Mom Enough

"Oh, you're back!"

Caroline coined this Caroline-characteristic phrase a couple months ago. She started saying it when I would return home or just when I would pop out of my office to say hi to her and her sister. Jacqueline caught on a couple weeks later, a typical lag time from our alpha to beta twin. Caroline would start, 'oh you're back!', and Jacqueline, in her more diminutive voice, would echo, "you're back!"

'You're back' is colored with their beautiful little smiles, a running charge to their mama, and a hug. No hugs. And their sweet little, heavenly hugs can right all wrongs, cure all ills, make a trip to West Virginia seem like distant history. 

As I reflect on their clear-as-day message to me, it means one simple thing: that I've been gone. And arguably too much. I've been gone from them, from many kids' activities, from a Wolfpack Pup meeting that Margaret did not let me live down last Thursday, from homework help, piano instruction, dinners, and bedtime routines. I've been immersed in work that's taken me to some of the finest towns in the continental United States: Ripley, West Virgina, Caldwell, Ohio, Winchester, Kentucky, Oil City, Pennsylvania. Name the low household income, former manufacturing town in the coal belt of the country, I've probably been there. 

New city, new school, new job, bigger new job, more travel, more time away, now more 'Mommy, you're back" moments.  

As much as I've worked though, I've rationalized that when I'm home, I've been fully present, fully engaged in the most important things. 

Mary's tenth birthday.  

Continued explorations of our new city

         

Our ski trip out west for Spring Break. 

Easter celebrations. 

Margaret's kindergarten play where she played a pig who sang, 'ham it up!' and taking her to the Tech fair to celebrate a job well done. 

Erin's baby shower. 

Bobby's first communion.  

  

Mary's piano recital. 

Scooting around the block with the twins, eating dinner with them piled on my lap, reading and then rocking them to sleep as many nights as possible. 

Loving and loving and loving them all. Hugging and hugging and hugging them all. I tell them I can't hug them enough, the embraced moments always too fleeting. 

Despite the energy I exhaust on both sides of my life, the give it my all mindset that exemplifies how I work and how I mother, I anxiously go to bed every night wondering have I done enough for everyone that needs me? 

Of course not. I couldn't have. I'll skip to it, I didn't. There aren't enough hours in the day. So, Peter's taken on the majority of stuff I used to do. He's got the practice, I'm there for the final performances. I don't cook any more, barely clean, don't wash or dry or fold the laundry of a 7-person household, I don't make the doctor appointments, I don't take them. I don't love the traditional motherly duties, but it's felt uncomfortable and efeminating to take a step back from them. And my heart asks, does not doing them, and does being away make me less of a mom? Less of a wife?   

As I sat in the Newark airport, en route to London on Sunday night, these were my thoughts. Scurrying through my head marinated with a couple of tears. 

Two days into my week-long leadership training course in London, my convenient conclusion is that my pursuit of reaching senior leadership at my company, while attempting to be the best mother and spouse I can be isn't all wrong. And outside of the guilt I felt when leaving on Sunday, I'm generally very happy playing both of the demanding roles in my life. God gave me a lot of energy, and I'm expending it. I also look at Mary's mature helpfulness, Bobby's resilience, Margaret's selfless love, and the Twins happy go lucky tone when they say, 'you're back' and believe their character tells me I'm or rather we are doing something right. 

As I look ahead to celebrating Mother's Day, back home, with my family this weekend, I am filled with gratitude for my husband. Caring for and keeping the kids in a centered state of mind is the only way I'm able to do my job. He's the one who empowers me and emboldens me to be my own, wandering definition of a mom each day. And I'm ever appreciative for that, rooted in his love for me. 

More tales from London when I recommit to being a blogger on the plane ride home. 

Lo. 

Friday Night Lice

Last week, at her piano lesson, Mary's teacher asked what was the secret to her success this week? 

Mary didn't hesitate, 'that you can't depend on your mom,' she said. 

Her teacher chuckled. When I was out of town all week and unable to help her practice, she hadn't played well, and the teacher told her just that. 

'Yes, that,' he said. 'But also, when you count, you get it right.' 

'Oh. Yes,' she softly responded.  

I could see a little tear in her eye. It was a glimmer really. A speck that didn't make it out of her eye, onto her cheek, onto the piano. But just enough to make me understand that she was reflecting on something we talked about weeks ago. That is, growing up is uncomfortable and a little scary for her. She wants to depend on me. She wants her dad to read her stories at night. She wants to be a little girl. I appreciated that, and told her I still wanted to be transported to Neverland.    

The glimmer of a tear started when Mary was given the leading role in her fourth grade musical before Christmas. The title: Stormy the Singing Snowman. Her part: Stormy the Singing Snowman. The show premiered midway through January, and she sang beautifully. She belted out her solo with piercing perfection, looked like the sweetest little gumdrop on stage, and carried a smile that lit up the auditorium. The same one where I acted the part of Loraine Sheldon in the Man Who Came to Dinner a million years ago. 

Her center stage role sparked some jealousy and then controversy in the classroom though. There were students who were frustrated and then envious that they couldn't be Stormy. Which manifested as hurtful comments toward my girl. I got involved because it had reached that point. There were meetings, and reparations, and resolutions, and through it all she handled everything with bravery and a maturity that made me even prouder than her performance. The two of us talked through the challenges, we navigated some new waters together, we confiding in each other, and made our relationship stronger. She does still depend on her mom, and I still want to be there for her. 

It wasn't just Mary though, this has been a season of maturity for all of us.    

Bobby turned eight in January. At his special birthday dinner at the little restaurant down the street from our house, he told Peter and me that his favorite part of being a seven year old was hockey. And that the thing he was looking forward to most as he turned eight was hockey. He is a boy obsessed. A boy on a mission. A hockey mission. Moving to Pittsburgh gave him the opportunity to Learn to Skate with the Penguins, and now Learn to Play with them. He gears up in roller blades or ice skates every day and furiously practices to became Bobby the great. For a kid who has always been dragged along to sports - soccer, tennis, basketball, baseball, you name it ... he has finally found something that he loves. And he's doing so well at it. My only worry is how his hockey obsession will impact our afternoon and weekend logistics.  

Margaret. Poor little delightful Margaret. This month she has been through a stomach flu, pink eye, congestion, and then last week's drama, which I'll get to. But through it all, she continues to grow and mature. At her parent-teacher conference last week, her teacher let us know just how special she is. Always happy. Always helping. A friend and partner to all. And by the way, making significant progress on her handwriting and math skills.      

Then the babies. Talking more than ever. Best friends to the end. Lovers of snacks. Scooter riders. And getting their back tickled before bed. They had progressed so much that I thought, hey let's try to see if they can get pushed ahead in school. While only two, I applied for them to do 3-year pre-school in the fall. They got assessed, and then firmly rejected as not at all ready for this elite nursery school programming. They did receive glowing remarks on how cute they were though. 

Peter and I also matured - we had some very real conversations around the state of our partnership, in light of our move, a shift of jobs and a shift in roles, the outlook for the year, and projections for the next five. In the middle of our daily chaos, we don't have a lot of these discussions. And while all the change we've taken on this year has been challenging, it's forced us to connect and calibrate on a much deeper level, supporting and cheering for each other in new ways.  

As I've looked and reflected on everyone under our roof, I've seen how far we've all come. It's still a house of five kids under ten. It's still a challenge. But everyone is coming into their own. Taking on additional responsibility. Leading in their own ways. 

So much so, that I actually have a vision within grasp. I might just get to sign off from work on a Friday evening, have a glass of wine and a slice of pizza, laugh with the family, maybe watch a movie, play a game, stay up a tad later, because heck, it's Friday night. And everyone is getting so much more self-sufficient.   

Last week, I brought the kids home from their overpriced piano lessons - the one where I started this story. They had done well. Actually, really great. I walked in, dusting off the cold, and reapplied lipstick. 

'Ordered the pizza,' Peter said. 

He had a beer. I poured myself a glass of wine. Friday had never felt so good, given all this maturity blooming in the house. The smaller kids watched a show. Mary and Bobby chatted it up. The pizza came and tasted absolutely delicious. Mostly because I didn't make it. 

A piece down, a glass of relaxation consumed, and the twins came roaring down half wanting dinner, half wanting to sleep forever as they hadn't napped. Roars turned into frenzied fanaticism. They went nuts, so I threw them in bed early. Slight deflection from my perfect Friday night, but once in bed, it was quiet again. I came downstairs to continue talking with Peter, and he said, 'I might be over thinking this, and I don't want to raise alarm, but I feel like there are flies in Margaret's hair.' 

'Um, yes, let's be concerned.' 

I went upstairs and looked through Margaret's hair. Alarm raised sky high. Peter was at CVS two seconds later. 

Five minutes more and we were all scrubbing our hair, sheets, towels, blankets and stuffies. We were spraying and disinfecting every room in the house. We were combing the kids' hair strand by strand. And then Peter was doing the same to me. Gross. Just gross. The babies were sleeping, so I just prayed the bugs weren't in their room too. 

A couple more rounds of sanitization and nit removal and the problem was gone. The too late announcement from school saying lice was going around dinged in my email box as I was going to bed. Yep, it sure was.   

I'm still itching from the trauma, but our maturity paid off. We laughed through it. Friday night lice I called it. Another shared experience, and another family story we'll chuckle about years for now. 

In all, pre-teen drama, travel and lice included, I've found that Mary's piano teacher wasn't quite right. You can grow and mature and gain independence, but whether out of town or not, you can always depend on your mom. 

Lo

A Perfectly Imperfect Christmas

Browsing through the photos I took this Christmas season; I'm filled with awe. And a lot of awwwww. The memories look so sweet and precious, so well organized and executed. They look quite miraculous even. 

                

It's not that I curated the photos in this way, removing or displacing the ones that didn't tell the right narrative. It's that I tend to only capture the good moments and images that match. And because of that, there are distinct, palpable and lasting memories missing from my collection. 

I can't be the only one that does this. Thinking back on my childhood and looking through the photos in any given year of it, my dad did an amazing job archiving the flawlessness of the 80s and 90s. There was no sign of exhaustion of two professional parents, no indication that the vacation took way too much work to have fun, no sibling squabbling. It was all pure and perfect. 

But some of my more vivid memories come without a photo attachment. There was a Thanksgiving on Bartlett Street when I remember playing in my bedroom with all my cousins. I was wearing my sister's patent leather 'high heels', dancing and kicking my legs up high like the Rockettes in the Thanksgiving Day parade. One shoe flew off and landed heel first in my little brother's lip. It was gushing blood and he was rushed to the ER. I remember silence and sobriety in the house, my Dad's Thanksgiving dinner resting idle until Tiny Tim returned. I remember my dad carrying him inside the house, hours later, seven stitches later, to a room of anxious and hungry attendees. When dinner was finally served, my brother still under the effects of anesthesia slept through it in my mom's arms. I was probably five or six at the time, my brother two or three. There are no photos of this scene. But no one in the family will ever forget that imperfect Thanksgiving.       

I think there is an unspoken rule to take photos that match a certain vision, particularly around the holidays. And the rise of social media has exacerbated this. On my iPhone, our Christmas was delicious, decorated, and delightful. In my current mental state, our Christmas celebrations were challenged, mostly driven by twins in their very terrible twos. 

While the photos show the moment when everyone was happy, here are moments that were a little less so.

The Phipps light show. Destination worthy at Christmas time. I miraculously got a parking spot right in front of the Conservatory. Peter and his dad were delayed at the Roberto Clemente Museum, so I had set out to start our tour as a solo parent. I got the first three out, unbuckled Caroline and then Jacqueline. I lifted Caroline out and as I turned my back to put Caroline on the sidewalk, Jacqueline fell out of the car and onto the sidewalk, crying and screaming, bystanders looking at me like what the heck?! I was a terrible mom, but I kept cool. She was fine, she stopped crying almost immediately, and we all ran in to bob and weave through the crowds, me counting that I had 1, 2, 3, 4, where's Bobby?! okay, 5 kids, every minute or so.    

Our Christmas tree. Peter had broken his ribs before Thanksgiving, and they were still healing when we purchased and put up our nine-foot Christmas tree this year. Peter lugged it inside, got it into the stand, and stood back to admire it with me. I told him it wasn't straight. He agreed. He unscrewed the screws, and worked with me to get it in place, wincing, wailing, and swearing so only I could hear how painful it was to lie in the ground, hold the tree in place, and screw it into the stand. He asked the kids to leave the living room till he was done to preserve the perfection for them.

Christmas Mass. Bobby's candlelight procession was beautiful. The whole church was beautiful and full for the first time since last Christmas. The Gospel, and Caroline started her antics. The homily, and Jacqueline was getting restless too. Peter and I walked them up and down the side aisles, the source of entertainment for everyone sitting behind the massive gothic beams that couldn't have seen the pulpit or altar anyway. They scampered around the baptismal font. They had a tantrum in the back of the church, side vestibule, and atrium door. Peter finally said enough was enough and ejected them from Church. 

Christmas Eve Lunch - our reunion with our dear friend, Charles. The twins were just crazy. The security guards around the Museum yelled at them at least three times. 

Christmas Eve Dinner. Beautiful dinner. The twins watched Cocomelon through it. 

Christmas Day, Caroline and Jacqueline wouldn't nap. I knew they would be fussy at dinner at my parents house, and they were. I made myself and my mom a French 75 while Caroline was on my left hip - the one that hurts more and more day by day from the twins overusing it. I put Caroline down for a second, and Jacqueline saw her opportunity to climb aboard. As I was about to say Cheers with my Mom, she bulldozed me and my cocktail and I spilled all over me and my Mom. Cheeeeeese. 

My parents came over on the 26th for dinner. Caroline was once again in a state sans nap. As we were eating our soup that only the adults wanted to try, Bobby rushed in to tell me that Jacqueline's nose was bleeding. That Caroline had taken chopsticks and put them up Jacqueline's nose. Poor Jacqueline looked awful and it took a while for the bleeding to stop. The rest of the lovely dinner I had envisioned, came with Jacqueline curled up on my lap, and Caroline screaming in time out until she fell asleep on the floor of her room. 

The sounds of, 'up, up, up, no, up Mommy, up, up, Momma, Momma, Momma, UPPPPPP!', Mary and Bobby fighting over who is better at hockey, Margaret still coughing from the cold she's had for a month. Me yelling. Peter yelling. All of this, clearly not photographed for posterity.  

During Mass, one of my stops with the temperamental two-year-old in my arms was the Manger. Caroline was actually perfectly quiet contemplating it, or my bracelets that she was holding in her hands. I looked and prayed. For patience. For fortitude. For peace. And as I stared a little deeper, I recognized how imperfect the diorama was. It was a manger after all - filled with animals, and hay, it smelled, it was uncomfortable, it was surrounded by shepherds and sheep. That's where Mary gave birth after riding on a donkey for days. But in this unlikely place, one of the most holy miracles in Christianity occurred. Over the years, it's lost context - the images look sweet and beautiful - just like my Christmas photos. But in that deeper reflection, you can witness the power of imperfection. How grace abounds in even the lowliest of places. That challenges and even moments of defeat will surface, but it's what you do through those tough times, that can strengthen a family, a friendship and one's faith.  

And looking back, the hilarity of life frequently lives in the messy parts. My mom told me that my Grandma always took and cherished the goofy pictures - that they were the best ones. As a mom of eight, she was quick to find laughter in all that life challenged her with. May I have the same courage and that same sense of humor.     

Lo. 

How Big Their Brave Is

It would be a relatively simple reflection if this entry was about me. I turned an advanced age this year. I took on a new job, in a new department, in a new city. I haven't run a marathon in nine years. And last month, I did one. Under a beautiful fall sky in Chicago, with 40,000 other gutsy souls, with my family cheering me on at miles 15 and 23. It's been a humbling, brave, and at times accomplished year for me, but I'm wired to accept challenges and persevere. 

But this entry isn't about me, it's about my kids. And just how brave they've been.  

Back in February, on a chilly midwestern evening, I told my kids were going to move. Margaret and Bobby said, 'okay,' my announcement not phasing them one bit. Mary cried, or rather hyperventilated, for about twenty minutes. She went to bed with tears streaming down her face. Only Peter could console her. He told me she was okay after some stories, after a calming conversation. But I worried.  

I questioned myself and the decision we made all summer. Are we doing the right thing? For the kids? For us? I kept looking for signs to pivot, but they never came. So, we persisted and pursued this new direction. 

On the first week of her new school, in her new classroom, Mary told me that her teacher played a theme song for them. It was called 'Brave' by Sarah Bareilles. She asked Siri to play it as I made dinner, and she started dancing and singing. I loved it. How fitting, how in tune, I thought as I chopped and sauteed. I told her, 'This is the best theme song for you. Think of all that you are doing this year. Think of how brave you've been!' I started dancing with her. 

She shrugged and the mood dimmed. She stopped dancing. Awkwardly, so did I.  

She looked up and said, I didn't dance when I was at school today. All the other kids did. But I didn't feel comfortable. I didn't want them to make fun of me. 

Why would they make fun of you, you are a great dancer?  

I don't know - I'm the new girl. And they all say I'm quiet. And they don't really talk to me. 

Well, what does the song say, you gotta be brave. You gotta show them who you are. 

'How would you know? You're not me. You never had to move. And why did we have to move anyway? This was all for you. You didn't even ask me, ME, if I wanted to move.' 

She cried and I hugged her, but she wiggled away, sat down, and let the tears go. I said it would be okay. To her. To me. But once again, I wondered if it would. 

Margaret and Bobby came up from the basement wondering what was wrong. Why Mary was sad. Ah, that. Helpful or not, they piled on, preaching hope for a brighter future. 

'I made friends right away Mary - it's easy.'

'Yeah, the boys in my class are annoying, Mary, but I like Ada and Stella.'  

Mary got madder. 'So, what. You don't know how I feel. You don't know what it's like in the fourth grade.'  

For the first couple weeks, maybe a whole month, I heard this a lot. And it rotated around. Mary would have a better day, Bobby would have a worse one. Then Bobby great, Mary bad. The kindergarten classroom was the clear winner in terms of integration. It all hurt. I second guessed myself again and again. Did we make a huge mistake? 

September was challenging, October more optimistic, and then November hit. Mary has never been happier. She's made great friends, she's been to birthday parties, she got the lead in the 4th grade play, she's doing well in curriculars and extracurriculars - swimming, tennis and piano. She wakes up every day excited for school. She's outgoing, confident, and blossoming. Bobby and Margaret are also happy - Bobby with a new best friend, a pair of ice skates, and the vision of being a hockey player, Margaret with the cutest group of friends and a social calendar that I can't even keep up with. The babies still don't know what happened, but they like their new surroundings and their days going to museums, the library, zoo and conservatory.  

I started writing this blog almost two months ago, when I started to believe that Mary had demonstrated a tremendous amount of resilience. At this point, I'm proud to say, that she has truly owned how big her brave is. All of them have. Peter too. 

We hosted our cider press party a couple weeks ago, and one of the guests said it well. You seem really settled. And I responded, I think we are. There are still challenges, still learning curves, still people we dearly miss, but we've proven maleable. And I think with it, we've all grown. A little wiser, a little stronger, a little more uniquely us. 

  

       

 

Before the move, everyone told me, kids are resilient. They'll be fine. In honesty, kids aren't automatically that way. They need the right guidance and support system to help them rebound and blossom out of it. The school they are going to, their teachers and the families we've met, their new coaches, our new babysitter and facetiming with our old one, my family, and the role Peter has played in the transition were all vital to our success. And I can't thank all of these stakeholders, particularly Peter enough, for helping my kids see how brave they can be. 

Lo.