One day a few of us were discussing family blogs and the honesty thereof. There are some people who are bluntly honest as they write about their struggles in life, and other people seem to write what we entitled a "year-long Christmas card", filled with nothing but "look with how wonderful my life is!" I have to admit that my blog probably sides toward the latter most of the time. I mean, I try to be real here, but I also want to record the things that I
want to look back and remember. That doesn't include things like "I yelled at my kids this morning and had a meltdown".
But today, you are getting honesty. 'Ya ready? Because this will be long. But I promise it is worth it at the end. (I can practically hear most of you scrolling, saying "oh, that's nice", and moving on. Don't worry, I won't take it personally.)
There are things I love about living in Utah, but I have to also admit there are parts of the Mormon culture that I struggle with. (Culture is not the same as doctrine. Let's get that out of the way.) My mother can tell you, complete with examples she finds funny now, that I have a rather independent streak in me. That might surprise some of you, as it only comes up once in a while, but really kicks in when it comes. When I was growing up, that worked out just fine. I was different from anyone else in my high school because I didn't drink, swear, sleep around, or whatever else. I liked being different. Sometimes my independent streak got the best of me, and I rejected doing something I otherwise would have done because the wrong person told me to - and I didn't want to feel like I was doing it because they said so. But otherwise, it worked out okay.
But here, I don't have a clear way to be different from the expected. I think every culture or neighborhood or clique has things "everyone" should be, whether that is wearing the right name brand clothing as a status symbol, or eating the right thing, or whatever else. Utah is no exception, to be sure. Women, in particular, are somehow all supposed to be crafty, thrifty, obsessed with gardening and canning everything that comes from their garden, madly in love with staying home with their kids to play preschool games all day, supporting their husband in whatever they do, kind, giving, modest, devoutly religious, have 5 or so kids, be an immaculate housekeeper . . . I'm probably even missing a few. But I can tell you that each of those have been pushed specifically in our culture. I'm pretty sure every single one of those has been part of Relief Society meetings in my memory. And none of those characteristics are bad things. So rebelling against them and being different doesn't seem right.
But . . . some of those are not me.
Sure, I'm crafty. I adore my husband. I think I do pretty well at some of the others. But gardening? Ugh. I tried a garden this year. I planted 6 strawberry plants and half of them died within a week, no matter what water or compost I gave them. The rest gave off berries the size of my pinky nail. The corn never grew, and even the cucumber withered and died. I think my entire produce will consist of the tomatoes that Kaitlyn didn't pick three weeks ago (she gave me a ziploc bag full of little green ones) and one pumpkin I can't remember why I planted. And you know what? That's okay. It would have been nice to have some organic produce of my own here, but we will live and I will still be a good person.
And over the last few years I have had to similarly accept some other things about me. One in particular has been hard to swallow. Ever since I was little, I heard people tearfully talk about how much they loved being a mom. There was nothing greater in the world than being a mom. People always said that they were overwhelmed by how much they loved the little tiny being from the moment it was placed in their arms in the hospital. And so, when I was pregnant with Tyler, I figured the same thing would happen to me. I was a bit distracted by the hectic job that I adored, but assumed that by the time I ended up holding a little baby in a hospital, it would be all I ever wanted the rest of my life.
I think many other people actually do have that life-altering moment. But I have to tell you, I didn't. I remember, very clearly, waking up early before they brought Tyler back from the nursery to be fed. I remember looking around the room and thinking that it seemed like a very odd dream yesterday. And I knew that if I never saw that little being again, I wouldn't really miss him. However, I looked down at my watch and knew I really should have been at work in a few minutes. I was missing that.
For years I felt that this made me a rather terrible person. Or at least it must mean I am a bad mother. I have grown to love both of my kids over the years, because spending this much time with them and serving them will do that pretty automatically. But I am still not the mom who cries because she wants to go home early from a vacation with her husband because she misses her kids. I have no problem leaving them with a babysitter or other person that I know I can trust. I've never been "baby hungry" in my life. And I spent a lot of time praying for all of that to be changed. I would pray, I would fast, and I would feel guilty about it.
I think it is only in the last year I have come to realize that perhaps I need to accept this about me, just like accepting that I am a terrible gardener. It doesn't mean I am going to give up growing plants or taking care of the ones in my yard, but it does mean I'm going to stop feeling guilty because I can't brag about how many pounds I canned from my garden today. And in this case, I think lacking that inward "I love my kids more than life itself and can't wait to have as many as possible" feeling doesn't mean I can't be a good mom to my adorable little people. Sure, I'm not a perfect mom. In fact, writing this post has been broken up by an emergency bath because Tyler decided to change his own pull-up to get rid of the poop, but only managed to spread it. (Oh, how I love potty training.) I might not be the mom who loves playing preschool games and making craft projects all day long. In fact, I can't say I even feel very comfortable in my church role with 8 year old girls. They can be fun, but . . . whoa. Not my thing, really. I felt quite at home in a high school classroom, and like a fish out of water with a group of little kids. But I think that overall, I am a fairly good mamma.
In this process, we have also had to take stock in what we really wanted for our family. When we started out, Christopher and I talked about liking the idea of three kids. It just seemed . . . like a good size to us. Three is small enough to be manageable, but large enough to have siblings to play with. But once we had two, we realized we really, really, liked two. I have two hands, there are two of us, and we felt quite evenly matched to the task most days. The real kicker was Tyler. When we first started getting help at Kids on the Move, it helped right away. And then he didn't make it into the district preschool, and we spent the next six months trying to find a preschool that would help. Once he did make it into the district preschool, I spent the next year agonizing because it wasn't helping. I kept thinking that he just needed more time to settle into it, or I needed to try and do it all myself at home, but in the end it just wasn't the right fit for what he needed. All of my emotions were drained into this endless well of helplessness and guilt, and so even though it would have been the right timing to have another child, it just wasn't even on our radar. And I wasn't sure it ever would be. I slowly got used to telling people that we were probably done, because I couldn't imagine the stress of adding a newborn on top of figuring out how to help Tyler.
Thankfully, this last year has been exactly what Tyler needed. And what I needed! Suddenly I felt like a capable person again. I could go help out in his classroom and see what can be done with these kiddos to try things at home. I was going on summer outings and seeing actual ways to use these ideas in my real life. Tyler had a teacher this year that would call me in her spare time just to find out what I had tried at home, and tell me how things she was trying were working for her. I was learning how to help my little guy. I cannot tell you the burden that lifted from me in all of this.
Through all of this, I have been feeling the guilt of "are we done?" In this Mormon culture, I had to honestly ask myself, "are people allowed to stop at two?" The only people I know who finished with two kids were actually unable to have more, for one reason or another. Does accepting that I have not and never will be "baby hungry" mean I shouldn't have more kids? In the end, since I didn't have the emotions tied into it, we ended up looking at it logically. And all of my logical reasons to stick with two kids boiled down to "two is easier than three".
My illogical reason, unfortunately, is my stubborn independence. Part of me wanted to prove that a normal, good person could stop at two children in this culture on their very own decision and still be a good mom. Part of me got really angry at people I know that push the idea that everyone should have as many kids as their body can crank out, regardless of their emotional or physical ability to care for them. (That frustration may have been born out of the jealousy that I had no such inclination, but it was still there.) To me, every kid should be actively wanted, not just brought here out of habit or peer pressure. And did I actively want another kid? On the other hand, was I resisting the norm because I honestly didn't want another child, or because I wanted to prove something?
In terms of logical reasons to add another to our count, one of the biggest helps we have for Tyler is . . . Kaitlyn. She is a second mother and teacher to that guy. In fact, just today she sat him down and quizzed him on colors in a book. She is a wonderful "peer model" for him to follow, which is huge. The other logical issue we saw has to do with my sister-in-law (who has no idea I am saying this). She is an only child, and over the last year or two nearly every relative she has had major medical issues - on the other side of the country from her full time job and her little girl. She has spent countless "vacations" flying back and forth to set up nursing homes and funerals and wills and everything in-between. And we looked at our family and thought - what if that happens to Kaitlyn? We hope that Tyler will be able to support himself just fine in life, but honestly right now we can't say for sure. What if we support Tyler to some extent until we need support ourselves, and then it is all up to Kaitlyn to sort out?
And, since our initial gut feeling was three, did we actually have a good reason for not doing that?
And so with all of that in mind, we came to a decision.
For those of you untrained in grey dots, that's the little wiggle bean baby in my tummy.
Obviously, we made the decision a long time ago. And now I am to the point where, thanks to a stretchy stomach from previous kids, I don't think I can hide this from people at the multiple upcoming swim parties we have in the next couple of weeks. After the previous January mishaps we were very careful this time. (Out of my mother's 13 grandchildren, 7 of them were born in January - and that makes 3 out of the 4 people in my little family at the moment, with only Christopher born in October.) And so I can now say that we are due early in March. I'm shooting for pi day, actually, because I am just that nerdy.
I have to say that I was still pretty nervous about the idea at first, but just felt like it was what our family needed. It will be more work and more chaos, for sure, but it is the right step. I think I am starting to look forward to it all though. Seeing the ultrasound helped quite a bit actually - I know the picture looks like nothing, but seeing all the wiggles in person made it a lot more real to me.
Some of you may wonder why on earth I didn't just say "Look! We're pregnant!" and instead bogged this post down with pages of babbling. The thing is, over the years a lot of my close friends have asked about if we were going to have another child. And I have answered with bits and pieces of all of this, in some cases. In fact, I had told many people without a doubt that I was done. So I wanted everyone to know why this decision was right for us and how we came to it. For those of you who skimmed past it all, you probably didn't miss much. But this is easier than explaining it individually over and over and hoping it came out right. I apologize that it is more impersonal than the alternative, but there we are. More honesty than you might get on my blog in a year.
