Last night Brian read me an email from a past co-worker. She'd taken the news of our latest baby as an excuse to become sort of melancholic and philosophical. All in all what she said was poetic and sweet. However, something she said hit me when she said (paraphrasing) that when all is said and done she's looking forward to her life flashing before her eyes. If only for those moments when she was cradling her new babies.




Yeah - maybe I'm still hormonal but that made me a little tearful.

I always said if heaven were what you made of it I'd like to fashion mine out of my own life: Those moments of raw hysterical laughter with my own mother. The incredible views I've taken in from time to time and country to country. Mindless, slow moving, languid weekend mornings with my husband. Most of all though, the new babies. The tiny high pitched voices of toddlers. The exquisite joy over nothing that only a child can provide.
"Mommee, Mommee! Mommee! Look, that flower is the same color as my shirt!!!" I don't know why that kind of thing makes me stupid happy, but it does.

I realize now, quite clearly that I can't remember it all. I try, I try so hard.
I figure some times, when I'm laying in bed with the baby who is making eyes at me, and cooing softly that this is heaven. The little toothbrush hair on my newborn.

I get that way sometimes with kittens too, or gardens after the rain. Mostly though, with my children.
My kids aren't quite old enough to share the relationship I had with my own mother, and grandmother. Every couple of days, during the occasions we've chosen to pass the time watching mindless television, thoughts stray into my head. The primary thought being (whilst feeling frustrated with the concept of enforced rest) is that there are things in this life I have not yet managed to achieve. There are things I'd regret not passing on to my own children if I weren't to recover from having this child.
Most of them are simple things; things that don't actually matter that much. Like, this is a full boil; if you add this to strip your washer from time to time your clothes will last longer; this is how you splice roots to make a new plant; this is how to write your own cookbook; this is how your great grandmother made this sauce, but this is how your great great grandmother made it, and this is how your great great great grandmother made it; the people in this ancient picture are related to you thus. This was how you came into the world....

My great great grandmother holding my grandmother at 2 weeks old

I get supremely irritated when the day-to-day life seeps back in and forces me to be irritated at my children. I feel used and resentful of the passage of time. Why can't I fixate on all of them at the age they are now? Why am I forced to move so quickly that I can't even tell you when one turned from 5 to 6 - I wasn't watching. Why do I have to care so deeply about forcing us all to bed because traffic will be so bad, because of construction in the place we need to be, on another schedule set for us by people who don't even care?

Why can't we move to the country and grow a lot of peaches?

And maybe that's why. Why I feel those little heaven moments so deeply - because they are ephemeral. Because the 5 seconds that my 3 year old wants to grow up to marry her brother - divorce him and then marry her other brother are just that - 5 seconds. 5 seconds of fleeting toddler charm.
The 3 seconds my oldest son's voice was so high that you can't even hear him in some home videos. The day he was stood on the porch with his Thomas wellies and his umbrella being Christopher Robin saying "tut tut tut, looks like rain." My second oldest son who is in the first grade but miraculously decided he believes in faeries.
My oldest son who has no sense of gender to the point that his back pack is purple and he wanted both his ears piercing rather than just one - because he thinks fashion statements forced on us by a repressed society are wrong and based in opinion. Or the way that when I bought them a $.50 clay model to paint they spent an hour each painting theirs and then showed me with such utter pride that I felt overcome with it. The painting job was rubbish, but I felt such love in my heart for the little figures that I placed them up on shelves immediately.

Even now how sometimes I look at my daughter, virtually an adult, and still manage to see a 2 year old child in her. Her own 2 year old persona shining out from time to time in her soft lisp, or the way she holds her ankles when she's sitting on the couch, or the way she giggles when watching TV. It will be another 2 seconds before she has her own toddlers to memorize and covet.



I'm intensely satisfied at the decision to have this baby - more than I was even when I began on this adventure. She fills a need I wasn't even aware I had. I feel so warm and whole when I am sat staring, trying to memorize every detail of her babyhood. I told myself I'd write it down this time, videotape it, not let any of it slip away. But still it slips and fades before I even get to the paper. The day she was born is mostly lost to me, as are entire days of her first week. I remember trying not to bleed too much, trying to gauge how much sleep was enough sleep to stop feeling dizzy - I have no idea what the baby was doing or how she might have changed.








Then, together we read this nostalgic and sad email from Brian's ex co-worker/friend about new babies, lives fleeting before our eyes. Which made me come to the conclusion that every single one of those heaven moments is as important to me as they feel at the time. That every single daisy that my daughter brings me is the single most special flower in the universe - right then. Because if I ever get to replay my life, I want those moments to be in the queue. I could care less really what other people think I make too much of (including children). This life is too short for hang-ups. I feel that more sincerely at times like these when I'm struggling so hard to recover physically from a major life event. I feel closer to those moments I shared as a child with my own mother; lazy Sundays in bed, endless streams of cookies, sitting in the clover patches at the park, blowing bubbles, coloring and flying kites. How could I have forgotten those? Everyone was somebody's baby once?

I haven't dared look to see when my last blog post was. It was a while ago.
I have excuses. I was brewing something in my tummy. I was tired. My computer was in the shop again (and is now again but this time for 'other' reasons) and I hate typing on any other computer.
What else? Ummmmm.
I had things to say, that's what's sad, and I had blog titles in my head. However, I was feeling a touch down, a touch anti-social and a touch just, simply, too tired to cope.

This is blog purgatory. Blog interlude. Blog Intermission - Part 1.
Or Part 2 really but no one followed me in the beginning so that one doesn't count. Shhhh, forget I even mentioned it.

I wanted to revamp things a little, come up with a better format or background. Mine disappeared, which was weird - why'd it do that then? Twice it reverted itself to old formats, or even just formats I tried on for size.

I can't figure it out, and normally I could - and that's the point. I'm struggling too hard right now, mentally, to think of both how to phrase what I want to write; revamp my blog; remember who what's going on; and come up with wit. Who are you? Hi, my name is Dory.

Apparently, my latest thing (I'm sure I've had a stroke and no one will tell me) is that apparently I repeat myself. Often in the same breath. Though I have no memory of this. I'd type that twice for comedic affect except it's not funny to me. Luckily, I have a patient husband. That or he's just waiting for the poison to finish kicking in and he's encouraged by this first symptom...actually either way that still makes him patient.
It doesn't make for a lot of good posts though, as I'm pretty sure I'm well past linear coherency at the moment. Cogent? I can't even spell it.

So, on that note, I'll leave you with a vague promise that I'm working on it, and I do miss you - gentle reader - and your lack of ability to encourage me through comments, simply letting me know you're still there - you miss me and or are even paying attention in the first place. Therefore, I'll be back to harass entertain you again soon. I promise.
I'll leave you with this quote -
"Buttercup, I love you so much I could eat you - "
"Mommee, I'm going to poke your eye out while you watch, with a sharp stick - and then eat it like a marshmallow - that's how much I love you - more than you love me - see?"