Even Better

If you're going through IF treatments, or are in a rough space with regard to your reproductive health and choices--this is not the post for you.

Move along.

No, I'm serious.

See, this post is about the good stuff.  The stuff that you sob over when the last thing didn't work.

I have my child. She's 3 and a half.  If you leave out that half you are in trouble.

She expresses herself. She is fun. She is wonderful.

There are some things that are even better than I imagined it when I wanted a child. Some experiences that I thought would be good, but are even better than that. Here they are.

1) The smell of freshly bathed child.

I love hugging her and toweling her off after her bath.  D does the lifting but I get the story cuddles.  She smells like baby shampoo, soap, and her own clean Lotus smell.  It's wonderful.

2) Cooking and Baking together.

We have a tower so she can help me cook and bake.  She can crack eggs better than I can. She can sift  and keep the flour mostly in the bowl. We like to cook and bake together and it is better than I even imagined it.

3) Rocking a sleeping child

Her night time routine still includes a bottle and me rocking her to sleep while singing.  Yes,  I know she's three, but I'm not willing to stop it until she wants to. If it makes her happy, I'm fine with it. Her weight as she sleeps is getting heavier, and I love it.

4) Her compassion

I prayed for a compassionate child. I got one. Oh did I get one. I recently had oral surgery and I was not "normal" mommy afterwards. My beautiful girl climbed up next to me and stroked my hair. "It's okay mommy, I'll take care of you."

5) The "You're Here" Hug

Mostly this one comes when I pick her up from pre-school.  She sees me and I hear "Mama!" and she runs to give me a hug. OH do I love this hug.


Parenting is hard, thankless, work.  But these things, make it all worthwhile.

Fain I would climb, but that I fear to fall

I got a lot done today.

I revamped my resume.

I did research for possible freelance assignments.

I wrote a bit on my novel.

I wasn't feeling well this morning and didn't go to work, dropped off Lotus at daycare. I came home, slept, watched TV, and felt better. I got to work.

My contract ends in April.

Fain I would climb but that I fear to fall.

I don't know what happens next. I will get unemployment. I will look for jobs that I think will be a good fit for me.

I will also write, blog, and try to make money from my words that way.

This is what I have always wanted. To write. To tell stories and make money from my work and from people enjoying my work.

Fain I would climb but that I fear to fall. 

Right after I was laid off we had just adopted Lotus. My mother was dying and I couldn't add one more thing to my plate.

Now, now I think I want to try. I want to spread my wings and see if I will take off.  I want to.

Fain I would climb but that I fear to fall. 

But I am scared.
Lose your mind scared.
Minutes before they put the longed for, waited for, child in my hands scared.

At one point in the life of Queen Elizabeth I, her suitor Walter Raleigh, wrote with a diamond ring on a window paine. "Fain I would climb but I fear to fall."
Elizabeth I wrote back "If thy heart fail thee climb not at all."

Will my heart fail me.
I don't know.

Microblog Mondays--Stop it!

A Supreme Court Justice has died.

It now is the responsibility of President Obama to find another and nominate him or her.

It is now the responsibility of the Senate to confirm or not the nominee.  If they don't do their jobs they should be voted out.

I try not to call people out on their Facebook feed and blogs but anything I see that says that President Obama should wait--I will call you out. This is his job.  You want to "wait until the people have spoken?" They did. In 2012.

I will call you out.  I will not be silent because it is too important for partisan stupidity.  I respect your right to your opinions, but you are lying through your teeth if you say that you would say the same thing if a Republican was president in his last term and a liberal Justice passed away.

So just stop it.

The last show

I like the new Facebook feature.  The one where you can click on something and then you can see all of your posts on this day for the past year.

I've been enjoying it.

For the most part.

Today though, three years ago today, D and I saw Fiorello with my parents.
Bad memory? No. Not at all. We had a wonderful time at the show. Went to dinner at La Bonne Soupe, discussed politics and had a wonderful time.

I just didn't know it would be the last one. I didn't know that wonderful time wouldn't happen again. The next day is one of the best of our lives--we got our referral.  Then we got Lotus. And then we lost mom. Dad hasn't been back to Broadway since--though we are hoping to change that.

I just thought there would be more shows. My sister did too. She was invited and she didn't want to go--she missed the last one. Her thoughts of this--I don't know. I know she has so many regrets.  A difference between she and I is that I have no regrets when it comes to mom--sometimes that helps.

Sometimes no.

But I wish we had had more.

Microblog Mondays- Dear Aya

A co-worker is about to make the monumental trip to China to adopt a long awaited, longed-for child. Coincidentally, she is going to the SWI where Lotus was.  I have been writing and rewriting this letter for her to take.

Dear dear Aya.
That is the name that my daughter, (our child) called when she was scared in the first weeks she was with us. I hope it is all right that I call you that.

The little light you nurtured for a year is now looking squarely at her fourth birthday. She is bright, inquisitive, and affectionate.  She is a very wordy child---which means is that she tries to use her words and tries to process by speech what she is thinking and feeling.

A few days ago we were looking at her storybook (a book we put together with the pictures you gave us) and she saw a picture of you.  She stared at it for a while. and I asked her what she remembered.

"She smelled good." Our daughter said. "She was warm."

I knew she was loved.
I knew you loved her.

She is loved now--oh so very much. She lights our life with her smile. She makes us laugh with her belly laughs and her hugs are the best endings to long days.

I realize that I have not thanked you enough for giving her a safe place. I know you were firm, but you were affectionate. You paid attention to her--possibly at the expense of other children. I wonder if you were the one who nursed her from your body, and if you were I thank you for that.

I don't know your name--I only know you as her Aya--but I thank Gd for you every night.  I hope you have joy, comfort, and peace.  I'm sending pictures of our girl to you with this letter.  Please know that we will do everything for her, and someday we will bring her back to China to visit so you can see her.

Best,
Journeywoman

Anxious

Hi,

Happy New Year.

I still get to say it if it is still January, right?  Right?

I've been having issues with anxiety.

Big ones.

My contract job is over in April.  How will we make it if I don't get hired?  Do I really want to get hired? I mean, I do, but I do like the freedom of contract work.

I did nanowrimo and then like an idiot I didn't back up.  I lost all 10K words I did in Nanowrimo.  I've been backing up obsessively but I have been finding all kinds of excuses not to. Am I scared to finish and see what I can do? Yes. Yes, I am.  How do I work through the fear?

I have trouble letting go of my child at daycare.  I have trouble letting go of my child at all. What if she falls, hits her head, and dies. What if a deranged shooter goes into her daycare? She's so little. She's such a big girl. She can climb and run.  What if she runs too far?
It snowed here.
A lot.
We played in the snow, but she couldn't make a snowman--because the snow was over her head. I felt bad but she was having fun making snow angels.

I've been tending to overthink things.

I get hugs when I get home. So many that Lotus is practically plastered to me. I love this. I've had days at work this week where I nearly just left.  I came home and Lotus hugged me and gave me lots of kisses.  I'm thinking why is she doing this? I even ask her, and she says "Because I love you, and because you're sad."

I hugged her. Tight.

Lotus has also hit the threenager phase.  And the least little request can trigger a "You Don't Understand MEEEEE Meltdown."  Like yesterday. She was doing the potty dance. I told her to go to the bathroom. By the way she reacted you would have thought I suggested that she clean the toilet with her tongue.  NOOOO!!! I Don't WANNA! I got tired of it and didn't really want to clean up after it was too late. I picked her up, pulled her panties down and put her on the toilet. She was screaming and then did what needed to be done. She stopped crying and said "Oh, Maybe I did need to pee pee."   Then I spent the next three hours wondering if I did the right thing.

I've been talking to my husband about the anxiety. I've been talking to my therapist about the anxiety. Now I'm talking to the blog.

I will be trying to be better.

Then I'll try to write more.

And we'll see what 2016 has to do.

Microblog Monday--Christmas, Chanukah, and the light at our table

Today is the winter solstice.

It is no accident that Christmas is around this time. It is the darkest part of the year and the light comes back.

I like that Chanukah is the same time--and the light gets greater as the days go on.

I've been absent.

The grief you see. The grief is also a part of the darkness.

Thanksgiving is--was--mom's favorite holiday. She loved having us all around her table, feeding us and talking and stuff.
Last year we tried so hard to be good to each other.
This year not so much. This year we also had mom's unveiling.  That was hard. Seeing the gravestone with mom's name. Seeing the dual gravestone waiting for my dad. That was awful. At the ceremony the rabbi had dad take the "veil" off the gravestone. I could see on his face that he was thinking of the moment when the took the veil off my mother at their wedding. Over 65 years later he was taking the veil off her grave--not where he thought it was headed at the time.

Grief comes in waves, I've been told. The wave this year started around the unveiling and didn't recede until after mom's birthday. What would have been mom's birthday.

Now though the light is starting to come back.

My darling Lotus loved Chanukah. She's leary of Santa Clause but I'm hopeful that Christmas will be a hit. I'm having people over who are Jewish on Christmas day.

Hoping the light of friendship and love fills your face, your heart, and your life at this time of year and always.