The Art in Life

The first time I noticed the sound I thought a car alarm was going off somewhere in the distance. It was a dull screeching in the background as we played outside all day and in the evening James mentioned that he had heard it too. We shrugged it off but the next day it was back, and louder and we realized- it was Brood X, the cicadas that had been waiting 17 years to hatch and fill our lives with noisy bugs.

I had known of course that they were coming, as it had become a touchstone in casual conversations for anyone living in the cicada swath. I saw them crawling everywhere and covering trees when I went for my morning walk, and noticed the kids were fascinated with the way they left their translucent shells on everything. They were also terrified every time the noisy bugs flew at them, buzzing in their hair or sticking to their ankles. I pried one out of Maddie’s mouth and gagged at the thought of eating one of the bugs, though I know many people did.

The noise was the backdrop for the early months of summer, this summer where we all emerged- not unlike the bugs – from a pandemic year, blinking and calling to each other and figuring out how things work now. Henry started t-ball, partially because he (and James) love baseball and partially because I want to get to know more of the families in our neighborhood after a year of social distance and masked smiles. All three of the kids had birthdays, and our pandemic pod – and other friends! Hooray for big parties again!- showed up for almost identical parties a few weeks apart to commemorate the 5, 3, and 1 year old keeping us on our toes. Maddie’s birthday hits especially hard because so much of her first year was hidden. She’s my barnacle baby, my first to have stranger danger and scream when I leave a room. She is the impossibly precious gift that still feels surprising.

We are living in water this summer, hitting the splash pad or pool almost daily. But in perhaps the greatest result of a year of cancelled plans and limited social circles – most of our days are spent in play, meaning, Henry and Etta playing while I take a break from parenting. They imagine and build and fight and make-up all day everyday, inevitably culminating in Etta refusing to climb out of Henry’s bunkbed at night. Sometimes he complains loud enough that I remove her, but most nights he just resigns himself, rolls over and passes out, while she merrily plays and reads and takes up his space for hours. Henry finally dropped his nap last winter and while it has substantially impacted my ability to stay caught up on bad reality TV, it has allowed me a unique look at my oldest. I watch him sit silently as he listens to an audiobook, or watch him at work building structures or making plans. On the weekends we try to slip out together and exercise, sometimes going for a run (me)/ scooter ride (him) along the river or sometimes practicing swimming at the pool. As much as I hate the idea of Maddie leaving babyhood, I love the joy of older kids and the fun they bring.

What were you doing when they last came, Henry asked me one day and I laughed and told him, I was a child. I was about to go into my senior year of high school and I had so many plans and so many questions and knew everything and nothing all at once. And what will I be doing, when they come back, he wanted to know. And my head exploded, heart choked. You could be out of college, could be thinking about getting married or having kids, could have a job- will you still want to be an engineer-baseball player-lifegaurd?- you will be gone.

Because there is a lot I don’t know about what the state of the world, of my family, will be in 17 years when the insect infestation returns but this I know:

James won’t be coaching Henry’s t-ball team, won’t be reminding a troupe of 5 year olds that they need to watch the ball instead of finding cicadas on the field and sticking them to their jerseys. I won’t wake up in the middle of the night to Etta yelling that she needs a snuggle, only as soon as I scoot into that bottom bunk, it becomes a moment where she proceeds to tell me a long story instead, and I am so tired, but also those moments are the greatest moments. Madeleine, my Maddie Lo, my sweet chunky baby girl will be about to go off on her own and I’ll be trying to hold on tight as she pushes me back and I know it will break me a little even as I’m proud. We won’t be together, always together, always straining under the suffocating weight of little people with big needs who beat on the door when I lock it to take a shower and beg me not to go for my morning walk or coffee with friends or anything that has me away from them. I just want to be with you all of the time, Henry told me recently through tears when I explained that I just wanted to do something by myself and that, that will be different next time I open the door to the deafening roar of Brood X.

There is a chance that this consuming, refining, exhilarating , exhausting time of a house full of children could be almost over.

The other day we were loading the car when one of the kids commented on how quiet it was and I realized- they were gone. The cacaphonous din in the trees had gone silent. There were still some shells about but on the whole, it was like they had been erased, nature preparing to keep the secret for another 17 years. It came and was loud and consumed everything and then it was gone so fast.

And so it goes.

Christmas was both totally abnormal this year, lacking so many things we look forward to, and yet still full of traditions and repetition. The same ornaments, matching pajamas, holiday films, treats, and carols filled our days. We were able to orchestrate all the quarantines, testing, distancing agreements, and travel logistics to be with family over Christmas and I can’t get over how special that was.

In early December, I took to Instagram stories to complain about what I feel to be lack in the Advent resources for kids. Following that rant, I received some excellent suggestions of resources and wanted to share them… and it is just now happening, after Advent is over, but before Christmastide technically ends on the 6th, so I’m calling it, if not a win, than maybe not a total failure? Save these ideas away for next year and check back in early November. or panic the day after Thanksgiving like I do.

I love Advent and I have Strong Feelings About It, as I expressed long ago here. I think that celebrating Christmas without the preparation and expectation of Advent feels lackluster. I have blogged about my search for Advent resources in the past but I am still searching. It seems like many children’s Advent resources fall into two groups: a focus on Jesus’ entire life (which is great, but get Holy Week out of Advent!) or a Greatest Hits of The Whole Bible approach (Jonah what you doing in my Advent??). I recognize the biblical tradition of the latter, but I’m not a huge fan for young kids. I want an intense focus on the amazing aspects of the birth story. I want 4 weeks of anticipation, building excitement, recognition of light coming to extinguish darkness, etc. I also want it to be short and sweet and simple because I have three children ages 4 and under.

Here are some Advent ideas for young children:

• Last year I hit the library in November and pulled every kids Christmas book that had religious themes. I wrapped them and every morning of Advent, the kids opened one and we read it. It was simple and easy and not bad, but it did create an overwhelming amount of books, and this year it was impossible as the libraries are closed to browsing.
• I love love love this Nativity set that has you add a different item every day of Advent and learn about the birth. It includes important things like the Census, which adults take for granted but little kids are like WHAT IS THAT. I do not love that it is super pricey. Am I considering making my own with a similar concept? Yup.
• Alissa has the best liturgical resources for kids and families. I LOVE her idea of Magi on the Fly during the 12 days of Christmas and next year I will absolutely be buying her Advent resources. She includes things like tips for Saint Nicolas and Saint Lucia day and a prayer of blessing for your Christmas tree. She also has the best list of Christmas children’s books.
• We loved the We Wonder Advent podcast in 2019 and listened to it again this year, though I didn’t love the 2020 one quite as much.
• We became Anglican a couple years ago and I love the way that the liturgical tradition adds richness and ritual to life. We fully embraced Saint Nicolas Day with the kids, as it allowed us to process Santa Claus and yet keep the focus on Christ. It was also one of my favorite Advent days. We talked about Saint Nicolas the night before (though I would love a good kids book with his story!) and the kids were thrilled to wake up and get their chocolate gold coins from their stockings (because I forgot to put them in shoes). Then that night, we gave the kids a list of organizations and let them decide how to divide up and give our monthly tithe. We wrote checks instead of donating online and let the kids run in their pjs down the block to drop them in the mailbox. They LOVED it and it felt like such a good continuation of talking about Saint Nicolas.
• Following my Instagram rant, a member of a local DC church messaged me and offered the resources they prepared for their church families. I absolutely LOVED it. They had a theme for each week, short readings and questions to do with your kids, and then some suggestions for weekly activities, some of which were DC specific – like a trip to the National Gallery to see a specific painting that represented the Christmas story, etc. It had the Advent liturgy for each Sunday to do as a family in this era of Zoom church. Every morning, we lit our advent wreathe over breakfast and did the daily readings, which took about 5 minutes. We then sang a Christmas hymn (yes I know you are “supposed” to hold off till Christmas but I want the kids to learn them). It was a really lovely, practical, and rewarding advent.
• For older kids or adults, we love this book of insanely good daily readings, this book of poetry and reflections for each day, and reading these Christmas sermons.

What about you- any winning family Advent resources to share?

When everything shut down in March, it felt like we all entered a sort of survival mode, complete with all the “extenuating circumstances” in place to survive the sudden changes of working from home, quarantining, social distancing, homeschooling, recalibrating plans- everything.

But you can’t stay in survival mode forever. At the start of this new year, and on the (hopefully?) ending stretch of this pandemic, I’m looking around and seeing the rhythms that we have settled into and I’m wanting to remember them. Not because I love every aspect of them, but because someday I want to tell my kids how we continued living and growing and finding ways to thrive even in a year where so much was just frankly bad. I started writing this post in September to recap our goals for the school year… then was going to be a fall reflection when I hadn’t finished it by November…and now here we are on the second day of a New Year and it is instead a catch-all of what I want to claim from daily life in 2020.

Henry was supposed to start Pre-K4 this year at a hybrid university model school and we were all so excited. While I don’t think Pre-K is necessary for longterm academic success, I was thrilled about Henry getting to have the social experience of school three half-days a week. When it was canceled (and the parents all refused the option of virtual) Henry enthusiastically started telling everyone that he would be homeschooled. I hadn’t actually planned on doing anything, but I couldn’t bear to squelch his enthusiasm, so school it was.

We have not really learned much by many standards. I was ambitious with workbooks! Plans! Goals! but quickly decided that homeschool had three goals for our family this year. First, I wanted Henry to have positive associations with school. I do not fight battles over school because it just isn’t worth it at this age. Plus, one time I fought one over what I believed to be an easy and helpful phonics lesson… and when it proved not to be easy, I got so frustrated that I had to go outside and cool off. That isn’t fair to Henry, who heartbreakingly explained to James while I was outside that he was trying but “it’s just really hard to learn things.” So while I gently push to have school time, I don’t force it to last or require us to get through some sort of curriculum. Second, I wanted some routine in our very unstructured day. 10 minutes of school workbooks after breakfast is a good reset for all of us and usually lets me read my Bible and have some more coffee. Lastly, I want Henry to learn to hold a pencil correctly. I don’t care as much about actually writing as I do about correctly manipulating the pencil. My goal is to set his actual teachers up for success, not to be a groundbreaking one.

Of course, even our official school times grew more rare as the fall went on. I like to think of it less as abandoning homeschool and more as moving to a liberal arts curriculum heavy on art class, read aloud, PE, and a curriculum I like to call “Please Stop Actively Destroying Our House,” or life and behavior skills that aren’t moral in nature, but are really helpful. Like how to walk by a wall without having to rub your entire body against it or how to not get a fresh cup every. single. time. you need a drink, etc.

Reading aloud with the kids has been such a joy. They are pro podcast and audiobook listeners, and I decided we were ready for simple chapter books. Both kids love the treat of cuddling up in my bed or smothering me while I nurse as I read. We started with Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Farm and have now moved onto The Wind in the Willows. Clearly, a lot of the vocabulary is over their heads. But they are learning to sit with words they don’t know, to soak in description and dialogue and I like to tell myself that will serve them more than spelling their name out of macaroni. (Though like, if you want to come make macaroni art with my kids while I take a nap COME ON OVER.)

As for art, it has been one of the gifts of 2020. I do not craft. Crafts with kids are frustrating and tedious for me and the cleanup never feels worth the few moments of activity. But I miss painting and drawing for myself. One of my 2020 resolutions (HA) was to take time every month to make art. I envisioned a Saturday morning a month where I could slip away to one of the amazing DC art museums and sketch à la Paris Hannah... but that clearly did not become reality and I was really frustrated. In a moment of strange nesting following my 37 week doctor’s appointment, I bought a bunch of watercolor paints and decided that I simply HAD to learn to watercolor paint NOW. The result of that impulse buy and the many hours we have at home is that I am learning to watercolor paint as I am also teaching my children. We pull out our paints many days after nap, make tea, turn on some tunes, and paint. There is usually a child on my lap, someone (Etta) almost always dumps water on us all, and most days someone (Etta) ends up naked and covered in paint. But those afternoons of art with my children are some of my favorite of the past year. (And to be fair- we did all make it to the National Gallery once and sketching did happen. Several Degas paintings came close to peril but everyone survived, saved Etta’s Pink Bunny who was never seen again.) By salvaging my resolution in a completely different way than I planned I have found so much joy.

At least once a day this fall, I was overcome with gratitude for our home. It is far from perfect, and we have discovered many a quirk that has been less than exciting, like the faulty sump pump system that we will have to jackhammer out our basement to replace. But the fact that we ended up with a yard and a basement and a home office in a year where those things are crucial is never lost on me. We have loved our home this year. I tend to be on the go all the time. It is hard for me to give that up. But when I look back on the past year I see a contentment tied with the stillness we experienced. We usually do at least two “home days” a week where we get caught up on laundry and little projects and often keep our pajamas on all day. I love that we are rarely in a rush to leave the breakfast table and the slowness to our days feels precious in contrast to the speed at which my children seem to grow.

On our non-home days, this past fall marked a period of rich community. That seems strange to say in the age of social distancing, as indeed- we distanced. But we formed a pod in late April with two other families and this crew has been my lifeline. Our kids were already close friends and now they are even more so. I don’t think I could have walked through this year without these people. I can’t wait to get back to parties and social gatherings and hugging people that I barely know but really enjoy. And yet, it has been a good reminder for my extroverted self that we have finite time and resources. Investing in a small number of deep friendships brings belonging like numerous casual relationships cannot.

How can I separate this year of pain and difficulty from Madeleine Lois, the constant joy in my days? I made no secret that everything about every second of her pregnancy was miserable. But her presence overwhelms me with joy the way that I have never felt in the newborn stage. Is it that I am finally finding my newborn stride? Is it the steps I took to take better care of my emotional health post-partum this third time around? Is it that the whole world stopped so I felt more free to stop with it and revel in my baby? Or is it just a special dispensation of grace that God knew I needed for this child at this time? I guess it’s all of them. Whatever the case, I can’t explain how in awe I am of her. She is a pretty crappy napper, a finicky nurser, a super spitter, but I don’t even mind too much that she is my velcro baby, attending my classes and student meetings, snuggled up to me wherever I go. I haven’t had time to do the meticulous memory keeping for her that I did for the others, but I hope that someday I can make her understand that her early days were so special, so enjoyable, so redemptive.

A lot did not happen this fall. I started a new job with a total lack of fanfare because of COVID and virtual learning. We canceled the annual donut extravaganza for the first time since being in DC. We missed countless birthdays and date nights and celebrations. Our Thanksgiving plans fell through and the holidays were missing much of their festivities. I was supposed to be working 25-30 hours a week, but only wound up with 4 hours of childcare, so the rest of my work happened during nap-time, at night, on the weekends, desperately crammed into margins that weren’t there. I am so, so tired.

But when I look back, I also see so much good. I see so much grace woven through the days we spent as a tiny bubble, so much growth in James and I as parents and partners and in our kids. I see an intentional focus on our home, our habits, our actions that could only happen when a lot was taken away. I am not at all undermining the difficulty of this past year on a global scale. I know that the good I can find from it is a result of immense privilege and blessing- which is exactly why I am calling it out. I don’t want to take it for granted for a second.

Yesterday, on our drive home from visiting family over the holidays (its own ordeal, as lots of logistics, testing etc. went into it), James and I did our traditional year-end debrief while the kids enjoyed a total absence of screen time limits in the car. He asked what we will tell them about this year someday, and what will they remember.

To be honest, I hope they forget a big part of this year. I hope they don’t say, “all the adults were really angry and on their phones all the time.” Because that is a part of the truth of this past year. The very worst of humanity has been on display in 2020, both writ large and in our own hearts and interactions. The stress, the isolation, the fear, the division, the politics, the courage to be hateful through the medium of a screen, the time to stew- all of it combined to bring out the nastiness in everyone. None of us have gotten through the year without acting in ways that are deplorable.

But I believe, I hope, that they will remember more. That they will remember the slowness and quiet joy we had in growing and learning together in 2020.

This morning I heard Madeleine at 7:18. She sleeps through the night now, and I love those long hours of sleep as much as I miss the quiet minutes in the dark nursing her. I went in to get her up, open the windows and seeing her chubby cheeked grins in the crib, so thankful to begin a Thanksgiving day with this baby girl. While I nursed her, I read an article in the New York Times, where they asked readers to share why they were thankful this year in 6 words. Six words. A whole year of grief and loss and surprise and change and unprecedented circumstances that nevertheless gave space for thanks in six little words. I loved reading the ways that people found to be thankful in 2020, in spite of 2020, because of 2020.

And because parenting three tiny people, working remotely with little childcare, and like, being a person who still has to get groceries and do the laundry and shower and stuff has left me incapable of stringing many words together anyways – distilling the joys of this year in few words seems perfect to me. Here they are, my series of short thanks when I look back on this much maligned year.

On Thanksgiving 2020, I am overcome with gratitude for –

James home for dinner most nights.

Kids too young for distance learning.

Newborn with me, rarely a sitter.

Starting every day with a walk.

Saving grace of house and yard.

Quarantine pod that keeps us social.

Fewer commitments, canceled plans, more time.

Fire pit, espresso machine, stretchy pants.

Distanced fireside hangouts after kids asleep.

Grace upon grace upon grace, together.

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you feel gratitude for all the little blessings mixed in with trials of the past year. Because ultimately, what I am most thankful for this year is also what made it so hard so often:

Every day we spent all together.

Yes, I know we are a couple weeks into fall already, but to be fair- this is one of the first years that it has actually felt like fall in DC in early October. Last year our final trip to the splashpad was mid October and it was over 90 degrees, and we usually sweat until November. And usually, I am holding onto summer with every ounce of my strength. But this year, fall feels like such a blessing, a reprieve from endless unstructuredness of COVID Spring/Summer. I blame it on the lack of splashpads this year. What’s the point of endless summer if I can’t semi- neglect my kids in Navy Yard while drinking Philz coffee and chatting with my mom posse? We did get one Navy Yard splash outing, albeit accidentally. We were scooting o the boardwalk and saw that the flooding rains the night before had filled the basin and my kids were trying to swim in it before I could stop them.

We ended summer as we have done since having kids – a trip to the beach over Labor Day. We go with good friends who have kids the same age as ours, because anyone with young kids knows that the best way to get a break is to add more kids. Technically we still had to parent in the logistic sense – overseeing safety and meals and basic hygiene – but we didn’t really have to do any actual entertaining. I was able to read an entire novel in just a couple days, a true vacation luxury.

Here is what we have learned about beach vacations with kids. The difference between a fun trip, and one where the fun maybe doesn’t outweigh the hassle, comes down to one thing: direct beach access. I’m talking, open your door and walk out and be on the beach in minutes. Not across the road, not a block away, but THERE IMMEDIATELY. There is already a lot of chair schlepping, sunscreen application, toy negotiations, strong opinions about sand, nap schedules, short heat tolerance, etc. You want the beach to be as easy as possible to access.

Other beach vacation sanity savers include outdoor showers (because sannnnnddddd everywhere!), not going to the ocean (Chesapeake forever! No current! Minimal waves! Shallow for a long stretch!), and renting somewhere with all the beach toys/chairs/kayaks. Also – endless snacks. We lucked out with an amazing Airbnb this year, booked in January long before we had any idea that life would come to a screeching halt… and then more or less stay that way. The friends we vacation with also happen to be in our quarantine pod, so our kids have gotten even closer in the past months.

One morning we woke up and looked outside to see crashing waves. This is pretty abnormal on the Chesapeake, even more so on the Northern Neck, which is where we were – a little strip of Virginia where the Potomac River meets the bay. It was bright and windy and the kids desperately wanted in the water in spite of the cold wind and waves. We all headed down to the beach “just to look” at the waves… but you can see that clearly didn’t happen. Before long, all four kids were running in and out of the surf, a mess of soaked pajamas and little sandy bodies.

Two nights we made s’mores under the broiler and carried them down to eat by the water, watching the bay turn violet. We filled a bag with shells on the last morning and the kids and I decorated some and displayed others when we got home. Sandcastles were built, legs burried, dolphins spotted in the surf, and one morning Etta and I just sat in chairs right at the edge of the water, holding hands and listening to the waves lap at our toes. Moments like this, moments of sun and sweetness and sand and play and connection are why we go to the beach every summer.

And coming back from the beach, I felt ready to say goodbye to summer a full month earlier than I usually do. Ready to carve out a routine and trade sunny adventures out for cozy evenings in. Ready for the fresh start that comes with the school year.

Sometimes I wonder what my children will say when they look back on the Pandemic. What will they remember about this strange time, a time that has been so much longer than any of us planned, long enough to stick in their memory. I know they will remember hard things, scary things, painful things. Henry, like many other kids, asks questions that hurt my heart, asks about why he’s not allowed to hug people, and does he still have friends, and when will he be able to go to church or school. It’s impossible to shield him from the reality of illness and death.

But I also hope that my children will look back on this strange season and see so much that was beautiful and normal. I want them to remember jumping waves in their pajamas and eating s’mores at sunset. I want them to remember a summer that was so different in so many ways but still ended in the way that we have come to love so much.

I turned 33 this past week, which is officially old enough to where I received birthday greetings from my mortgage broker. Not that it is surprising, since all my friends are having exciting conversations about things like refinancing (DO IT) and the great minivan vs SUV debate (minivan!) and replacing sump pumps (ugh. so much flooding this summer and so much money having to be spent). I am not one prone to simple birthdays, because the extrovert in me (7w8!) loves parties. But covid, budgets, and time being what they are meant that this was maybe my most low-key birthday ever and it was pretty wonderful. One of my older kids unexpectedly had a rough night the night before, meaning I was up from 4:30 to 6. This never happens, but I decided in my parental wisdom to check on them after I nursed Maddie and then rearrange the covers and stuffed animals, waking them up in the process. I will never learn. I was in a truly grumpy mood afterwards, and James in his infinite wisdom did not wish me a happy birthday in those tense dark hours, but instead let me sleep in till 8:30. And behold – the day was redeemed. Which was good, because we had our first real date night planned for late that night. We tried out a new rooftop restaurant and it was so exciting to be out together. The food was not fantastic, but the place was lovely and I probably would have been content eating cardboard if I could do it on a rooftop patio surrounded by twinkle lights. Though to be fair, we did order takeout from our favorite dive bar as so as we got back in the car and picked it up on the way home.

Some birthday things!

I have always had a pink strawberry birthday cake, but since my mom made my traditional birthday cake for me when we visited in August, I decided to go chocolate. My friend Courtney brought us the most delicious chocolate cake I have ever eaten when I had Madeleine and I have made it twice since. The first time it was great, but this second time I tried to make it a layer cake with pour-over frosting… and it was a disaster. A delicious disaster, but it was so ugly that Henry felt compelled to sing the Daniel Tiger song about when something seems bad, turn it around and find something good. In these pics you can see my attempt to scrape the frosting off the plate and reposition it on top, an effort that did not improve things.

I had my eye on this chair for months before it finally stayed in stock long enough for me to pull the trigger, so I am also declaring it a birthday gift. I am slowly and painfully trying to decorate our house, something made harder by both a budget and my own painful indecision. I fluctuate between wanting to decorate everything now because we are living in it so why not, and thinking I should wait a couple years till the kids are done shuffling bedrooms and we can really settle. Anyone else feel this tension?

I want to do a gallery wall on our stairs, but my extensive gallery wall research showed me I really only love them when they are massive and cover floor to ceiling. That is a big commitment. So instead, I am building one in my study, and I’m including this planter in it. I absolutely love it, but when I tried to hang it in our living room, James told me that he refused to live in an Olive Garden. So harsh. My friend Anna is also lettering one of my absolute favorite French quotes to hang up and when it’s done, you can bet I will subject you to Pictures And Thoughts.

As you can see- big stuff in store for 33. But first, I’m going to go eat more of my hideous cake and hug my people – the best birthday things.

Somehow it is already August and the final stretch of summer, though I guess with the strange school year Covid changes, summer won’t really end as usual? We are headed to Kentucky next week for time with family and this past week we managed to hit one of our favorite summer traditions: blackberry picking! Feel free to stroll down memory lane with berry pics from 2017, 2018, and 2019. We got way fewer pictures this year because, um, there are now like a million kids, but we still came home with lots of berries, in spite of the berry terrorism attempts of one 2 year old sassy girl who intentionally dumped them all out.

Might as well start this random summer catch-all with some berry things. This is the best berry pie there is, and I have made it with fresh and frozen berries of all varieties and it is always perfect.

This blackberry dutch baby was also wonderful, though of course one of my children refused it, as is always the case with any fun breakfast I make. Actually, it’s the case with most breakfasts. SEND HELP. Any great and easy breakfast recommendations for a kid who hates eggs, isn’t interested in any sort of fruit, and only sometimes likes cereal? Breakfast is destroying me lately.

The fruit-hater wouldn’t touch this roasted parmesan broccoli either but the rest of us devoured it.

And in the final piece of food news, I’ve been loving this easy cabbage slaw recipe. My mother-in-law came a few weeks back and stocked our freezer with all sorts of main courses we could pair them with easy sides to stretch out our Meal Train. She left us with tons of tasty BBQ pulled pork and it was perfect with a side of the slaw. (Which of course, the fruit-and-broccoli hater also refused.)

Are you watching Indian Matchmaking? It’s my treat when Madeleine needs to nurse and the other kids are napping. This article was really interesting. Any good shows you all are watching these days?

You will notice that Maddie Lo didn’t make it in any pictures at the beginning of this post, as she is at that dreamboat stage where she will sleep forever in the carseat so she snoozes through most outings, which is better for everyone involved. I’m not sure how I would survive a non-summer baby, as the DC heat ad humidity are some of my best tricks for getting newborns to sleep on the go. As for sleeping at home, she is doing shockingly well for a seven week old, and I credit it to a combo of accidental sleep training since I just can’t always get to to her quickly, and knowing more what I am doing each time around, such as employing this amazing swaddle.

This.UGH. It’s funny because it is all too true and sad all at once. No matter where you fall on the spectrum of opinions about schools opening or not, the one thing we can all agree on is that it is a less-than-ideal mess for everyone involved. Henry’s school co-op decided to just cancel and refund tuition for preschool families because we all just said that we had no interest in zoom preschool. But for families with older kids who need to actually be learning- there is no great solution. One thing that was a good reminder was the words from the Lazy Genius in this podcast about not taking our own adult frustrations about closures out on kids. A good reminder for me as I tend to get frustrated about everything canceled and then act annoyed at my kids, when they have absolutely no agency in this decision.

Happy summer weekend all!

As promised, the birth story of Madeleine Lois, in all its very unexciting details. Because truly, I do not have very interesting or exciting births. But not having anything to say has never stopped me from saying a lot, so here we go! In true-to-me form, I was done being pregnant somewhere around 30 weeks, and already banking on an early delivery. Suffering in silence is not my strong suit, so I started asking my doctor for an induction to be scheduled around, say 12 weeks, and made sure to remind them at every turn that I absolutely did not want to be pregnant a day longer than necessary. I tried the following tactics:

“I’m wondering if we should just go ahead and schedule an induction at, say, 37 weeks, since Etta came so fast and it is such a long drive to the hospital.” (Answer: “No.”)

“You know, with COVID, I’m thinking maybe we should just schedule an induction a couple weeks early so that you can control hospital capacity.” (Answer: “No.”)

“Can we schedule an induction so that I can organize childcare- with COVID our babysitting options are few and far between.” (Answer: “Still no,”)

“I think I should be done being pregnant and I am absolutely certain there is no more room in my womb. Can we induce?” (Answer: “Again- no.”)

But, as happened with both Henry and Etta, I did start dilating by 36 weeks, which kept me hopeful. The tricky think with early babies (ok, or with any baby after the first) is coordinating childcare. We were trying to time my mom coming in such a way that she was here before the baby arrived, but not so long before that she couldn’t stay awhile after the baby was born. And unlike with my two other kids, this time around I was actually having contractions the whole third trimester, every one sending me into mad fits of timing and hoping that I could be done. I was also once again Group B Strep positive, and James was back to panicking that we would have a baby in the car on our long drive to the hospital. As I mentioned here, I woke up a couple days shy of 38 weeks with manatee fins where my feet used to be. I had been having fainting spells with increasing frequency the whole third trimester along with some swelling, but this was a new degree of swollen. While terribly uncomfortable, I was not terribly displeased, as every sign of misery was being added to the list of “Reasons to Beg My Doctors to Induce.” Because I am a crazy person and my brain short circuits during pregnancy. I headed to the doctor for my 38 week appointment (being 37 weeks and 5 days and yes I WAS COUNTING EVERY ONE), having informed the children optimistically that I might not be coming home if they decided it was time to let the baby out. The night before James and I had packed hospital bags because I was just feeling so rotten that we wanted to be prepared in case abject misery meant labor. But alas, still no consistent or painful contractions. Yet when the nurse tasked with taking my vitals had me step on the scales, we both recoiled, as I asked, “Um, that says I have gained 10 lbs in one week and that just doesn’t seem normal.” She mumbled something about it actually being 9.5 lbs and made furious notes on her computer before ushering me into the exam room. The doctor came in and casually asked how I was doing… and I completely lost it. As in, SOBBING. In between sobs, I managed to hiccup out that my feet were huge and I wasn’t sleeping and I was fainting all the time and could WE PLEASE JUST TAKE THE BABY OUT BECAUSE I THINK SHE IS DONE. And people, that merciful doctor said yes. Well to be clear, she said I had dilated past 5cm so we could go next door have this baby, but I would require Pitocin so I would have to be ok with that to which I responded YES LORD I RECEIVE, and then I headed next door in a weepy mess. I just googled “picture of manatee crying” to try to give you a visual, but alas, you will just have to imagine it. I paused outside the hospital to call James and tell him to come quickly, but to first go home and get the tray of homemade chocolate chip cherry granola bars my friend Anna had dropped off yesterday because, priorities and all.

I’m going to briefly gloss over the next hour other than to say that it was not pretty. My emotional stability was not, shall we say, intact, and the poor nurse who had to do all my in take questions basically had to deal with a crazy person, not to mention the COVID test that was shoved up my nose and out my eyeballs, constituting the most painful part of my entire labor. But good news! I was COVID free, which meant that while I still had to labor in a mask, everyone was chill when it came off occasionally. Following the test, James showed up, my epidural was inserted, my Pitocin started flowing and I officially entered my happy place.

Because y’all, I freaking love labor. LOVE IT. As in, long before I was ready to have a third kid I was definitely ready to labor. Some other women feel this way, but typically they are the ones who subscribe to the whole perfect miracle of childbirth/ “this is what your body is designed for” rhetoric. Not this mama. I like my births highly medicated, preferably planned, and in as sterile and medical an environment as possible. And yet, I love them. Nothing feels more empowering than giving birth. And if I may climb on a soapbox for a second, I feel that it is really important to drive this fact home because  I feel this way with my pain free and very easy births. There is no prize for labor, no trophy for length of labor or “holding out” against the pain. Motherhood is empowering, so however you get there – tub in your living room, c-section, epidural, stack of adoption paperwork – is worth celebrating and praising. My labors are, historically, fast and easy. When it was time to push I had only been in the hospital a couple hours and a few minutes into pushing, I actually stopped and announced to the room that I wanted to slow down so I could savor it. Yes, they were very weirded out by this. But this might be our last baby. And that powerful moment of bringing her into the world was something that I wanted to really pay attention to, wanted to inscribe into my memory and heart forever. I also informed the room that I felt like a straight up amazonian combo of Beyoncé and Mother Teresa, and they were pretty much like, ok fine just push and maybe keep your mask on.

But I didn’t get to savor it long, because after less than 15 minutes of pushing, she was here – our Madeleine Lois. Our smallest baby, at 6lbs 14 oz, and I wept as they placed her tiny self on my chest. Maddie Lo.

Even thinking about that moment now makes me cry. Because my whole pregnancy, I struggled with her actuality, with really believing that she was real and would be loved and enjoyed. She was an abstraction that I couldn’t connect to. But then she was there, on my chest, her cries filling the room, my tears falling all over her (maybe?) red fuzzy head and the rush of love was so intense that I could barely breathe. My Madeleine, the gift we didn’t know to ask for and could barely wrap our heads around was there and she was absolutely perfect. Now of course, my emotions were not so overpowering that I didn’t place an order for breakfast burrito very soon afterwards, because you know it’s the thing I love only slightly less than labor. I had at least 5 during my stay and every one was as delicious as the last. My low food standards never cease to serve me well in life.

The hospital days are a happy blur. COVID meant no visitors (much to Henry’s sadness), and a third baby meant they pretty much left us alone unless we asked for something. We spent two happy days watching movies and snuggling while we got to bond with our sweet girl. My recovery was insanely easy, a nice respite after the rough pregnancy, or perhaps it felt easy just because I was no longer pregnant and was reveling in my ability to roll over and breathe. Whatever the case, the whole thing just kept on feeling like such a special gift, such a blessing after the hard months that had preceded it. When we brought Madeleine home, the kids swarmed the carseat and Henry, unable to fully process the excitement, just looked up and asked, “Should we sing her a song – should we sing her the Doxology?”

So we did, welcoming Maddie into our house with songs of praise sung- yelled by toddlers over her sleeping head.

Maddie Lo- we are so glad you are ours!

Spoiler alert: We had a baby. And you can bet I will drag you through the whole thing in a blog post at some point, but for today, some images and thoughts from the last few weeks – the final weeks of pregnancy,  and the first few weeks as a family of five. I love labor. LOVE IT. To be fair, I have had pretty easy labors and embrace the epidural, so it’s not hard to love. But I think the real reason I love labor so much is because it means that pregnancy is OVER.  Those last weeks, even of an easy pregnancy, are brutal. And this one was far from easy. I spent the last couple weeks in constant discomfort, pain and exhaustion. Yet there were still some really wonderful moments in there. We had some amazing family outings, backyard bonfires, and special moments. The kids are really into building tents in the backyard and eating meals inside of them, which gives us some tranquil dining on the patio and I am all about that.

I also nested like an insane person in those final weeks. Days before giving birth, I was trying to teach myself how to watercolor so I could paint something to hang over a giant whole in the wall of the guest room. Clearly, this was of utmost importance in those last pre-baby days. I purged and sorted and rearranged and generally did all sorts of crazy things that very few people would ever notice, because we all know that bringing a newborn into a house where the rubber bands aren’t sorted in the kitchen drawer increases the odds of SIDS. Or something. We squeezed in several final hikes and nature outings in those last couple weeks, including one that was accidentally much longer than anticipated, in the hot sun, without snacks or drinks. Was I a little miserable? Yes. Would stationary activity that might have prolonged pregnancy been more miserable? Abso-freaking-lutely. My mom came to town when I was 37 weeks and 3 days pregnant and I conveniently woke up the next morning with feet resembling manatee fins and even new levels of misery.

But never fear! Because at 37 weeks and 5 days, Madeleine Lois showed up and everything became instantly better. I’ve said it before (like here and here and here), but the newborn stage is not where I thrive. This time around though, the first couple weeks were beautifully different. Now, I know that babies get harder before they get easier, and the first couple weeks for many newborns are easy, a blissful cocoon of sleepy babies. But I have used that easy time to bounce back into life. I get back to the park and playdates, the splashpads and to-do lists. This time – I didn’t. I have long mourned the cuddles and sleepy snuggles I missed out on with Henry and Etta, the former because I was trying to establish good sleep hygiene and a schedule, the latter because I was busy and trying to be productive. Those lost snuggles caused more emotional issues than I realized for a long time. With Madeleine, we decided to try something different.I didn’t leave my room much those first couple weeks. I slept in, then spent much of the day holding Madeleine, nursing and snuggling, listening to audiobooks and bonding with my baby. I emerged periodically to see the rest of the family, but I really reveled in that special time with my newborn in a way that I didn’t get to, didn’t choose to, with the others.  This bubble of newborn tranquility was totally due to my mom, who kept the other two away and the house running, and James, who really encouraged me in making it happen.This sort of rest does not come easy to me. I like activity, love outings and visitors and summer fun. But COVID has forced me to slow down, and with so many things just not a possibility, the decision was made easier.

Maddie Lo might be my fussiest baby. It’s hard to remember exactly what the others were like, since your brain erases so much in nature’s attempt to get you to do it again. But she is definitely going to need the reflux meds that brought relief to Etta, and we have a lot of tears in our evenings these days. And yet, they don’t grate on me as much as they did with the other two. I had two weeks of rest and bonding to refresh my body and prepare my soul.Since my mom left, I’ve certainly had to leave my room. But then again, I was ready to. We’ve had some wonderful family outings this weeks, some hard learning moments about life with three, and some big things that we needed to get done (helloooooo minivan purchase!). But instead of feeling burnt out a couple weeks in, I feel empowered. Yes, last night when I had to put all three to bed by myself for the first time everyone got yelled at, Maddie just had to be put down to scream while I supervised bed prep, and Henry tearfully informed me that I was “using my bad voice.”

Because adding a person to your family is hard. But the hard doesn’t feel like it’s outweighing the good or suffocating this time, and I think so much of that is due to those first two weeks.

How many of you did the cloister-away method with your newborns?

I’m going to go ahead and announce that I am squeezing one more blog post in before baby girl shows up, in hopes that this will prove true and she will actually show up. Yes, I am still a couple weeks from my due date. But since Henry came at 38 weeks and Etta at 37.5… I am officially Over Being Pregnant. I have an induction scheduled for 39 weeks, as I like my births highly medicated and scheduled if possible, but I have no intention of actually making it to that date. (Yes, I am real fun to live with right now).

This summer feels so strange in comparison to what I love about DC summers (read: socialization and splashpads), but I nevertheless can’t control my summer excitement. We have been dragging out the sprinkler frequently, swimming in every creek we can find, letting the kids stay up late for bonfires and popsicles, and generally reveling in these long days made even lazier than usual by things being shutdown. I’m still hopeful that some more normal summer pastimes will resume next month, but for the moment, I can’t complain too much. Both kids are currently obsessed with their “tent,” which is actually some sticks rubber banded together and covered in a picnic blanket. They set it up daily over all the outdoor furniture pillows and beg to eat every meal in there, and I usually let them. I am raising summer-loving babies and it makes me so pleased.

Here are some very important things that I absolutely had to let you know about before I check out with my newborn.

This table hammock made from a sheet was a big hit for my kids.

If you are a parent, you might cry laughing at this. If you aren’t, it will make absolutely no sense.

It can be really daunting to stay on top of the news, especially as we are all weary of virus-related happenings. My friend Liz is an amazing journalist covering COVID-19, and she has developed a daily email newsletter where she sends one expertly chosen article each day. They cover a wide range of virus related topics and opinions, but all are well-written and fact-checked. She also gives a summary if you don’t have time to read the whole thing. It has been such a helpful way to have constructive media exposure.

This has been our favorite podcast of quarantine, teaching really great (and often obscure!) Bible stories for kids. Like, my kids know about Naboth’s Vineyard. We also love this one, for nonspiritual entertainment. The train love had waned at our home, but both kids are hardcore back into it, and I am pumped, as train mess is my favorite mess and train play lasts for hours.

If you have summer strawberries sitting around, this cake is my favorite way to eat them up.

We made these grilled chicken sandwiches last week and they were phenomenal, even for someone hating meat in the third trimester like yours truly. I used some of my sacred Chick-Fil-A sauce stash on the kids’ and a million pickles on mine and skipped the relish.

We make pizza every Friday, and we used to always rely on Trader Joe’s crust. As going to the grocery is trickier now, I decided that I could master making homemade crust. I tried a bunch of sub-par recipes, before my cousin’s wife suggested this one and it is perfect. Bonus! It only rises 10 minutes and rolls out without any breakage or trouble.

So few positive things in the news, but someone finally found the treasure!

Finally finished this and it was so beautiful and deeply satisfying. I’m reading this book now and convicted by pretty much every word. How different would the world look if Christians actually loved their neighbor? Also reading (ok, listening to) this bookand it is so weird but really gripping.

The past couple weeks there have been so many deeply convicting and thus unsettling words to read around the internet in response to racial injustice in this country. It has prompted good and hard conversations with our own kids about race and equality. I am not going to pretend to be an expert on any aspect of this conversation, but I did want to share two articles that have stayed with me, one on a Biblical response and one on a conservative response to systemic racism. I think that phrase makes many people really defensive and I appreciate how this article explores what it actually means. I was really excited to get this book that I am adding to our collection to approach this discussion with our kids in a biblically centered way. There are a lot of things that have been discouraging surrounding the discussion of race in recent weeks, but one thing that is truly encouraging is how many parents I am seeing taking seriously their job of starting this process in the home with their kids.

And on that note… hopefully I will not blog for weeks and weeks because there will be a newborn to snuggle. But if not, I’ll probably show up annoyed and wordy at some point.