The Rush

I had a dream the other night.

I’m driving on the freeway. For some reason that’s faded away I have my seatbelt off. Suddenly I stop. I see a mess of cars behind me not stopping. There is an impact. I fly up, no glass breaking, just up. I know death is imminent. My cell phone appeared in my hand. I looked. No more phone contacts, it said. This somehow confirmed my death. Then I, in my now my soul form, am on the side of the road. I see three people carefully moving my body. It looks awkward and limp. Odd. Very weekend at Bernie without the sunglasses and without humor. My eyes won’t close. They look milky. “They won’t close because she wants to see them one last time,” one of them said. And I know she’s right. That’s why they won’t close. I need to see Love Monster and Smirker one last time, but I can’t.

I woke up feeling disturbed. But I also knew exactly what it meant.

“Hurry up!”

I am sick of saying this.

Hurry up. Be quick. Be faster. Faster. Faster!

I am sick of feeling this. In this constant state of hurry. I’m sick of seeing the anxiousness of my girls’ faces because they feel my urgency. Not a day goes by that don’t say “Hurry up” to my kids… numerous times.

I am of sick of this being my baseline.

For as long as I’ve remembered I’ve had a very fast internal clock. And sometimes that’s served me very well. You need somebody to get something done; I’m your gal. I get shit done. But I’ve finally realized it’s also a disservice. Because that clock still runs when I’m playing with the kids or giving them a bath or on a lazy Sunday morning. That “hurry up” voice stirs me. And I tense up. I have a short fuse. I feel like a bomb is going to go off if I don’t get the kids out the door by 7:25 on a school day. Backpacks on! Shoes on! Lunches! One last smell of your guys (Don’t ask. It just their thing.) and out the door! Faster! Faster! The intensity of the “hurry up” is as if I am living in a James Bond film.

But in reality, for the most part, two minutes makes no difference.

We live in a “hurry up” culture. Get out of my way. I don’t have time! Faster. Come on!!! And why? Yeah sometimes we actually have somewhere, but really why? We rush down freeways cursing anyone who is not driving as fast as we are. We rush strangers for not crossing the street fast enough. We rush our kids when they are taking a bath because it’s nearly their bedtime and God forbid they don’t make it exactly in time. I don’t want to wait for a wake up call; a car accident or finding years went by and realizing I rushed through moments with loved ones just to get to the next one.

Maybe not all of you deal with this. For those of you, I’m glad you don’t. But if you do the good news is, there is hope!

I did an experiment. I would not say the words “hurry up” or any variation of that for one month. I failed miserably the first few days. “Hurry up!” would fall out of my mouth before I could stop myself. But I became crazy aware of it. I took a tally one day. I thought or said some variation of “hurry up” 29 times.

When I started the experiment. I didn’t do it for me. I did for my girls. I didn’t like the stress I passed onto them when I rushed them. I could see it. And I didn’t like it. I wanted to break the cycle of impatience. “Do what I say not as I do” does not work as we all know. But when I started implementing my challenge I discovered something. Calm would wash over me when I made the decision in the moment to stop the rush and my short temper all but disappeared. I honestly hadn’t connected the two, the fast internal clock and my short fuse, but they are deeply connected. I am doing this for the girls. We have more quality moments and they feel less stressed. But I am doing it for me too. I feel like I discovered a secret. More often then not these moments I stop the rush, I find a little magic. Even if it’s for a moment. An extra second of connection with my girls. A smile from a stranger. Or even if it’s just a release of anxiety. It’s worth it. When you rush other people you pass your stress onto them like a virus. I don’t think I’m overstating it when I say you minimize their worth. The same goes for ourselves.

I know some of you might be thinking, YOU might be able to do that, but not me. I can’t do that. I don’t have time. (There’s that phrase again.) I work full time, write a blog, write kid’s books, I’m a mom, help at the kids school, I’m part of a fantastic women’s group and try to be a great fiancé. I’m not bragging, I would actually like to have less to do. I’m just saying if I can do it, you can do it. You might say to yourself, I’ll do it. I’ll do it later, when I have time.

Do it now. (Yes I’m being bossy.)

I notoriously have ZERO patience. None. I ripped my sunglasses in half, hulk- style, when I got in a bad traffic jam on the way to work one day. That happened. People have laughed at my lack of composure at times. It’s a staple of my personality I’ve decided to ax. And I can. It’s not easy and I slip up. Often. But I’m much better then I was. The awareness is almost enough. Bottom line is that I thought my patience would bring others more happiness when it’s also brought me more of my own.

The dream. At first I thought it was about how I hurry while I’m driving. But it’s more then that. I’m more afraid of missing moments because of the usual everyday hurry. I refuse to do it anymore.

Hurry or you’ll miss it. I used to tell myself. When you hurry, you miss it anyway. You just trick yourself into thinking you didn’t.

Check out my That Girl Speaks Video: Slow down. 

http://www.iamthatgirl.com/that_girl_speaks_slow_down

Holding Hands: Smirker's birth story

I never wrote down my girls’ birth stories. I thought it was about time I did. I’ll try to get as many details as I can right It’s been a while! It’s Smirker’s fourth birthday today (and also mine incidentally). Though she was second born, she gets her story out there first. Here’s to you, birthday buddy.

September 17, 2009- It was about a week before my due date. I was really happy I had gotten that far. Love Monster was born five weeks early and I did not want to go through that again. We knew it was a girl. Though nobody else did. We had a bit of a scare with the triple screen test and were advised to get an amnio. Everything ended up coming back fine, but at the time I needed some immediate good news. So I found out the sex. Everyone else thought we were waiting. It was our little secret. My brother and sister-in-law were in town visiting from Chicagoland. I was feeling good. I was soaking up the last days I’d have with Love Monster as an only child. Man she really was a wild child. (Still is, but, man, back then she really had no restraint.) We were hanging out in the backyard when I started feeling contractions. Now I had a lot Braxton Hicks going on so I thought it was nothing. But I had my sister in law time them anyway and they were coming pretty regularly. Still I thought nothing of it. Two and a half year old Love Monster was keeping me busy not staying still and knocking over everyone’s drinks. That night my sister-in-law met up with a friend and my bro, Smirker’s dad and I hung out at the house. I put Love Monster to sleep. I remember that kiss goodnight. I think I knew inside this would be the last goodnight song I’d sing just to her. (Good night… Good night… again I’d say good night I love my Mack I love her face, I want to kiss her all over the place…) About 10pm my brother headed back to the hotel. Smirk’s dad went to bed. I don’t know if it was the sudden quiet in the house (when Love Monster goes to bed the silence is deafening), but that’s when the contractions started feeling… real. I paged the doc. I called my brother who had just gotten back to the hotel and told them they had to come back and watch LM. It was time.

Between it being four years ago and my mind not feeling clear for obvious reasons, things get a little spotty here.

The car ride. I remember the song “Lighting Crashes” by Live was playing and I hastily changed the channel.

The hospital. We checked in and there was craploads of paperwork. And they kept saying. “What’s your birthdate?” September 18. “Oh wow! You guys are going to have the same birthday.” I remember not really realizing that until that moment. I never thought that would happen. Pretty cool. Me, the normally “I need a lot of attention on my birthday” person was not around. I felt pretty stoked to share.

Birthing room. I waited until 1 am to get an epidural. Sweet relief. It felt very smooth. I remember feeling on a different plane. I know that sounds hokey. But I felt that way. It was a good thing. I felt like my body knew exactly what it was doing. Working just as it should. No nervousness like with LM. It didn’t feel foreign. At 4:15am I pushed out Smirker. Perfect. Tiny. Adorable. A mess of dark hair. Beautiful, melty chocolate eyes. (And no episodemy. YEAH!)

She was here. My birthday sister.

Her dad went back to LM who would wake up not even knowing we had left since everything went so fast.

And then… I started to feel not so right. And I didn’t know how to articulate it to anyone. The pediatrician came in to check on Smirker and she gave me a concerned look, “Are you okay?” I didn’t know the pain was so clear on my face. Truthfully I don’t think I realized I was in pain until then. “No, I’m not,” I said. And she walked quickly to get the nurse. The nurse looked at me. I probably mumbled out something to her. I don’t really remember, but I do remember she said: You just had a baby. You’re going to feel a little pain.

But I had had a baby before. I knew I wouldn’t feel like running a marathon but this was different. Something was wrong. Here’s where things get very foggy. I remember bullet points.

·      I moved rooms. More of a group recovery room. Don’t have any idea why. But Smirker was there so I concentrated on her face.

·      Suppository shoved up the bootie. It felt like shards of glass.

·      I kept looking at Smirks to keep calm.

·      My belly hurt. A lot.

·       Back in my room.

·      Ultrasound

***IT GETS A LITTLE GRAPHIC HERE. SORRY ABOUT THAT.

Then my doctor arrived. She said very kindly, “This is going to hurt. You have blood clots and I have to pull them out.” That’s exactly what it sounds like. I gripped the nurse’s hands. I was grateful that she was a petite Asian woman with small hands, but that was some serious pain. I do not recommend hands up the hoo ha. She pulled out 3 or 4 giant blood clots. I had been bleeding internally and no one knew it.

Everyone was glad that was over, especially me. I held and breast fed Smirker then tried to sleep.  When I woke, I still felt pretty hazy. To be expected I guess. Smirk’s dad brought me my favorite chicken parm dinner from Carmine’s, but I didn’t have the energy to eat it. I lay back in the bed. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t find my voice. I remember feeling like I was fading away. That is what it felt like, like I would just disappear in the bed. I kept my hand in Smirker’s bassinet. Sounds around me were muted. I was cold. Not the normal “Beth is annoyingly cold all the time” cold, but bone deep cold. I do remember thinking. Oh yeah, it’s my birthday. Yay. I know my girls’ dad grabbed the nurse and said things still weren’t right. He sounded far away. At 5am they finally took a blood count. They calmly told me, I had lost over a liter and a half of blood and I needed a transfusion. I had been hemorrhaging all day. The nurses told me later, when they saw the count they had panicked a little at the nurse’s station.

The transfusion. Well that was awesome. Like really awesome. I literally felt myself coming back to life. I totally get the vampire thing. I certainly felt reborn that day. And through this whole thing, little Smirker was there, waiting, perfectly calm. I was completely present with her and did as much as I could that first day until I couldn’t. I missed a few diaper changes and feedings that first 24 hours. But her eyes and soul got me through it. Thank you for holding my hand and continuing to hold it. I love you so much my girl. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, best birthday present ever (minus the whole blood loss thing). 

                                               

Love Monster meeting Smirker for the first time.  

 And perhaps my favorite picture of the two of them. I mean seriously!!! I call it "the accidental flip off."

Rage Against the Mama

There is a seriously dark side to 3-year olds. At least in my experience. Dark might be a little dramatic. I immediately pictured 3 year olds killing their dolls in their sleep or worse. That is NOT happening. Anyway, I’m sticking with dark side. Smirker’s got a serious mean streak. I don’t remember this with Love Monster. I mean, knowing my horrible memory it probably was exactly this way and I blogged about it, but this seems different. Smirker is stubborn. Like really fucking stubborn. Like it’s gotten to the point where I give into her WAY too much. She’s bullies me for candy and I’m like the nerd getting shoved into the locker.

I know. Look at her.

Okay Okay I'll give you my lunch money! I know. No not HER right? She looks like the sweetest! 

Let me give you some examples.

We had pizza one night. Easy right. The girls LOVE pizza. But no Smirks wasn’t in the mood. I gave her a slice and she threw a fit because pepperoni wasn’t covering every square inch. She got so pissed we didn’t have a piece that she envisioned she balled up the piece on her plate until it was an unrecognizable ball of goo. Love Monster studied her the entire time (enjoying her pizza like any normal kid) and at one point said. “ I don’t see any tears mama.” Good observation.

Then there was the time she wouldn’t put on pants. You would think I was trying to make her wear a bee hive. Oh my lord. I took her to Trader Joe’s in her undies.

If she’s not into the dinner I’ve prepared, she will scream “COUSY!” (short for cous-cous) until she gets it.

After a bath if I try to cradle her in my arms she will yell “No baby! Hold me big girl!” Oy.

And then there was the time that I wiped a booger off her face and she burst into tears because she wanted it back. Yeah. That happened.

In the morning when she comes in the cuddle with me she MUST be on the left side of me and if Love Monster has beat her to that spot, its’ WW 3 in what was my wonderfully peaceful bed moments ago.

She has a few go to insults: “crybaby” if she’s pissed off and crying. “You’re not invited to my party!” (Doesn’t matter if a party is soon or not.) And “I’ll poop in your socks!” (though thank goodness she doesn’t.)

Then there’s the time she wanted more ketchup on her plate but when I put it on she got mad because SHE wanted to do it. So she scraped the ketchup off her plate onto mine, put more on her plate, ate a couple bites smiled and walked away. Damn.

Love Monster takes this all in stride. She usually looks at Smirker calmly and reminders her of a manta their dad taught them, “Navarros don’t whine.” I love that.

And I think I’ve already facebooked about the time I wouldn’t give her candy for breakfast (What a bitch of a mom am I???) and she ran to her bedroom, slammed the door and started singing the song she learn from a Barbie movie “HERE I AM! I DO WHAT I WANT! I GIVE WHAT I GOT! NEVER A DOUBT NOW!” By the way at that point I don’t think she’d ever said so many words in a row. So I was sort of stoked AND thought it was hilarious. I let her get away with too much, because she is so damn cute and funny. And she freakin’ knows it.

But what the hell chicky? If any adult acted this way, we would wonder why the hell we hung out with this douchebag.

“She’s just like you, you know,” my fiancé said.

BOOM! Deafening silence.

Grrr. He’s right. (Yep that’s in writing babe. You win. Crochet that on a pillow or something.) And I think I actually still sort of act like this sometimes in my less then stellar moments. Who’s the douche now? Yeah I know I’ve just spent about 600 words basically complaining about my almost 4 year old. But her stubbornness is so epic it was worth a blog post. But even with all of this, she also really is the sweetest. She will say thank you and no thank you without need of a reminder. She cuddles super good. And says stuff like, “You know, I like you a lot.” She gives the best kisses. She also is really into the word “Evil” right now. I find that adorable. And when she’s really mad, I’ve figured out a good trick. Make her accidentally smile. Then the real Smirker comes out. But then that usually backfires and she get even more mad that I made her smile. At least she doesn’t practice her crying in front of the mirror like Love Monster used to. Now that I’ve gotten this out I pledge to not let her be the bully that pushes me in the locker. This is a stage and let’s get through this damn thing.

Huffing Bees

I think it’s about time I introduce you to another member of our household. Bees. Bees the bear.

He’s seen better days. Love Monster got him from one of my best friends days after she was born. You never know which thing they get will become THE ONE. Bees did. 

Then.

And now.

 He’s about to disintegrate. He’s already lost his balls. (The balls in his feet sickos.) His armpits have been stitched up countless times. He can no longer withstand the washing machine so fabreeze is our friend.  And truthfully it’s best we can’t wash him too much. LM hates it when he doesn’t smell like himself.

“I need to smell him!!!!” then Love Monster huffs him like a fume addict huffs their static cling spray before getting out of the car for school. It brings her so much comfort. He’s as real and important to her as anyone in our family. And I have to admit he’s as real to me too.

So Love Monster, tell me, what is it about Bees that makes him so special?

He’s soft. I like smelling him.

Cool. What do you like doing with him?

I like sleeping with him a lot.

Gonna let that elephant of a joke in the room go. Anything else you’d like us to know about Bees?

He’s allergic to pepper. He told me so.

That’s another thing. He talks. Not like pull a string and he’ll talk. LM is his ventriloquist. His voice sounds like a raspy old vaudevillian woman’s which makes sense because he stars in their clown shows often times. I could have a made a killing off the girls in the early 1900’s. Their show rocks by those standards.

He’s traveled with us to Chicago. He is her guy. Her best friend. Her keeper of secrets. But she also knows the limits. He only comes in the car or stays at home. No where else. This because he’s getting too tattered and because we’ve had one too many emergencies because we left him somewhere. And that is a disaster. No matter what time or where we are, he must be retrieved.

It’s an interesting phenomenon, I think, when your kid has that lovie that they attach too. (Or maybe I just have too much time on my hands.) I find nothing wrong with it. We adults have things we are attached to. It might not be a teddy bear. Maybe it’s our computer, favorite book, that perfectly worn in tee-shirt. It’s our stress reliever. Bees gives LM that little bit of comfort that she needs sometimes. Bees was the first being she loved, outside her papa and I. Her first sibling, before Smirker came into this world. He’s pretty special. I hate to see his tatters and frays, but Love Monster doesn’t mind them. It means he loves me, she told me once. Yes it does.