Biting back tears and a scream I told the girls we’d be going to the gym to run around. It is not an exaggeration that I needed this excursion to remedy way more than 60 minutes of anything has any hope of doing. The girls gleefully scampered about gathering shoes, coats and wondering if they’d need swimmies, jump ropes or backpacks. “It’s just a gym, girls,” I said as I dug around for pants. “Is there a playground? Or a pool? Or toys?” the big girls asked. “Go a’mimmin, mama? Go a’mimming in da water?” Fin asked hopefully.

I took a deep breath, promised myself that once we got there they’d be instantly transformed into enthusiastic little gym-runners. Fifteen minutes later we walked into the gym and the walls shook with the sound of teen age boys bouncing basketballs. Briar’s face was devoid of all color, Ave was slumping into a pre-tantrum crouch, Fin’s eyes were darting around for a place to hide and Sean’s face clearly said, “This is a colossal failure. My heart sank.

“Come on girls, let’s go play,” I chirped. Briar began to cry and Ave said she didn’t want to. “I don’t think they can be here, Amanda,” Sean said to em in a stage whisper. I began to ask why but yelped instead as a cart of balls careened my way. Sean ducked out the door and the girls followed. We were standing in the hallway, a heap of forlornness, frustration and panic. When a friend walked by and mentioned she was going to the “family yoga class” I almost jumped into her arms.

Family yoga! Perfect! I dragged the girls and Sean to the room. We removed our shoes, grabbed mats and I quietly chanted, “Please be good, please be good.” The instructor was an easy going mid-30 something woman who was completely undeterred by the tumbling, squealing and just shy of chaos shenanigans of the kids. After a few minutes she began leading us in simple poses. Briar, back straight, mouth set with determination and eyes locked on the instructor, took to it like a fish to water. Ave wove in an out of willingness and insubordination. And then there was Finley.

Sprinting in circles, scaling my prone form, darting to the equipment room, clutching barbells and declaring, “Missed you, love you soooo much, I do.” Sean maintained an uncharacteristic calmness, this sort of public misbehaving usually sends him reeling. I lowered my head and took a deep breath as she lead us into balasana. Briar and I bowed obediently and blissfully as Fin and Ave continued to demonstrate flagging interest.

No one ever turned a judgemental eye, so when Sean stowed his mat and shepherded the little girls out it was more preemptive that reactionary. Briar and I carried on with driven faces. My leg trembled as I stood in tree pose, Briar to my right, giggling but standing tall and steady, was radiant. “Look at Briar doing Vrksasana. Great job, Briar.” The praise lengthened her spine and I could literally feel the pride coming from her taut little person.

I glanced sideways to search for Sean and the little girls outside, but saw nothing, so I returned to the positions. Ten minutes of unmitigated oblivion followed as I allowed myself to release the responsibility, worry and preoccupation of dinner, activities and guilt. Guilt. Gone. Briar and I moved our mats to prepare for the close of the class— a song and a time of reflection.

Savasana and Israel Kamakawiwo’Ole. Our instructor asked us to relax and move into Savasana (corpse pose). “Sometimes kids want to cuddle on mom or dad’s chest during this move, that’s fine.” I thought maybe Briar would, instead she took a very studious approach, focused entirely on our instructor, I reached my hand out and as it touched hers, she loosened her fingers and laced them within mine.

Well I see trees of green and
Red roses too,
I’ll watch them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself

My body loosened, my fingertips traced the surface of Briar’s hand. My eyes burned as I found my way back to Briar, my firstborn. My amazing first daughter that took my breath more than five years ago, lay beside me enjoying an experience with me in a way no other person ever has before. Muscles tested, then rested, ind engage, then released, our hands touching.

“Take a deep breath. Trust that you are safe. That you are loved. Feel the light of life, joy and love around you.”

I see friends shaking hands
Saying, “How do you do?”
They’re really saying, I…I love you
I hear babies cry and I watch them grow,

Tears coursed down my face. I walked down the aisle on a hot June afternoon 15 months before Briar was born, Sean waiting beneath a pergola, as three dear friends sang Israel Kamakawiwo’Ole’s version of ”Somewhere over the Rainbow.” My ears quickly filled with tears as Briar’s little fingers squeezed mine. A peaceful, enduring bridge between parent and child. Each breath I drew was ragged and relieved, a love and peace as purse as anything I’ve ever felt.

On a Friday night at the YMCA I rediscovered  my center and my meaning.

The light within me honors the light in you.

My family, my light.

Namaste.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Me: Yes, baby. Of course I do.

Avery: You gave me a kiss to take me through the day but the wind blew it off.

I was unloading the dishwasher and singing aloud, something I almost never do. Briar came in, put her hand on her hip and said, “mom.” I stopped, cheeks flaming as I expected her to ask me to stop, “You sound just like an angel.”

–

Finley says, “Mama, I sit in yours lap. You gives mys kiss and I drinks milk?”

Yessssss.

–

Rapture, pure daughter rapture.

Lately though, I’ve felt that despite my best efforts, way more air than sand has been catching in my hands. I have, surprise-surprise, lost sight of something for my desperate lunges for time.

It’s us. I am letting us slip through my fingers. So much of my life is about them, sweet, precious, beloved them. You would think that us would go right along with ours, that I would cling desperately to the moment in time that is now, parents, lovers and partners. If I were thinking I would sandwich in as many moments of us as possible and yet I don’t. I turn away at times as if to dally in the frothy excess of romance, of adult time, that it’s a penalty in my role as a mother. To hug daddy rather than to cuddle the girls is wrong, right?

Adult time while the girls are up is one thing, often an impossible thing. The din of vying for attention and clamoring for more— apple juice, drawing paper, piggy backing, whatever— it’s often not worth trying to talk over. Fine, we get that, but the nights? Post-bedtime, is that off limits too? Or is turning away for being too tired, too busy or too wrapped up in the Olympics another form of mommy-multi-tasking. Asleep at the wheel and letting NBC take the brunt of marital conversation.

I want these moments. I want to capture the charge of an unexpected spin in the kitchen, the way his hand feels against the small of my back. My body is strong from 5 years of lifting and swinging three kids and the ever-growing grocery hauls. I know my body, know the parts of me that make me proud and forgive the things I used to hide. He knows me, my god three kids and more if we’d wanted. He knows my body. He has studied the things that bring me joy and created new ones and along the way has smoothed surfaces I thought would stay eternally jagged.

When we dance it is with everything I remember watching breathlessly as a romantic teenager. He can cup my face in his hands and make me literally weak in the knees. He is my now and my forever. It is because of him, of us, that we have the very people making me so aware of the fleet nature of time. Why do I not chase the moments between us with the same ferocity? Is it not a good lesson for my daughters?

It’s time to make sure that as time has me on my knees I remember what’s important. This life of mine, treasured and dear, is more than my girls, more than my place as a mom, it’s my romance and my adventure. And so, I’ll end this night kissing my husband so that I can wake up tomorrow in the arms of the man of my dreams. We’ll sip coffee and smile at each other and when the girls cling to our legs and look up, we’ll kiss and they’ll giggle. And when they beg for more we’ll give it to them.

We all need us. Go catch some.

No, I am not an out the door in ten person if I am actually trying. I don’t think anyone would hold it against me. What I do think is crap is the, “My kids are angels and in bed by 8,” said with a beatific look and a nod that says, “Yup, mine are good, aren’t yours?” That scenario is about  as plausible as the knockout, dressed-to-the-nines who says she doesn’t even try.

I have had people tell me that I have a unique perspective on life with kids, that I give people pause and help them to reconsider the frantic pace and relentless hunger for attention so that they can enjoy it. I cherish those sentiments from people, but it does get me to think about bedtime. I think I should give a little glimpse behind the old curtain…

Because bedtime really depends upon dinner time, indulge me the wider window.

5:30 get home

5:45 announce bedtime will be early

6:00 say dinner is gong to be in 30 minutes

6:30 say dinner in five and bedtime immediately following

6:45 yell dinner in five

6:50 announce dinner is ready

6:55 call everyone for a 2nd time

7:00 sit down to dinner

7:01-7:11 get up every 2 minutes to fetch drinks, napkins and ketchup

7:12-7:16 cajole, negotiate and warn the girls to eat

7:17 clean up a spill

7:18 agree to say grace

7:19 “do cheers”

7:20 apologize for not doing cheers with each girl twice right at the beginning of dinner

7:20 excuse girls

7:21-7:30 sponge the disaster area that is the dinner table, the floor beneath and the walls around

8:05 look at clock and curse

8:10 breathlessly brush teeth with girls after corralling them upstairs

8:15 sweat through undressing and dressing them in their pjs

8:16 start story

8:17-8:23 field questions, requests for new books and referee as they jockey for position on my lap

8:25 begin bedtime – a lullabye for each girl + one for all 3, kisses, cuddles, hugs, setting the music and nightlight, handing out sips of water, nursing Fin and requisite, “I think I have to try to pee” pleas

8:41 stagger to my bed to “go to bed early”

8:45-9 Three trips back to their room to retuck-in and shush.

10:30 carry Ave to pee again

1am Fin wakes up and comes into our bed

2am Briar has a night terror

2:10-2:20 cuddling Briar

2:40 Briar has another night terror

2:50-3 More Briar soothing

4:30am Ave joins us

4:35-4:45 listen to Ave talk about why she woke up

4:50 convince Ave to go back to sleep

5am Fin wakes up and cries for milk

6am Ave wakes up again

7am Briar comes into bed

7:01 Briar complains that everyone left her loenly

7:02 Ave and Fin begin consoling Briar over my prone form

7:03 they begin to sing

7:08 Sean takes the girls downstairs

7:30 I stumble downstairs shaking my head that I don’t feel rested after going to bed so early

It is the same each night with very little variation.

The truth in my mirror is that bedtime is hell, except of course, when it isn’t.

“And she said, how is your mom these days?” he took a breath and broke out in a grin as he said, “I told her, funny you should ask, she took a ride in a limousine and they never brought her back.” He looked at us and shared, “So then, maybe four hours later I received a call where she told me how sorry she was and how embarrassing the whole thing was. I told her, not at all. Mom’d be happy. She would have loved my response.” People around the table tittered as he smiled and dove headlong into another story

My lips began to tremble as I watched him gesticulating and smiling as he talked about like in Australia.

She would have loved my response. He said it with such confidence and pleasure, the epitome of a child that has made someone proud. The hot slap of tears shocked me as I replayed my looping fear of the last five years.

I am going to die. I am going to leave them without me one day. We will not always be together.

It’s normal, but lately it has rattled me, latching on to my heart with a relentlessness that tires me, as if my every fear carries me closer to that eventuality. I want to be with them. Forever. But there it was, living and breathing before me, a child, sure he was grown, but a child just the same. He was so pleased with himself, so content in knowing how his mom would have responded to the exchange with that women so many years before. How many other times in life has he thought of her? Remembered her?

My eyelash kissed my skin as tear after tear rolled down. I began smiling and nodding.

I am at Rotary.

My girls are galloping ahead, clinging to me as much as they are pushing off of me, launching themselves forward.

My views are changing right along with my skin.

I will die, but I will be with them forever.

And so, while there is still terror, there is peace in knowing that they’ll one day say:

“She would have loved it!”

[insert disgusted sounds and tsk-tsks for setting a bad example for 3 daughters by not doing things for myself]

I have written plenty on the idea of doing things for ourselves, of finding ways to unabashedly derive joy from basic self-care that so many of us let fall to the wayside in the name of mothering, working or whatever. The reality is that me not scheduling a hair appointment is inexcusable. I’m not talking the works at Aveda (though it is sublime), I mean bangs our of eyes and a manageable cut.

The one thing I can say about waiting do damn long is this: I relish every second when it finally comes along. I realize that Amber isn’t going to fix the permanent furrow in my brow or erase the perpetual sallowness of too little sleep and too many responsibilities, but she is going to do more than my hair. Scissors clipping and comb parting, Amber is going to lift the layer that makes me forget me.

A new cut is going to awaken the girl in me that steps lighter and skips higher when her hair swings just so. I’ll wear a skirt because it makes sense with the hair, and then I’ll nod and think, “What took me so long? I am incredible!” I’ll squeeze my girls and they’ll get the smiles they save for when the laptop is out of sight, Sean is home and neither of us are talking about work. Their real smiles.

Have you seen your incredibleness lately? Can you remember the last time your kids, your partner or your friends gave you the real smile? Isn’t it about time?

Wa-da!

C’mon, roar!

Disappointment. How is that possible?

Somehow in the time between thinking about kids to having kids, a switch was flipped and it became a life or death matter that I do it all myself. That the herbs be grown in a garden of soil tilled by my own hands, that the cards be hand made and that the magic of fairy blankets and Santa’s ding-a-ling-a-ling be upheld at all costs. I was unwavering in the face of other, more seasoned parents saying, “You know, you can just go buy her one.”

I stamped my foot and grunted like a bull in the coliseum, “I will not give in. I will not mail it in!” I was indignant that I was not going to be like the people that took the easy way, refusing to sacrifice a bit of time in the name of convenience. Briar did love her costume and the photos I have show a radiant me, triumphant in my feat.

Five years later I am changed. It isn’t that I don’t believe in homemade, quite the contrary. I still have these fantastical visions of me as the perfect mom, balancing work, family and life with ease. I can picture homespun holiday cards and DIY crafts, but the other thing I can see, and can remember from my own childhood, is yearning.

A store-bought has no fuzzy edges, costumes from Target don’t elicit questions of “What is it?” or “Who are you supposed to be?” There is belonging in having the predictable, the known and the tested. I have seen my girls cock their heads and say with a high voice, “Yes, mama, it *is* nice. I. I. I love it, I do.” It seems inconceivable at 3 and five they know to fib.

The glue stuck the pages together, the sparkles bled and the colors ran. We all flatlined emotionally was we conceded, “Well, it got done.” Not exactly crafting nirvana. I suppose I have a new fantasy of sorts, one that has my girls growing up to be comfortable in wanting what they want. Valentine’s Day is coming up, last year we made cards, not because anyone wanted to, but because I didn’t make it to the store*.

As I look back, I wouldn’t change making that costume for anything in the world, but reading that blog entry I remember the pain and suffering— mine, Sean’s and Briar’s as I made her try it on time and again. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t relaxing, but it was worth doing to know that I need to balance my dreams and the girls. In the end, it’s listening to each other that makes it perfect.

*This year we’ll be buying Princess cards for Briar, maybe Handy Manny for Ave. I couldn’t be happier because frankly, I get no mom-joy from glue. Or paint.

Just hours before we’d made a final sweep through the house. My eyes scanned the walls that have surrounded us—Seven Christmases, first as newlyweds with eyes full of excitement, then as new parents without a nickel to spare, and then later, with more of us. Sean moved through the house slowly, reverently. I noticed that his shoes were off and chuckled, all these years and it took having it be someone else’s for him to really embrace the no shoes inside policy.

It happened at the same moment, we began to weep. Babies. All nighters. Birthday parties. Blisters. Ambitions. So many memories rattled around. We never truly felt settled, as if somehow knowing we’d move along, but standing there, eyes burning and chins trembling, we realized we were saying goodbye to our home.

Our home.

Saying goodbye is proving to be as hard as the work that brought us to this day. I think that’s good. I am happy for our old house and the family that will be making their own memories with their baby daughter.

Their house.

Through the window the madras fabric I used over the sandbox to create shade, whipped in the wind. I saw the girls running circles in the yard, heard the echoes of Sean slinging the nail gun. I hadn’t expected to feel an emotional cocktail of loss, elation and, oddly, failure.

The reasons for selling our house have been clear to us for many months— fundamentally too small and ineffectively laid out for our family. The ghosts of home improvement projects haunt us, where others see beauty and triumph, we see the corners cut or the harsh words exchanged as the last light slipped through the cracks before we finished.

I am burying my nose in each room, cleaning, erasing the fatigue of this process and trying to reveal again all those things which made this the house of our dreams 6 long and short years ago. I only hope I have enough to get it done with my heart intact.

She fully embraces her role as baby, alternately angelic or demanding as her whim demands. It is miraculous to watch the unapologetic and irresistible machinations of “the baby.” I think, and this may change in years to come, we all admire her temerity. “Do it, Fin. Claim it!” She is, after all, doing exactly as we each would do were we not encumbered by the I shouldn’ts and I couldn’t possiblies. Declaring what she wants and clearing the way, literally and figuratively, to get it. God, if I could give them all one gift it would be that. Save them a lifetime of door-matting.

The new year came and went and my baby still nursed. She no longer turns to me like she used to, there aren’t so many cuddles throughout the day, but at night she claims me. First there comes a mew and then another. Sometimes I leap from the bed, but other times I hold myself back, I wait to make sure it isn’t one more case of shifting in her sleep rather than a true call for me. I know they twist and turn, make noises and rustles, but when it isn’t that, I go or rouse Sean and ask him to bring her to me. This time will be something we both lose, after all. While the midnight and predawn feedings may have felt to be mine alone, he has marked the hours I’ve spent away, the minutes rocking in moonlight, the hours shushing softly and stroking her brow as I held her in the guest room, each touch we had was a hollow he felt.

“Is she ok?” he’d ask as I settled back in the covers. The confirmation that he marked these times with me was something I could never describe, a euphoria and relief to know that the chronicling was not mine alone, that one day two voices, two hearts would retell these unremembered times.

Nearly a month has passed and still she nurses. We are on borrowed time, I know. I am readying as is she. It kills me to say that. I have loved these years like no other time in my life. The too tall, too this, too that, not nearly enough such and such has become a perfect fit. I have grown three babies, nurtured them in my body and then sustained them on nothing but my milk for months. They’ve nursed to health and nursed to sleep. They’ve done it as I’ve worked and done it as we’ve traveled.

Now, 5+ years after I nursed my first, I hear the softest murmurs of protest. I am ready to sleep through the night, ready to accept that it is past comfortable to nurse her in public and that most of the time she uses it as a ploy. I know that a cuddle or simply undiluted attention will do, and yet, I am loathe to initiate the end.

Tonight another milestone snuck up on me. So preoccupied with nursing, I forgot the crib. She has been turning to her sister’s beds for months, but last night she asked to sleep there. “Finny, in’a here. Sleep. Now. Me, Finny in’a Bwi-Bwi’s a’bed? Puh-weese?” As I type this she is in the toddler bed Sean brought over from the house this afternoon. It had been bound for Goodwill, our plan being to let her transition to the new house by staying in her crib.

“No, thanks,” she projected, “I do it, I do it.” We know her well enough to comply, even to the literally unspoken.

I feel sheepish, but grateful. Little miss “I-know-their-cues-and-can-predict-their-milestones-blah-blah-blah” got it wrong. My last baby slept her last night in her crib and I missed it. I only hope she’ll give me one more night of nursing before she slips the final moments of tiny babies in my life away until these beauties become mommies to their own babies.