Expose

It’s strange how having a child makes you see parts of yourself in a different light. My mom is fond of saying, “your children are your mirror.” And I thought that was just supposed to be marriage.

But she said that because I was acting dramatically grossed out by her chopping up pickled chicken feet in the kitchen (they taste irresistibly good, but I can only eat them if they are dismembered such that they look less like hands soaked in formaldehyde). I didn’t realize how I was sounding until I looked over at E sitting in her high chair next to me: she was frozen in fear, hands clutching the tray, wide eyes staring at the chopping board. She probably didn’t know what to be frightened of; just that if I was, she was too.

At this age she is an obvious example of that principle. When I laugh and act excited, she gets excited too. When I lie comatose on the nursery floor because I stayed up way too late for her early-morning routine, she comes over and lies her head down next to mine on the pillow (best thing I ever put in the nursery: a pillow on the floor). She wants to eat what I eat, even if it’s chips and diet soda. She wants to look at whatever I am, even if it’s the internet or cell phone.

And it makes me wonder. Maybe she is learning to snack too much because I do? Maybe she is so fixated on electronic devices because I’m always around my laptop or phone? And later: teaching her not to be performance-driven, to love exercise, to prioritize relationships, etc—these are things I can’t just tell her. I’ll either be showing her or not.

In this way parenthood, like marriage, is the great equalizer. The grand exposer. If you have any hidden bias, nasty habits, habitual idols, addictive sins, they are bound to come out. Perhaps your spouse is discreet, or forgiving; children are neither. Of course, I can’t try to fix myself for her, but I can take an honest look. And take it from there.

Strange Little Person

When she’s done eating, she’ll start sneaking bits of food down under her butt in the high chair, presumably for storage, as sometimes I’ve caught her fishing it back out to eat later. Usually we don’t find out until we lift her out and discover a big pile of mushed-up food in the chair. Or see her crawling around later with a big stain on her bottom.

She’s become quite attached to her toothbrush. And to think I was actually worried she wouldn’t want to brush her teeth. She brushes about ten times a night, which I’m sure our dentist would be very proud of. She’ll bring the toothbrush back with her to her room and periodically remove her pacifier so she can brush a few more times. She generously insists on brushing my teeth for me in between.

She has this sense of internal rhythm that causes her to dance involuntarily, to anything that remotely resembles a beat: a tune I’m humming, a distant radio song. She sways from side to side and if standing wriggles her butt back and forth. When she really gets into it she’ll start head-banging. She definitely did not learn this from me.

Sometimes I look at her and I wonder: what planet did she come from?

Journal Excerpt

She is becoming a veritable poop machine. Her bowel habits are variable and I don’t pretend to understand them, but lately she’s been pooping upwards of five times a day. She’s still hilarious when she does, stopping in mid-babble, holding her breath, and turning five shades of red.

There was a moment yesterday when I was dealing with the kiwi seeds that had made it into her sticky mass of poo. I stood there at the changing table trying to keep her from wriggling away and thought, I cannot believe I am picking kiwi seeds off someone’s bum. When someone asks me what I’ve done with my eight-year degree, that is what I should say.

Bitterness

Get rid of all bitterness. –Ephesians 4:31

See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up. –Hebrews 12:15

I was thinking about bitterness. Bitterness happens because we feel entitled to something; because we feel we deserve something, either just from life, or because of what we did, or because of what someone else has. I feel life owes me being born into a happy family, or getting married by a certain age. I feel because I was pure before marriage, I deserve to immediately have an amazing sex life, and popular media tells me that should happen automatically, without work. I feel I deserve higher pay or a certain accolade because I’m better than the colleague who got it.

Bitterness happens when we can’t let go of our hurt or anger. Maybe we feel our hurts were never understood, or acknowledged, or apologized for. Maybe we feel powerless to change anything. Maybe we never acknowledged the depth of our anger. Maybe something big happened once, or maybe it was many smaller things over a period of time, but we hang on to it, and it changes us. We become cynical, jaded, judgmental. It numbs the hurt, suppresses the anger, and allows us to believe we’ve dealt with it.

Bitterness grows over time, and we feed it. Suddenly everything we see on television or read in a book, everything we see in our friends, every new incident or hurt or inconvenience becomes justification for how we feel.

Sometimes it takes me a long time to realize I am bitter about something, towards someone. Particularly if it relates to some deep grief or hurt I have been harboring for a long time. Usually I realize I become easily angry despite trying not to be, or that cynical, judgmental thoughts and words habitually come into my mind. I realize I have started to believe things about that person or myself that are a product of my bitterness and perhaps not the truth at all.

Because the truth is, we don’t deserve anything in this life. Christ, despite what life may have owed him and despite his faultless deeds, suffered the most of all. We don’t deserve an easily perfect marriage; we don’t deserve having babies or loving parents or great jobs. These are gifts in a broken world.

And the truth is, we need to confront our hurt and anger. We need to acknowledge it, and work through it, with God, a friend, a counselor. Being bitter is easy. Seeking help, processing it, is much harder.

And in the end, we can choose to let go of our bitterness. In this way I feel freed a little to understand better what God’s grace in my life means. I feel freed to receive an apology. I feel freed to express my hurt. I feel freed to start working through an issue. I feel freed to begin to learn what God wants to teach me through it. I feel freed to hope again. Because, until I get rid of bitterness, I can’t really experience hope or joy.

Communication

Communication is magical. It’s like being for years with someone who is completely mute, and suddenly they start signing and talking. Or as if an alien who is visiting from another world, where all the rules are different, suddenly starts speaking in your language. A light goes on and you realize, my goodness, she actually understands what I’m saying! I’m not just half-talking to myself anymore!

She spoke her first word today. We were playing on the floor, where she was crawling around on top of me, and suddenly she paused, looked right at me and said “mommy.” Of course I couldn’t get her to repeat it.

But it’s more than her starting to make decipherable sounds. She’s long been obsessed with fans and clocks, but now when we ask her where one is, she’ll stop and point to it. She shakes or nods in answer to questions. I can ask her, “how do you say ‘more’?” and she’ll sign it. Tonight before bedtime I was teaching her to say “sleepy,” and she copied me by laying her hand against her cheek and tilting her head to the side. When I tucked her in she lay quietly on her back with her hand against her cheek as I pulled the blankets up.

On the flip side, she can get extremely frustrated when she’s trying to tell us something we don’t get. She’ll point to something, and I’ll keep handing her various things in that direction, and she’ll keep shaking her head “no!” “no!” and sometimes I never end up knowing what it was she wanted (once it was a cup of water half-way across the room).

It makes me think about how lazy I get with communicating, particularly with those closest to me. I assume my husband, and God, should know how I’m feeling, what I want, sometimes without explanation or context. Most often when I talk it is to talk about myself, or to ask something for myself. E reminds me that communicating is a fundamental need and not something to be taken for granted. It takes time, familiarity, listening and watching. But when done well, it’s probably the highlight of parenting, of marriage, and of being with God.

Journal Excerpt

It’s leaps and bounds these days. Leaps and bounds. If I blink I’m liable to miss her growing another couple of inches. I find it comforting to look at the three familiar rolls of fat on her thighs. Particularly when she’s standing up and jiggling her butt to the beat. The chubby thighs, proof of babyness—that, and her belly that gets absolutely enormous after a meal. When she tries to walk it walks ahead of her and she has to arch her back to stay balanced. The other day we were pointing out each other’s bellybuttons and it occurred to me that she couldn’t see hers because her belly was too big. She just kept looking and looking for it.

Loving

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels
but have not love
I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal

There is still a basic part of me that struggles with the fact that marriage it not about me. Or meeting my needs. It doesn’t revolve around how I feel, whether I am happy, whether my dreams are being fulfilled. The purpose of marriage is for me to sanctify him, for the eternity we will exist in one day, and God has determined that doing this for him is one of the very best things I can do for myself.

It’s sort of like the rest of life, where you at one point knew that the purpose of life involved something pretty huge and selfless, but somehow it all degenerates into everyday tedium. Like feeling as if I spend my entire life washing dishes and rewashing dishes. Or constantly feeling grumpy because I’m tired.

Much of this boils down to selfishness, but in marriage it’s easier to feel this way, because it’s the relationship from which you expect the most for yourself, yet have the latitude to get the laziest about investing in. In this regard it’s easier to be a mother: I don’t expect the baby to give me much, and there’s no margin for getting lazy about giving to her. As a result, I’m constantly giving, and somehow this ties me more to her and makes me love her more, and then in the instance that she does return some affection, I am wildly happy.

Unfortunately, I often approach overcoming selfishness in marriage with a habitual sort of willful confidence: I figure if I try hard enough not to be selfish, it’ll eventually work. Of course, this breaks down, usually at the worst possible time, like when he’s home from a thirty-six hour shift or when the baby decides to have a crying fit.

I usually end up realizing that focusing on just saying or doing the right thing misses the basic point. The part where it’s about more than myself; the part about loving him. This real kind of love is hard to do when we’re both getting by, but it’s more important than getting by. It’s more important than how I feel; more important than me. It’s also completely beyond me, but it’s something I can ask God for. Until I get this, I’m missing the point.

Windy Day at the Park

Cousin!

My little sister had a baby today! A boy, who arrived right on her birthday. He's exactly one ounce lighter than E and arrived one minuter later than the time of day she did. I'm so terribly excited for them. I think I'm going to see him and immediately want another one.

Stripey Pink

She loves this. Snacking in the play area. Things have been silent on the blog front for a while, but I'll try to write a bit more often..