Originally published on I Should Be Folding Laundry

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Originally published on SoapboxMom

Have you heard John Mayer play the guitar? Better yet, have you been lucky enough to attend one of his concerts so that you could actually watch him play the guitar? Ahhh, grace in motion.

Before going to his concert this summer, I listened to his music, but didn’t truly appreciate it. I mean, it was nice to have playing in the background, nice to sing along with occasionally, but didn’t exactly make me sit down and breathe it in, you know what I mean?

Then I saw him perform live. Oh. my. goodness…

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Originally published on For Me For Once

Jackson will be two soon. Samantha will be five in January. They are
the brightest parts of my life (along with my husband), and I can’t
remember my life without them. But I CAN, and do, remember being
pregnant with both of them. The time that I carried each of them was
sweet, fun, exciting, depressing, painful, overwhelming, scary,
life-changing and meaningful, all at once. Some days I look back on my
pregnancies with each of them and think “Dear God, how did I do that
twice?” and at other moments I wonder why everyone doesn’t have twelve.
For some reason I’m thinking a lot lately about being pregnant, or
rather NOT being pregnant, and how I feel about that, and I’ll tell you
why. (NO, it’s not because I am pregnant, so you can leave that thought
by the side of the road. Seriously. No seriously, knock it off – I am
NOT pregnant again. Fine, whatever. Think what you want.)

Here’s
why. Right now, Jackson is the age that Samantha was when we conceived
him. Just a couple of months before she turned two, we decided it might
be nice to give her a sibling fairly soon. I had always wanted my kids
to be two to three years apart, and I’m not even sure why. Part of me
wanted one child to be at least close to being out of diapers before
the next came along. Part of me wanted one who could at least bring me
a diaper for the other, if not actually change it. For some reason it
all seemed to center around diapers. That’s kind of jacked up, now that
I think about it. Hmm. Surely there must have been other reasons.

Whatever.
Regardless, we wanted them two to three years apart. And by “we” I mean
“me-and-Greg-who-showed-up-when-I-asked-him-to-with-sperm-at-the-ready”.

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Originally published on Mother of Confusion

My son was born after midnight during the cooler days of May, before the Central Valley could blaze triple-digit temperatures.

The delivery room was packed full of people. The doctor, several
nurses, my husband, my parents and my mother-in-law were in attendance.
As my son emerged into the world, I expected him to gasp and then cry
about the abrupt ejection.

He did not.

Instead he was quiet and blue. The umbilical cord was wrapped around
his slender neck several times. Of course I didn’t know that yet, but
the jubilant faces of the others gave way to peaked, pinched
expressions.

When I asked what was wrong. The response was, “Nothing. Everything’s okay. It’s okay.”

The reassurances scared me. I was only 20-years-old, but already I knew people lied when things were really, really wrong.

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Originally published on Anne Nahm

Dear Diary,

I could tell the moment I woke up: Today was going to be a day like
no other. The sun was shining and birds were chirping. I knew because
guess what? My wrapping was open! I don’t think that’s ever happened
before.

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