When my husband and I started talking about having our second child, I remember thinking (naively) how much more work could that possibly be. My oldest had reached the magical age of 18 months and seemed, relatively, independent. He could play by himself for a bit, ask for what he wanted in perfect toddler English, and feed himself. I felt free and liberated. I could handle one more kid. It would just be double the work, right?
I'll pause while all the other moms of two kids have a moment to laugh.
The thing is that one more child does not mean doubling your workload. It means quadrupling it. I'm wasn't sure how it happened - it was just one more child's laundry, songs, feeding, hugging, bedtimes, playdates, etc. Yet, I know that I did way more work than I did with my first. I was confused. I needed an answer so I started doing some mommy analysis. Finally, I had an epiphany.
I hadn't figured in that having two children also means managing two personalities, and it's that job that creates so much of the work. When I had just my son, I never said "Ethan, that's Lilah's and you can share it with her, but you can't just rip it out of her hand." "Lilah, please stop screaming. Your brother did not hit you. He is not even in the room." I certainly didn't say those things, and another 100 like them, each at least 10 times a day.
The job got exponentially harder not because I had another child's laundry, bedtime or daytime routines to add in. It's because teaching two children how to be kind, considerate and loving siblings may be the most difficult job I have. I imagine that working with a four-year-old and one-year-old on this is somewhat like trying to get Democrats and Republicans to reach a compromise on taxes.
However, it's also the most rewarding and amazing job I could ask for. Nothing makes me feel better than when my son brings his sister her teddy just because or my daughter offers her brother his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I got this, I think. I could have another one, right? I mean, how much more work could it possibly be?
Friday, January 11, 2013
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Passing too young
Several weeks ago, a high school classmate of mine posted a simple request as her Facebook status. A little girl, 8 years old, in Oregon wanted to get 23,000 likes for her page. Could we please help her out? Such a simple request from a little girl, one I couldn't deny. I hit the magical like button and hoped I'd offered some sort of brightness to this girl.
Faith was no ordinary girl. Faith had osteo-sarcoma, bone cancer. As I perused her page, "Faith's Friends," I learned of her courageous battle, how it all began and how long until it would end. Throughout the next several weeks, I read her mom's increasingly painful updates. At first she spoke of playing with Barbies and watching Phineas and Ferb with mentions of pain medicine and difficulties. These updates included news of Faith's birthday party, moved up from October, and Faith's need to put pajamas on Barbie and Ken at night and daytime clothes in the morning. They also noted Faith's increased pain, discomfort, growing tumors and, recently, more time spent asleep as being awake became too painful. Throughout this journey, I felt most struck by the strength and determination of both Faith and her mother. Faith needed and achieved a pretty typical life until the very end and her mother still managed to provide updates to all those who came to care about Faith and to maintain her faith in God.
On Monday evening, Faith earned her "angel wings" as her mother wrote. Although not unexpected news, a part of me still couldn't believe she had passed so quickly. I had hoped, probably naively, that Faith might remain here on Earth for a longer time, give her family more time with her, but that was not to be.
News of a child's passing is always difficult to hear, even when you don't know the child personally. Once you become a mom the news is unbearable. I cannot fathom how a mother watches her young child die. This is my worst nightmare. I am awed by Faith's mother's strength, her ability even to discuss her daughter's passing. I am pretty sure that if it were me I would crawl into a ball and be unable to function. How does a mother move on from that?
Being a mom has made me infinitely aware of the finite moments we all have on this planet. Not only is our time here finite, but the small moments of our days are as well. We only get so many days of bringing our children to preschool or being able to call our moms on the phone. Everything can change in a split second and, often times, we have no warning. Go watch your children sleep. Call your mom. Tell the people who matter that you love them. Go put some pajamas on Barbie. From somewhere, Faith will be smiling.
Faith was no ordinary girl. Faith had osteo-sarcoma, bone cancer. As I perused her page, "Faith's Friends," I learned of her courageous battle, how it all began and how long until it would end. Throughout the next several weeks, I read her mom's increasingly painful updates. At first she spoke of playing with Barbies and watching Phineas and Ferb with mentions of pain medicine and difficulties. These updates included news of Faith's birthday party, moved up from October, and Faith's need to put pajamas on Barbie and Ken at night and daytime clothes in the morning. They also noted Faith's increased pain, discomfort, growing tumors and, recently, more time spent asleep as being awake became too painful. Throughout this journey, I felt most struck by the strength and determination of both Faith and her mother. Faith needed and achieved a pretty typical life until the very end and her mother still managed to provide updates to all those who came to care about Faith and to maintain her faith in God.
On Monday evening, Faith earned her "angel wings" as her mother wrote. Although not unexpected news, a part of me still couldn't believe she had passed so quickly. I had hoped, probably naively, that Faith might remain here on Earth for a longer time, give her family more time with her, but that was not to be.
News of a child's passing is always difficult to hear, even when you don't know the child personally. Once you become a mom the news is unbearable. I cannot fathom how a mother watches her young child die. This is my worst nightmare. I am awed by Faith's mother's strength, her ability even to discuss her daughter's passing. I am pretty sure that if it were me I would crawl into a ball and be unable to function. How does a mother move on from that?
Being a mom has made me infinitely aware of the finite moments we all have on this planet. Not only is our time here finite, but the small moments of our days are as well. We only get so many days of bringing our children to preschool or being able to call our moms on the phone. Everything can change in a split second and, often times, we have no warning. Go watch your children sleep. Call your mom. Tell the people who matter that you love them. Go put some pajamas on Barbie. From somewhere, Faith will be smiling.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
10 Year Anniversary of 9/11 - Part 1
In 10 years, I have never written about my personal experiences of 9/11. Odd? Sure, especially for someone who finds it decidely necessary to explore her life through writing. I'm haunted by why I've never been able to put that day into words, why I never get beyond that first sentence, one that I repeatedly write and erase.
Ten years later, I am a completely different person. In 2001, I was mere months out of college, working at my first journalism job (one that I hated), 21 years old, living at home because I couldn't commit to an apartment near where I worked and with very few responsibilities. I wasn't in a relationship. Hell, I didn't even have a car payment yet. Today, I have a teaching position I love that brings me great joy and allows me to make a difference (I hope). I have a husband of nearly four years, two children (nearly 3 and nearly 3 months), a mortgage, a car payment, bills, and too many responsibilities to count. My life is completely different, as are my reflections on 9/11.
That morning I had packed a bag and headed out to work. I had volunteered to head to a local candidate's headquarters that evening to cover the primary election results, so I'd be staying at the Hyde Park apartment of my cousin and her boyfriend that night rather than head back to my hometown in western Massachusetts. I expected it to be a late night. No biggie.
Tuesday is deadline day in the weekly newspaper business, so at 9 a.m. I was at my desk writing up a story about two little kids - one who lost a journal at a national park and the other one who found that journal. The story wasn't going well. I just couldn't get it to flow and I felt relieved when my phone rang. I needed a distraction...
On that beautifully sunny morning, I asked a stringer for our paper (I can't, for the life of me, remember her name) how she was and this I remember exactly. "Not good. They just flew planes into the Towers." I got a fellow reporter to turn on the TV and sure enough, there it was. As shocked as we were, we didn't stare at the TV, absorbing every bit of news - not yet. We didn't know where the planes had come from. We had a paper to get out. So we kept working, with the TV on in the background.
The damn story still wouldn't flow. Nothing I wrote sounded good. I couldn't focus. Something was bugging me. I took a break and looked up at the TV. I remember looking at the screen and thinking something was off. I said to nobody in particular. "Where is it?" Even while I was asking, I didn't believe it was gone. I just assumed the news stations were showing a different angle..it wouldn't just fall. Several minutes later I had heard that the South Tower had come down, but I hadn't absorbed that news.
For days, this would remain the same. I would hear snippets of news, details of victims' lives, questions asked by children and not fully absorb any of it. When you're learning to be a journalist in college, professors tell you to keep your distance. Don't let the story get to you. Just tell the story. Don't become involved. The irony would be that over the following days and weeks I would absorb so many details, but not be able to discuss them. I reported what people said, who they were, what they did. I just couldn't personally process any of it. Ten years later, I am just now starting to share my actual thoughts from those days. Ten years later, I am just now starting to understand how profoundly those hours changed every aspect of my life.
Ten years later, I am a completely different person. In 2001, I was mere months out of college, working at my first journalism job (one that I hated), 21 years old, living at home because I couldn't commit to an apartment near where I worked and with very few responsibilities. I wasn't in a relationship. Hell, I didn't even have a car payment yet. Today, I have a teaching position I love that brings me great joy and allows me to make a difference (I hope). I have a husband of nearly four years, two children (nearly 3 and nearly 3 months), a mortgage, a car payment, bills, and too many responsibilities to count. My life is completely different, as are my reflections on 9/11.
That morning I had packed a bag and headed out to work. I had volunteered to head to a local candidate's headquarters that evening to cover the primary election results, so I'd be staying at the Hyde Park apartment of my cousin and her boyfriend that night rather than head back to my hometown in western Massachusetts. I expected it to be a late night. No biggie.
Tuesday is deadline day in the weekly newspaper business, so at 9 a.m. I was at my desk writing up a story about two little kids - one who lost a journal at a national park and the other one who found that journal. The story wasn't going well. I just couldn't get it to flow and I felt relieved when my phone rang. I needed a distraction...
On that beautifully sunny morning, I asked a stringer for our paper (I can't, for the life of me, remember her name) how she was and this I remember exactly. "Not good. They just flew planes into the Towers." I got a fellow reporter to turn on the TV and sure enough, there it was. As shocked as we were, we didn't stare at the TV, absorbing every bit of news - not yet. We didn't know where the planes had come from. We had a paper to get out. So we kept working, with the TV on in the background.
The damn story still wouldn't flow. Nothing I wrote sounded good. I couldn't focus. Something was bugging me. I took a break and looked up at the TV. I remember looking at the screen and thinking something was off. I said to nobody in particular. "Where is it?" Even while I was asking, I didn't believe it was gone. I just assumed the news stations were showing a different angle..it wouldn't just fall. Several minutes later I had heard that the South Tower had come down, but I hadn't absorbed that news.
For days, this would remain the same. I would hear snippets of news, details of victims' lives, questions asked by children and not fully absorb any of it. When you're learning to be a journalist in college, professors tell you to keep your distance. Don't let the story get to you. Just tell the story. Don't become involved. The irony would be that over the following days and weeks I would absorb so many details, but not be able to discuss them. I reported what people said, who they were, what they did. I just couldn't personally process any of it. Ten years later, I am just now starting to share my actual thoughts from those days. Ten years later, I am just now starting to understand how profoundly those hours changed every aspect of my life.
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