This week has been a hazy one here for the Thomases Three. Looking back on it – the week has completely flown by. And yet, as I recall, each moment seemed like an eternity. I’ve yet to figure out how that works.
My allergies continue to overpower with a vengeance. I’m trying not to complain too much, though, because – after two days of absolute quarantine – I can now see, breathe and hold my head up. My eyes – after last night’s flare-up, anyway – are no longer swollen and fiery. My headache has kept itself at bay for a day or so. All in all – I’m a happy indoor camper.
Ammon has two new favorite phrases. He now refers to just about everything as, ‘this guy’. “I want this guy”, “Who’s this guy”, “What about this guy”. He also whispers – ever so quietly – “It’s okay”. When doing this, he usually puts his finger over his mouth and says, “Shh” first. Of course, it looks like he’s picking his nose, instead. For instance, last night – when driving home and looking for the moon – he kept saying, “Moon, where’d it go?” Once he found it, he whispered, “Shh. It’s okay.”
Ammon and I have only ventured out once this week. I hate keeping him cooped up inside, but my head just can’t handle it. After only two minutes, I’m clawing at my face and my nose resembles a faucet. But the weather has been so nice. It's been fairly cool during the day with a nice breeze. In this part of the country, it's u.n.h.e.a.r.d of for it to be this late in the year and still be – even remotely – nice outside. Usually, we're alreay wishing for death. So – after we could stand it no longer – we went outside for a bit on Wednesday. While Ammon played, I decided to tackle the brick encasing around our gravel driveway. It looks like those bricks were just thrown down willy-nilly quite a long time ago – and they look pre-etty janky. Blame it on the OCD, but – I’ve been wanting to straighten them up and turn them on their sides so that the gravel is better contained. This will require me to push back all the gravel, dig up the bricks, dig a new trench and, in some places, reroute the driveway a bit. Obviously, this is one of those ‘it’ll take a while’ jobs. That afternoon, I finished one short side. And, I – of course – immediately regretted it. Hence the aforementioned ‘two-day quarantine’. We unfortunately skipped playgroup yesterday – but, I’m feeling a tad better today. And … the driveway already looks better.
Ammon and I had a visitor this morning from a member of my family that I’ve never met. My grandpa’s cousin lives in Abbeville – just down the road from us, in fact – and she stopped by to see us this morning. Our house was a wreck, Ammon was in his jammies with a juice mustache and graham crackers caked up at the corner of this mouth, and I was still in my jammies with bed-head and Vicks under my nose. Needless to say, we looked like a hot mess. But, it was surely nice of this sweet lady to stop by. She brought some cookies and commented on how nice we had the place looking – especially the yard. Of course, this made me feel good … because we have worked very hard to make this house our home.
Getting used to the different layout of this house has been tricky at times. Having farther to go for certain things is hard to remember sometimes. For instance, at our old house, when you were in the shower and forgot that you were out of something, it was easy to just jump out and get a new something from under the sink. Because everything was on top of everything else – it wasn’t a very far trip. But now, we have a linen closet. And it’s out in the hallway outside the bathroom. A much farther trip. Sometimes, I still do jump out of the shower and make the cold dash for the closet. I especially remembered to do it last week when I had forgotten to put more shampoo in the shower. Because, one shower prior, Brian’s shampoo had done some serious damage to my hair. For some reason, I forget to restock supplies in the shower right away – like my body wash. Yes. Sometimes I make a run for it. But, sometimes I’m just too darn lazy. That’s why today I’m reeking to high heaven of a ‘classic masculine scent’.
My allergies continue to overpower with a vengeance. I’m trying not to complain too much, though, because – after two days of absolute quarantine – I can now see, breathe and hold my head up. My eyes – after last night’s flare-up, anyway – are no longer swollen and fiery. My headache has kept itself at bay for a day or so. All in all – I’m a happy indoor camper.
Ammon has two new favorite phrases. He now refers to just about everything as, ‘this guy’. “I want this guy”, “Who’s this guy”, “What about this guy”. He also whispers – ever so quietly – “It’s okay”. When doing this, he usually puts his finger over his mouth and says, “Shh” first. Of course, it looks like he’s picking his nose, instead. For instance, last night – when driving home and looking for the moon – he kept saying, “Moon, where’d it go?” Once he found it, he whispered, “Shh. It’s okay.”
Ammon and I have only ventured out once this week. I hate keeping him cooped up inside, but my head just can’t handle it. After only two minutes, I’m clawing at my face and my nose resembles a faucet. But the weather has been so nice. It's been fairly cool during the day with a nice breeze. In this part of the country, it's u.n.h.e.a.r.d of for it to be this late in the year and still be – even remotely – nice outside. Usually, we're alreay wishing for death. So – after we could stand it no longer – we went outside for a bit on Wednesday. While Ammon played, I decided to tackle the brick encasing around our gravel driveway. It looks like those bricks were just thrown down willy-nilly quite a long time ago – and they look pre-etty janky. Blame it on the OCD, but – I’ve been wanting to straighten them up and turn them on their sides so that the gravel is better contained. This will require me to push back all the gravel, dig up the bricks, dig a new trench and, in some places, reroute the driveway a bit. Obviously, this is one of those ‘it’ll take a while’ jobs. That afternoon, I finished one short side. And, I – of course – immediately regretted it. Hence the aforementioned ‘two-day quarantine’. We unfortunately skipped playgroup yesterday – but, I’m feeling a tad better today. And … the driveway already looks better.
Ammon and I had a visitor this morning from a member of my family that I’ve never met. My grandpa’s cousin lives in Abbeville – just down the road from us, in fact – and she stopped by to see us this morning. Our house was a wreck, Ammon was in his jammies with a juice mustache and graham crackers caked up at the corner of this mouth, and I was still in my jammies with bed-head and Vicks under my nose. Needless to say, we looked like a hot mess. But, it was surely nice of this sweet lady to stop by. She brought some cookies and commented on how nice we had the place looking – especially the yard. Of course, this made me feel good … because we have worked very hard to make this house our home.
Getting used to the different layout of this house has been tricky at times. Having farther to go for certain things is hard to remember sometimes. For instance, at our old house, when you were in the shower and forgot that you were out of something, it was easy to just jump out and get a new something from under the sink. Because everything was on top of everything else – it wasn’t a very far trip. But now, we have a linen closet. And it’s out in the hallway outside the bathroom. A much farther trip. Sometimes, I still do jump out of the shower and make the cold dash for the closet. I especially remembered to do it last week when I had forgotten to put more shampoo in the shower. Because, one shower prior, Brian’s shampoo had done some serious damage to my hair. For some reason, I forget to restock supplies in the shower right away – like my body wash. Yes. Sometimes I make a run for it. But, sometimes I’m just too darn lazy. That’s why today I’m reeking to high heaven of a ‘classic masculine scent’.
In the camellia bush outside of our dining room window is a tiny little bird’s nest. Ammon and I sit and watch it sporadically throughout the day. There is a little momma bird that stays in the nest most all of the time. Do you see her? We’ve – of course – named her and the daddy bird: Penelope and Henry. Ammon is fascinated with them – always saying, “Shh” when we get close so we don’t scare them away. We’ve watched Penelope feather her nest – adding little twigs and pieces of paper and straw. Just the right touches to make it just right. We’ve watched her fondly eyeing her eggs before she fluffs up her bottom feathers and snuggles down in her nest. We watched her carefully eye any other bird that gets too close. We’ve watched her carefully survey her surroundings and make sure all is well and safe before she leaves her nest. We’ve listened to her quietly chirp and sing to no one in particular, clearly content with her lot in life – I tell Ammon that she’s singing lullabies.
As I’ve watched Penelope, I’ve marveled at the ‘mothering instinct’. She is a bird. I am a human being. And yet – aren’t we, as mothers, so similar?
As mothers, we nurture, teach and protect. We safeguard our homes from the dangers of the outside world. These same things that sweet little Penelope does to her nest, I am asked to do with my home. For my family. It isn’t something that is ‘easy’ for me, I’ve found. It isn’t something that ‘comes naturally’, so much as I would like it to. I have to work at it. Every day. Every hour. Even every minute. As much as I love my home and my family – as much as I love my child – this ‘calling’ has been a difficult one for me to fully grasp. I am eternally grateful to be a mother – and yet I often feel that I am nothing more than a babysitter. A very cheap babysitter. And an unwanted one, at that.
I’ve quietly watched as others have taken ‘better care’ of my child. I’ve quietly wondered why he listens to others and not to me. I’ve quietly wondered why he prefers his dad. I dealt with Postpartum Depression for over a year after Ammon was born. I’ve been doing much better for the last six months or better – but, recently the fear that I might be regressing a little has been ever present.
I’ve decided that that isn’t the case. In the last several weeks I have had many experiences that have put my relationship with my husband and child into sharper focus. I’ve decided there isn’t anywhere to put the blame. The ‘problems’ that I face are not there because of my self-conscious nature. They aren’t there because I’m feeling sorry for myself. They aren’t there because there is something wrong. Maybe, all I need to do is try harder. And not just try harder at the logistical things. But trying harder to see. Try harder to see the good things. Like the times that Ammon does listen to me when we’re out in public. Or the times that he and I have a really good day. Or just the times that he comes to me for comfort – and I can instantly quiet his fears. When I sit and take notice of those good times – I find that they happen more often than not. The times that I am a ‘bad mom’ are far outweighed by the times when I am good at it. Granted, I fall short many days. I’m far from perfect – and I am assuredly not a perfect parent. But, I should give myself some credit. I don’t screw up the majority of the time. I’ve tried to implement some changes over the last few days, and – I’m comforted to report – we’ve had much better days. I’ve had much better days. What a difference it makes to do something so small as to say, “Just a minute” a little bit less.
A little something happened a couple of weeks ago that – in its own way – reassured me that there may be hope for me yet. We were down at Brian’s grandparents’ for a family reunion that we have every year to honor his great-grandmother, Claudie. Ammon had become fascinated with Granddaddy’s lawn mower, and sat on it for most of the afternoon. At one point, he was sitting on the seat with Brian standing right there with him. I was sitting in a row of chairs in front of the mower. Ammon slipped off the seat and bounced off about four things before sliding – upside down – toward the ground. I – without thinking – lunged backwards, reached through the small space between two chairs and grabbed Ammon by the shoulder/neck, right before his head hit the concrete. Brian made a comment about ‘a mom’s cat-like reflexes’, while his dad, Larry, said, “And that’s how the pros do it.” Now, of course, this was a potentially scary situation – and it was scary even though, ultimately, no harm was done. But, I didn’t panic or feel the terror of the situation until afterwards. It wasn’t my impressive reflexes that caught my attention so much as my father-in-law’s comment. It was nothing big. And yet, it was what I needed to hear.
As mothers, we nurture, teach and protect. We safeguard our homes from the dangers of the outside world. These same things that sweet little Penelope does to her nest, I am asked to do with my home. For my family. It isn’t something that is ‘easy’ for me, I’ve found. It isn’t something that ‘comes naturally’, so much as I would like it to. I have to work at it. Every day. Every hour. Even every minute. As much as I love my home and my family – as much as I love my child – this ‘calling’ has been a difficult one for me to fully grasp. I am eternally grateful to be a mother – and yet I often feel that I am nothing more than a babysitter. A very cheap babysitter. And an unwanted one, at that.
I’ve quietly watched as others have taken ‘better care’ of my child. I’ve quietly wondered why he listens to others and not to me. I’ve quietly wondered why he prefers his dad. I dealt with Postpartum Depression for over a year after Ammon was born. I’ve been doing much better for the last six months or better – but, recently the fear that I might be regressing a little has been ever present.
I’ve decided that that isn’t the case. In the last several weeks I have had many experiences that have put my relationship with my husband and child into sharper focus. I’ve decided there isn’t anywhere to put the blame. The ‘problems’ that I face are not there because of my self-conscious nature. They aren’t there because I’m feeling sorry for myself. They aren’t there because there is something wrong. Maybe, all I need to do is try harder. And not just try harder at the logistical things. But trying harder to see. Try harder to see the good things. Like the times that Ammon does listen to me when we’re out in public. Or the times that he and I have a really good day. Or just the times that he comes to me for comfort – and I can instantly quiet his fears. When I sit and take notice of those good times – I find that they happen more often than not. The times that I am a ‘bad mom’ are far outweighed by the times when I am good at it. Granted, I fall short many days. I’m far from perfect – and I am assuredly not a perfect parent. But, I should give myself some credit. I don’t screw up the majority of the time. I’ve tried to implement some changes over the last few days, and – I’m comforted to report – we’ve had much better days. I’ve had much better days. What a difference it makes to do something so small as to say, “Just a minute” a little bit less.
A little something happened a couple of weeks ago that – in its own way – reassured me that there may be hope for me yet. We were down at Brian’s grandparents’ for a family reunion that we have every year to honor his great-grandmother, Claudie. Ammon had become fascinated with Granddaddy’s lawn mower, and sat on it for most of the afternoon. At one point, he was sitting on the seat with Brian standing right there with him. I was sitting in a row of chairs in front of the mower. Ammon slipped off the seat and bounced off about four things before sliding – upside down – toward the ground. I – without thinking – lunged backwards, reached through the small space between two chairs and grabbed Ammon by the shoulder/neck, right before his head hit the concrete. Brian made a comment about ‘a mom’s cat-like reflexes’, while his dad, Larry, said, “And that’s how the pros do it.” Now, of course, this was a potentially scary situation – and it was scary even though, ultimately, no harm was done. But, I didn’t panic or feel the terror of the situation until afterwards. It wasn’t my impressive reflexes that caught my attention so much as my father-in-law’s comment. It was nothing big. And yet, it was what I needed to hear.
No mother is perfect. No mother is good at her job every single second of every single day. And yet, I know many wonderful mothers who try to be the best that they can be. Incredible nurturers who start anew each day – with new resolve to be better. I know many women – mothers or not – who do incredible things. Motherhood isn’t a glamorous job. And yet, I’m glad it’s mine. I’m glad I have the opportunity to rise above my imperfect human nature and selfishness. I know that perfection is not expected of me in this life. But I am expected to try my best. And I’ve decided that I can do that. Because I have others counting on me to be the best that I can be. Counting on me to try.
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