What kind of paradise am I looking for?

And without even realizing it, you and i are embarking on a new adventure tomorrow.  Your father starts a new job in Wisconsin tomorrow.  But you and I are staying here - for the time being, as least.  And plans that are supposed to be laid out and in order are still a jumbled pile of ideas and thoughts of various different paths, none yet actually chosen.  That type of shit drives me nuts, but your father has always seemed to thrive this way.  And eventually, you and I will catch up to him on his road.  We'll leave New Jersey.  And what an odd concept that is... a place I've been dying to run from since I first set foot in its boarders 12 years ago.  Now that the moment is upon me, I find the roots I've grown go deeper in the earth than I ever realized.

But the next 3 months will be about us... 3 months of just you and me.  I'm incredibly frightened of this.  And it's not that I think I can't handle being a single parent for a while.  And it's not that I don't love spending all the time in the world with you.  But there's a weird thing about parenthood that no one ever seems to mention - it gets lonely.  I think that's why there are all those "mom" groups.  At least it's company.  But it's true - parenthood gets lonely.  Friends without children don't like getting bogged down with kid stuff, and friends with children are just as busy as you are running around like a crazy person trying to care for their kids and tend to their lives.  And at the end of the day, when I'm sitting downstairs while you snore away, I will only find wine and ms. difranco for company.  where we used to revel in the "adult time" together, I will find myself having to fill it alone.

and as hard is it's going to be, maybe that's all for the better.

<3

There will be an answer

I doubt you'll ever remember this day.  You will have been on this earth for 32 months in two days.  We spent all evening in a hospital because tonight very well may be your father's cousin's last hours on earth.  We bussed home from Manhattan, discussing what we may and may not have to explain to you.  No one wants to explain death to their kids, but it's always a necessity at some point.  We avoided the awkward conversation today, as you were too little to actually go to into the ICU ward where Eric is.  But you smiled, and giggled, and gave out hugs in the waiting room.  A much needed breath of cheer.

Eric was not expected to live beyond 6 months, let alone 24 years.  His brain stem is not attached to his spinal cord.  He has no mobility.  He cannot eat - must be fed via feeding tube.  He cannot speak.  He does have brain activity, but not a single person has any idea of how much of our world he is cognizant of.  For all we know, he could  be the world's biggest genius, but trapped inside a broken body with no way out.

I stood by Eric today and looked at him for a while.  I wasn't really sure what to say.  I was never really able to get to know him... and how could I truly?  But I reflected on the way this world works.  When I was pregnant with you, they found a hormone missing from my blood and that caused enough concern for me to be sent to a gene therapist.  When your father and I told this gene therapist that he has a first cousin with a severe birth defect, that was enough to get me put on watch.  Eric was the reason I was monitored so closely.  Eric changed the entire scope of my pregnancy with you. 

As a mother, I now look at Sue with massive amounts of sympathy.  No parent should outlive their child.  No child's death is easy for a parent, even for a child as disabled as Eric.  I watched you play and laugh and cry this evening.  And mostly I realized that Sue was robbed of all of this with Eric.  And I wanted to cry... and I thought about how many times she must have had these thoughts the last 24 years and did cry.

So you won't remember Eric.  But I want you to know that there was once a disabled boy who never moved or spoke that made a ripple in your life before you were even out of the womb.  Sometimes the only thing you need to do to make a difference, is just be.

Schizophrenia

It's crazy how all of my life decisions revolve around you.  Don't get me wrong, I was not so naive to think that I could have a child and go back to living my life in the exact same way.  However, I never stopped to think that having a child could dictate my entire career path.  I'm miserable in my current job.  I was offered another more in my chosen field, with lots of opportunity.  I turned it down.  It was half the salary I make now with no benefits.  And I'm really not that upset about it.  I don't want you to read this one day and think that I gave up this great thing because I had to feed my family.  I have no doubt other things will come along.  But what kills me is my only impetus for the decision was you.  I went back and forth on it.  On the one hand, my current job drives me crazy, but it pays well, gives me benefits, and is super flexible.  On the other hand, this other job would make me far happier than I am now and had a much better commute.  Keeping my current job was the "responsible" decision.  But will it discourage you from taking chances?  Is the message I'm sending "It's better to have a big pay check than to be happy"?  And I get that you're 2, and you're probably not quite this philosophical yet (but hey, you're pretty advanced).  But the last thing I want is for this to become a pattern.  Patterns lead to ways of life.  I don't want you to learn the pattern of give up your dreams for money.  But I also don't want you to be so reckless that you wind up with nothing.  The balance in between the two is a fine, fine line and I don't know that I know how to teach you to walk that tight rope.  So as your parent, I'm your safety net... but I still feel like I'm walkingt the wire too.  I'm doing both a once and it's a maddening stunt.

This is the real reason kids make parents crazy.

Well, this and the constant screaming. :)

In the end, we're molding each other, Bug-a-bug...

Awesome stuff you say

While watching Sesame Street:  "Mommy... Elmo is always naked."

On a particularly rushed morning:  "What the hell is the matter??"

Feeling better after a particularly nasty stomach bug:  "I want to eat EVERYTHING!"

Thoughtful potty moment:  "Mommy, girls can ride dinosaurs!"

Holding a new stuffed pig:  Me:  "What's her name?"  You:  "A frog!"

Over Xbox to Jill:  "You got pwned!  BOOM!"  (ok, i fed you the first line, but you totally improvised the 'boom')

I loved you first

You're snuggled on my shoulder, rubbing your binky, and slowly but surely falling asleep.  It's so sad when you are sick.  You are always smiling, laughing, and generally having a good time.  But when you are sick, even if it's just a little pink eye, you're generally just sad.  Of course you're a little grumpy and cranky.  But mostly, you're just sad.  You want to cuddle on the couch.  You cry at anything.  And it's so heartbreaking to see that childhood giddiness slip away from you.  Even if it's just for a little while.

And now you're picking your nose.  You're timing is impeccable.

But you're sleeping.  And normally this is a time of day I cherish.  My few moments of self time or time with your daddy before I, too, succumb to my exhaustion.  But today, despite having spent the day with you, I miss you.  Because you weren't yourself today, maybe?  Because even simple things like pink eye can throw a day into such a whirlwind that neither of us get to be our relaxed, normal selves with each other.  Perhaps it is an overlooked phenomenon of being a working mother:   that our time together seems so limited, that we are both so overjoyed to have one another at the end of the day, that we couldn't help but be our relaxed, giggly selves.  And I suppose that's both a blessing and a curse.

Never in a million years would I have ever guessed that love could be defined with snores, drool, and eye snot.  But as you sleep here on my now goopy shoulder, I cannot imagine a more glorious moment.

I love you forever.

You're going to be okay.

That statement is as much for you as it is for me.  

Amy

We were at your Grandmother's one afternoon, discussing your odd sleep habits.  You would go to sleep relatively fine every evening in your own bed, but around 3am you'd wake up and come running into our room completely freaked out.  Only when discussing this with your Grandma did it dawn on me to ask you what you were scared of (sometimes I do forget that you are a tiny human being capable of speech).

Me:  Lily, does something in your room scare you?
You:  Yes.
Me:  What's scary in your room?
You:  Amy is scary.
Me:  Amy?
You:  Yeah... Amy is scary.  She scares me.
Me: ...
Me:  Do you mean Aunt Amy?
You:  No!  Amy in my room!

Ok.  So here's where crazy mother fears and rationality have an argument.  Rational human being says "oh, she's 2.  what an active imagination!"  Crazy mother fears say "OHMYGOD!  WTF HAPPENED TO MY POOR LITTLE CHILD THAT SHE HAD TO MANIFEST SOME IMAGINARY PERSON???"  The only bright side to having these loud, irrational, crazy mother fears is that I now understand my mother's freak outs when I would come home late and not call.  "YOU COULD'VE BEEN DEAD IN A DITCH!!"  I will likely scream this at you one day.  I'm sure it's little solace that you will also scream it at your child.

Back to the tale... The next day while in your room, I remember to ask you about Amy.  I ask if you can show me where Amy is.  You point up to the wall above your bed where a small dress is hanging.  It's a dress that was once mine when I was about 3 months old.  I had very little to decorate your room when you were a baby, so I hung this cute, old dress up.  I guess in the middle of the night, a body-less dress floating over your head is kind of creepy.  Go figure.

I then had to have a conversation with the dress.

Me:  Amy, did you scare Lily?
Amy:  ....
Me:  Amy, that was not nice.  It is not nice to scare people.  You need to go to time out.
Amy:  .....

I then put the dress in your closet, and figured that would be that.  I was wrong... Later that night at dinner...

You:  Mommy, Amy is in time out.
Me:  Yes.  She is in time out for scaring you.
You:  Yeah... but she's all done time out.
Me:  She's all done?
You:  Yeah.  I want to go upstairs and talk to her.
Me:  Um.... are you sure?
You:  Yeah.  Let's go get Amy!

So we head up stairs, where we get the dress out the closet and again tell her that it's not nice to scare people.  You then give the dress and hug and a kiss and ask Amy to be your friend.  As the dress does not actually speak, I assure you that Amy is in fact your friend now, and would do her best not to scare you any more.  It's been about a month, and you still like to talk to Amy.

This is how you got your first imaginary friend, Amy.