a place of calm
when we were young(er), grossly in love, swoony high school kids on spring break or summer vacation, paul and i referred to mornings spent sans shower, in the sand, splashing amongst waves, slathered in sunscreen and sunkissed with doses of vitamin D as being ‘beachy fresh.’
one thing he and i have always shared is a true love for all things beach related. if we could, he and i would spend our days raising kids in a smallish beach bungalow, windows always open, drunk on salty air and sunshine. bob marley in the background and the squawk of seagulls. sand would litter the kitchen floor.
i took 397 photographs last weekend, while at gigi’s (my gramma) beach house. three hundred and ninety seven (i know, there should be a hyphen somewhere but i can’t remember where because i’m too focused on the enormity of that number). for those of you who are photographers and much more savvy when it comes to picture taking than i, this probably sounds menial to you. for me, it’s like HOW MANY SHOTS OF MY SON’S SANDY SHADOW CAN I TAKE? oh, i can take 397 thankyouverymuch.
yesterday, in an attempt to upload these photos and tinker with them, i nearly crashed my laptop (yes, i have an external hard drive, and no, i’m not totally certain on how to use it but i’m learning). it dawned on me as i was chatting with gigi on the phone last night, telling her the number of photos she can expect in the mail in the coming weeks, that our family of (almost 4) three really NEEDED that weekend.
we needed a sanctuary. we needed to be somewhere that held deep meaning to both paul and i. somewhere jackson had been to once before and will return to many more times in his future…
one of these next times, of course, with his little sister. he will have the opportunity to show her the beach and teach her about our love of all things slow, quiet, and relaxing. the sand. the waves. the sounds. the sun. he will be able to do this in the same ways that we have passed it along to him.
monday would have been my grandfather’s 80th birthday. he and jackson share a middle name, ray. being with gigi this weekend brought up a lot of fond memories, delicious cheesecake, a few tears but mostly laughter. as jackson approaches the age of 4, his understanding of his family members, both living and deceased, amazes me. children are so smart and open.
we were blessed with glorious weather and jackson treated the end of january as though it were the fourth of july. when it was time to say ‘thank you’ and ‘goodbye’ to his gigi, this little one rested in the only way that a child worn out from a love affair with the beach can… with reckless abandon and an abundance of drool.
more photos to come, i promise. first, i need to shake the sand out of my clothes.
also, to those of you who have left sweet messages, comments, and emails to let us know that you’re thinking of us as we prepare to say goodbye to paul, THANK YOU. truly. your kindness does not go unnoticed.
amidst the urine leakage there is denial
no one told me that subsequent pregnancies meant an increase of urine in your pants. which, when you’re pregnant, can be kinda freaky because it causes you to be all “OMG IS THAT AMNIOTIC FLUID IN MY PANTS?” and then you’re supposed to smell it to make sure it’s not amniotic fluid, but no one is entirely clear about what you should be smelling for… rancidness? sweet smelling flowers? the odor of piss?
WHO KNOWS? just know that you need to smell your pants. for something.
operation baby prep/deployment planning/support system establishment is going surprisingly well. part of me can’t help but feel a bit guilty about the prep, since most of it consists of phone conversations and skype chats about spring time plans. can i count on you for this, that, or the other diaper changing duties, make sure i have food in my house that has not passed its expiration date, possibly coming over to do a load of baby burp cloth laundry? type of stuff.
there’s not a lot of shopping and oogling over ruffles and lace. no registries to sign up for. no shower will be had (THANK GOD). there’s no nursery that we’re in the throes of painting. no crib we are beating each other over the head with the legs of. we’ll just pull a drawer out of our dresser for pickle to sleep in and hold off on cribbing and decorating until we’re in the other house. we have every bottle system under the sun thanks to jackson’s allergy issues to my boob juice, so we’re in good shape there too. basically pickle could arrive tomorrow and we’d find a way to make it work.
(this could also be my next stage of denial typing to you.)
both paul and i were saying this afternoon that while we feel like we’re in a great place in terms of our planning, the reality of the calendar is a constant in our minds. jackson’s clinging to paul for dear life, which is both endearing and heartbreaking. the kid can’t seem to get his days of the week to go in consecutive order, but he fools me with his little almost-4-year-old sense of time. with the holidays over, he has moved on to talking about his birthday. his birthday which will be mere days apart from his baby sister’s. he has no concept of time and yet he tells me that he should’ve been at school today, “because it’s monday, mom.”
time makes absolutely no sense to me these days. one of my best friend’s came by last week with her brand new bundle. i say ‘brand new’ but she’s actually not. she’s 10 weeks. a full 2 and a half months old. she’s basically ready for prom. when i held her, she told me that lea michele’s golden globe dress would be a monstrosity. she knew! because babies are made of magic and the ability to tell the future. i could swear that my friend just told me that she was pregnant yesterday, but no, she has a 10 week old baby. no more newborn even. full on baby.
jackson is going to be 4 in a couple of months. i am going to have a 4 year old. WHAT?!?! we’re registering him for school for NEXT year. because it’s january, and apparently at the start of a new year you are supposed to plan and prep for the following fall. he’s fighting a cold right now, and so last night, when paul checked on him before we turned in for the night, we decided to change his jammies to something cooler. our weather is so bizarre here, which is probably why all of us are fighting the snots, but we changed his jammies while he was half asleep. i took it upon myself to then stay a few extra minutes and rock him. with his sweaty head against my chest, we rocked and for a split second, jackson went from being almost 4 years old to almost 4 months old. i felt like i had my wee little magoo in my arms again. exhausted. sweaty. helpless.
and right now, jackson is rocking his baby doll in what was once his swing. he’s also telling me that it’s time for dinner, because apparently time makes more sense to him than it does me. i guess he is prepping for this baby too, in his own way, and thankfully not wetting his pants. unlike his mother. at least i’ve done something right with this parenting gig.
side by side
paul got jackson ready for school this morning and later told me what a lazybones our son had been. he had to wake jackson, hold him over his shoulder while finding some clothes, dress him on the floor, and basically shake the limp noodle out of his noodleness this morning.
jackson is finicky. he likes things to be done a certain way. and he likes to know what to expect next. he’s not napping right now because our landlords are showing the upstairs apartment while wearing cowboy boots. it doesn’t matter that jackson’s sound machine is on full blast, he is covering his ears with his blanket and not sleeping.
because something is slightly off. something is different. there are people where there weren’t people yesterday. there are noises where there shouldn’t be noises.
and so habits are disrupted. routines are thrown off a bit. we roll with what we can and we dig our feet in when we want our “normal” back. jackson dug in his feet this morning. he still went to school, but not without a literal, physical ache to go back to bed.
the baby stuff around the house is new for him. books about becoming a big brother. swings. a bassinet. some baby girl clothing. it’s slowly coming out, making itself known.
and jackson has not left his dad’s side. not for a minute.
can’t say i blame him. paul is my protector too, always has been. next month will mark 13 years that we have been together. 13 years that he has been protecting me, sheltering me, guarding me. it’s one of the things that i love most about him. he is my comfort, my deep breath, my human xanax. i’m seeing that he is that for our son too. paul stabilizes us. he is what we cling to when life gets messy.
right now, we’re holding on to him for dear life… sneaking in extra snuggles, extra time, extra hugs. for as long as we can. i don’t know if he has been able to piece all of the latest happenings together yet, or realized that HE is how we are coping with these transitions. you never see these kinds of things until you are no longer in it, ya know?
but i know this is what we are doing. i can feel it. this is what we know how to do. we’re leaning and holding on tight. and when he goes, we’ll lean on each other. it won’t be the same, but it’ll do. it’ll have to, for a while. until paul is done protecting other people, and returns to protect us once again.
deploy the baby shit
a funny thing happens when your spouse is preparing to leave the country for an extended period of time. you start to plan. the two of you sit down together (or stand, depending on how your aching joints are on that particular day) and sort some shit out. get your ducks in a row. prepare for things. talk about the future.
for us, this usually revolves around a calendar. not the ones on our iphones, but real, pen and paper, square boxes with dates inside calendars. which means that our planning conversation took place as we drove home from our holiday vacation, each with a brand spankin new 2012 calendar from santa/my mom.
i used to be one of those kids who gets disgustingly excited about school supplies. (let it be known, i am this same way as an adult and certainly as a former school teacher, however, this quirk seems to be quite trendy amongst the mom-population, so i feel the need to claim it at its true inception, which for me was in grade school, thankyouverymuch.) the end of the summer would draw near, office max would run commercials on loop, and i would practice my handwriting, label the dividers in my 3-ring binder, and organize erasers to fit in my pencil box going from tallest to shortest.
you can only imagine what a new calendar, wrapped in plastic is like for me on christmas morning. instantly doctors appointments are notated, days off school are marked down in BLOOD RED, and no sooner do i flip to the next month, when it dawns on me that my husband is leaving.
now, i have a few of paul’s deployments under my belt. i don’t say that with any emotion, grandeur, or martyrdom. it’s just a fact of the matter. our son, on the other hand, will be experiencing deployment for the first time when paul leaves in march.
and with the baby arriving in april, paul and i decide, during our hot, sexy calendar talk, that we should probably start to transition the baby stuff out of storage and back in to our lives as a way to prepare jackson for his baby sister’s arrival that will take place when “daddy’s on a long trip.”
and then we decide that this should happen when we bring down the christmas tree and holiday decor.
which all occurred in spurts over the last few days.
like most things, when this taking-down-of-and-putting-back certain household things happened, it snowballed, and before you know it, you’re questioning the paint color of your living room walls and why you gave your son the bigger bedroom (for the record, we didn’t… i’m just saying, those conversations happen when attempting to reorganize ones life).
so the lights have been wrapped back up, the wreath has come down from the front door, and the christmas tree has been boxed up and taken to storage. (also, it came to our attention when taking down the tree that our dog ate 3 of our ’12 days of christmas’ ornaments, so he saved us the trouble of packing up additional ornaments. thank you, red.)
jackson’s old toys have been donated to make room for his loot from santa, and we have felt like the last few days have been extremely productive for a family who really just wanted a few days back at home to hang on the couch and eat an abundance of rich foods before the work week started up again.
it was during all of this sorting and packing and storing that we began to assess our current living situation and how it will change over the next year, specifically how it will change once we have this other small human with female parts living with us come spring time.
our original plan was to combine what will be the baby’s nursery with jackson’s current bedroom. i never shared a room with my brother, but always wanted to. so now i have this INSANE dream of having my two children living blissfully in the same space, co-habitating in peace. (save your laughter for when the baby actually arrives.) what we have since decided is to forgo this little miss pickle having a crib until we are back in our old house.
oh, did i not mention that? we have been renting a house that is a few blocks away from the house we own because we have renters living in that house and their lease is not up until may. and then we have until september on our lease in this house, so that gives us a few months, after the baby has been born and the current renters have moved out, to demolish the house we own, add another bathroom, and redesign the currently shitty excuse for a kitchen before we move back in as a fully functioning family of four.
and all of this will take place with an infant in my arms (breast feeding like a champion with no issues like her brother had), with my husband safely back stateside, no hiccups in our renovation plans, and glorious smiles upon all of our rosy cheeked faces.
it will be then, roughly in the early fall, when our two children will share a bedroom. until then, miss pickle will spend the days of newbornhood in a bassinet, a swing, on my boob, in a pack-n-play, cooing and nuzzling like an angel.
because that’s how planning works, right? you set a plan in place, commit to it, and it all happens with military-like precision and accuracy.
according to my iphone
a reader emailed me recently asking what was up with the inconsistency in my blogging lately. and then another person asked me via twitter why i have been so MIA. and a third emailed saying she assumed i have been “in my own little baby-land.”
i suppose when you’re pregnant, your mind is all over the place. clearly your hormones are nutso and your body is changing and bla bla bla… i dunno. and i suppose that when you’re pregnant with subsequent children, that changes a little bit. i’m not entirely sure. but, i can attest to the fact that i have done ZERO baby-land preparation for this little pickle. in fact, since we moved in september and have settled back in to the place we consider to be HOME, we have been busy. WAY BUSY.
but not busy with any baby preparations. if pickle arrives and spends her first few months in her brother’s onesies, so be it. i wouldn’t give up a minute of this time i have spent with my beloved family of 3.
(rest assured, baby-land prep is in the works for 2012 though… for those of you who were worried.)
(also, i have the greatest readers on the face of the planet.)
Have a Sip
