bewildered by grace

There have been a few questions lately as to what exactly Peter and I are up to right now. 
"Wait, you're where?"
"What did I miss?" 
"What's going on with you guys?"
The short answer is that the short answer has never fit into a Facebook status so I never really put it there. I am sorry if you felt blindsided that suddenly we were leaving. But if you're curious, or interested, or just nosy (like I am), then here's what's up with us. 

Peter and I met doing full time ministry. We were working with YWAM, were living in Hawaii, and spending our lives on something we really believed in. The plan was to get married, take six months to a year off and then head back. But we never went back. We went to Wyoming to spend time with his family for our first year, and then when we had immigration troubles, we knew we had to get that sorted out before we could do anything else, so we did. And suddenly before we knew it, 11 years had passed and two children had arrived. 

The plan was always to go back into full time ministry in some way. Missions, church planting, something else. As the years went by it became less and less clear what exactly we wanted, what we felt like we could or should do with our lives. Our schedules were ridiculous. Shaw is shift work, and Peter's schedule changed every four weeks. For 8 years. Many of those years were spent working split shifts. 9-1, and then 5-9. If he stayed on splits then his schedule wouldn't change, only his days off would, so it was a hit we took for some semblance of continuity in our life. But after Emma arrived, it just wasn't working. I was working nights and homeschooling during the day. Peter was on splits because it was thee only thing that worked for our childcare. We averaged 4 days off together every two months. 

We were unhappy. It's one thing if you're making huge sacrifices because you're doing what you love or at least something that speaks to you in some way, but we weren't doing that. Here's a confession. Peter couldn't possibly care less whether or not your UFC pay-per-view fight comes in clearly. Especially if you're calling him while drunk on a Saturday night when he's missing his kids and wife. Just saying. 

We've been talking for our entire marriage about what it would look like to stop. To do something that mattered to us. We're not ungrateful. We had good jobs in a bad job market and we provided for our family. But we didn't feel like we were getting to be a family. Our dissatisfaction was manifesting in other ways that weren't healthy for us. Nothing was seriously wrong (honestly, we didn't see each other enough to be having serious problems), but the cracks were starting to show. 

Last summer I sent Peter to see his dad to take some time away from everything and think and pray about what he wanted. When he came home, I asked him, "Let's play the stupid lottery game. We win 50 million dollars tomorrow, how do you want to spend your life? What do you want to do first?" 

"I'd want to take a minute to think about it."

I suppose that's the short answer as to what we're up to. We desperately needed a minute. We needed some time to be a family. We need to go camping. We need a second to think about what it would look like now to completely change how we've been living for the last decade, and how to do that with kids. So since last summer we've been planning the logistics of quitting our whole life so we can have some time to think and pray about what we are supposed to be doing with ourselves. Maybe it's YWAM again, maybe it's going back to school, maybe it's coming back in a few months and getting a different job. We are, quite literally, open to anything.
It's obviously a little late to try and decide what we want to be when we grow up, and a little early for us to have a mid-life crisis, but there it is. 

We also really wanted our girls to have some time with Peter's side of the family. We haven't seen each other in 16 months. So we talked to them, and to my family, and the tentative plan came out as follows:

Peter and I both quit our jobs.
We downsize the amount of crap we own significantly.
We pay off any unsecured debt completely.
We use our savings account to have 4-6 weeks off as a family.
Peter gets a part-time job while we have very few expenses and that money all goes to savings.
We spend six months in Wyoming staying with Peter's mom and dad to pray and rest. We work on our marriage, our relationships with our girls, our relationship with God.

The obvious next question is, "what happens after six months?" 

We don't know yet. This was kind of a big scary leap of faith for us. It was HARD for Peter to quit. He is a good provider for the girls and I. He's a hard worker. But he's been so unhappy, and it's torture watching someone you love struggle like that. 

I've been so overwhelmed. If you're a mom who homeschools and works, I think you're a superhero. I don't see how it can be done effectively. I can't do it effectively. That's hard for me to admit, but I wasn't keeping those balls in the air. Not at all. I wasn't being a great mom, a great wife, a great teacher to Bella, or a great employee. Let's not even think about housework. I felt guilty and anxious every moment. My mental health was beginning to slip, and then it began to slip some more. I felt like I was drowning.

There's a verse in Isaiah that's been rattling around my head for a few years now:


   
So that's what we are trying to do. To listen. We'd appreciate your prayers during this time. I'll be blogging more - I actually just got a guest spot writing on an amazing education blog I follow, which came right out of left field for me, and I'm excited about that. Pray for Peter to get the right job while we're here, for the girls to handle this transition well (they're doing amazing so far), for grace and blessing for Peter's family while they host us (they're being beyond gracious to us) and grace for my family who are missing our girls terribly. 

Feel free to message me on Facebook or e mail me. If you have an iPhone you can still text me. We'll try and keep everyone updated on what's up with us, but for right now, the short answer is, "we're not sure yet." 

Hi Schnipps,

Tomorrow we head across the ferry to Children's Hospital one last time. I have my pink ferry slip in my wallet, an appointment for a consult with an expert, and test results faxed through. Wait, I should know better. I need to double check that the clinic faxed them. Okay, now we're all set. Wait, I should call in my ferry form, sometimes the system goes down. Okay, now we are all set. Promise. Do you know I know that number off by heart? 1-800-661-2668. I also know that you then press 2, 2, referring doctor number, then 2, then practitioner number, 1, date of appointment, 1, 1, 1 and then you get your confirmation number. I know all sorts of information like that. I know your care card number off by heart. I know the name of the best and only compounding pharmacy in Nanaimo, and that the head pharmacist there, Nick, knew that you liked tutti fruity flavoured medicine, with a little enzyme in there that was similar to pop rocks, it made your mouth tingle so you'd reflexively swallow as a baby. My mind used to be consumed with all these little bits of information that I'd need multiple times a week in order to keep you healthy. I know when your dermatologist does procedure days and appointment days. For example, you can't get an appointment on a Tuesday. Only Mondays and Wednesdays. If we did Monday, we could also see the ophthalmologist, but not the cardiologist, because those are procedure days for him. Or was it the other way around? You see? Something magical is happening. I'm beginning to forget. What was the pharmacists number? I used to know. Now I don't. Magic.

First Trip.

We had our last appointment with dear Dr Prendiville a couple of months ago. The head nurse Joanie was there and hugged us and remembered when I called five years ago in a panic from a campground in the US because you'd fainted for the first time, and I was afraid it was related. Joanie and I used to email, because their phones were so busy and it was easier for her to get my question, ask the doctor on her coffee break and e mail me back right away. She's an angel, Joanie. There's also Alice in surgical recovery who snuggled you when you were a baby, and later also cuddled with tiny Emma so I could focus on you. She gives you presents when you go in, and rubs my shoulder when I cry every single time, and doesn't make me feel stupid about it. 

Six years and two weeks ago.

Dr. Prendiville gave us a gift last time we were in. She ignored me. She set you up on the bed, and looked straight into your face and asked you in her adorable singing way, 
"Soooo Miss Bella. How do you feel about your laser surgeries?" 
"I hate them."
"I bet you do. Do you hate them as much as your birthmark?"
"Well, I used to hate my birthmark, but my mama taught me it wasn't a bad thing, it made me different and special. So now I'm okay with it. I hate the surgeries more. Way more."
"Well there you have it then. You seem like a smart little girl, and it's your body and if you don't want any more surgeries, then I'm not doing any more. If you get older one day and decide you'd like to try again, you can call me. How does that make you feel?"
"It makes me happy. I don't have to do any more ever?"
"Not if you don't want to. You're perfect. We are all done."
I may as well have not been there at all. I was taken aback, and then deeply relieved. 
I told her about the next surgery they have planned for you, the one to fix your hearing. She made a face like she'd tasted something awful, and finally spoke to me in the same way.
"How do you feel about that?"
"I feel tired. I don't know how much they can improve her hearing, and it's a much more invasive surgery than the lasers. I don't want them to cut into her skull. Plus the tests beforehand are a lot. CT scans, MRI's... And it seems like she's doing okay. We've adjusted, she's adjusting. But that makes me feel selfish. If they can make it better, don't I owe it to her to try that?"
"No. If she's happy and well, why isn't that enough? Why can't you be done?"

We love Dr. Prendiville.

Why can't we be done?

Bella, I remember holding you in my arms six years ago and thinking about two years of trips to Children's. That idea made be breathless. I remember thinking, "the medicine will work faster. We have to be done before then. I can't do two years of this. I can't." But then there was your heart, and your sight, and that your birthmark didn't fade the way it was "supposed to" and now your hearing. We have been traveling to Children's Hospital for six years. And because medically you're really unique, I'm starting to wonder if we are maybe stuck in this weird purgatory where you're not sick, but you're still a medical challenge. We could keep doing incremental improvements to your hearing, to your birthmark... or we could say it's enough. YOU are enough. 

Happy perfect little face.

I flash back to you being three and asking me if the surgery will make our faces "match" and how I sat on the steps of our house and my heart broke that you understood that your face looked different from mine, and you didn't like it. I keep flashing forward to you being sixteen one day and putting makeup on your birthmark and hating me because I didn't force you to have surgery now. Or being thirteen and self-conscious about asking people to repeat themselves because they were standing on your left side and you didn't hear them. I wonder if you'll glare at me one day and say, "you could have helped with this. Who cares what I thought when I was six?!" I guess the short answer is that I did. I do. Last Christmas you hit a turning point where you wouldn't let anyone look at the side of your face. You covered it with your hair and cried. You couldn't understand why if it wasn't a bad thing, we were doing a surgery every two months to make it go away. And I didn't have an answer for you. I can see how those would seem like two competing messages. So we took a break from surgery, and I concentrated on telling you that it was fine. And your friends didn't care or notice it. They even think it's pretty. 

Free.

Tomorrow we do one last trip, one last time, where a specialist looks at your unchanging hearing function tests and says, "well, we could try..." and I'm going to politely refuse the invasive hearing surgery. Because we are done. It's enough. It's okay that you ask us to repeat ourselves and we make sure that we sit on your other side. It's okay. I don't see your birthmark any more, and I used to not believe that would ever happen.

You have never had a life that didn't have an upcoming doctors appointment. You have never just been done. There's never been a time where I wasn't worried about the next thing, the next time, the next trip. This has always been a part of your life, Children's Hospital, tests over here, referrals and checks, and the phrase "that's really odd. That's not supposed to happen. But we could fix it. Come back in..." 

About to go in. Before the tears.

I'm done. I think you've been done for a while now. One day, if you're sixteen and reading this, here is why we stopped, why I didn't force you:

Because you are whole. You are well. You are enough. You're not sick, and so we're not going anymore.

I think we've all been trying to help you for when you're all grown up but not thinking enough about you now. Your birthmark isn't going away. They thought it would on its own, but it didn't, then they thought the surgeries would help, but they didn't. They thought your hearing would improve as your mark did, but again, that's not happening. So you're going to have a birthmark and impaired hearing for the rest of your life. I have been fighting with all my might to keep us from those words for your entire life, and I think this is where we hold up a white flag because this really isn't a terrible battle to lose. It doesn't matter. I used to think it mattered so much, and it doesn't matter to me anymore. 

It mattered because I so want to make life perfect for you. I thought that maybe that meant that we went as far as we could to fix everything we could. I think when it's paid for you just take it. It seems like a gift. "At least we are here where you can have all these appointments and surgeries and we never worry about the cost." But I wonder then if we've taken things as gifts that are just more things to worry about that we can't change. Or that we can change but at a cost to you that I'm no longer interested in paying. 

So I've called in our ferry form for the last time and now I'm going to forget the phone number. I'm going to free up that space in my head. I'm going to start paying for the ferry like a normal person (drat). I'm going to stop worrying about you and let you grow up the way you are, because you're perfect. You're enough. The world is going to tell you that you're not for so many reasons that don't make any sense. They'll want you to look a certain way, and act a certain way, and fit, and say things that make you uncomfortable, and to make yourself less and more all at once.  

Far more than I want you to have perfect hearing and a face with no red marks, I want you to know when to say, "enough. I am enough. I don't have to fit. I don't need to match."  

Love you much.

Oh, Schnipps. Six? What can I say about who you are right now? How can I put you into words so that one day when you're thirty with babies of your own you will be able to go back here, to see yourself through my eyes?

You are incredibly smart. We've done your first year of homeschooling and are just about to begin your second year. It's going exactly as I thought it would in your last letter, sometimes it's perfect, sometimes it's so difficult. You've skipped first grade already, which because we are homeschooling, is a bit of a technicality. You're still in the first grade community class at school - you go once a week and it starts soon. You loved it last year and you can't wait to go again.

Something that is new about you in the last year is that all of a sudden, you became brave. I don't know how this happened. My sweet cautious girl who was once afraid of playground equipment is swinging out on ropes over the lake. You showed me a video of you doing this with Daddy and I just had to see it for myself, so I made you both take me back to the spot you found and show it to me again. Daddy held you and pulled you back so far and then just let go, just like that. You flew out over the lake, your hair flying in the breeze and it took my breath away. A year ago you wouldn't have even considered doing something like this. You're teaching yourself to swim and Daddy is teaching you to climb mountains and you're so amazing, the way you move and run and sing and try. I love watching you grow up - it's the most beautiful thing in the world. Once from an airplane, I watched the sun set for about five hours - it feels like that. It goes on and on and if I stop to think about it too much the fleeting beauty of it hits me in the stomach and I forget to breathe for a second.

We learned a few weeks ago that technically, you're known as a "gifted child". I don't love the way that sounds because it makes it sound like other children don't have gifts or abilities that make them special, which is obviously untrue. What it does mean is that your brain works in a really unique way. A better way to say it is that you're an asynchronous learner. Your brain has developed much faster than your physical body or your emotions. You're able to understand and memorize things incredibly quickly. You have an incredibly high IQ. We had you tested at the beginning of this school year, and the psychologist was amazed at you. I was relieved - it means I'm not crazy. I do not have an incredibly high IQ and sometimes I struggle to really understand you. There is something about you that's just different. Not better or worse, just different. Can I tell you something? This is tricky for me. It's tricky because it does make you really difficult to parent sometimes. You're so logical, you understand so much, and you tend to argue a lot in an effort to understand something completely. Sometimes this makes me very tired. The other part that is tricky is that sometimes it's hard to be proud of you publicly or to explain to people what you are like without sounding like I'm bragging instead of just really proud. I have always cared too much what other people think, and I think sometimes when people hear how smart you are, they can act differently toward you. People (including me) can be really silly. You have a friend who is such an amazing artist, which is something you and I are not very good at. I just love seeing the art that he makes. I know of another kid who can karate chop a board in half. I know a two year old who colors perfectly. That's amazing to me. I love that kids are different and amazing in all sorts of ways. You happen to be remarkably intelligent. That's not bragging - it's part of who God made you to be and I want to be able to celebrate that in an honest way. It's obviously part of His amazing plan for your life, just like I think that art is a part of who God made your friend to be. All of those things are beautiful expressions of who He is, and I love seeing the parts of His personality played out in different people. It's why we're all needed, it shows me we all have a part to play. There is no way in the world, that even if I tried my hardest, I could be a neurosurgeon. You could. I can see it in you. I can see the incredibly meticulous way you do things, I can see you make connections and form concepts and then think in a really implicational way about those concepts and draw conclusions. You've just always been like that. I can't change it any more than I could change the fact that you're very short and tiny. I'm stunned by you on a continual basis.

I heard once that true humility is the ability to be knows for exactly who you are, no more AND no less. Making you seem like less is just as unjust as making yourself seem like more. We are trying to teach you that it's okay that "all the kids in the gymnastics class are better and faster than you" as well as that, "technically, you're kind of a genius." Both statements are true. It's who you are, and I love all of it. I love that you keep trying gymnastics, even though you struggle with it. I love seeing you be brave and persistent. I love watching you do a math problem or write a story, or build and invent something. You're amazing. All of you.

I pray somehow that I can raise you to be the kind of person who doesn't base her worth on the way we are compared to others. I think comparison is a fact of life, it's something we all do. It can be good. It shows us where we are, like a spot on a map. Somehow though, you need to know that if you become a neurosurgeon or a waitress, a ballerina or a construction worker, I want you to be happy and proud of who you ARE. Not what you can do. I pray that the former never gets lost in the latter. That you find your identity in your character instead of your ability. If somehow I can teach you that, then you're set. All the rest will just be details.

You are smart.
You are brave.
You are kind.
You are compassionate.
You are beautiful.
You are independent.
You are funny.
You are strong.
You are enough.
You are so deeply and wildly loved by Jesus.

You are also so incredibly loved by me. All of you. I love your wild hair and your huge questioning eyes. I love your fierce determination and your calculating logic. I love the way you dance and sing. I love that you are funny and silly and sweet. I love that you are a protective big sister, and a strong-willed daughter. I wouldn't change you for anything in the whole world - you are exactly as you were meant to be, and I'm really honored to be your Mama.

I love you much Isabella. So so much.
Mama

You turned five a few weeks ago (for the sake of the continuity of these letters I will shout, "five?! What?!" in stunned disbelief) and this year has held a few huge milestones. You became a big sister this year and everyone keeps telling me that pretty soon you're going to be over it, and the shine will wear off and you'll be jealous or despise your sister (people are so nice!) and there's just not the slightest sign of that at all. You ADORE Emma. You are the best big sister ever, and we couldn't be prouder of you. You're helpful and sweet and funny and Emma grins at you all the time. The other day she did a big belly laugh for the very first time, and it was just because you smiled at her. You did it again and again and it was perfect, watching the two of you laugh together. I'm so happy God decided to give us Emma, not just for us, but for you. 
The other big thing is that we decided to homeschool you and we have begun your first week. There is currently a terrible teachers strike in our province so I suppose everyone is homeschooling but we are doing so intentionally. Like so many things we go through together, I am scared and you are excited and eager. I am sure I will fail, and you are encouraging me that "I'm so happy you're my teacher, Mama. You're going to be amazing at this." Seriously? You're the best kid ever.
Firstly, let me get on record that I'm not the average homeschooling mom. Not the ones I envision anyway. There are two (well lots, but two major) obstacles in the way of my being a good teacher.
1. I am impatient.
2. I was terrible at school myself. I feel like this is the blind leading the blind.
I also don't sew, make my own granola, or know how to make a bento box with a nutritious lunch that is also a scene from the Amazon jungle for our Amazon unit study. I am not THAT mom.
There are a couple of huge reasons why we wanted to homeschool you.
1. I love watching you learn something. It's one of my favorite parts of being a mom, and call me selfish, but I didn't want to hand off that privilege to someone else. The moment when you get something and you look up at me and you're so proud of yourself is one of your best expressions, and you have a few.
2. Kindergarten here went full-time a few years back and it seems to me that five years old (just barely five!) is too young to be away from me for the equivalent of a full-time job. Well maybe not here, but in places like France those are totally full-time hours. See! I'm teaching you stuff already! Remember: get your first job in France. Because the hours are good, and well, macarons. Also, I'm coming with because you may not move so far away and also to help you eat the cookies. Anyway, when you figure out the schedule of public school, the school gets you for all your best hours. I get all my least favorite things about being a mom:
-breakfast and getting out the door in a hurry.
-the afternoons when you're tired but it's too late to nap.
-dinner, bath, and getting ready for bed.
The only nice thing I'm getting is bedtime cuddles and the weekends and I'm telling you buddy, that is LAME! It feels like a custody arrangement. Evenings and weekends. 
So I'm being selfish with you simply because you're mine and I can do it right now. I haven't got much against public education, other than my own experience and the ridiculous notion that a kindergarten child and a grade 12 student require the same amount of classroom time. 

You're smart buddy. You taught yourself to read - so much for patting myself on the back for that one. You do things all the time that amaze us all, and I'm proud of you. I'm so happy that I have this time to spend with you. I want to say that we are going to rock this year together and this is going to be MY THING. I'm going to be a rock star homeschooling mom. I'm guessing that the truth looks a little more like this:
I love you. I think this is the best thing for you. I want to try. I promise to try to be more patient and to ask Jesus to make me into the kind of mom that you need me to be, and not just the kind of mom who can make granola. (I really want to learn to make granola.) We're probably going to have a couple of fights and I'm probably going to think I was crazy to ever try this in the first place. You're probably going to wish at some point that I'd just sent you to school. But I love you. I want this for you, this time with you to teach you and watch you learn and grow. We'll figure it out. We always do. 

My Emma,

You are 183 days old. 26 weeks. 6 months. I want to say it in a way that makes you sound the newest, because time is passing too swiftly, blowing by me and leaving me bewildered. I brought you home last week, I'm sure. And yet, you are such a permanent part of my heart, of my identity, that in some way you have always existed, because the place in me that has wanted and loved you has always existed. Your Grandma Morel talks about how when we choose to have a baby, we co-create with God. Not just a baby, a person who lives for a lifetime, but a soul, who isn't confined to days and weeks and years and experiences. You are an eternal being. There is no reality in which you will not exist - you are forever. For me, this is the most shockingly beautiful and crushingly terrifying thing about being your mother. 

I hate so much of the way parenting is presented lately. I won't lie to you, it's harder than you will be able to know until you wade through it yourself, but it's so much more achingly beautiful than you're told to expect nowadays. Have I been covered in the unmentionable bodily fluids of another? Yes. Did the actual process of bringing you from my womb into this world emotionally, physically, and psychologically change something inside me, possibly forever? Yes. But Emma, this morning when I came in to see if you were somehow still asleep on my bed, your turned your big dark eyes at me and gave me this SMILE. And somehow nobody told me the way that smile would transform me. I heard a lot of stories about childbirth, went in prepared for the awful and graphic horror of it, but no stories about that grin. I heard a lot about how "everything will never be the same again, your freedom and independence is a thing of the past. And even if you had it, you'll be too tired to enjoy it." I never heard about how I'd trade every good day, every shred of "freedom" for a smile like that. They talk about parenting as though it's such intense sacrifice, and they're not wrong, but it's sacrifice after winning the lottery. It's done out of abundance, because they can't explain the way that that smile will make it worth it. You make everything worth it, in a way that feels almost stupid to say. Like, "I got a mansion for a dollar, but I still had to spend that dollar." And people who don't understand will lament the loss of your dollar. They will talk of inferior, worthless things they could have bought with that money, and others will join in and talk of the work and exhaustion of caring for a house that big, and maybe they should have gone with a 99 cent cheeseburger instead. Idiocy. 

I adore you. You're amazing - an eternal soul wrapped in a pink blanket grinning at me like you've never been happier in your life to see someone, and you haven't. It's a look that as you get older you will only see in airport arrival terminals, and on the faces of grooms as their brides enter the church. It's that smile, and you give it to me all the time, and I drink it in and soak it up and allow you to become my favorite part of my identity and the rest of the world be damned. I don't care if it's the 21st century and women are supposed to find their identity in careers or themselves or feminism or some other such nonsense. 

Here's the thing, Little: Jesus looks at you like that. Always. He looks at me like that. He is enamoured with us, and this is why having kids will be the very best choice you will ever ever make. Because somewhere in there, you will understand my love for you for the first time. The day they hand you your baby and your feelings are so big you are sure you will break wide open with ecstasy, promise me you will think, "my mother loves me like this." Because also, you will know how Jesus loves you. He calls us his children, even refers to himself as a mother, because there's nothing like that feeling. It will make you understand the cross, and how he could go gladly. 

You and your sister have given me that. And sometimes it's hard, and I show you my humanity so often. I'm tired, and things are different, and sometimes I don't handle that change with the grace you deserve from me. But never let it be said of me that I didn't LOVE being your mom. You are so worth it, and you make me so happy. That smile, Emma. I can't even. Contrary to the above, there are no words that do your smile any justice at all. 

I love you, Little. So much. 
Mama

I don't know how or when to write this. I need it to be fresh in my head, but I want a little distance from it. I also wonder if I can purge it like this - spit it out onto paper, if I can leave it there, pick up my daughter and walk away from it. That's how I picture it. How do I write it? It was awful and terrifying and graphic. It gave me my daughter, and so somehow I am grateful, and yet if I knew it would go the same way again, I know for certain I'd be done. I may be anyway. I don't need another child, may not anyway, but certainly not if that's what would happen.

On Saturday I went into labour. Not false labour, but steady contractions that picked up from 3pm and progressed until about 1:30am. Then they slowed until 5:30am Sunday morning when they picked way up. And then so suddenly that I wondered if I'd imagined it all, everything stopped. We went to the hospital to double check, and I was at 3cm, but it was over. They told me to go home and sleep. I was bitterly disappointed, felt like I'd worked half the night for nothing. But I went home and slept, and slept, and slept some more. And then waited for two days for it to start back up.

Tuesday I couldn't pretend I wasn't itchy any more. It was starting to wake me up. I kept hoping I'd just naturally go into labour, that we wouldn't need a doctor and a bunch of interventions, but when it became clear that it could be a while before that happened I went for a blood test. I knew it was positive anyway. I prayed like crazy that I'd naturally go back into labour, and that didn't happen.

Wednesday they called me and told me to meet them at the hospital, my levels were too high. We arranged a sitter for Bella, and went in with our overnight bag. We did a stress test, Emma was doing great and they repeated the blood test. The OB came in, same doctor that I had with Bella. He asked what we thought. I said given that I was 38 weeks that it would be stupid to go home and wait to get sicker given that the risk to cholestasis is sudden intrauterine death. He agreed, they gave me some gel to kick start contractions and said they'd check with me in an hour. 20 minutes later I had my first strong contraction, and an hour later we made our way to our room, somewhere around noon. Contractions picked up throughout the afternoon and by 4:15 I was in enough pain that I took my epidural. I had tried laughing gas and despised it, feeling like I wasn't in the room with my body. Once the epidural was in they began oxytocin, and they played with the dose, wanting my contractions to pick up strength, instead of just frequency, which is all that had been happening so far. I had a couple hours of painless epidural bliss, before one side of my body began to hurt horribly. During those hours they adjusted the monitors on my stomach, sure that Emma's heart rate monitor wasn't picking up correctly. When I'd have a contraction it would dip, but would bounce back quickly enough that they were sure it wasn't a concern. I was dilating, but she wouldn't move down, and things were taking much longer than they'd thought. They broke my water, and attached an electrode to Emma's head to accurately measure her heart rate. They ran another wire to measure the strength of my contractions, and also a catheter. I was starting to feel like a science experiment. I was wired everywhere, and could barely move without some serious organizational help. Meanwhile, my pain levels were skyrocketing and we kept being assured that the epidural should be working better than that, but they'd call the anesthesiologist back for me and he'd be there within the hour. They tried localized freezing which didn't help at all, and another drug they put through my IV that I found helped the resting period between contractions, but did little for the pain. They stopped oxytocin to wait until we could sort out my pain management. They did deduce that Emma was still face up, and that to work through contractions would encourage her to turn. The first sign I had that something wasn't right was all the nurses and my midwife leaving the room to chat. By then my contractions were coming too quickly to do anything but continually ask, "is Emma okay?"
The anaesthesiologist came back, fixed my epidural and watched me through a contraction or two. I felt better, so he left. Within the hour there was an incredibly painful spot on the same side, but at this point I was closing in on 10cm and there wasn't a lot that could be done, except the idea of my epidural suddenly being gone was frightening to me. I made it to ten, and was allowed to push through a very few contractions. It was very, very painful, and the OB mentioned that I'd really gotten screwed with my epidural. I agreed.
It felt to me like one second we were close, she was going to come, and it was going to feel awful but
she was about to be here. I felt every minute of the three years we've wanted her, tried to have her like a physical presence in the room. I cried again and again that, "I just need my baby" and everyone kept saying it would be soon, just keep trying. The next minute it felt like the doctor was making a face said something to the nurse and midwife and left the room. The nurse kept saying we'd prove him wrong, we'd have her before he got back, and that I needed to push hard, right now. I tried but it wasn't helping and suddenly the doctor was back, the overhead lights went on, the room filled with people and he explained that Emma wasn't turning, and couldn't descend, that every contraction was slowing her heart and she needed to be out, and now. He said he was going to try and turn her using forceps and I'd be allowed to try very briefly to push her out. If that wasn't successful, we needed a c-section. The room had been prepared and the team was waiting to rush me down the hall. Two nurses were putting leg braces onto the bed so high I didn't know how to get into the,and a table of very scary looking tools was rolled in. My anesthesiologist was there with consent forms I needed to sign for all these interventions and I couldn't pay attention with the contractions screaming through me, everything telling me to push, but my fear knowing I was slowing her heart dangerously every time I tried. I can't explain the fear, the utter panic and helplessness that those moments were, until suddenly I knew he was going to turn her and I closed my eyes and felt him push her backwards, and the sensation and horror of that pain is something that felt so completely wrong, so unnatural, that it was just indescribable. I knew she needed out, and I couldn't stop myself from pushing and screaming from the pain and the fear. I felt him turn her, and he said the cord was around her neck, and no wonder her heart slowed and she couldn't turn over. He freed it. He said he was going to pull her out on the next contraction and that I had to push and not to stop. It took only a few times, I think, and it felt like everything just stopped. I was so scared we were hurting her and somewhere in my mind every forceps horror story I'd ever heard played on a reel that I couldn't turn off. I couldn't look, didn't want to see what it was actually requiring to get her here until suddenly he told me to open my eyes, and I could see her head and little purple body following laying on the bed, and I heard her make a little sound and suddenly she was in my arms. I couldn't stop telling her I was so sorry, sorry I couldn't get her out, sorry we'd had to hurt her. They only let me hold her for a minute and then they took her away to check her and I heard her scream and Peter stayed with her and I held my mom and sobbed. I kept asking if she was okay, until after what felt like ages, they gave her back to me. I haven't really let go of her since. I can't yet. It's fine if people want to see her, and hold her for a bit, but in the end, I need her. I need her next to me.

She and I cried for a long time. Peter prayed for us both. She nursed, pulling away every so often to sob piteously. I joined her. Somehow he didn't hurt her too badly with the forceps and though it doesn't begin to matter to me, somehow I didn't tear at all. She has a dark bruise on the back of her head and a slight indentation, both of which should fade over the next few days. I'm in a good amount of pain but it fades when I see her, big black eyes and healthy pink skin, okay and sighing, making her little baby sounds. I don't know how we did it. It seems like something we conquered together, some little personal war we won. It's a shockingly violent way to have a baby, and they're so small and delicate and doesn't seem like it should work. The midwife told me later that out of the six OBs that could have been there, only three might have attempted it, and he is by far the best. She says it's something of an art and she'd have never suggested we do it with anyone but him. Somehow we got her here, and we are home. I just keep telling myself that it was just a bad day, even though it was the first. I get all the days from now on. She's going to be fine, I'm going to be fine. We get to go home and heal together and be a family. Everything about her feels hard won, from getting pregnant with her to getting her here, and I'm a little stunned by her, by what she can go through and by what she represents to us. I felt like Bella made us a family, and Emma completes us in a way that is incredibly beautiful and precious and fragile.

It's a part of her story, in the way that Children's Hospital is a part of Bella's story, but in the end, it's just one part. She has a future and a destiny and a purpose that I see when I look at her. She's a complete eternal being laying next to me in a pink blanket and I feel a little shell shocked, a little horrified, but mostly grateful. I'm beyond thankful that she's here, that she is what we spoke into existence when we named her Emma Camille. Whole and Perfect.

I'm sitting at the pool right now, in an uncomfortable lawn chair that may or may not buckle under the weight of me and the child that fills me to near capacity. I couldn't find my swimsuit today (not that it would have fit) so I'm on the sidelines, watching Peter and Bella swim. My jeans are wet from the hug I just got, and she's blowing me kisses from across the pool.

There's a dog in here. Sitting patiently at the edge of the hot tub, which strikes me as strange. Then a man gets out of the hot tub, and I realize he's blind. Ah, of course. This strikes me as an incredibly stressful place to be without sight. It's so loud, and it's slippery.  It's really crowded today, and the lifeguards seem to have their hands full. There are not guard rails but the dog leads him confidently to the edge of the large pool. The man is heavily tattooed, big bushy red beard. He looks like a pirate, someone you may not want to encounter in a dark alley, but something about the dog leading him tentatively across the wet tiles makes him seem vulnerable. Again I try to imagine navigating a public pool blind, and feel anxious at the thought.

Then I see her. The man and his dog have made it to the edge of the large pool and a little girl who seems a little too old and too confident for the life jacket she's wearing runs up, the strap that's meant to go between her legs dragging behind her. The man passes the dog off to an older woman who, like me, is occupying a lawn chair. He takes hold of the little girls dangling strap, like a tail, and she leads him into the deeper pool. She's done this before, and seems totally confident with it just being the two of them.

And then they play. He is WILD with her, and I can't take my eyes off them. They're laughing and he's bumping into things, splashing people as they get too close. She leads him into the rushing river, where Bella doesn't like to go because the water moves too quickly, and  it's usually so crowded. Today, it's like cattle in a chute, all being pushed wildly in the same direction. He's trying to keep his stick between them but they're laughing too hard. She's trying to keep him from bumping into others but the water pushes them into the walls. The make it out of the river and back into deep water. He tosses her in the air, she continually whacks him in the head with a pool noodle because he can't see to duck. She couldn't care less that he's "disabled". She's not careful with him. She points things out to him and doesn't notice that he doesn't look because he is solely focused on her. She's just a little girl playing with her daddy, and she has his attention. Totally and completely.

I'm smiling and trying not to cry. I think of him not being able to see her, not knowing one day what her wedding dress looks like and for a moment I'm so sad for him. But then I think of the things I don't see. Things I allow myself to be blind to because I'm tired or lazy or distracted. I know his life has more challenges than mine, but as parenting is concerned, I don't see a disability. He's just a dad playing with his little girl, and from where I'm sitting he's doing better than I am, likely because he can't take her for granted in the same way I can with Bella. If they're playing, they're touching, connected. She has to tell him everything and he listens. I wonder what it would be like to spend a day like that with Bella, and I can't help but think that she'd probably love it. His little girl is having the time of her life.

Eventually they get out of the pool and suddenly he's tentative again. His steps less sure. I have no right to have spent my morning being so unashamedly interested. To have even begun to make a call on what his life must be like. To assume anything about him at all or apply some lesson to myself that I don't begin to earn.  His life has so much more purpose than to simply serve as an inspiration to my own. I want to tell him what an amazing dad he is, but I don't want him to think that I'm saying it because he's blind. Because he isn't. All I could see when I looked at them was his sight and my own disability.

I think so far, the absolute hardest thing about parenting is making decisions for your kids. It's not the tantrums, or the sleepless nights. Sorry if you're a new mom and you're sure this is the hardest thing you'll ever do - it's not. Maybe some mom with teenagers will read this and say it's something else, and maybe she'd be right. But for me, it's this profound and crushing truth: I have to make concrete decisions for how I raise my child. She will live with the consequences of those decisions forever, for far longer than she will live in my house. They will shape and mold the person she is, the person she thinks she can be. And I've never done this before and have no idea what I'm doing. I think today's day and age make it so much harder. Every parenting decision you can think of is posted on some form of social media and debated with such intensity that if you try and do any research on the subject at hand, you'll be so confused and so sure you're about to screw everything up that you'll give up in five minutes, beat your head against a wall, slam your laptop shut and run screaming for a hot bath and a glass of wine. On the other hand, can you seriously make these decisions simply based on how you feel? That seems like a dangerous precedent to set. So I sigh, open my laptop, and try again. I ask people I trust and love, whose children I like and think are being raised well. And I try to trust my gut. Which I'm terrible at.

Emma is coming in a few short weeks, and we have to figure out Bella's first year of kindergarten at about the same time. These are the thoughts that go through my head:
"It's over. My time with my baby is over, and from now on a school gets the best hours of her day, five days a week. I'm going to miss her so, so much."
"Oh my gosh, how amazing will it be to have the best hours of my day back? Think of the alone time with Emma."
"Is she ready for this? Have I prepared her in any way for this?"
"Do I believe in my heart that any five year old is ready to spend 30+ hours of their week away from their family? I hate spending more than 20 and I'm an adult."
"Am I being a rebellious brat because I don't like the thought of public school? I had a crap experience, am I projecting that on her?"
"If we don't put her in public school, then the obvious answer is homeschooling. Do I want to homeschool? DEAR LORD I CAN'T HOMESCHOOL! I'm not smart enough, or trained enough to do it. And I'll have a new baby at home! No. Can't do it."

It's this, and a million other things. It's wondering if I send her to school full time if I'll lose her in some way. It's wondering if I homeschool her it will change our relationship and I'll lose her in some way. Most of it is wondering what she would benefit from the most. Who is she? How do you possibly know that about someone who is four years old? I don't believe that public school is right for every kid. I don't believe that homeschooling is right for every kid. So at the end of the day, who is Bella? What would work best for her? What's the best possible choice for her, right now? And I mean, right now. Registration for kindergarten starts in less than a month, at exactly the same time I should be in a hospital giving birth. Awesome.

I don't want to debate the merits of homeschooling over public schooling. I don't want to hear that I'm going to raise her to be a sociopath who will never leave my house if I homeschool, or the horror stories of what happened to your kid in public school. I've heard them. There's benefits and draw backs to both. I get it. But at the end of the day, I need to make a decision. Right now.

So in a couple of hours we are going to visit a classroom that's run by Regent Online Christian Academy. If we chose this path, Bella would go to school in a classroom for one half-day per week, would be able to be in a weekly lesson of some kind (she'd like to learn to swim) and the rest would be done by me, at home. The Ministry of Education would consider her enrolled at Regent, not technically a homeschooled student. They'd pay for it. I would be assigned a teacher to oversee her education and make sure she is meeting the marks that she should. This makes me feel calmer, because I like the idea of the responsibility being slightly lifted off my shoulders in that respect. I also feel calmer that at the end of the day, it's just kindergarten. If it doesn't work, then maybe next year we put her in school. I'm not ready to commit to saying that I'm going to do this until she's done high school, but the more Peter and I have talked about it, prayed about it, and talked about it again, the more we don't think we're going to enroll her in public school this year. I talked to Bella's preschool teacher about it the other day, and she said she thought it was an excellent choice for her, which surprised me. I also talked to a teacher friend in the public school system and she said the same thing. It's what she would choose for her kids. So we're going to see what we think, chat with the teacher and a few parents and take a look.

More than anything, I want to make the best decision for her. Not what society thinks is the best decision for all kids, not what I'm necessarily the most comfortable with. Honestly, I'm not ready for any of it. Both options scare the pants off me for different reasons. How did we get here already? I want her to be a baby again, where the best method of getting her to sleep was the biggest decision I made. Actually, that's a lie. This is still less terrifying than the medical decisions we made for her. And we did it and she's okay - and we were totally lost then, with nobody to ask because nobody we'd known had done anything like that before. And we did it. Maybe, like another friend says, I need to stop second guessing myself as her mom and trust myself a little more. All those parenting books tell you that you need to trust your instincts, and I have a really hard time doing that. I'm too honest with myself about my failings. I know that a lot of times, I'm not to be trusted. And maybe I need to embrace that I'm not always going to choose exactly right, and that's okay too. That she will still learn from my failings and shortcomings and that God is not beyond using those parts of me that I like least to do something great in her. I pray that he does, and that somehow he shapes me into being the kind of parent he saw in me when he placed her inside me what feels like a second ago. That would be enough for me.

Hi sweet girl. As I type this, sitting in front of the fire, you are wiggling away inside me. I feel you always. Your twists and turns, your kicks and hiccups. I love how reassuring it is, to always know you're there, that you're growing and okay. I complain because it keeps me awake, and I sleep so little right now. Sometimes it hurts. My body, large as it looks to me, is quickly becoming too small to contain you. But in the end, I love knowing you're there. We waited for you and wanted a baby for so long.

On Christmas Eve, I turned over and didn't feel you wiggle. I praised God that you were actually still at 3am, and went back to sleep. By 4am, I woke up because you were so still. I did all the things that usually make you jump and squirm. I lay flat on my back until it hurt. I went to the bathroom. I drank a big glass of ice water. I pushed and poked at you from every side. I waited, and nothing. I don't think that I've gone 10 minutes without feeling you move in months, and suddenly the stillness was completely disconcerting. I wiggled so much that your daddy woke up and so we lay there in the dark, hands on my belly, trying not to worry about you. Because of how things went with your sister we have already been told to monitor your movements. If I feel you are being too quiet in there, I'm to proceed straight to the hospital. But it was early Christmas morning, and your sister was about to wake up to open presents. And you were fine. You had to be fine. I was overreacting. I do that, sometimes. Daddy and I prayed. I may have tried to go all Pentecostal on you; I whispered the verse, "in Him we live and MOVE and have our being" and commanded you to move. And still, nothing.

Just as I was starting to figure out what it would logistically look like to go in, you kicked. Daddy didn't feel it and I was afraid I'd imagined it. But then you kicked again and your Daddy took a deep breath and I burst into tears. And suddenly, I knew that we didn't just want a baby. I don't just want a sister for Bella. I want you. Emma Camille, created in the image of God, already a complete person, with a personality and a destiny and a calling. You don't exist in the moment I hold you. You have always existed. Your spirit has been known to God before you ever entered my womb. I don't know how that works, but it does. It comforts me.

Can I tell you something? I feel very guilty for how little I like being pregnant. It's our first moments together, these few months where it's just us, and I don't enjoy it. Somehow that feels like I'm rejecting you. I'm not. We wanted you, prayed for you, and longed for these exact symptoms for over two years. I knew I was taking risks having another baby, that in all likelihood it wouldn't be an easy or uncomplicated pregnancy. We are in the final stretch, and you've done very well. It's me, really. Some women just love being pregnant. It's like their bodies were designed to do nothing but bring life into the world. I hope you are like that. I am not. I throw up incessantly, and when that stops, then I have a few weeks of rest before my liver freaks out, which I've thankfully avoided thus far, or my pelvic bones slip out of place. This is a new one. I'm sitting here, happy that my Tylenol has taken the edge off, and am waiting for a call from a chiropractor. I'm not to go to work again until I've seen one. It hurts. It feels shockingly like the first couple days after having a baby. I won't tell you what that feels like, except that the only thing that makes it okay is the ability to finally snuggle your baby. I want to snuggle you. I cannot wait to hold you. I saw a photo of a new mom I know, and there was her baby snuggled on her chest with those gorgeous heated blankets they pile on you after you've delivered.  The longing to see your little face, to be the one under that pile of blankets, knowing it was all over, nearly crippled me (which is apparently an easy thing to do). I can't wait until that's us. I love you already, tiny girl. We can't wait to see you.

Love, Mama.

The other day we were enjoying a lazy weekend and watching the baby kick my stomach mercilessly. I'd never seen her so active, don't remember Bella being like this so early on in my pregnancy with her. Peter looked at my stomach and said, "hey, you in there. You are supposed to be our calm baby!"

A couple weeks ago you turned four. Four. I know that I say all the time how fast time is passing, and that's true. It's going much, much too quickly for me. A while ago your daddy and I took you for a walk and once again, you were too far ahead, running all over the place and your daddy looked at me and said, "it's always going to feel this way isn't it? Like she's too fast, too far ahead, like we can't keep up with her." It does. It always feels that way. It's such a confusing mixture of feeling like you've always been here and like you just arrived. We're running behind you, watching you do and become all these things that you're just doing (so confidently!) and Daddy and I are wondering how we got here. 

Hi Bella,

I find myself wanting to talk to you tonight, probably in a way you're not ready for right now. You're so little, and so big, and I'm so lost in all of it. It feels like I've always had you, like there's never been a part of my life when you didn't exist. Sometimes it feels like you're new. Like we just got you home from the hospital a minute ago, and I went to take a long shower and came out and you're three and a half. You really are everything to me, in a way that sometimes even I don't understand, and it's hard to feel what I'm feeling right now and not be able to talk to you about it. Because it's you. It's your story too.

Those two days at Children's Hospital when you were so small feel very, very close to me this week. I remember every second of it. Everything I loved was at stake, and I was drowning. Half of your little face wasn't moving, they said your brain had been compromised. The told me you could have serious seizures your whole life. They were worried about your spine (something I haven't really thought of since that week, and find myself thinking of now), they were worried about your face, then they were worried about your heart. That was the minute I was kicked in the stomach. I remember stumbling down the hall to Cardiology, tears pouring down my face and thinking that the saying, "God won't give you more than you can handle" was total and complete garbage. I'd seen the haunted eyes of a cancer mom earlier that day as her nine year old went in for her third lumbar puncture, a very painful procedure. Her daughter was brave, but that woman looked like she'd been physically beaten. I refuse to say that saying to this day. I don't believe it. Unfortunately we don't live in that world, the one where God is totally in control. We took that control in Eden, and now we live here. Where people get sick, even good people. Where little kids don't leave Children's hospital and their parents stagger home, trying to figure out how to possibly keep breathing.

It's not that I don't know you're okay, not that I'm not more thankful than I can express. The day we carried you out of the hospital into the afternoon sun is what I imagine winning the lottery would feel like. You were going to live, and be totally normal. We've been back and forth to that hospital many times between that day and this one, and you've always done just fine. You're fine. But Tuesday is your first surgery. And that's going to be a hard day for me. I don't want to go back into those rooms. The same pre-op room where I saw that cancer mom, heard her daughter tell the doctor that it was okay, he didn't have to tell her how much it would hurt. She knew. The waiting room where they misquoted me how long your MRI would take and after almost three times the wait I'd been told to expect, we calmly asked to be taken to you immediately, or given a sedative. By that point I was shaking uncontrollably, still not used to you being out of my body, let alone out of my arms.  I don't want to go into the recovery room. Where I had to go find you by myself, last bed on the left, hooked up to all those wires. I could live to be a million years old and never forget for a second what you looked like in that bed, and how it felt to see you like that, and wonder how many more times I would have to see you like that. I know it's stupid, but I'm worried about how you'll look when you're done. It bruises horribly - I've Googled photos. For a week or two it's going to look like you were badly burned or beaten. It will look like a step backwards which is frustrating. When the bruises fade, we'll be able to see how successful the surgery was. I'd feel better if I could go into that room and see you with your mark almost gone, and know that it was so worth it. But it's going to look much worse, and then it will look better.

I know you're okay. I do. It's an incredibly quick surgery, done by a very skilled doctor, in the best possible hospital. You don't even have to spend the night. But I'd like to take a moment and tell you, even if you can't read it yet, that I'm sorry about the IV, that it'll hurt. I'm sorry that we live in a world where we have to do the surgery at all. A world where some people will only see the mark on your face, instead of the incredible person you are. I want you to know that Daddy and I don't see it. We just don't. But we'd like to have it done before you remember it too clearly. As clearly as I remember that first visit. I want this whole experience to get so muddled in your brain, so crowded out by great memories, that one day you look at baby photos of yourself and have to ask us what the mark on your face is.

I love you honey. So much. And the anticipation of the surgery is going to be the worst part. After that, it'll be fine, and you'll be fine. The surgeries after that (they say three or four) will be slightly easier because I'll know what to expect. This time I don't, and I'm a little afraid too. But we will get through it together. And you're excited because we're going to stay at a hotel with a swimming pool and go for a hot tub the night before. Because you're awesome like that. You know about the IV, about everything that will happen, and you're excited for swimming.

Sweet Bella, when I grow up, I want to be just like you.

Mama.

People used to say that about Christians. They were wrong. And right. "Mothers are the meanest group of people in the world" I believe I posted to Facebook not long ago. I took it down almost immediately, thanks to a friend who said that it was a pretty awful generalization and Facebook wasn't the place for it. She was right. I was wrong. And I was right.

I'll preface this with saying that I know some amazing mothers. I come from a good line of them. I have some amazing friends that are wonderful mothers. The other day at a restaurant, I met a waitress who was a single mom, and she spoke glowingly about her daughter. She loved being a mom, and was so nauseatingly in love with her little girl that she couldn't see straight. She found Bella a book in her purse or her car that her daughter had outgrown and gave it to her. It was the first time I as a customer had been "tipped" by a waitress, and I was touched. A total stranger. It made my day. I may have spoken to her manager, called the restaurants head office and spoken to them, saying she needs a raise. I've always been a little overboard that way.

When I was a girl, our whole extended family used to vacation at the lake together. We'd take up a bunch of campsites, the kids slept all over the place, and in the afternoons we'd all meet at the beach. I have a lot of uncles, and a couple of them had boats. Tubing behind a boat with my uncles are some of the best and most terrifying memories of my childhood. I can picture myself back there, sitting in some plastic contraption holding a nylon handle, bobbing quietly in the water and watching my uncles in the boat up ahead in the calm before they'd hit the throttle. Knowing I wanted a ride, wishing against all logic that they'd tow me nicely around the lake at a reasonable speed. Watching to see which one of them was taking the wheel. I never got that nice pull around the lake. It was always a million miles an hour, until I either hit a wave and careened wildly into the air or I got tired and simply couldn't hold on any longer. I don't remember a single trip that ended without a wipe out. That was the point.  

Motherhood feels like that to me. Sitting in the tube, feeling totally powerless and about to be taken on an exhilarating and frightening ride, knowing that I went ahead and got myself into this mess and wondering why. Partly loving it and partly wanting to sob in fright. I think a lot of us feel like that. When women are honest and vulnerable with each other I feel like we are built for such amazing relationships. We connect in such an beautiful way. And if we all feel this way, why don't we rally together, instead of being mean and judgmental and awful? But mom's really are mean. 

I'm on a fun shopping day with my sister and our kids. When we're ready to leave our favorite kids store, adorable purchases in tow, Bella decides to "assert her independence". She says she's taking an entire rack of leggings and when I tell her to put it back she says no. When I tell her she can't talk to me like that she pulls something she's never done in her life and raises her little fist and pops me on the chin three times. Bop bop bop. In front of the sales lady. I'm first of all startled, then angry,  then embarrassed, then lost. What do you do for a consequence? I nearly told her we weren't going to feed the seals at the park, but that's not fair to her cousin who is behaving. I grab her hand and drag her to the bathroom. Which is MILES away. She's barely keeping up with me, and knows I'm incredibly upset, and is screaming her head off. I can't get upset here, not with everyone around, besides, I don't know what I'll say. She's never hit me. I'm desperate for a place to be alone with her, to be able to parent without judgmental eyes and ears. We make it to the bathrooms, and have to wait for a handicapped bathroom because Lord knows I can't go into the stalls. As we're standing there a total stranger comes up to my and my screaming child and says, "Oh! Is that how we always get what we want?"

When talking to people about Bella's health issues in the beginning I've often laughed and said, "We're hoping she's an easy teenager, since she's used up all our stress reserves." Most people laugh a snide sounding laugh and roll their eyes and say, "Yeah, good luck with that." REALLY?! C'mon people. I'm aware that one has nothing to do with the other. When I talk to other moms about the day to day struggles of meal times, or spending less time in front of the TV, or all the stuff that comes with having a three year old, I get told ALL THE TIME, "Have fun when she's 13." Often by moms who don't have teenagers, who never have. 

I get told that I'm lucky I only have one. If I had four then I'd be able to talk. Sure, that would be more stress, but Bella would have a playmate other than myself, and the ability to grow up with a sibling (something Peter and I loved). And could we also take a second and be super honest about that? Bella doesn't have a sibling NOT because we wouldn't have LOVED for her to have a sibling. So shut the hell up. 

In what scenario is it okay to tell someone who is struggling, frightened, and overwhelmed that they're screwed either way? Or that, "you think it's hard now? You've seen NOTHING. Things are about to really, really suck." That's a mean thing to say! And I hear it LOTS. And lets say for arguments sake, that they're right. It's still awful. Maybe more so. 

So let me take one second and be super honest, and really vulnerable. It's hurtful. It makes me feel little, and stupid, and like I'm never ever going to be a good mom. It makes me feel like it's not okay to struggle. It makes me feel so isolated in all this. 

To the mom who glared at me because Bella watched Netflix on our walk - screw you. I'm in desperate need of losing 40 pounds which is one more exhausting thing on my list of crap to do. My kid can't walk because she can't lose weight or I'm going to have to add a nutritionist to our list of doctors and I don't want to. I'm trying to keep her awake so that she gets a good night sleep before we head to our cardiologist appointment tomorrow. Which I'm sure will probably go fine, but I'm allowed to be a little stressed out about without some other mom saying, "At least she doesn't have cancer." 

There's the moms who think I'm an elitist snob and that my daughter is going to be an unsocialized awkward idiot with a below par education if I home school her.(I feel vindicated that unsocialized is not a word) To them? MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. I don't think you're a terrible parent for choosing public education for your child, do me the service of reserving your judgment of me. And also? I am unbelievably scared to home school her. But I want it to be me who teaches her to read. I want to be there for those moments when she figures something out. I want to be able to explain things to her, and learn with her. I realize I'm probably getting in way over my head, and I really don't need to hear it from someone else, usually someone who knows us not at all.

To the mom who wrote the condescending post about the mom in the park with her iPhone who was missing her children's childhoods, I ask, "Who was watching your kids while you were judging every minuscule detail about her?" And to every mom who forwarded it all over the Internet so I saw it at least four times - way to go. Way to forward a mean message about a mom who was likely simply catching a few minutes of "me time" while her kids were happily playing at the park. I've done it. I did it today. I still pushed her on the swing, we still had fun.

I'm not saying I've never stood in judgment, and that I'm not so sorry about that. We've all done it a time or two. But goodness sake, could we maybe tell each other just a little, "Hey, you're a good mom. That's a sweet kid you have there, you must be proud of yourself" Don't be surprised if you say it and some mom breaks down crying in relief. Don't we all feel like we're screwing it up? My goodness, lets throw each other a rope instead of looking at each other drowning and saying, "Wow - you think you can't swim there? The waves are about to get way worse." And then walking smugly away. WHY do people do that? I just don't get it. 

The problem is, it's mostly strangers who do it. Nobody who reads this post is going to be the mom I'm talking about (though I wish the judgy one with the viral post would). So my mission for this week, is to find one of those people - a stranger or a distance acquaintance and tell her she's doing a great job as a mom. I'll tell you how it goes. Someone's gotta freaking say it, and I'm sure not hearing it. Let's have that go viral. 

You are doing a good job, even on the days you're not. Even on the days when you glance at your phone too often, or sit your kid in a cooling bath to write a blog for an hour just so you can get your feelings out. It's not like there's anyone to talk to. I'm here alone almost every afternoon and evening. I'd appreciate (without an ounce of sarcasm), would really REALLY appreciate, being able to go on my walk without the "You're a crap mom" glare. Because it matters to me. More than it should, more than I'd normally ever want to admit. It matters.