sunday

I am listening to my kids play Legos. They built a giant base. It looks like a prison. A prison with a lighthouse and many animals and a crows nest. Tomorrow is another school board vote and my child will not be going back to school. I know this. I know this deep down and I am preparing myself for it. I will feel so thankful for the moment when he can go back to school. I’ll probably cry. I know I will cry because I cry every day now about something. Am I depressed I asked Curt the other day. He opened the shower curtain and I could see the Holy shit look on his face like how do I answer this and is this a trick question and if I get it wrong is she going to not talk to me for the rest of the day? No…I don’t Kelsey. I think you are sad. I think you’re sad and doing your best and no I don’t think you’re depressed. You’re wrong I thought and looked at myself in the mirror while I was brushing my teeth and told my eye not to cry because if I’m already crying in front of other people at 6:42 in the morning then that’s going to be a whole THING and frankly i’m just exhausted by THINGS and can’t bear to convince anyone, especially my husband that I’m totally FINE.

Yeah you’re right I said spitting out my toothpaste. Sometimes I just feel sad. Yeah but you have to just keep on going through the day Kelsey. Look at what you have and the kids are great! Look at how they are great and Cal’s home now and you just told me how much easier it is when he’s home. Didn’t you? I thought you did.

Enraged I shove the stabbing feelings the knife feelings way down deep and smile and say YEP AND IT’S SO PRETTY OUT TODAY. IT’S GOING TO BE SO NICE OUT RIGHT? DIDN’T I SEE THAT? I THOUGHT I SAW THAT AND WE ARE PROBABLY JUST GOING TO PLAY OUTSIDE ALL DAY. Holy shit tone it down I think as I’m literally screaming about the weather to Curt trying to sound normal. What the fuck is wrong with me. Shut up shut up shut up. Am I going crazy? Do I really sound this loud, out loud?

Yep, beautiful day! He says and I think oh good I said it right.

I made it through that day. And the next. And now here I am. Joe Biden is our next president and we have a woman in office and we went for a family walk and my ankle is killing me because we walked in a dry creek bed for 2 miles and I am now 8 pounds overweight. No. I’m not depressed. I am managing my feelings I tell myself as I write this and listen to my kids and text my friends. My lifeline. To tell them that I am not mad. I’m not. But I’m sad. I will get through it and I will hear the vote and I will endure this and maintain perspective and I will not think too hard about anything. What a gift it would be to say outloud to someone

Do you feel this way? Do you find it hard to breathe sometimes? Do you not say anything about it because that would be crossing the invisible barrier of being too much? Am I normal? Will my kids be okay? Will I someday not hate my husband because he leaves and lives his life and returns at the end of the day to a house and this is the same for him day after day and literally nothing has changed for him? Will I ever feel not tired again? Is it possible to say this outloud and not have people think you are crazy? Falling off the deep end? Is it possible to say all of this without sounding like a brat?

I don’t know.

Happy Birthday to Cal.

When they held Cal out to me we cried. Curt cried an ugly cry because the baby had red hair

like his mom.

There was confusion in the operating room because they couldn’t locate the on call doctor to help remove my ovary. The anesthesiologist counted down the minutes to my doctor and I wiggled my toes and felt them.

Almost forty five minutes later, they wheeled me back to my room and a tornado touched down. Somewhere near by.

I waited almost two hours for my baby.

He had red hair, white hair on his face, and pointy ears. He was a funny looking baby and looked like a hobbit. The white t-shirt kept falling off his shoulders and his nose was smushed up between his eyes…like a silly scowl.

He didn’t latch and he didn’t poop but his jaundice stayed stable enough to come home three days later. Finn was indifferent and the nights were so hard and I was sad. So sad.

The first year and a half of Cal’s life simultaneously slipped away from me and hit me in the face. All at once. Every day. I couldn’t get comfortable. Hated myself. Hated my husband. Became obsessed with shopping and my nipples bled over and over because Cal never latched correctly.

It got worse before it got better. Doesn’t it always?

And I don’t recognize that person anymore. I’m sitting in my kitchen and my funny boy is in bed. It’s the night before his third birthday.

Three. We’ve grown up a lot, he and I.

He talks with an accent. A high pitched drawl. He asks everyone on the trail, “How your day?” “What your name?” “What your dog name?” The little old ladies smile and say, “Well aren’t you a social one?”

He has none of the intensity that my oldest does. He refuses to draw, refuses to help cook unless I give him a butcher knife and a potato, and he still asks to be rocked to sleep.

His eyebrows are so blond. Transparent. If you squint you can see his eyelashes.

He is loud and jabs the grass, the tree, dirt, plants with a stick. He cries for food and steals my fork to eat salad.

 

He pees for treats and plays naked and he is truly a joy.

I feel so much guilt when I think about the mom who parented Cal in the beginning. She wasn’t great but I know now that she did the best she could.

Cal is my last kid. The last baby I will ever nurse or potty train or strap in a five point harness. He is, my last three year old.

Some days I’m okay with that but birthday eves are always emotional. Since I became a Mother, birthday eves leave me feeling a little lost. I want so badly to have the right words to describe Motherhood and my kids and the passing of time…but I always fall short.

Motherhood is spending an hour holding that funny looking baby propped up on your knees so you can see his small scrunched up face while obsessing about the things you SHOULD be doing. It’s joy and sadness at the same time. Motherhood is wishing you could have it all again, every second, from the beginning, while at the same time cursing the repetitiveness of daily life. It is celebrating bedtime while missing the warmth of a red haired baby on your chest.