, "We're going to have three girls to sit at that island with you."

It wasn't that I hadn't considered this, but I guess I hadn't imagined three girls, three teenagers, three fully realized people with us as we broke the stools in, I was buying seats, Sean was peeking at memories on the horizon. The environs of the store seemed to fade away as I drifted off imagining pony tails, knees and tennis shoes filling the house. Laughter and questions lapped at my ears and then there was a hand on the small of my back. Sean. His eyes and smile so much like Briar's, I nodded, "Yes, three."

We tidied things up around the house until it was time to pick the girls up. The phone rang. Nana. Listening to Sean's end of the line I was sure something had gone wrong, the stomach bug? I waited and held my breath as he hung up. "She asked if they were ok to stay until 8:30."

We looked at the clock, 2.5 more hours. It was like being sixteen and out on the night the clocks turned back. Extra time. Unexpected, slightly forbidden seeming time. Being pregnant, exhausted and sick, we didn't exactly go wild. Honestly? We added felt protectors to the bottoms of the stools, took pictures of the kitchen progress and had a mini-picnic on the kitchen island.

"Oooh, ooooh, please change the station before I start crying," I squealed as I heard the first strains of the song Stealing Cinderella. He turned and smiled at me. "No, seriously, please turn it. You have to turn it," I squeaked as I crammed a chip in my mouth and began crunching it as loud as I could.

She was Playing Cinderella

"I really cannot listen to it."

Riding her first bike

"I am just going to keep talking until you change it or the song ends. Please believe me." He walked over to the radio and turned it up.

Bouncing on the bed and looking for a pillow fight

"No, it's like I have no armor. It will break me. Please."

Running through the sprinkler with a big popsicle grin

"Honey," I said half laughing and half whimpering.

He walked over to me with tears welling in his eyes. I looked up at him.

Dancing with her dad, looking up at him

He wrapped me in his arms and we stood together as the song played on, images of our girls, all three of them, danced in our heads. The tears came and I felt a familiar pain, the searing pierce from taunting glimpses we are allowed from time to time of this journey. How quickly dimples turn to holllows, the shorter the time the faster it passes, the skips in time when you miss the changes, waking to a new face or feeling, as I did this morning. She was nestled in the crook of my arm, tangled ringlets tickling my skin, when I felt little fingers slip, not into my hand, but between my fingers. The lump in my throat seemed so large as to be choking the light from the room, she pulled my hand to her chest and squeezed. For a moment it wasn't clear who was mother and who was child, so desperately did I burrow my face to escape my fear. It was only as she turned to me and I saw that despite the gesture, she was still my baby, that I was able to draw a breath.

I'm the one who's stealing Cinderella

Three empty stools sat behind the island as the song faded away and we stood swaying and sniffling.

Hey, clueless!

When your kid has been sick and as you sit at the dinner table they show no interest in food, let it go.

If they manage to eat a few bites, don't tell them to eat more.

If they tell you they can't swallow it, believe them.

If they start to gag, for the love of god, don't sit and watch.


If you ignore all this, at least do this, when you get them to the bathroom, trust that more is coming no matter what they say.

Vomit Virgins

I have timidly typed comments on other blogs about the horrors of little ones upchucking in the middle of the night. You see, truth is, it's not something Sean and I have had to deal with, that is until the night before last. Briar threw up on me once when she was less than a year old, but it was in broad daylight and was over as quickly as it began. Avery has never thrown up. So, when I've read about other parents being woken by ominous splashes and mournful wails, I've not wanted to jinx things.

And don't worry, I am not going to regale you with the specifics of what came up. I just have to share a bit of the story because the reality is that not unlike riding a bike or, umm, other things that you do (hopefully when you are older) and aren't maybe very good at when you start, there is a learning curve. As a little person with stuff suddenly coming up from a place where you thought things only went down, you don't know to lean over the toilet. As a matter of fact I can think of nothing more confusing than suddenly having stuff spewing from your mouth in a violent fashion and then, after two years of solid, "Don't play in the toilet" you are told to get down and stick your face in the damn thing.

And so it was that we found ourselves ushering Briar to the bathroom, too worried and stunned to explain calmly just why we were asking her to get so close to the toilet, why we couldn't just hold her. We had no idea what to do. Briar's first time throwing up in the middle of the night was also our first time. We'd never been parents to a sick person in the night, never had to strip a bed in the dark, never had to quell the urge to retch in order to prevent waking the little person sleeping in the bed behind us.

Three times we went to the bathroom and three times we returned to her room leaving the toilet bowl unused and ending moments later with Sean newly covered in acrid wetness. I'll never forget standing at Briar's bedside while Sean sat holding her, his bare chest covered in he sickness while her little body convulsed and she whimpered. We were frozen. "It's ok, sweetie. Daddy's got you. I think I caught it all on myself, Man." I toweled his shoulder and cooed at Briar, "Honey, you are so brave."

Running back and forth from bathroom to bedroom to retrieve soiled linens and replenish wet rags, I nearly gave in to my own retching several times over. I kept waiting for instinct to kick in, for the ability to overcome the smell and horror so that I could tend to Briar. The one-two combo of my pregnancy and my keen sense of smell (super-human pre-pregnancy and nearly impossible to function without a mask during pregnancy) left me doubled over, which as any woman in the last leg of pregnancy knows, is not a good position to be in. I hobbled back to the bedroom, small belches of discontent escaping my mouth, and my face contorted in a grimace intended to keep the smells from finding their way to my nose.

Avery at some point decided that she was not scared, but rather delighted that the whole fam-damily was up at 2:30. "I dancing. A'yook at me, Mama, A-ree dancing. Dancing on her bed!" Briar turned to Avery and began to go slightly hysterical, desperate to get back to normal, "OK, let's go downstairs. Let's go downstairs and be up."

Sean looked at her, bewildered and exhausted, "Honey, it's night time. We need to go back to sleep."

Briar took one look at her bed and it was all over, "No. I don't wanna hiccup anymore. I'm all done being sleepy and let's go downstairs."

Sean began to explain again and I said, "Honey, just take her downstairs," behind me came a jubilant shriek, "Donw'a stairs!" from Avery. "No honey, it's night time, we have to go back to sleep."

"I don't want it to be night time, mom," Briar cried.

"S'morning time!" Screeched Avery.

It was, in a word, mayhem. Sean and I were too bleary eyed and spent from trying to manage Briar's sickness through our fog. Sean and Briar went downstairs to slowly wind back down, while Avery and I retired to the big bed to ultimately not go back to sleep for a solid 90 minutes. I would not say that it was a total failure, but like bike riding, I think our first ride was a bit bumpy to say the least.

To all the parents out there already indoctrinated to the middle-of-the-night-puking-club I tip my hat to you. And to those of you not yet learned in the ways of the upset tummy, I wish you good luck and suggest that before you do anything banish all screened drain covers from your bathroom sink lest the same fate befall you, that did me, which make no mistake, almost did me in.

Hey Dorothy, we aren't in February anymore.

Somewhere along the way between bemoaning the overrunning cups of my bra and the shrinking in the dryer (shut up, it does too happen) underwear, I think I might have forgotten something, eventually it does end.

Brring, brring.

S: Hello?

Caller: Hey, you guys free on the 26th?

S: Of March?

Caller: No, April.

S: Sure, why?

Caller: Carter's birthday party.

Great, a party. A wonderful-didn't-have-to-watch-mournfully-out-the-window-to-be-invited party.

The 26th? My due date.

It's March. Technically we are entering the third week of March, or at least the third line on the calendar. My beautiful calendar at work still reads February. My brain and the speed at which I am preparing for this baby, still register as February.

Last night a gathering of people, some of whom I have known for years and others I am only just getting to know, was waiting for me upstairs at Davidson's. There were husbands and kids, nanas and co-workers. It was incredible to be surrounded by so many different incarnations of family.

I watched in awe, the older kids straddling between the little kid and adult world, stole glances at the ways that husbands chatted amidst the pink ribbons and frothy wrapping, smiled at heads bent over an impossibly decadent coconut confection. The clinking of glasses and sugar infused squeals throughout made me feel so blessed to be suspended in this moment between a family of four and a family of five.

This morning the clocks sprang forward and somehow with that surge, came the realization that this baby is coming. I've got a another 7 weeks. Just seven weekends. And then I'm done. This seemingly endless odyssey of expanding and aching and oh the weeping, will draw to an amazing, miraculous close.

Suddenly all those complaints seem silly. I want to savor these somersaults and tweaks, marvel at the elasticity of my body and luxuriate in the cocoon of emotions, the magic of each moment revealed through pregnant eyes. I also want to sprint. The sweeping, laundering and organizing. The shopping, strategizing and preparing. I don't know how seven weeks will be enough. After last night, I know that I have an incredible group of people ready to help me, whether it is as I weep or as I rant.

A little bit of tiny...

I just wrote the other day about forgetting, losing the possession of the little 'isms' of this time in the girls' lives. It's true though, already the memories are taking on a bit of a watercolor consistency, the loopy ringlets blur, no longer dark and light, but varying shades of honey and chocolate, tilting to and fro on the back of one bouncing little head. They are one magnificent spirit in my heart, running, pants and skirts flapping at their ankles, sticks and wands raised in their hands. Or hand. The images, as I said, have blurred.

This afternoon I was testing a new approach for nap time, a Let's try and have quiet time. If you don't sleep, it's ok. When quiet time is over we'll go downstairs. Are you laughing yet? Because it failed, oh how it failed. For Avery there was not enough structure, for Briar it was incessant questioning about whether quiet time was over and if not how soon would it be over and why exactly do we have to be quiet and is this quiet enough and...you get the idea, no?

I really was managing ok there for a while. I calmly and rationally explained that this was a way for everyone to get what they needed. A compromise. Avery could take the nap she needed, Briar could avoid a nap and mom could work quietly on her computer with diminished guilt. The thing is rational holds no water for kids and calm gets lost when rationality is disputed. Perhaps third trimester pregnancy plays a role in the swift loss of calm, but I hate giving hormones all the blame.

So it was that after twenty minutes of not-so-quiet time I began to lose my cool. Why can't they understand I am doing this for them? That this is a way for me to sit with them. Weren't the projects enough? Why do they have to fight me? They weren't thoughts I was proud of having, their ricochets on the inside of my head sounded whinier with each bounce. I stood to reset and walked toward Briar.

She quivered in place, so eager to have quiet time be over, so happy to have my attention and so nervous she would say the wrong thing. "It's ok honey. Let me cuddle with you and we'll do quiet time together, ok?"

She took a ragged breath, "Ok mama, that's so nice," she began stroking my face, "If I can be a good girl now that I am six and not sick anymore than we can have quiet time be done and have no bad words that get me locked in my room." My insides tightened, not far off from a contraction, as the sweetness of her words and the confusion of her message etched a hollow in my heart, "We'll live here, these words uttered from the lips of your first-born. We'll be here when you sit in traffic, when you wait outside an emergency room door and we'll be here, full of life, as you watch from a wooden seat as she walks down the aisle and into a life of her own." I swallowed tears as she smiled at me, her thoughts far away and her worry gone.

I kissed her brow and slipped from her bed over to Avery's. "Now it's your turn," I whispered. She grinned at me and athletically twisted her body over and wrapped me in her arms, "You cuddle a'me." She began pawing at my shirt, tugging at the sleeve and neckline to get to my skin. She still reaches for my body though no longer nursing. Her fingers seek out the familiar contours of my neck, the muscle on my shoulder and the tiny mole alongside my bra strap. "Is yours, is mine," she murmurs, a confirmation, all that is mine is hers. If she only knew. I burrow my face in her collar as the waves of emotion overwhelm me. Her slender neck, the curls that nip at her strong jawline, I can see them years from now as she runs across the track or skips in from outside. The nearness of her older version steals my breath and I wonder how I'll make it.

I lift my head to look at her, but she thinks I am leaving, "You cuddle me a little bit of tiny?" And I am undone. A little bit of tiny. It was Briar's. She would plead for "a little bit of tiny," at bedtime for more lotion, at dinner time for more ketchup, at the park for more time. "A little bit of tiny." And there it was, springing from Avery's plump lips.

For every damning I lay against myself I find redemption in these girls. A missed occasion, an undocumented milestone a dashed hope, or a forgotten memory, each is erased by some unexpected bit of magic. New wonder trumps old pain. I cannot fathom in what ways they will ease my burden of having failed them as we navigate the days and years ahead, but I know they will. And maybe, just maybe, along the way I'll weave some magic of my own, filling up their reserves so as they move forward in their own lives, enduring nerve wracking interviews and suffering through bad dates, they'll hear my voice echoing from some where deep inside offering just, "a little bit of tiny" to see them through.