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Welcome Encumbrance

Posted on September 29, 2009

I had planned to write last night. Sean was going to rehears with friends, the girls were bathed and asleep earlier than usual and I had no pressing work things to handle. I pounced on the couch and smiled as flutters of excitement erupted. My fingers twitched and I felt a huge weight lift as I let go of the guilt of not chronicling or pausing in these last weeks. I cruised Twitter and then Facebook before opening up my blog. I heard mewing upstairs, but imagined it was standard issue tossing and turning. Wrong. Before long the whimpers became full blown screams and sobbing. I set the computer aside and flew up the stairs. Briar lat crumpled in a ball at the very…

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Layers

Posted on September 28, 2009

Not more than a couple of weeks ago I was marveling over my survival of kindergarten. I had thought it would be like the first day back to work after having Briar, keening and begging. I remember trying to unearth what had to be a different reality, it couldn’t be possible that I was supposed to leave my perfect, vulnerable first-born with someone else. All day. Five years later I can still see myself sobbing in a chair with my mom on the other end of the line. I was pleading with her to make it ok. I am not sure if I wanted permission to stay home or something else, but I sought an answer and solace that no one had. Now I…

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Is it just me?

Posted on September 20, 2009

Our house is on the market.I am growing my hair out.Briar has started kindergarten.Avery is in pre-school.Fin keeps flirting with weaning.I am at home part time and at work part time. It feels a bit like I am chasing my own tail, with each day bleeding into the next. Lunches to make, clothes to fold and put away, projects to finish, promises to keep. I am never done. I keep trying to determine if it is just the inevitable fatigue and subsequent acceptance that it can’t all get done, everyone can’t be made happy, or if it is something else. Am I missing something? Pursuing the wrong thing? Fighting the wrong battles? Or, am I simply slipping into a chapter of my life where…

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Predictably so

Posted on September 16, 2009

There isn’t a parent in the world who hasn’t reached this milestone and exclaimed, “Five year old, hardly seems possible!” And even knowing this I find myself watching Sean putting the training wheels on the birthday bike and marveling, “Five years, it doesn’t seem possible.” Truth be told I’ve been saying it since she woke up, “Briar! Tomorrow you’ll be five years old. Five. Years. Old.” At first she looked at me with excitement, but as the day wore on the look become a gently withering sort of, “C’mon, mom, it’s been coming all year. Are you really surprised? I expected more of you?” **** I can say that it is one of those perfect examples of time’s treachery and mockery. Here today, gone…

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So that you know

Posted on September 9, 2009

Yesterday I wrote about my emotions regarding Briar starting school and today, though no less intense, I am writing about someone else’s. I don’t presume to know how Briar feels as I write about our lives, though sometimes I imagine I might. I hope that one day she and her sisters will look back on this space and be grateful for the things that have been recorded, if only in some instances to shed light on why we are the way that we are. Today I knew how her dad was feeling— Briar was indisputably radiant. And ready. And her dad was more in love with her than ever before. You have been taking our breath away since the day you were born. .

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