Pendulum

My kiddos.

My sweet, crazy, awesome, tiring kiddos. At 4.5 and 3, they're the best of buds one minute and, as it appears at times, actively trying to kill each other the next minute. We have such fun times together, the two of them and I. We play, we laugh, we learn, and yes, completely exhaust one another at times.

Every day, I have a pendulum in my heart that swings between the following:

1. I love these precious days of being home with them before they start school and get older on me. I love our after lunch reading time, with the sunlight streaming in through the windows, and their giggles and my laughter filling the living room.

2. I can't wait for the day they're both in school so I can have just a little time, just a little space to get things done. A small example? Easter is a little over a week away. I just want the flexibility to go to the store and get Easter items, By Myself. No having to sneak things into the grocery cart, which really doesn't work now that my youngest, a keen observer, has turned three. I'd just like a little uninterrupted time to work, to write, to hear myself think.

Lately this pendulum has swung more often to #2, and with winter dying a slow death and no real warmth yet in sight, I'm not surprised. We have Cabin Fever like crazy in this house. I honestly feel that until we are able to spend a lot of time outside, it's going to be this way for a while. The kids are just fed up with each other, I find myself raising my voice much more than I'd like, and we just need Winter. To. Be. Done.

I think it's pretty normal and healthy to swing between both #1 and #2. I know that even though I'm eying #2 with great favoritism, I'll be a sobbing mess come September. Oh, the irony! We'll keep on truckin' and I'll try to enjoy our after lunch reading sessions while they last.

That is, until Buddy and Rosie fight over what book to read next, and who can hold it, and who can sit on my lap. There goes that pendulum again!

Almost There

I was going to write a post lamenting about how long the winter has been, and if I see vomit one more time around this house, you'll see me buy a one way ticket to California.

Instead, I'll talk about the good.

Since we turned the clocks ahead an hour last week, there is glorious sunlight almost all the way up until 7pm. It's amazing what an effect it's had on our family. The kids are no longer grumbling about nothing to do between the time they get up from quiet time until we have supper. For some reason, with it being light out later, they seemed to find it easy to find things to play with while I'm food prepping (I'm totally jinxing myself right now). Speaking of food prep, I've almost been forgetting to prepare supper in a timely fashion because I'm not used to doing so when it's still light out!

The snow is melting. Little by little. Just when it seemed like it was going to be freezing cold and snowing forever, the pattern broke, long enough to give us hope that there is, indeed, a light at the end of the tunnel. That light involves all snow melting, and green taking over the grey. It means the sun feeling warmer on our faces day by day, and it means the wonderful realization that our winter coats are no longer suitable for the milder weather.

We're almost there. I can't wait to walk in the quarry again with the dogs, and walk in general. Outside. Explore the woods, go to parks, just be uninhibited by the weather in general.

How do I know we'll make it 'til then? We're already 2.5 months into 2015. If that's not proof of how quickly time is passing, I don't know what is. In the meantime, let's try to enjoy any goodness that March tries to throw our way. There is something good in every month. Maybe for March, it's the promise of a warmer tomorrow.

Three Babies

There's so very much I want to write about, that I haven't had time made time for. Where do I start? I guess I'll start with what's most on my mind.

I have to talk about these three babies.

I've known for quite some time that my Gram Carpenter lost one baby, in 1961. "She came out blue when she was born" was what my very young ears heard. I knew she was a little girl and her name was Diane. She would have been the third girl: my gram had already had two- my mom, Donna and my aunt, Denise. I remember feeling sad for my grandma when she told me the story, stoically, but not thinking too much of it.

Not like I do now, as a mother myself. Now that I know what's it like to carry a baby full term, to get in those final weeks, days and hours and know you're so close to meeting the little someone who's been kicking around in your stomach the past few months. And then to have that moment come, and see not joy but pain and sadness... I literally can't imagine how horrific that must have been. And how, if my understanding of the 1960s is at all correct, the whole ordeal was probably swept under the rug and my grandparents were to go home to their two and three year olds who may or may not have understood that a baby was supposed to come home, too, and they were all supposed to carry on like nothing life changing had just happened to them. My poor gram. I can only imagine the pain and loss she felt.

I've also known for many years that my Gram Eldred lost two babies- Vivian and Donald. I really didn't know much beyond that except that their gravestones somberly read "Vivian 1948-1949" and "Donald 1950-1951". Such loss is such a short period of time! If wasn't until this past week that I was able to put some of the pieces of the puzzle together.

I was looking for something in the town's Death Records book, when I flipped open to a page of deaths from the 1940s. I scanned the page and found Vivian's record. Cause of death: accidental asphyxiation (today's SIDS). This coincided with the awful story my mom related to me of gram walking her baby in the stroller up Route 9 to her mother's house, and finding her 2 month old baby girl dead when she went to take her out.

My poor, sweet grandmother. What a living nightmare.

I flipped just a page or two to 1951. Donald's cause of death- pneumonia- wasn't the thing that shocked me the most. What shocked me was that he was 15 months old when he passed. He was not a newborn. Donald was a part of the family for longer than a year. Did I ever hear his or Vivian's names mentioned, ever? No. This again confirmed my suspicion that when these tragedies happened, the family was supposed to keep on going and not look back.

My heart aches for these three babies and their beautiful moms who played such a huge role in my life. My heart aches because I'm sad that my grandmothers lived during a time that encouraged suppression of feelings, not finding support and help through groups and counseling. My heart aches because the pain they had to endure is almost impossible to imagine, yet they were both some of the strongest women I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.

I think of those babies- Diane, Vivian, Donald- and think about all the other tiny souls taken far too soon. Every day babies are lost- some while still in the womb, others at birth, and still more after birth. We, as a society, are just starting to talk about it, acknowledge it. We still have a long ways to go. Each life impacts this world in one way or another, and the generations that follow.