Mountain Girl Silver - Hand-Stamped Customized Silver Jewelry - Portland, Oregon

When both my kids were like little babies, and the fatigue of breastfeeding, and changing poopie diapers, and more breastfeeding… and the sleep deprivation was taking strong hold…… and when I looked like shit everyday, and could barely even think straight and wore the same sweat pants everyday for a week, and couldn’t even FIND my hairbrush OR my toothbrush………   and all the post-partum crap… the crying jags, the feeling of hopelessness (like… is this ever going to slow down?) feeling….     IN that moment, when you think to yourself.. “WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF?”  there is nothing that anybody can say to you to make you feel better. About all the advice I got when I would look to somebody with need in my eyes was… “It goes so fast Erika, cherish every little moment!!”  And honest to God.. I wanted to smack them upside the head. These were people who had obviously been in my shoes. I was like, “Really?? It goes fast?” You’re a lying sack of shit is what you are!!!  Of course, about as far into the future I could see was to the next feeding, or the next diaper change. The next day (at most)….   The next hour rather….   Getting excited to go to the drug store, or the grocery store by myself was a highlight in my day. I often told my husband, when he would get home from work, “Uhhh,, I’m going to go to the store.” And he’d say, “Babe.. traffic is SOOOOO bad right now.. you don’t want to go out there, and besides, it’s raining!!” and I was like, “Uhhhhh I’d rather sit in gridlock traffic than be in this house for one more second!!’   He didn’t get it…. I don’t think he still gets it. Just because your kids get older doesn’t mean that you still don’t have that same feeling of being trapped. And maybe I shouldn’t say “trapped”… because that makes me sound like I don’t enjoy being a mother. I do… I LOVE being a mom, but the reality is,,, is that it’s the hardest job on the face of the earth.  You live your life for your kids. You wake up in the morning to feed them, and clothe them, and you have to be their biggest cheerleader, even when you don’t feel like opening your mouth or expending any energy.  Granted,,, the older they get, the more independent they get, and you’re no longer breast-feeding  , but you are still their constant. You are the constant lighthouse in their little oceans. They look to you for guidance, they look to you for security, they look to you like the big jar of glue you are, that holds everything together….. and fixes things.

But to all those people that I thought ill-will towards when they would rattle off the whole schpeel about how fast it goes… well… my apologies…   you were right. 100% right.  I still have a long way to go until they are driving and applying to colleges and begging for money for Friday night……..  but if history repeats itself,, it’s going to go just as fast.  Maggie’s 5th birthday is tomorrow….   I’ll spare you the details of her labor,, but let’s just say it was the most awesome labor day..  I went into labor at 9am while standing in the shower….. and she was born at 10am and I was holding my crotch in the elevator at the hospital shouting, “Get me a bed!!! She’s coming out right now!!!”… She was ready….   she was done…..   she was determined to come out and tackle this world with gusto!!    She cut her own hair the other day……   she’s all independent ….   who needs a professional when you’ve got a set of Fiskars, green, rounded-tip, ghetto, pre-school scissors on your desk in your room??   Those things shouldn’t be sharp enough to cut hair for cryin’ outloud!!!  So… we had to get it fixed…. it was bad…>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

So we had to go to Sit Still Salon here in West Linn, and get it fixed. I love that place. My schedule is so sporadic and flying by the seat of my pants is how I roll… but we went right down there that same afternoon and they squeezed her in and fixed it. They also gave her a little pink dye in the back nape part of her hair…..   She’s awesome…   But she’s also into dressing herself lately. Long gone are the days where my opinion even remotely matters. Matching??  What’s matching? As long as it’s got a good flow going .. she wears it. And I’d like to meet the person that can convince her that something doesn’t go well together. She’s sitting next to me on the couch right now buttoning up a dress that has buttons all the way down the front…..   she’s not a kid that buttons improperly…  you know how you can sometimes miss a button and everything is all katty-whompus?  Not Maggs…   she’s agile, she’s witty, her sense of humor is out of this world, she’s patient, she’s kind, she puts up with the wrath of her 8 year old brother, Anders. She’s the kid that brings me the phone when it’s ringing… reminds me that the cat food feeder thingy is on it’s last inch, she notices things at the store that we are almost out of at home, and puts it in the cart. She’s got courage..  she just “gets” it. Just really GETS it. She gets things….   She can recognize when someone’s feelings are hurt, and she consoles them, she knows every scientific name to all the fish in my salt aquarium, and knows which fish are more aggressive and who picks on who, she knows when it’s about to start raining, she loves ranch dip, and was born to eat cheese. She’s soft-spoken. Since we moved to this new neighborhood, she’s made a friend, Emma, who lives two houses away. Little Emma speaks only Russian. Yah, sure, she knows a couple of English words,, but she calls me “mommy”… so there ya have it. Emma gets pretty frustrated about the language barrier, that, and she just turned 4 a couple of weeks ago… so there is a slight age gap.  But Maggie is so patient with her. Emma acts out physically towards Maggie when she’s pissed, i.e. hitting, slapping, kicking, biting….  But Maggie actually understands why Emma is the way she is… and still loves her unconditionally.  

I guess what I’m trying to get at, is that Maggie is a good kid. I don’t know what my world would be like without her in it…  Her crooked little smile, her big blue eyes, her soft touch, her pigeon-toes and her cute little butt!! Her demeanor, her mannerisms, her young innocence, she’s eager to learn,  she’s my girl!! It’s hard for me to not go shopping today and just buy everything I see for her. She shows appreciation, and knows what it means to be recognized…..  And finally, tomorrow is HER day… it’s HER day to celebrate. And I hope she has the happiest of birthdays…..   Here is a video of her when she was about 3 years old…….   one of my faves!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 10:23 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.