The best stress medicine
The only thing sweeter than a sleeping baby is a baby sleeping on top of you. For me, watching a sleeping baby is better than any sedative at the pharmacy.
Watching the air fill their lungs.Their cheeks rosey. Mouths open. Warm little bodies completely relaxed.
They even smell better when they’re sleeping. Like a warm biscuit with honey. I used to love it when my babies fell asleep while nursing. Mouth still wet from milk. Belly round and full.
Sometimes when I’m having trouble sleeping, I paint that image in my head. The best.
I’ve noticed that this isn’t something that goes away when they get older. I love getting up before Sophie, which admittedly doesn’t happen often, because I get to tiptoe into her room and sit on her bed while she wakes.
She’s a sweet girl if you wake her gently. She curls around me before she even opens her eyes. Calls me mama and tells me about her dreams of Dora and castles and candy.
Here. Take two of these and relax.
Tags: sleep
Wordless Wednesday: Petals from the past
So I know I was supposed to post photos of my beautiful visit to the daffodil festival with my mother and grandma Alice, but I discovered this morning that our visit was before we had our digital camera. And before we had kids.
So without a scanner, here are some photos of my Sophie when she was the age my Ben is now. About 15 months. Here, we’re at Garvin Woodland Gardens, our neighborhood park and Little Rock’s Knoop Park.
Tags: wordless wednesday
Home alone
For the first time in I don’t know how long, I have the house to myself.
There’s so much I want to do, that I don’t know where to start. So I’m writing a post about it. (Check one thing off my list!)
What to do with uninterrupted time. Read a book. Take a long bath. Watch TV. Take a nap. I want to do all these things but don’t have a WEEK off.
Suggestions mamas? What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re home alone? (Let’s keep things rated PG ladies!)
Armoire my amore
I spent most of the weekend kissing death.
It started when my beloved gave me this as an early birthday present.
I’ve had a storage problem for a while. My dresser was so packed that opening and closing the drawers was becoming difficult and I was pinching fingers every time I tried to hang something in my closet.
With this lovely armoire, problem solved! Not exactly.
The process was involved. Sophie got my dresser, Ben got her dresser and we moved my husband’s dresser to a different wall. We also had to move the TV, which meant my husband had to reroute our cable for the dish.
I’m sure he regretted his gift choice about halfway into Saturday.
And the whole ordeal prompted me to finally go through my clothes. I haven’t attempted to do this since I got pregnant with Sophie five years ago. What was the point?
Because of the ridiculous range of sizes I’d accumulated, I filled five garbage bags full of clothes to donate and two large tubs of maternity clothes that I’ll never wear again. (Hurray)
But here’s my question: Was throwing away my “big girl” clothes the kiss of death? Am I now destined to gain 20 or 30 pounds back?
Pray for me.
Tags: armoire
Death, blood and lizards
I’ve had one of those weeks when hopping between the life of a reporter and a mother has been an acrobatic feat.
I’ll spare you the truly gory details, but by day, I’ve been hanging out with a bunch of coroners and medical examiners looking at slides of the most horrific things I never imagined. Nice group of folks, but let’s face it … yuck.
I left them yesterday to pick up milk for my baby at the store and race home to make dinner for the family. I admit without guilt that after the kids were in bed, I poured myself a strong gin and tonic. I talked to my husband in hushed tones about the things I was learning, seeing.
We do that a lot in our house. Or we talk in code. Instead of saying there was blood in the trunk, we say there was “the red kind of evidence.” We’re very careful not to let our sometimes scary stories make their way to the ears of our children.
So this morning as I downed some coffee to prepare for another day of death, I shuddered when my daughter asked me a question while she picked at her banana at the breakfast table.
“Mama, when I die and the blood leaves my body, will you call the bank truck?”
WHA??!
After some discussion, I realized she meant ambulance, but still. Why is she asking me these questions? Why today?
Our talk ended with her curled up in my lap, sniffling while we had a discussion about death. We’ve had this talk before. I’m assured it’s normal for a 4-year-old to become aware of death and growing old. My grandmother died recently, so I think that amped things up. But her awareness of blood really threw me.
Later, my husband and I figured it out. It wasn’t, as I feared, that she overheard us talking about the coroner’s conference I was covering.
A couple nights ago, my husband read her a book about exotic animals. One of them is some kind of freaky lizard that spits blood out of its eyes.
We both wonder why the hell that lizard needed to be included in a children’s book.
Regardless, I’m happy to know that my work hasn’t already ruined my sweet girl. And I’ve decided the best way to manage any future discussions about blood and dead bodies will be to change the subject. And we’ll be getting rid of that book.
Wild dog or Pet Shops puppy?
Another story about heading into work with kids in the backseat. This one’s much less depressing than the last. (I promise mom, I’m OK! Take me off suicide watch, alright.)
Anyway, it was a couple days ago when the weather was great. And the She’s Got the Look by Roxette came on. And I’m sorry, I’m incapable of not singing along to this song.
You remember:
Walking like a man
Hitting like a hammer
she’s a juvenile scam
never was a quitter
tasty like a raindrop
she’s got the look
So I’m bobbing my head, singing along when Sophie says, “What’s he singing about mama?”
A pretty lady, I answer.
“Does she have glitter on her face?”
Maybe.
“And wings like a butterfly?”
Could be!
And I go la la la la la!
Now Sophie’s singing along.
la la la la!
Heavenly bound cause heaven’s got a number
when she’s spinning me around
kissing is a colour.
Her loving is a wild dog
she’s got the look.
So I get caught up in the moment. A musical bonding moment. I’m thinking, “My daughter is SO cool!”. And tell her I listened to this song when I was in middle school.
“Did you have long hair mama?”
yes.
“Did you dance to this at a ball?”
Sort of.
AND THEN … with a dreamy tone … she says:
“I bet you were just like Miley Cyrus.”
And I bet you know why this brown-eyed girl turned blue.
Tags: roxette
Mom on a Wire: I hope this day is good
So I started my day yesterday feeling pretty low … feeling sorry for myself. Ever had one of those days? I was driving into the city with my baby in the backseat, drowning my sorrows with old country music.
A Don Williams song came on.
“Lord, I hope this day is good
I’m feelin’ empty and misunderstood
I should be thankful Lord, I know I should
But Lord, I hope this day is good”
I thought, Man, that’s exactly right. I can’t win for losing. No one understands me. Not even the people I thought should.
There are a handful of people in every one’s life who you believe will give you the benefit of the doubt. The precious handful. They will know that your heart’s in the right place, as misguided as your actions may sometimes be. These people — the precious handful — they should know what’s in your heart. Know you always mean well.
Yesterday was the kind of day when I felt like my precious handful of people didn’t get me at all. They think I’m worthless, I thought. Worse yet, they think I’m a BAD person. That I would hurt them on purpose.
“Send down the thunder Lord, send down the rain
But when you’re planning just how it will be
Plan a good day for me”
Anyway, back to feeling sorry for myself. I dropped my baby off at daycare and sulked into work. I sat at my desk and stewed. Couldn’t decide whether to be sad or angry. But I had work to do, so I went about doing it in my fog.
And then daycare called. Ben had a fever of 102.7. He’d been coughing all day.
My heart raced and I felt my face get hot. I frantically made my way to him, calling the doctor along the way. And in my head, I was screaming … What is wrong with you!? Maybe if you’d been less self obsessed you would have noticed this morning that your baby is sick! You’re a horrible mother!
As I waited for the doctor, my self loathing only worsened. I thought, maybe they are right about me. You know, these people who just this morning I had decided betrayed me. Never really understood me. Maybe they are right, and I’m a bad person who deserves bad things. Maybe God is punishing me by making my baby sick.
Ever had those irrational thoughts when you’ve swollen with anxiety and your back hurts from holding the baby for an hour in the waiting room? I couldn’t calm my sweet Ben. I couldn’t calm myself.
Finally, the doctor looked him over and declared that he has a virus. She’d been seeing this all day. Whatever it is, she said, it comes on suddenly. I couldn’t have predicted it, she said.
And then this perfect stranger looked at my trembling hands and into my face and SHE totally got me. She told me I needed to spend a day at home with my baby. “It will be good for both of you.”
So I strapped Ben into the car and slid into the drivers seat and finally allowed myself to dissolve. It’s what I needed to do all day.
In the end, I decided that God did make my baby sick. But not because I’m a bad person. I think my sick baby gave me a needed lesson of perspective. None of the garbage I’d fretted over all day mattered.
If my friends don’t understand me, screw them. I can make a new precious handful. I know what’s in my heart. I know my intentions were rooted in love. If they can’t see that, it’s their loss. They lose me. That’s their choice. Their precious handful suffers. Not mine.
I have all that I need. I have a family that loves me. I have work that fulfills me. I have unending support and love for my friends who are willing to accept it. I am a good person.
I just need to keep my focus on that.
“I should be thankful Lord, I know I should
Lord, I hope this day is good”
Mom on a Wire: Who’s your mama?
Ben’s at that heartbreakingly adorable age when he gushes after not seeing me for a couple hours.
I enter daycare. I catch his eye and WHAM! Magic. His face lights up. Smile revealing all six teeth. He toddles forward, arms stretched above, fingers grasping for me.
It’s like the first blush of love with the butterflies and the flushed cheeks. I am so in love with this precious boy.
And then he breaks my heart.
“Dah DA!” he squeals.
Seriously?
He’s 14-months-old and started saying Da Da about six months ago. I was hoping he would say mama first, but I got over it. It’s only a matter of time, I reasoned.
But no.
It’s this THING now. He’s messing with me. He says it over and over. “Dah DA! Dah DA!” And he gets this look. Like he knows he’s saying the wrong name, but he thinks it’s hysterical.
We’ve even started the pointing game. You know, “Where’s Daddy?” He points to Daddy. “Where’s Sophie?” he points to his sister.
“Where’s Mama?” He points to the ceiling fan.
"Did I say something wrong?"
Mom on a Wire: Is every day judgment day?
Ever been misjudged? Ever misjudge someone?
I’ve been misjudged — as a child, as an adult and as a mother. And I’m not the kind of person who can brush it off. It hurts me deeply. I care WAY too much what people think of me. And when they think negative things, it smarts.
I have a couple friends who are going through the wringer right now because people have made assumptions about them, have decided they’re not worth giving the benefit of the doubt. People have been cruel and in some cases hateful.
My friends have navigated their situations with more grace than I probably would. They don’t seem to care what people think of them. They certainly don’t need me to defend them. But it still hurts me to watch them go through it.
I’ve been on the other side of the fence (or newsroom or daycare) before, so I know what it looks like from both sides.
I’ve been totally wrong about people before. Flat. Out. Wrong.
I’ve done things I’m not proud of. I’ve been the one gossiping about something I have no business discussing. I’ve whispered about things I knew nothing of.
Most of the time, for me, my false judgments have been rooted in jealousy. I see people who have things I want, or who I perceive have a life that I want, and I decide they don’t deserve to be happy. Don’t deserve to have the great job or the seemingly perfect life. They didn’t work for their success, I tell myself. Some people just have charmed lives.
But the truth is, everyone has their own struggles. Everyone makes mistakes. We all stumble.
And I know this is all in code and obtuse. But I’m frustrated that women always seem to be behind the storms of negativity that pass through. We are hardest on each other. We can be just awful. The things we say …
A question bubbled to the surface for me this morning while I talked to a friend about this very issue. What’s the goal? When we criticize other women, other mothers and their children … what do we think we’ll get out of it? Surely nothing good for ourselves. When other people fail, does it make us happy?
I’m thinking no. And the truth is, everyone deserves to be happy. Right?
And who am I to presume that other people have it easy? People who think I have it easy are wrong.
People who think I didn’t work hard for what I have are wrong too.
And the people who are judging my friends couldn’t be more wrong. They are good women. Hard workers. Loving mothers. Yes, they make mistakes. They wish they had handled things differently.
But don’t we all?
Tags: judgment
Mom on a Wire: Wordless Wednesday
My funny Valentines.
For more Wordless, go to Arkie Mama.
Tags: valentine, wordless wednesday
Cindy Murphy is a special projects reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. She and her husband, who is also a reporter, have a 4-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son. They live in Little Rock. 