New Kind of NYE

It was a full house.  Eight adults and ten kids ranging from age five to three months.  One lake house with lots of rooms.  It was a full house. 

We spent New Year’s Eve at a friend’s lake house this year.  It was a gathering of our people.  The ones we are “doing life with,” so to speak.  I packed cozy clothes and my new Ugg slippers along with enough food to feed an army and two pack and plays.  We were gathering for just two nights, but time together under one roof is precious and I anticipated it with much excitement.

For two days kids ran around in every imaginable kind of costume.  Batman sparred with Olaf, princesses played with chefs.  There was fort building and movie watching.  There were snowball fights and crafts.  It was exactly the right space for my little family this exact moment.

On our first morning there we woke to a milk container that had mysteriously shattered in the refrigerator overnight.  This is when eight adults are at their best.  We worked quickly and efficiently and in no time that fridge was cleaned out, wiped down and put back together.  And then we all had champagne for breakfast.  It was supposed to be mimosas, but no one brought orange juice and after all we’d been through we felt like champagne for breakfast was justified.

For two days the adults enjoyed conversations that happened lazily over coffee and picked up again during lunch.  We were interrupted but able to find the plot again because we had the time and space to do it.  We talked about what the year ahead held.  We laughed together a lot.  We blasted my “dancing in the kitchen playlist” while we prepared a happy hour feast and danced to the songs of our high school and college days.  We had fun together.

On New Year’s Eve we fed kids dinner early.  While they scarfed down frozen pizza and clementine oranges we nibbled on appetizers and enjoyed some beverages.  Then we busted out hats and funny 2016 glasses and had ourselves a dance party.  Toots was in her element spinning and rocking out to the KidzBop Pandora station. My little Red showed off her dance moves, dropping it like it was hot at one point.  We had fun with our kids, twirling and singing and laughing.  Thanks to the magic of Netflix we played the Carebears countdown and rang in the New Year at 6:59pm, hugging our little people and toasting with sparkling cider. 

And then the kids went to bed and the grown ups got to take our time savoring a meal and connecting around the table.  For a little while we checked in with how we were “really doing” and shared a glimpse of what’s going on behind the chaos that is raising little people.  

And because of those little people who would be awake and ready for action at an unsuitable hour we ourselves watched the East Coast New Year’s countdown and rang in the New Year at 11:01pm.  And then we promptly went to bed.

I’ve never been a big NYE person.  I love the idea of it.  The romantic notion of beginning a new year with celebration.  I like the idea of champagne and gold, glittery dresses and dancing.  But I’ve never gone so far as to shell out a hundred bucks for a ticket to a party at some hotel or bar.  My best New Year’s Eves involved dinner out somewhere fancier than the local Chili’s with people I really love and watching the countdown on TV. 

It was a little different kind of NYE this year.  There meal was homemade and there was not a high heeled shoe in sight.  This year the best part of New Year’s Eve was the dance party with our little people.  Laughing with our friends who understand so intimately just what this crazy stage of life it.  It was a different kind of NYE, this one that revolved around our kiddos.  But it may have been my favorite one yet.

We’re in a new phase of life, this season of four kiddos five and under.  There will be less meals out and more game nights in with our kids.  Less time away and more time together.  I’m ready for it, excited even to start creating the same kind of family memories I have with my own family.  And I’m thankful for this tribe of people who love my kids as much as their own and are willing to ring a new year in with chaos and laughter and little people.  Our family is better because of them. 

It’s been a month since we kicked off the New Year with these friends but I’m still so thankful for the ways in which it set a tone for our year.  It was everything I needed as I closed out one year and began another.  It was equal parts family and friends, thoughtful and fun, challenging and light.  It was a different kind of NYE.  It was just what we needed.  

Happy Birthday Sister

My beautiful sister turned 30 on Sunday.  When some of my friends turned 30 I paid tribute with words as best I could.  Today I braved the snow to sit at Panera and try to do the same for my first and best friend.

I’ve known my sister all of her 30 years.  In fact, my very first memory is of meeting her.  I remember being in the hospital room with my mom and dad and brother.  They wheeled her in the room inside one of those clear, plastic basinets.  I could see her little head, topped with a fine layer of bright red hair.  She was tiny and pink and impossibly new looking.  She was magical.  Then my aunt’s friend took me to the vending machine and let me pick out whatever I wanted and that was magical too.  

Growing up my sister was a shadow I wanted to shake.  I hated when she was allowed to do the things I was doing.  I wanted her to earn it, as I had, to wait the appropriate amount of years to partake in whatever privilege I had.  We were a little less than three years apart and she was always right behind me, wanting to do all the things I did.  I may have been unnecessarily territorial.  

It wasn’t until high school that I began to really appreciate my sister.  Of course it didn’t start that way.  I remember being so pissed that I had to share my dad for the daddy/daughter dance the fall of my senior year.  I’d had him to myself all the other years and suddenly my freshman sister was there once again honing in on my territory.  But by the end of the night, after dancing and laughing and genuinely enjoying my sisters company she became a real, relatable person.  After that I liked seeing her at school, knowing her friends, sharing the peripherals of each other’s world. 

When I went to college I missed her.  She continued to grow into this interesting, unique, funny person that I wanted to be around.  After college I moved to New York.  She came to visit me one weekend and after I dropped her off at Grand Central to catch the bus to the airport I had the sudden realization that I was ready to move home.  Why the heck was I living a plane ride away from all my people?  I wanted to be flying back on that plane with her, seeing her more than just holidays and occasional weekends.

When I think about my sister all I can think of is “there.”  She is my ultimate go to gal.  She’s been there for me in every sense of the word.  When Tommy and I would get in fights during our dating years she was the one I’d call because I knew she loved him and me and she’d sort me out.  When I eventually married him she was right there next to me.  When Liam was born and everything was harder than I’d ever expected it would be my sister was there.  She lay in bed with me, Liam sleeping on one of our chests watching iCarly or some equally terrible show for hours on end.  Anyone who knows my sister will tell you, she shows up for her people big time.  She’s there.

My sister is funny.  And smart.  She has the biggest heart.  She’s devoted and loyal.  She knows how to connect with everyone.  In our family she is the lynch pin, mostly because she prioritizes us.  Being with family is important.  She’s everyone’s favorite sister (and I’m not even bitter because she deserves it.)  She’s used her tremendous talents to work for non-profits because she believes in the work.  Her friends will tell you she’s the one you want in your corner.  She’s loyal and loving and fierce.

It is my kids that are the luckiest when it comes to my sister.  She has loved them deeply and greatly from the moments they were born.  Finding a unique way to bond with each of them has given them all individual relationships with her.  She is playful and patient, loving and helpful and they love Aunt Ry.  

When I was younger I hated how much my sister wanted to imitate me.  Matching outfits made me grumpy and her treading into any of my supposed territories sent me into a rage.  Now though, I want to be just like my sister.  Truly.  When I grow up I hope I’m more like her.  

I’m not usually at a loss for words.  But when it comes to my sister all I can come up with falls short.  I will reread this essay a thousand times with a angsty feeling because it just doesn’t quite do her justice.  I don’t know if all the perfect words in the world with encapsulate all the things I love about her.  So I will end with this:  I love my sister so much I named my first daughter after her.  There is really no one else I would rather she emulates.  If she can inherit a fraction of my sister’s character, along with her name, she will be lucky.

Happy birthday Ryann.  I love you too much.

Rory Girl

Oh man. It's December. And according to this blog of mine, the last time I posted was July. I had big plans for this blog, my writing and life in general for 2015. And then I found out I was, er, unexpectedly pregnant in February and 2015 started to look a whole different than I had planned. Truth be told this pregnancy took it's toll on me and 2015 has been lost in exhaustion, baby growing, baby delivering and keeping baby alive. It seemed to take every ounce of my energy and creativity to do that, and there was nothing left over. Then there's the deeper truth that who I am at my core, my faith and much of what feels like my foundation has been out of sorts since I lost my dad two years ago. And hence, December has arrived and I've written very few words this year.

BUT I have high hopes for 2016 and this little corner of the internet of mine. I've got lots of thoughts swirling in my head, and am feeling ready to start sorting through my out of sorts-ness on the blank page. So hopefully I'll be able to pick back up in the new year and give this blog some new life (just in time for the "end of blogging" of course. I suppose I'd be better off closing the blog and starting a podcast like every blogger I know and love.)

In the meantime I thought I'd share the main reason it's been so quiet around here...

On October 9th at 11:50pm we welcomed this little one into our home.

Rory Powell.

Our Rory girl has been a surprise in every sense of the word. A lovely, beautiful, perfect surprise.

She is darling and sweet and adored by her sisters and brother. We are all adjusting to life with a little less sleep and attention than we'd prefer :) Some of us are handling it better than others.

I have big thoughts on what I've learned now that I have four kids (what the what- I. have. four. kids.), how I feel about raising three girls (our home is now covered in a layer of glitter) and how I'm feeling about being a stay-at-home mom full time now. I hope to dive into it all here soon.

But for the rest of the month I'm committed to snuggling these guys,

creating space to anticipate the coming of Christmas and all that it means,

and keeping the newborn alive. It's chaos, but I love it.

Ways in Which my Fourth Pregnancy has Turned Me into a Toddler

I’m pregnant.  Again.  31 weeks pregnant to be exact.  This one was not exactly “planned,” so to speak.  I ran into an old high school classmate last week, one who was about as pregnant as I am with a toddler about as old as Red.  And as she so succinctly put it, “so this one was a surprise too, huh?  ‘Cause you’d have to be crazy to plan on having kids this close together, right?”  Which is pretty much how I felt when I put two and two together last February and took a pregnancy test.  Crazy.

Anyway, I’ve now had time to (for the most part) get used to the idea that I will have four kids in five years.   I’m even finding some positives in the whole barrel of insanity that will be my life.  I can see the fun to be had with so many kids this close in age.  At this point what’s one more, right?

But pregnancy.  Ugh.  I’ve never been a super pleasant pregnant person.  I’m not one to marvel over the amazing things my body can do in pregnancy.  I’m more likely to crab over the million annoying side effects (number one on my list: the weird way my sinuses get completely blocked during the nine months my womb is occupied.  I’ve cornered the market on BreathRight strips.  I’m thisclose to wearing those things during daylight hours.)  The novelty of pregnancy wears off with each successive pregnancy and this fourth one is for sure the absolute worst.  And then, because I have a three year old and a one year old, I realized that this pregnancy has turned me into a freakin’ toddler.  Let me explain:

Exhibit A.) The Hangry Toddler Meltdown.

Red is pretty known for the “Hangry Meltdown.” When she gets hungry, it comes with a side of anger.  And now, in my third trimester, I can relate sister.  On more than one occasion I’ve found my hunger growing as I prepare meals for the kids.   By the time I’ve doled out three cheese sandwiches with fruit and yogurt I’m not only starving but also irritated that these small people get to eat before me.  The longer it takes for food to make its way into my mouth, the more the rage grows.  Heaven help the kid that asks for more milk just as I’m sitting down with my own lunch.  I’m not proud of it, but irrational, over the top tirades about how “mommy just wants to eat her lunch with out getting up to refill milk fifteen times” have been delivered to dumbfounded and slightly terrified children.  I’ve wanted, on more than one occasion, to throw myself down on the ground like Red and just cry.  The only thing that stops me is the fact that my giant belly makes getting up difficult.

Yep.  This.  I get it Red. 

Exhibit B.) I keep toddler sleep hours.

In the first few months, when my normal first trimester exhaustion was enhanced by the fact that I was still nursing Red, I slept when she slept.  Meaning I put a show on for Toots at nine and passed out while Red took her morning nap.  Then I slept again at one when both girls napped.  And then I went to bed at seven with all three kids.  And I was still exhausted all the time.

All I want to do is sleep.

 Now, in the third trimester I’ve graduated to a sleep schedule more like Toots.  A nap around 1:30 or 2:00 is probably a good idea for me, especially if we’ve had a busy morning.  Like Toots, I can push through and skip that nap but it makes for an ugly evening.  If Toots and I have gone hard all day without a siesta we’re a mess by 5pm and need to be put to bed by 6:30, usually crying.  It’s been a bonding experience for the two of us.

And finally, the icing on the freakin’ cake:

Exhibit C.) My bathroom habits are identical to a potty training toddler

You guys.  I can’t even.  I didn’t think it could get any worse than when I was in the final weeks of my third pregnancy with Red.  My poor bladder was like the guy who should have probably retired five years ago.  Still working, but not super effective   Toots was potty training at that time and there was definitely an afternoon when we both peed our pants a little at Target.  At the time I thought that was as low as it could get, pregnancy humiliation wise.  This time around my bladder didn’t even try to pretend like it was still up for the challenge.  As soon as that pregnancy test revealed a plus sign my bladder put the “Gone Fishing” sign on the window and booked a first class flight seat to Vegas.  Where it’s apparently remained for the duration of my pregnancy. 

I pee all. the. time.  Everything makes me have to pee.  The sound of the shower makes me have to pee.  Hearing someone else peeing makes me have to pee (which is fantastic when I am constantly taking small children to the bathroom all day).  If I take a sip of water, thirty minutes later I’m running to the bathroom.  And I’m absolutely running because for some reason, with this fourth pregnancy, by the time my brain registers the need to pee, it’s five minutes too late.  When Toots was potty training she would get to the bathroom and say, “I just peed a little bit on my underwear.  But that’s ok.  It’s just a little bit.”  Yep.  I get it.  I’ve lost the ability to hold it. 

Also, that thing with toddlers where you make them pee before you leave the house and then, no matter what, thirty minutes into your tour through Mariano’s, with a cart full of groceries, you’re rushing down the aisles to find a bathroom?  Welcome to my life.  I have to plan my outings around the every 45-minute bathroom stops I will need to make. 

Maybe I should just succumb to it, wear batman underwear and no pants, 50 necklaces and not leave the house again until the baby comes.  This is how Toots rocked potty training.

You guys, please someone who has survived four pregnancies please tell me this will get better?  I’m not going to be stuck like this forever right?   Someday when I sneeze I won’t also pee a little too?

Red is One!

Well friends we survived.  Last month my littlest little turned one.  Red made it through her first year of life.  Which is always the most perilous for as all.  As my kids get older I realize more and more how little we really know them at one.  Parts of their personalities are emerging, but there is so much more there waiting to be revealed.  It gets harder to pin down who exactly Red is, because I’ve realized that after twelve months what I know is just the tip of the iceberg.  But I’ll try anyway.

She is funny and feisty.  She thinks fart noises are hysterical and watch out when she’s mad.  That temper doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.  But then she smiles and the whole world melts.

Until recently Daddy was pretty much only a second thought.  But in February and March I found myself traveling quite a lot, which gave her quite a lot of time with Tommy.  Once she realized he also provided food, and the stuff he gave her was pretty tasty (and usually forbidden) she jumped right on that train.  Now she shakes her whole body with excitement when he comes home and scrambles to be the first in his arms.  They’ve become quite the duo, those two.

She remains desperate to be a part of the mix with her two older siblings.  She wants to keep up, do what they do, play where they play.  I’ve long felt her whole life would improve once she started walking and I’m starting to see hints of it.  After a quick bout in the “drunken sailor” stage, (where she wove and stumbled, falling after a handful of steps) she’s now a full on walker.  The look of pride on her face is priceless.  She’s been watching this two-legged movement her whole life and finally, she’s in the club. 

In the last few months Tommy has started including her in the family wrestling matches.  He and the kids roll around on the floor like puppies, each of the kids desperately trying to “attack” Daddy.  I love watching Red in the mix.  From her thrilled expression, to her enthusiastic head bumps, to her relentlessness in the ring, this girl loves her life when she’s rolling around with the big kids.  She’s taken to trying to get me to wrestle, bumping her head against mine and pushing me when we find ourselves down on the floor together. 

If I had to predict I’d say Lou will be determined and easy going, a difficult combination.  She knows what she wants, wants it with intensity and does not give up until she gets it.  But there is a relaxed quality about her the rest of the time. 

And her smile man.  It’s the best.  She doesn’t turn on the charm like her sister, but she charms without intention.  It’s a subtle difference, but it’s there. 

All, particularly Monster, adore her.  Toots has taken to her recently too, the two of them playing more games and giggling together more often.  I love the way she fits right into our chaos and I am so curious to see who she continues to become.  She’s going to surprise us, this one. 

Happy (belated) first birthday Red!!


again, these beautiful photos are courtesy of the ever talented Mary at Where's the zoom.  She rocks.

Monster Turns Five!

Last month my little monster turned five.  I’ve written about how this age is rapidly becoming my most favorite.  Monster is proving to be the greatest kid ever.  We really love him a lot.

He requested a pirate birthday party this year and for the first time we invited friends from school.  He was so very excited to stuff his invitations into envelopes and deliver them to his friends.  The party was great, filled with pirate games and a pirate ship piñata, ice cream sundaes and running around with a gaggle of 5 year olds.  Later that night, after the party had ended we ate tacos with his grandparents and cupcakes with orange frosting, all per his request.  The kid knows how to do birthdays already.

 

At age five he remains sweet as pie.  Seriously, this kid.  He loves his baby sister and (usually) plays well with his middle one.  The very first sentence he learned to write all on his own was “I love you mom” and I am the very happy recipient of that note on a regular basis. 

showing off his tie of course 

In the last few months he has taken an extreme interest in “being handsome.”  After baths he stands in the bathroom painstakingly combing his hair as neat as he can manage, and for his birthday he asked my mom to buy him ties and bow ties so he “could be handsome” and he wears them all the time.  It’s kind of the cutest.  Earlier this week we rode our bikes.  On one of our pit stops at the library he bemoaned the fact that earlier that morning he had combed his hair “handsome” and his bike helmet had messed it all up.  Life, man.

He’s starting to read and write which is so great.   I love, love, love watching him make sense of letters and words and fall in love with books.  It takes very little persuading to let him stay up later and read just one more of his Superman primary readers.

We’re finding him extremely interested in God.  He asks us to read to him from the Jesus Story Book Bible each night and he brings it with him to church on Sunday.  He comes home from school with little notes he’s written about loving God and he tells us he has dreams about being in heaven and seeing Jesus and Granda.  In his dreams heaven has mountains and he’s excited to go there.  This little faith is emerging and I’m so protective of it, knowing I’ve done nothing to create it, but have all sorts of power to add baggage to it.

Recently he started asking if he could work out with me at the gym.  After dropping his sisters off in childcare I let him run a few laps with me on the track.  He ran with his arms at tight ninety-degree angles, hands stiff just like The Flash.  Every so often he would break out of it, turning back to look at me with sweet eyes and a mischievous grin, daring me to race him.  My heart welled more than a little as I ran with my boy.  We raced and giggled and I fell just a little more in love with this kid.  In a million years I couldn’t have dreamed him up and he is more than I ever could have hoped for in a first born.  He’s sweet and funny, charming and thoughtful. 

Happy fifth birthday, Monster.  We love you so!

Pictures are courtesy of my friend Mary, who is, obviously, so so talented!

Bad Heart.

Today would have been my dad's 68th birthday.  I thought about my dad even more than usual and drank a bit of Guinness with dinner to mark this day.  And here I wanted to share a few thoughts about the man that raised me.

In his favorite place: Ireland

My dad had a weak heart.   He was born with a heart condition, the name of which I can never remember, causing me to call my mom from my midwife’s office every time I am newly pregnant so she can remind me what it is that runs through my genes and could lead to trouble for the babe inside of me.  Hearts have plumbing systems and electrical systems, so to speak, and his condition had to do with his electrical system.  There was a hole, or something, and apparently it was a big deal.  My aunt said that when received word that her father, my grandfather, had passed away at first she assumed the call was about her nineteen year old brother, my dad, that the heart condition had finally taken him.  His weak heart wasn’t expected to last very long, I guess.  But you’d never know this from looking at him.

Part of why the details of my dad’s weak heart are so hazy is because I can only remember two times in my whole life when his condition ever came up.  Once he explained that he wasn’t allowed to do sports as a kid, on account of the weak heart, so that’s why he ended up participating in debate team and student council and the school plays.   Which was so like my dad, to turn lemons in to lemonade.  There wasn’t a hint of bitterness or longing when he recalled his inability to do what every other boy on the block was doing.  Just happiness over the opportunity that one closed door afforded.  The other time the weak heart came up was when he and my mom flew to Texas to see a doctor who specialized in my dad’s condition so he could fix the problem.  And he did.

My dad had a weak heart.

cheering on our team

My dad had a strong heart.  He lost his dad when he was a young man in college.  I thought about this a lot when I was in college, how much I still needed my dad at that time.  How did my dad finish learning to become a man while mourning the loss of the one who was supposed to teach him?  If it had been me I think I would have floundered for a few years in self-pity.  But not my dad.  He took his strong heart and started his career.  At age 20 he started working for the company he would retire with many years later.  And then his strong heart took care of his mom.  He played bridge with her friends and took her on trips with him. 

My dad had a strong heart.  He made strong-hearted decisions.  He followed a moral compass that led him to what was true and good.  His values and priorities lined up and his commitment to them caused him to live a life that made the lives of those around him better, not worse. 

My dad had a strong heart.

My dad had a bad heart.  When I was thirteen, awkward and gangly and in need of braces, my dad suffered his first heart attack at age forty-eight.  While his heart condition had to do with the electrical system of the heart, the heart attack was all plumbing and had nothing to do with his condition.  His arteries were clogged from too much smoking, too little exercise and a few too many trips through the drive through at his go-to lunch spot, Wendy’s.  He wasn’t extraordinarily obese and he’d certainly cut back his once two packs a day habit over the years, but it didn’t matter.  That bad heart got him. 

And I’ll never forget the sight of him in the hospital bed, so pale and weak, hooked up to machines that beeped and hummed.  Seeing us see him in this state was one of two times in my life I’d see him cry.  (The other, for the record, was when he dropped me off at University of Illinois for my freshmen year of college.)  It was the first time I think I realized my dad could die.  That this bad heart could get him in the end.  .

We all changed our lives for my dad’s bad heart.  Skim milk replaced 2%, bagels on Sunday morning instead of donuts (which was met with much weeping and gnashing of teeth).  We ate turkey burgers and oven roasted fries.  My dad joined a gym and went faithfully every morning.   But my dad had a bad heart and even though he made changes I don’t think he could every fully accept this fact.  He looked around and saw people drinking and smoking more, eating worse and working out less whose hearts could handle the abuse.  He didn’t want to accept that his bad heart couldn’t sustain it.  And so, less than twenty years after that first heart attack, his bad heart finally gave out.  Another heart attack took his life.

My dad had a bad heart.

But oh, my dad had such a good heart.  He loved so well.  Never once did I question the simple truth that my dad loved and accepted me.  He was decent and kind-hearted.  He welcomed and invited everyone who crossed his path.  People felt comfortable and accepted in his presence.  You couldn’t help but feel good about yourself with my dad.  He did that.  He made you feel like enough.

helping, always

My dad had a good heart.  He lived the life of a helper.  Letters of encouragement to friends in college, serving the community or those he worked with, my dad never seemed to turn down a chance to help someone.  I had to check with my mom first before asking him to help with the kids because he would tell me he could, even if he had work of his own to do.  He loved nothing more than to serve others (and of course spend time with his beloved grand children).

selfies with Monster

My dad had a good heart.  In the end his most defining feature was his kindness.  His big, good heart.  He loved us with that good, kind heart.  He loved my mom and my siblings and Tommy and my kids and I with everything in him.   We were the fortunate ones, the beneficiaries of his good heart. 

My dad had a weak heart, a bad heart.  My dad had a strong heart, a good heart.  I wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world.