Shower Thoughts

There’s a popular subreddit called Shower Thoughts, where you can write your random but profound musings for an online audience. When I first joined, I thought, “I’m going to be cranking out Shower Thoughts left and right. This is my super power,” only to find that every time I tried to submit one, I’d get an automated response to the tune of,

“Your submission is not original enough to be considered a ‘shower thought.’” 

This is sometimes how I feel now, with a blog that I only really write on when I have “Something To Say.” But it often seems that there are millions and billions of voices out there competing to say the same bucolic types of things, about the same types of experiences. It felt almost easier as a kid of the 80s and 90s, with the possibility of, “Maybe I could write a book someday and get published.” Somehow, the possibility of being published and approved by a small body of editors felt more realistic than emerging as an original voice in this cacophony of noise we’ve created on the interwebs. Do thoughts need to be original? Probably not, I know. Most of us like to read other people’s musings because they remind us that we’re not the only ones thinking these things, or feeling crazy/messy/weird/etc. 

So now I’m a wife and mother with two small children, a 7-month-old and a freshly turned 3-year-old. Random thoughts often squeak by with no outlet to write them down except my phone, if a baby doesn’t happen to be grabbing it and typing her own inscrutable texts  at the same time. Pens are banished to the highest ledges and countertops or completely out of sight because, yes, they get used, but more often than not on the walls, and while Magic Eraser is magic, it can sometimes be so magical that it also removes the paint you want in addition to the scribbles you don’t. This leaves the introvert journal-hugger in me feeling sometimes like a pressure cooker without one of those pressure release valves. 

Because of this, I wanted to dedicate this blog entry to some of those very everyday but special-to-me thoughts. So, in no particular order, here they are: 

• I spend a lot of time encouraging 3-year-old Kateri to make friends on the playground and that it’s not as scary as it seems. Meanwhile, I am often too shy to actually have real conversations with adults I see at the playground! Kateri will walk up to kids considerably older than she is, grab them by the hand, and enlist them into whatever game she has in mind… and they actually follow her! Her skills at making friends right now are much better than mine are. 

• Airport security is one of the most stressful experiences I can think of. I thought everybody stressed about it for the same reason until I asked John what it was about security that felt so awful for him. It turned out that for him, he can’t stand having people bark orders at him in a disrespectful way. For me, it’s feeling like I have to completely unpack my bag, take off shoes and coats, hold kids in awkward ways, etc, and that terrible sense that I’m holding up the line for other people who could do it much faster than me. It’s the fear of getting beeped at and being “caught” for something (usually for the crime of carrying diaper wipes in my carry-on diaper bag), and having to explain that I’m innocent and the fear of not being believed. 

• (This is a Catholic one): To the priest who told me once that praying short, quick prayers while you’re going about your day is just as acceptable as taking a good long time to pray contemplatively: I nodded when you said that, but I thought you were wrong. I just want to say that you were right. When I was single and had a lot of uninterrupted time, I took that time daily for contemplative prayer, and it was great. Going to Adoration or daily Mass was easy to do. After having kids, I’ve felt completely at sea, because life looks and feels so much different now. I often feel that I’m not praying “right” because I’m not living my faith the same way I did when I was single. Trying to go to daily Mass with a toddler and baby is like playing jungle gym for 45 minutes, and that’s not taking into account the screaming. The day is completely full, a freight train from start to end, with train signals for nap and lunch, etc. Finding a quiet minute without interruption is a rare gem. 

The landscape has changed. When I’m in Minnesota, I wear clothes suitable for a certain climate. There are certain rules of dress that are directly tied to what the weather is like. We don’t keep umbrellas immediately at hand like they do in London. When we recently went to the Mexican jungle, I realized as soon as we had been there 24 hours that I’d completely forgotten to take certain things into consideration when packing, such as - you’re going to be drenched as soon as you put your clothes on. Everything will be wet all the time. You can put your clothes out to dry, but they won’t actually get really dry. It’s hard to really be prepared for a new climate until you’ve experienced it. 

All this to say, different seasons of life call for different things. I can beat myself up for not living the same way I did in that other season, or I can adapt to a new climate and discover what the new parameters are. 

• Singleness and married life or life with kids: A friend and I used to talk about the fact that the world (in particular the church) seems to forget about singles, as though they’re a non-entity in some ways, or that it’s really only the families that matter. Like Joni Mitchell, I’ve seen it from both sides now, and I’m recognizing that wherever you are in your life, you can feel alone or isolated. As a single, it felt like so many church ministries were dedicated to families. Homilies were directed toward family life. It could often feel like families had each other, so they didn’t really need to look outward and see the single people around who didn’t have people or places to go for special days, or who had to work really hard to create their own communities. As a single, it often felt like you had to be treading water all the time to stay active in your social life. 

And now the isolation is different, and it’s for different reasons. It’s when you walk into a public restroom with your baby who needs a diaper change, and you, who just needs to go. There’s no room for a stroller in the stall, so your choice is, either leave the baby in the stroller or the changing table by the sinks while you go into the stall (this looks pretty weird and believe me, you get dirty looks because what mother would just leave her child alone in a public place?!) or take your baby into the stall and put her on the floor (also weird, and who knows how dirty the floor is). If anyone out there has figured out the solution to this puzzle, please tell me because I’m still trying to figure it out. The isolation can also come from the fact that it’s harder to keep the same connections with friends while wiping noses, breaking up fights, or dealing with huge messes that get made while you turn your back. When you come up for air during nap times, you often have a myriad of choices, all of them important - take care of neglected chores, take a few moments to yourself to breathe and just be, or call all the people you haven’t talked to in forever. Or nap. 

• I forget what movie this was, but there is a movie in which a guy has an app that tracks everything - how much exercise he has gotten, what his heart rate is, what his emotional health is, etc. Sometimes it feels like our generation boils everything down into metrics - because we can!  We measure and pour ourselves into so many expectations - “I will exercise this many minutes,” “I will eat this number of grams of carbs and this of protein” “I will spend 20 minutes reading with my child,” “I will make sure to connect with 3 people this week.” We can look at all the things that go into perfect human wellness - emotional, intellectual, spiritual, physical, etc. When you add children to this, you might also be thinking about how to boost their emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical wellness, as well. There are just so many things on which to focus (maybe too many things?) A friend shared with me that she, too, has this running list in her mind, and one day she had to let it go in order to take her mother-in-law on some errands. And somehow, even though all the metrics didn’t get measured or recorded, it was a good and whole day, she said. What happened to our ability to just be? And why do we have difficulties in leaving behind the noise of our own metrics? 

• Who knew that chicken nuggets, fries and “chocolate juice” and some dollar store chalk would be the key to my toddler’s happiness? And where does one buy a toddler-sized Big Bad Wolf costume for Halloween?

Our Miscarriage Story

Warning: This post is going to talk about some normal bodily things about pregnancy, not in graphic detail, but blood will be mentioned. 

We found out we were expecting another baby on Tuesday, January 7th. I decided that if my period had not started by that Tuesday, I was going to pick up a pregnancy test along with our weekly groceries and find out! 

The results showed a faint, but very present, second line. I was thrilled! John and I had been trying for a while, and the whole process of monthly waitings and disappointments had been difficult. 

We were about to leave for Uruguay in the next 10 days, and I was eager to be seen by my doctor before that, because, with Kateri, I had been prescribed progesterone to help support the pregnancy, and thought I’d likely need the same this time around. Luckily, they got me in right away, and prescribed the progesterone. 

A few days later, I started spotting. It scared me quite a bit, having not really happened with Kateri. This time around, it began to happen daily, or every other day. There’s nothing scarier in pregnancy than seeing blood. We were getting closer and closer to travel, and I was very nervous about the long hours in-flight, especially because one of the red flags of bleeding in early pregnancy is ectopic pregnancy, which can be life-threatening if not caught in time. 

I called my doctor the day before our flight, which happened to be a snow day as well! He recommended coming in if possible, and I decided that with the weather being what it was, we’d take our chances, and I’d go to the doctor in Uruguay if anything happened. He explained what miscarriage would be like if it happened on our trip - oddly enough, I was reassured by his straight-forwardness. 

In Uruguay, the bleeding continued to be daily - always light, and always tapering off throughout the day, but consistent. Every day, I was convinced I was about to have a miscarriage, which made it hard for me to stay in the present and enjoy our time. I spent my anxiety on baby forums, reading stories that sounded similar to mine, and it became a compulsion. I recognized that reading the forums was only increasing the anxiety I felt, but that didn’t always stop me from going there. 

I noticed along the way, that what I was really searching for was certainty amidst the uncertainty. I wanted a conclusion to the story - was it going to be a healthy pregnancy after all? Was it going to be a miscarriage? I thought that if I could just know for sure, then I could deal with the reality. But the limbo state was, for me, crazy-making. 

Kateri is in an ECFE class that discusses parenting through the lens of mindfulness. One of the big lessons of mindfulness is staying in the present, which is the only “real” place to be. And this is a concept that has been promoted by hundreds of wise thinkers throughout history. I think the first time I read about it was in The Screwtape Letters, where Wormwood counsels his nephew to get humans to think either about the past or about the future, but never about the present, because that’s the only place that anything real happens. It’s funny how you can be totally on-board with a concept in your mind, and find it so hard to live! Each day I saw spotting, I wanted to know why. I didn’t want to just observe the symptom without judging it or concluding what it meant. 

W. Somerset Maugham’s story, The Painted Veil, introduces another concept that kept coming to mind during this time. In the beginning, a man is buying flowers for the woman he wants to marry. She tells him that she detests receiving flowers because they are only going to die, so what is the point? 

There were times that I said, “If this is baby is just going to die in the womb, what is the point? Why can’t it just be over now? Why would God allow a life to be created, only to be lost soon after?” 

One good thing I read on the baby forums, was the word of mothers who had miscarried - what an honor it was to carry that baby in the womb, even if it had only been for 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 11 weeks, 27 weeks, 38 weeks. And that, even though the baby died, they were thankful for that time. 

A big part of my world has been shaped by my dad’s premature death when I was 15. Since then, I’ve feared unexpected suffering swooping in. I do what I can to prepare myself for pain whenever possible, because that was a pain that was so unprepared for and which brought so much chaos to our family for years to come. 

During these days and moments of uncertainty, I found myself trying to prepare for pain in the same way. Trying not to get too attached. When John and I started a conversation about baby names, I cut that conversation short, and said, “We can talk about that maybe if I get to the second trimester.” 

In Punta del Este, the farthest eastern point of Uruguay, we swam in the waves. Wave swimming is fun. You try to predict exactly where the wave is going to crest, and you try to be in the spot where you can enjoy the movement of the waves without getting engulfed by them. And sometimes, if you don’t hit that point in time, you are told to swim underwater, so that the water doesn’t hit you, choke you, destroy you. 

I have often felt that way about grief. If I just mentally prepare enough… then it will be safe. Then it won’t create the chaos and completely topple life as we’ve known it. One thing I’m terrified of is the toppling of grief. 

I thought about that a lot as cautiously, I saw days go by, and hours go by: that death is a part of our lives. I often look at the deaths of family and friends as interruptions to what is real - and what is real, in my mind, is life. The toppling of grief, then, I’ve seen it as the thing that wasn’t supposed to be a part of life. 

Here’s another thing that comes to mind: Brother David Steindl-Rast, who went through World War II in Austria, I believe - he said he remembers that time as being a very poignant one for himself, for his friends - because “we had death before their eyes.” And seeing that life is a gift, and knowing it was a gift that could easily be taken, gave them a new joy in each moment, and a new thankfulness for each day.  

With every morning that brought blood, I realized that my dad’s death, while “toppling” our lives and reshaping them and changing them forever - that’s exactly what we need to embrace, and that’s not just a peripheral part of life - that is life...Because we are living beings, and we will die. There is nothing more real than that to be learned in school, or read in books, or studied, or spent time thinking about.. I think about the ways that waves, when they hit the shore, take some shells back to the sea, and bring some shells to the shore. You might have just spent hours building a castle that gets completely destroyed - and there’s no one to be mad it, because it’s just what the sea does. The entire landscape is changed. And it happens with each and every wave. That’s a metaphor for life. Life is a beach.

We got back home, and one of the first things I did was to schedule an ultrasound. 

We got to see our little baby and the heartbeat. I was filled with relief. The only thing that worried me was that I was supposed to be nearly 8 weeks, and I measured a bit more than 6 weeks. I knew that the ultrasound technician couldn’t really say anything, but still, I asked if a 9 day difference in dates was worrisome. She said, a bit offhandedly, that it could be all sorts of different things, and that my doctor could explain it to me in more detail. 

But my clinic only called to say that the ultrasound had looked good, and they didn’t need to see me for a follow-up.  They asked me to schedule another ultrasound for two weeks later. 

The waiting was excruciating. And during that time, I again compulsively sought certainty through the forums, through preparing for pain, through prayer. I found again and again, that the only thing that was actually helpful was accepting the present day, the present hour. And another thing that was helpful was to focus on creative work. Because when your

thoughts want to spin around on the same thread, the only thing that can break that pattern is something creative. 

This past Tuesday, we went back for an ultrasound. Kateri was with me, and she sweetly snuggled her little head next to mine when the ultrasound tech started the ultrasound. In retrospect, I’m so glad she was there. 

Immediately, I could tell something was wrong, because the baby was the exact size it had been at the last ultrasound, only somehow fuzzier and less easy to see. The ultrasound sadly said, “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I can see a heartbeat. Would you mind if I called in the PA for a second opinion?” 

And I knew that we had lost the baby. 

It’s been a really sad and weird week, after. I didn’t realize that when you have a miscarriage, you have to have so much follow-up work: blood tests, ultrasounds, etc. When you’re pregnant, ultrasounds are scary but exciting - because you have the chance to see the living being that is there inside of you. You collect those pictures in the same way that you collect details about a person you’re in love with - every little thing you can learn is a gift. Post-miscarriage ultrasounds are the opposite - you’re seeking to confirm that all signs of life are now gone - that is the thing you are looking for. 

I decided to write this post because people keep saying, “No one talks about miscarriage.” And when you go through something like this (at least for me) there are so many things you think about, things that go through your mind. And there are also things that you learn. My mom’s generation must have felt and thought all of these things too, and where did those thoughts go? Did they just stay silent and absorb it all? 

It’s an honor and a gift  to be able to bear and nurture life in your body. But we tend to talk openly about how beautiful it is, or how much of a burden it is, etc. One thing we don’t talk much about, openly at least, is what a miracle life actually is, and how keenly you can feel that when it is hard to conceive. To even become pregnant! You might wait months and months, years and years, hoping, doing all the “right” things, and find that you’re still waiting. And then, if you do conceive… just think about all the things that can go wrong along the way, all the things that have to happen right for a baby to even be born. Think about the absolute miracle that it is that it was you - that sperm and that egg that became you - beat out all the other possibilities. 

So, as we mourn this lost life, I am thinking of all of this. Death is now before my eyes, and I realize again what a gift that a human life is.

No Habla Español In Uruguay

I speak maybe 50 words in Spanish, and the majority of them are completely useless for travel abroad, because they're the fun ones like, "tortuga," "conejito," "lechuga" and "verdura."

To prepare for John's work trip to Uruguay, in which Kateri and I were able to travel along, I checked out children's books with Kateri to learn a little Spanish together with her before we went. We read about la granja, gato, perro, and learned how to make farm animal sounds in Spanish. We even learned some fun Spanish nursery rhymes.







But none of these books prepared me to for the moment Saturday at McDonalds, when I wished to say, "So, I already ordered this salad, but somewhere in translation, it was lost that I asked for pollo crispy, and now I just have basic lettuce and few tomatoes, and that's not enough for lunch. Can I please buy some crispy chicken to add to my salad for only 35 pesos?"

So, instead, I just stood there and sheepishly asked, "Habla ingles?" It's still bothering me that I don't totally know if that is the correct way to ask, grammatically. But the cashier figured it out. He spoke only un poquito ingles, but between the two of us, we hacked at our two languages until we finally figured out what needed to happen.

I take pride in my communication skills. I spend probably more time than is wise to admit drafting emails, going over the same paragraph multiple times to be sure meaning is clear, and that there is no room for misunderstanding. I probably over-communicate, and people have told me that they sometimes wonder if I think they are dumb, because I work to communicate so much that there is no need on the other person's part to patch things together or connect the dots themselves.

Which is why being in Uruguay has been a real challenge, but ultimately, it's helped me learn to trust others.

You wouldn't probably guess, but Fargo and Grand Forks did give me a lot of opportunities to meet people who were not fluent English speakers.

Throughout my life, I've loved the people I've known who don't speak English fluently. Why? Well, there's something very vulnerable when you don't really speak the language. You have to get to the heart of things because you don't have a million ways to deflect your meaning. I've treasured these non-native-English speakers, because it always seemed we had a closer friendship sooner - maybe because of the vulnerability. Maybe because of the trust you have to give to the person you're speaking to, that they can work with you to discover your needs. When you don't speak the language, you have to relinquish control, and that can be a great gift to another person.

So, I've smiled my best smile and just said, "Muchos gracias," a million times in the last week - to the lady who saw that I needed to get Kateri in her stroller up a tall flight of steps - to the person who helped me get Kateri (again in a stroller) through the doors that were hard to open, to the waitress who waited with Kateri at our table while I went through the buffet.

People see a lot more than I give them credit for. Sometimes instead of making things clearer, more language just muddies the waters.

I'm thankful for this gift of humility (even though it's kind of tiring too) :)

Sleep Training, Singleness and the Dark Night of the Soul

There was a Thursday a few weeks ago that seemed a little like what Purgatory would be like.

I got up with the baby in one of those "make it happen" sorts of days, where you just feel like you can accomplish anything. There happened to be four hampers of half-folded laundry sitting in front of the TV. I thought, "To-do list item one." I'd whip this laundry into shape and be on to to-do list items 2-46 in no time.

Sometimes if I can get something relatively easy done right away, it's a momentum-booster for the rest of the day. It was 8:30.

John came home from work around 6:00pm of that same day. I had been focusing on getting the laundry done for eight hours... eight frustrating hours of picking up an article of clothes, and then putting it down to breastfeed, and then Kateri fell asleep on me. Then, I'd try to inch her down so that she was merely sleeping by me... instant angry alertness on her part.

John was the recipient of a barrage of furied texts on my part: "Something has to change. I have to get things done. She can't just sleep on me all day!"

And this is how we embarked on a new, glorious journey of sleep training.

One book I attempted to pick up right in Chapter 12 (the chapter devoted to sleep) said something to the effect of, (and this is a rough paraphrase) "Many people will try to pick up this book for this chapter alone. But if you really want to be a good parent, you will understand that you must read this book in its entirety to fully understand the important philosophies behind sleep training. Only then will you craft a babyhood, childhood and even adulthood for your child that will help them to be completely fulfilled, well-rounded, and not be traumatized from the stress which you forced upon them by sleep training them the wrong way."

Did the authors of this book truly have infants at any point? As an avid reader, it came with quite a lot of surprise to me that, in spite of making several well-intentioned trips to the library since Kateri was born, and checking out usually around 12 books a trip, there have been a total of three books read in the past 5 months. I was basically renting out shelf furniture for a few weeks, only to return it and check out more. The sleep deprivation is one thing. The other thing is that it's hard to breastfeed with one hand and hold a full-sized book in the other, AND turn pages. Holding a phone is much easier, and Reddit unfortunately usually wins over a book these days. Plus, when you have an infant that won't sleep, you don't have hours available to muse dreamily about parenting philosophies while sipping your morning coffee. You need answers now. You need someone to just hand you a mode of operation so that you can GO. You are in the trenches and on the front lines.

We settled on probably a few different philosophies and just thought we'd try them and see if they'd work. Most of what I found usable came from my sister, who's done sleep training four times, and whose kids are all temperamentally very different, so I trust that if she says it works, it works. We started with a basic "put her down drowsy," and then waited five minutes, went in to calm without picking her up, waited ten minutes, went in to calm, etc.

The first days were rough, and I didn't really know if it was working for Kateri. Hearing her crying for almost an hour and a half was unbearable. I kept asking, "Isn't there a point at which you just give up? And how do you know what that is?"

This last two weeks has come with a lot of second-guessing. I was at church this weekend, and it occurred to me that leaving Kateri alone to cry by herself in a dark room was a pretty good metaphor to how I felt a few years ago in being single.

I just wanted to be married and have a family. It was the biggest thing I'd ever wanted. It had been years of wanting it and seeing others "getting" it, and wondering if I actually REALLY wanted that, or if I was even cut out for it. Or if I wanted it, why couldn't I seem to choose that decent guy who really was a good guy, but I just didn't feel right about it? And then, deciding that maybe it wasn't the way of life that was for me, and if it wasn't to be, then what? And trying to find a different way to live that maybe didn't include being married or having a family and being content with that.

During all this struggle, I prayed a lot. Why this misery if there was no purpose for it? Because I had also read that "hope deferred makes the heart sick." And the hope itself was such a distraction from other more useful things, like helping other people. And if God was actually hearing my prayers at all, then why wasn't there a ray of light, a little bit of helpful direction, or some kind of, "Follow steps A, B, and C, and you'll find yourself moving in a direction that doesn't leave you feeling so frustrated, frail and doubtful?" 

Watching Kateri through our little omnipotent monitor, I could see (and hear) some of the same frustration in her screaming. Resolving not to go in and comfort every little cry was painful, because I knew there was no way she could really "get" why the leaving her in there alone was necessary. The reading material about sleep training that was the most powerful to me was something to the effect of, "your baby needs to learn to fall asleep on her own." And because she had to learn it, I had to give her the empty space in which to learn. So that she wouldn't need me to rock her to sleep every night, or hold her, etc.

I had to provide a space for the struggle so that the lesson could come. And I had no idea how much space she might need in which to struggle so that she could learn.

So, as to my singleness, one of the greatest sources of struggle for many years, I did end up getting what I had hoped for all these years, and it's great! I do really think there was a reason for that desire to begin with, because married life really does suit me and help me to grow towards being my best self.

But I also think that the many years of struggle in the dark helped to purify that desire from where it began, sort of like a rock that is being polished gets stripped of its roughest edges over time. I couldn't say why it had to take so long. But so much of that silence and darkness provided the opportunity for lessons to be learned that I can be thankful for, now.

The Monday about mid-week into sleep training, I had nearly decided it really wasn't going to work for Kateri. She just cried and cried and cried, and her mid-day naps left her more exhausted and cranky than those blissful days of yore when she had slept peacefully on me for hours while I watched television and ate bon bons in my pajamas all day. I had almost decided to just let her sleep on me again and not do laundry for the next three months. It was easier than having to watch her struggle and not getting her sleep needs met.

And then, Tuesday, magically, she just started to sleep shortly after being placed in her crib. She was getting it! She was learning how to calm herself down and sleep on her own without needing my help. The good that I had been afraid of her not getting (sleep) was starting to give way to a greater good: sleep independent of my help. I started to understand that the greater good sometimes demands periods of time that appear to be fruitless struggle, maybe because the process going on that is producing the fruit is invisible.

Now, it's not pure magic (because I'm guessing that's just not how parenthood works after all). She has good naps and sleep-deprived afternoons, and nights when she sleeps all the way through the night, followed by nights of two or three wakings. It's still a process, and we're still human beings figuring it out as we go.

But I guess I saw struggle from the other side and realized that maybe God isn't just ignoring us or not caring when we struggle, after all.

New Seasons

I've had a habit over the years of singing through The Byrds' song "Turn Turn Turn" (in other words, Ecclesiastes) to think through what season of life I'm in: 

To everything (turn, turn, turn)There is a season (turn, turn, turn)And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time to be born, a time to dieA time to plant, a time to reapA time to kill, a time to healA time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything (turn, turn, turn)There is a season (turn, turn, turn)And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time to build up, a time to break downA time to dance, a time to mournA time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

To everything (turn, turn, turn)There is a season (turn, turn, turn)And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time of love, a time of hateA time of war, a time of peaceA time…

A Time to Cast Away Stones: Selling our Family Home

Right now, the line that grabs me is "cast away stones" and "gather stones together." Maybe because my mom announced to us that she is buying a new house! in Idaho. Which means that our family home is going to be sold. Possibly not even sold, but razed and converted to a commercial property. Fargo is growing southward, and when we first moved to this house in 1985, we were out in the country. Today, we're only a few miles from town, as opposed to several. 

The thought that there soon might not be a physical house to contain all of my childhood memories, is a little terrifying: in a way, it's like losing a limb. The memories will be there, but there may not even be an opportunity to bring my kids to the house where I grew up and show them the rooms and say, "This is where ----- happened." I had a rather haunting pregnancy dream a few weeks ago where I was visiting our house and happened to see my ghostly 8-year-old sister Meghan calling from outside the window to see if I wanted to play. It felt very Wuthering-Heights-ish. 

The other part that's hard to get used to, is wondering where our family "center" will be. In a family of eight kids, we used to talk about how we'd be all spread out over the country in our adulthood, and who would live where. We were eager to be adventurous and live big lives. Reality has shown us that being at a distance from each other is not always exciting as we once thought. What we prioritize now, in our twenties and thirties, are chances to be all together, which are few and far between. Amongst the eight of us, we traverse several states and even foreign countries - Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Maryland, North Dakota, and Turkey. We are mainly still centered in the midwest, but what happens when the matriarch of your family is now out west? Is the center there, or does it remain what it has been? It's confusing. 

It struck me, too, that not only the physical house may be gone, but also the places around it that have many memories. The bridge where, as a 12-year-old interested in archeology, I once found a complete cow skeleton intact in the mud at the riverbed and thought I could practice my excavating skills... The church

only a quarter mile away to which we would ride our bikes, attend Saturday night Mass, and practice organ and piano. The many country roads that became familiar over bike rides and runs. The shelter belt behind the field where we created a pioneer village and discovered old stones with cryptic writing unearthed over years of farming. 

There are so many opportunities to learn how to say goodbye in life, and this is just one of them. As much as I mourn saying goodbye to our childhood home, I can see that it's good never to get too attached to any one thing, even memories. 

A Time To Plant: Having a Baby

It was a very exciting and welcome surprise to find out we were expecting only two months after our wedding! Like everything, though, I've learned that when new things are coming, my worry brain comes out in full force. The first 3 months of pregnancy were spent on Googling every possible and potential worrisome thing. As irrational as these worries turned out to be, it was something I had to find out for myself. 

Now nearly six months into pregnancy, I've finally started to relax and enjoy the ride. 

It's been a fun time of learning - and there is so much to learn - like, what things you need, what things people convince you you'll need that you actually don't need. Trying to plan for the future in pregnancy feels so much like trying to plan for marriage in engagement - you are just guessing your way along based on what veterans in the field say to you, but you really have no clue, nor can you, until it really starts. Come to think of it, being a high school graduate and talking to older adults about my college plans felt like this too - they'd ask me my plans, and I'd mumble something about "generals" that I had hardly a clue about, and they'd go along like I actually knew what I was going to do with my life. 

One of the weirdest things to get used to is realizing that I'm not my perfect self yet, the self I somehow thought I'd be before children. I have a lot of weird rough edges, wounded hurt parts that haven't been healed really, or things that I'd say are "in progress." No way do I want my poor child exposed to all that. And yet, some of the best parent role models I've known have been the ones who embraced the mess and showed their children how to do the same. There's that often re-quoted Brene Brown quote about not waiting till you have it all together to step into the arena... And I think that's wise advice that is worth trying to follow. 

A Time to Break Down: From Full-Time Teacher to Stay-at-Home Mom

I love being a piano teacher - and have spent thirteen years building experiences and learnings and relationships to this end. Realistically, being a piano teacher is something you never really have to stop doing. It's just going to look different at different times in your life, and that's another thing that I love about it. 

But I always also really wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. And being a stay-at-home mom means saying goodbye to being a full-time teacher, for now.

I find that, now being on the threshold of this new adventure, there are so many weird thoughts that intrude: 

 - "Where does one get "Mom friends?" will finding "Mom friends" ever be a comfortable thing?" It feels like the first day of school all over again... anxiety about meeting friends. 

 - "What if I am a better piano teacher than mom??"

 - "What does the typical day look like for a stay-at-home mom, anyway?" 

 - "How much will I miss getting to hear my students' funny, thoughtful insights, or being part of their lives?"

But there are things that I think back to, from being an older sibling when there was a new baby in the house, that I'm so very excited for, like: 

 - baby cuddles

 - the sweet sound of baby laughter

 - babies after they've had a bath and how excited they are to run around naked

 - watching all of the little milestones and the funny things babies and toddlers do and say

 - how the world starts to look fresh because you see it through their eyes. 

This, Too, Shall Pass

Thinking back to my single days, which I truly thought would last forever, I got used to thinking that the time I was in was always going to be "A time to wait." 

Since being married, I think of that often - think of the excruciating pain of the wait, remember how hard it could sometimes feel to watch other people receiving the things I really hoped to receive - with grace and without bitterness.

It could be hard to receive the time I was in, and to grapple with all the reasons why it had to be a waiting time - whether in or out of my control. I can look back now and see all the joys that were part of that time (many of which I was blind to), and all the things that that time taught me and gifts that it offered. 

Now in this new season, in this new time of transition - the season that I longed for so many years - I realize that there are both new joys to be found and new pains, and new things to learn. Being a mother is a true joy - it's also terrifying! Being married is every bit as awesome as I'd hoped, even more so - and it is also full of opportunities to be more vulnerable and more raw, which can be way more uncomfortable than I ever expected. 

I am learning the truth of each season having a purpose. And learning that as long or painful or joyful or scary or glorious as the season we're in may seem, it is one of many, and it will pass and become something else. It seems as though the people who have the most wisdom learn how to move with the seasons and how to receive them all with grace, so I am hoping to learn to do the same. 

"My Mom Forgot to Make Me Do My Homework:" Can we make sentences like this go away forever?

"Hi," (insert student's name). How's it going?"

"Oh, good. It's been a good week." 

"So, I see you're empty-handed today. Did you remember to bring your music books?" 

"Ugh," disdainful eye-roll, "My mom forgot to pack them." 

"So, how was your practice week this week?" 

"Well... It was really busy. I wanted to practice, but my parents forgot to remind me." 

Sometimes (not as much as I'd like) I call students out on this inadvertent attack on their parents' not getting it right by them: "You know it's not your mom's responsibility to pack your books for piano/remind you to practice, right? That's your job." 

But I get it, too. I get that it's hard to keep reminding kids to remember their stuff. Often remembering to wear appropriate clothes (including shoes) can be hard. I get that kids are often fighting their parents on practicing to begin with - they might argue that they didn't choose to go through the drudgeries of daily music practice, so why do they need to be responsible for books they didn't choose, either? 

What fills my heart with fear and dread, though, is that one day "My mom forgot to pack my books," might turn into, "My boss forgot to remind me of that deadline," or, "The University forgot to tell me I was failing," or insert-other-real-world-situation here. We complain about people who do this (usually we call them Millennials, let's be honest). 

But for every person not taking responsibility for themselves and their actions, there is someone not asking them to. One of my greatest fears is being a "sweet" teacher who doesn't have boundaries with students, and this is probably one of the hardest parts of my job. 

I heard a great podcast episode this week called "Consequences," in which parents (who are also Al Anon members) talk about what are good consequences for children and which ones aren't really effective. 

What grabbed my attention was the very common-sensical suggestion on the part of the hosts, that the best consequences for bad behavior are the natural consequences. 

As a case in point, one of the hosts mentions that his daughters would not wake up on time for school. Every day, he'd get more and more frustrated, coming to her room again and again to make sure she was up. If they missed the bus, he'd end up taking them to school late, speaking to the office, etc. 

One day, he decided not to take responsibility for his daughters' waking up on time. Instead, if they woke up late, they had to face the natural consequence (detention). He said that letting this happen was hard, but that once his daughters had gone to detention enough times, they realized they needed to ask for help. He offered to wake them up one time each day, and after that, it was up to them. This was enough to turn around the behavior. 

Being an expectant mom now, I've been hearing a lot lately about the "Mommy wars," those subtle attacks that moms wage on other moms for not being perfect in the millions of ways perfection can be attained in parenthood. Such as, "Oh, you don't make organic baby food for your baby??" etc. 

The Mommy Wars sounds like a very exciting place to be - a place where, if your kid walks out the door without their school lunch, you face the tantalizing possibility of being labeled a "Bad Parent" in other parenting hearts for not racing back to the school to deliver.

But I think there's some correlation between the Mommy Wars and moms feeling (and taking) too much responsibility for their kids. There's a constant guilt and second-guessing of getting it right, and so this whole idea of letting kids face natural consequences for their actions is quite scary... because what is, in fact, your good parenting, may likely be thought of or seen as bad parenting. 

It's hard for me to know exactly what parents face in helping set and maintain healthy boundaries with kids in terms of responsibility, because I am not living it yet. But as a teacher, I do play a role in helping kids know and keep their responsibilities, and I do feel temptations constantly to gloss over those teachable moments in order not to hurt their feelings or to keep the feel of the lesson positive, etc. 

One funny example from several years ago - a student just wasn't listening. She wanted to play! She ignored my several questions. I tried closing the lid, and she just kept playing away. She knew I wasn't going to let the lid fall on her fingers. I was trying hard to work with her as she was, but I finally realized there was no way to get her attention. 

So I stood up and grabbed my coat, and prepared to leave the room. 

She stopped immediately. "Wait. Where are you going?"

"It just seems like you're not looking for a teacher today, so I'm going to go get some coffee," I said. 

"No, I do need a teacher!" she said. 

"Okay, well, show me that you need a teacher." 

And she did. I'd love to say there weren't any difficulties after that point (there were), but things got a lot better. 

What I learned from that situation, and many like it, is that setting boundaries takes so much less emotional energy than when I let people walk all over me. I don't have to get frustrated. I can just say, "You can choose to do X, Y, or Z, and if you choose that, this is what I'll choose." I don't have to control anyone's behavior, but oftentimes the behavioral results end up better. 

I am not writing this today because I've figured out boundaries and because I know how to show students how to take responsibility. Rather, I've learned that, because I have a sort of warped sense of over-responsibility (that everything anyone does that's bad is somehow my fault) I have to keep relearning how to let my students be responsible for themselves and to recognize the real consequences behind their actions. It's hard! 

In that sense, sometimes the one thought that kicks my butt into gear with setting clearer boundaries mirrors that line in scripture, "woe to me if I do not preach it." Sometimes being sweet and nice and boundary-less is the best way to create monsters. 

Early Lessons in Marriage

One of my favorite questions to ask my newly-married friends has always been, “What is something that surprised you about getting married?” I am finding that for most of these friends (and others) turnabout is fair play, and now I’m the one getting asked, “How’s married life?” I find myself more disconcerted by the question than I would have expected… I mean, what do you say?? I’ve been internally disappointed by the lack of deep insights that have come to mind.

The transition from being a single gal to a married gal was something I guess I expected would be harder, or rockier. I thought sharing a bed would be very weird… it’s not, unless you include our 
two sweet but very skinny, bony whippets who insist on sleeping in the same bed, and often on our legs, or in the curves of our backs… But even this - it’s not all that big of an adjustment, really.  

Now that it’s been five months, little things are emerging that are talk-about-worthy, hence this 
post.  Here are some of my early lessons of married life: 

Different Temperaments - Stronger and Better

One of the things I’ve always struggled with is putting off stuff like: oil changes, routine car, tooth, doctor, and eyecare maintenance, taking care of mail and paperwork in a timely manner,  returning emails and phone calls speedily, and having conversations where I have to say “no” to somebody or something. For years, becoming better (more timely, more honest) in these areas has been my goal, and I’ve devised many ways of tackling this procrastinatory edge to my personality. 

I’ve gotten marginally better (if marginally better could mean 2% better) but there’s still room for much improvement. 

Within the last month, our new car started experiencing what sounded to be brake-pad erosion. For three days, each time I’d drive, I heard a concerning sound of metal-against-metal whenever I braked, and kept thinking, “I really need to do something about that,” and then I’d get to where I was going and forget all about it. 

Finally, on Wednesday night, I told John about it, and he listened to the car, and we decided that we needed to take it in. 

Thursday morning, John said, “Do you think you could take the car in today?” I thought about the day’s crazy schedule and couldn’t think of how to possibly fit in a trip to the mechanic. John let me borrow his car, and I fretted about how to fit in this trip to the mechanic for my entire commute into work. 

A few hours later, I checked in with John. He’d already brought the car in! A few hours after that, the problem was diagnosed. It was fixed the same day, and we had the car back that night. 

This little incident was a pretty powerful one for me. Had I been Single Rachel, I can easily imagine how such a problem would have gone (and it’s embarrassing). I would have put off the trip to the mechanic. I would have taken the bus to get around instead, and the car would have sat at home until I was able to get to it (it might be a month before that happened). Part of the putting off would have been fear of finding out what the repair might cost. Part of it would just be having to adjust my schedule to do something out of the ordinary, which is a challenge. Once I finally got the car in, I’d feel like doing a big victory dance for finally overcoming my inertia. 

I realized through this that being married to someone who is temperamentally different from you can be a real blessing. I will hopefully improve another 2% at the procrastination stuff, but being an essentially slow-to-warm-up type of person will probably not change. It takes a lot of energy to work myself up into action - it always has. John, on the other hand, is an action-taker, so it is more his natural bent to take care of a problem right away than to let it sit. I would say there are benefits and costs to being oriented in either of these ways - my slower way does have a positive, in that I look at an issue from several angles before coming to a conclusion, and when that conclusion is reached, it’s generally well-considered. Acting fast can have its detriments too, for the same reason - sometimes things do need more time and more information before we jump towards action. 

If we can learn how to let our spouse shine when their strengths are called for, and learn to step up when it is our own strengths that are needed, we will be a great team.

Deeper insights into selfishness

A favorite married friend’s words to me just after her marriage: “Before marriage, I thought, “You know, I think I’ve got this selfishness thing well under control.” When I got married, I started to see how selfish I really was, and it wasn’t pretty.”  

Something that has become more clear recently is that I love to be generous and giving - when the thing I am giving is also something I want. 

But there have already been plenty of times where I can sense an invitation to be generous when it’s not at all what I want… and that can be hard. 

Take the other day as an example. John struggles with pretty bad seasonal allergies. We were just settling in to sleep when he said, “Could we change the sheets? I am feeling really itchy.” 

I was falling peacefully asleep. I did not feel like getting up and stripping the bed and remaking it with new sheets. “Can we wait until tomorrow morning maybe?” 

“Yeah, that’s fine,” said John. But I could tell that he was really uncomfortable, and I started realizing that I really needed to step it up. 

So we stripped the bed and made it up, and then we were both able to sleep and all was good. 

It’s this kind of selfishness that I’m growing slowly more aware of… when something needs to be done but I really don’t feel like it… at that moment. 

In those days leading up to taking our vows, my heart and mind were strongly aligned to that idea of “dying to self.” It would be hard work, but it would be worth it! The bigger picture was in front of us, and we could see the ins and outs of the whole thing, and how we would need to persevere and do things we didn’t feel like, but all in the service of Love. 

In actual marriage, it can be surprisingly easy to lose sight of the bigger “dying to self,” in the midst of long, cold winter days. Or days when you just need more - sleep, for instance. More encouragement. More Vitamin D. It can be easy to stop marching and to start slacking, and to start telling yourself that you deserve a break, too! I don’t have any answers about how to keep stepping it up when you’re in a period of time when slogging through seems to be the only course of action. 

However, I learned from this instance to keep my eyes open, each day, for these small invitations to love more generously. They can often be small and hard to notice! I want to be more skilled in considering what John needs just as well as what I need, and I know that in doing so, we’ll have a stronger marriage and a deeper bond.

Routine Maintenance - easy to put off, invaluable to marriage

John and I came up with a great plan at our engagement retreat: to have a weekly meeting where we would discuss anything that had come up in the past week. This would be our way of working through the smaller frustrations so that they wouldn’t become bigger, and to help foster regular communication. 

The first weekend back from our honeymoon, we implemented the weekly meeting. It was great. We talked through everything - the upcoming week, things we needed to plan together, things that had come up that had bothered one of us, etc. The second week was similarly good, and the third week. We forgot to do it on the fourth week, and then we didn’t remember to meet again until the sixth week. 

A few weeks ago, I noticed that we had not been meeting weekly for the past month - it had been more like every three weeks. Something had come up the day before that had annoyed me, and I realized that the next time we met, I’d have to bring it up. I didn’t like the idea of framing our meeting around an annoyance, but not having the weekly touch-base had made this more inevitable.

We met, and resolved this thing, which was small, and we talked about how important it was to have the weekly meeting so that these little things wouldn’t build. 

Sometimes it is hard to  stay faithful to those little “maintenance”-like things. The weekly meeting is a good thing to do, like car maintenance. It’s good just to keep a regular check on where things are, before something big is allowed to build. The challenge is, that these maintenance things often aren’t urgent. They’re a good idea - actually, a great idea, and if we make time for them, they’re likely to do a tremendous amount of good. The tricky thing is the lack of urgency. So much of our days have urgent things in them, and it becomes easy to say, “Well, things are pretty good. We can put this off.” 

I hope that we will continue to remember our weekly meetings - they have been really good so far.

No more popcorn suppers - adjusting to thinking for two

As a single woman preparing for dinner, I’d often get home from work, and go right to the fridge. If I had chips and salsa, I ate chips and salsa for dinner. If I had eggs, I’d make an omelette. Or, if I was just tired out, I’d poke a couple of holes in two pieces of toast, and fry a few eggs-in-toast. Occasionally my roommates had cooked good food, and if they had, they’d usually offer some, and I’d usually accept. Sometimes, I’d just pop a bowl of popcorn and eat that. My go-tos are slightly embarrassing to list, but they were comfortable and awesome to me!

Several months into marriage, I’m used to getting a text from John if we didn’t already plan through the week’s meals: “What do you feel like for dinner?” Internally, I groan, because figuring out what to have for dinner (that is actually considered “dinner” by a consensus of people) often feels overwhelming - a meat, a vegetable, maybe a carb. Who goes to the store? Is it something we already have? And, to a not-good-cook, the mental work of figuring out if you can fake your way through it or if you need to dig out a recipe, can be considerable. 

One of the things I’ve regretfully (mostly) given up, is popcorn suppers. And it’s sad to say, but sometimes I miss them. 

The truth is, I think the death of the popcorn supper is worthwhile. I was content feeding myself on mostly insubstantial carbs, but now that I’m thinking of John, too, I realize that what I want for us is something healthier, and more grown-up. It’s’s a mature thing to plan your meals together and consider the other person. It’s valuable to learn to cook and create nourishing foods. 

But there was a night when John was doing a class, where I unashamedly spent the evening at home with my long-abandoned popcorn maker and covered my popcorn with just as much garlic butter and Parmesan cheese and Tabasco sauce as I like. 

Noting the awesomeness of your hubby

I was single for a long time, hoping to be married one day.  One thing that surprised me most about getting married in my mid-thirties, was how much I’d grown into my self-image as a single woman, and how hard to let go it really was. 

One thing that was very true of being single, even with the very best of roommates, was the responsibilities. My dirty dishes were mine to clean. That floor that seemed caked with un-filed paperwork for weeks on end? That, too, was for me to do. As well as the bills. Responsibility for keeping up with friendships, for keeping up with emotional and mental health, having an interesting intellectual life, exercising, lawn care.  Sure, it wasn’t childrearing and it was only me, but that’s just it - it was only me. 

So it surprises me sometimes to leave a sink of dishes and get home later, only to find that John washed them, or ran that load of laundry that needed doing. How we pick up each other’s slack, and how unused to that I am. What is nice about being newly married and unused to this life, is the amount of gratefulness it is possible to feel for John, simply because he notices and takes care of me in these little ways. 

A pastor and his wife that I know well once showed me how beautiful it is to express gratitude. When one cooked, the other said, “Thank you for cooking.” When one did the dishes, the other said thank you. Long before my own marriage began, this habit of theirs impressed me because it was quite modest, but also very grace-giving. Remembering and taking the time to say thank you is a skill that can be so easy to omit, and I hope I’ll be able to continue growing in that gift over time.