Guest Post (which should have come with tissues)

I received this in my inbox this afternoon. I immediately knew, as my eyes filled with tears- that I needed to share this tribute to the little girl who urges us all to be better just by standing by our side.

I am unbelievably lucky that we are loved in this way.

Thank you.




Dear Gracie,

Hi, it’s me – Grampa.

It may seem to be a bit odd that I am writing what is essentially a thank-you note to a three year-old, but read on, I hope and trust that it will make more sense.
Thank you for just being you and for being such a big part of my life.
You probably don’t realize it, but you hold more power in those little hands and those beautiful eyes than anyone else that I know.


When we had your Mom, it was the greatest and most exhilarating part of our life. The problem is we were WAY too busy being scared senseless half the time and run ragged the rest of the time to properly appreciate what a miracle a child really is. Don’t get me wrong. We enjoyed every birthday cake (including the “upside down” one that the dog got to eat), every graduation, and every recital, concert, play and dance. All the cookouts, the camping, the coffee milk in the mornings, and learning a new word every day in the car. The challenges, the drama, the achievements and the setbacks – we loved them all.

I remember the agony of holding Mimi’s hand on New Year’s Eve when we thought we had lost your Mom, only to have the ultrasound tech casually say, “…and there’s the baby’s heartbeat…”. Your Mom might not even realize it, but that’s why having a sparkling grape drink became a tradition on New Year’s Eve – that was my own way of celebrating.

All the fussing, fretting and yes, fights over things that seemed so monumental then but have faded out to dim memories. The days when Mimi was working nights, getting up in the afternoon to pick your Mom up from school, and then trying to sleep a few hours before work. The long flights back from wherever my work had sent me, so I could rush in to catch your Mom on the stage in grade school. Picking your Mom up from Nana’s in the middle of the night so I could go back to school and get my degree (another whole story here – we couldn’t have done it without Nana & Papa – and I completely understand now when she said the your Mom was “as good as Gold”).


We agonized over the choices we made for your Mom. All the things that we did that we were certain could mess things up forever if we didn’t get them just right. Trust me – we didn’t always get it just right.


You see, kids don’t come with directions. Most of the “free” advice you get is worth every penny you paid for it. We spent most of the time hoping that we weren’t screwing your Mom up too badly and the rest of our time trying to build a good life for our family. Everything seemed to go by in a blur. We were running so fast for so long that I just thought that was the way it was supposed to be.
 
And then you came along.
When I look in your eyes and see the pure joy of discovery – of seeing something for the very first time – it takes me back to when your Mom had the very same expression on her face.
When you dance around the living room to the song that is playing in your head, I see your Mom doing the very same dance.
Reading you a story – and having you catch me when I try to skip ahead – your Mom did that, too.
Beaming with pride when a total stranger says to me “What a beautiful little girl!”, yup, been there before.
You see, Gracie, I need to thank you. I need to thank you for allowing me to experience all of this again. The thousands of moments that might otherwise have been buried in the haze of the past. Thanks to you, this time, I can experience it all without the stress and pressure of “getting it right”.
And I get to re-live all those feelings, all those experiences we had with your Mom in a way I am very sure no other person could have unlocked.


I know that your Mom loves you more than life itself. I know that she agonizes over all the decisions she faces, the choices she makes, the thresholds she crosses over. I know that sometimes she is filled with doubt and uncertainty.  I also know a lot of things that your Mom doesn’t know – yet.
Like she will go through her life and have just a handful of friends that she will be able to count on when things get tough – and she hasn’t even met some of them yet. Like the fact that even when she thinks she can’t possibly take one more tiny bit of stress, she will somehow dig deep and find a way to persevere. I know that your Mom has more strength and courage that she can possibly imagine – and that there will be days when she will need every ounce of it.
She will learn to hold dear friends and family close to her heart – because in a flash they will be gone.

I know that someday you will cause your Mom unimaginable frustration, joy, anger and pride – perhaps even in the very same day. I also know that no matter how much anybody tells her not to worry – she will still worry. And I also know that in the end, it will all somehow work out.



Do you want to know how I know all this?



You told me.



 
You are God-given proof that we got it right.
 
Love,
Grampa

Things I have learned about being in my twenties (so far)

I am fast approaching my 25th birthday. While I have enough common sense to understand that 25 is not old no matter how I might be feeling about it, it still is looming ahead of me like it's intending to have some sort of significance.

I am, by all accounts, a full blown "adult" and am expected to act accordingly. My early twenties went a little differently than some, with a small child and graduate school and other things..but I think the overall experience remains fairly universal.

By the time Grace enters her twenties, I'll have forgotten what this time felt like. How the edges of the world were stretched full up with possibilities. How, as years passed, you felt like you were missing out on your chance to "be" someone.How you learned to tip-toe around adulthood until you couldn't hold out any longer.

This is the "wisdom" I'd like to bestow. A smattering of what I have learned about this decade of my life, halfway through...

When you graduate college, something within your universe irrevocably shifts. You have spent the entirety of your life on the same track as the majority of your friends and all the sudden you are forced to find your own way.


Sometimes, it will feel too good to love the wrong people. There are people in your life whose sole purpose is to make you realize things you never wanted to figure out.

Form the habits that stick with you forever. How you take your coffee (skim milk, please)... how much sleep you truly need to avoid becoming a shell of your former self.

Burn the candle at both ends. You will struggle to find a balance between being young and growing up. There is a certain kind of beauty in being reckless with your body and your mind, but eventually you will get tired of testing yourself and your limits.

Enjoy hating someone. A friend, a boss, an ex. Because it means you are able to love yourself a little bit more.

Embrace your parents as flawed individuals. It will make you so grateful to have them.

Learn that love is there. Until it's not. It may or may not have anything to do with you. This will seem unfathomably cruel during your first legitimate heartbreak. When you break someone else's heart for the first time, it will make perfect sense.

You are too young to be truly happy or to really know what you want. Be wary of people who think they have it all figured out.

People change and outgrow each other. You will most likely leave your early twenties with less friends than when you started them. It might be a big blow out fight, or a slow and steady drifting apart.

You will wake up after a morning of being out too late and will find yourself suddenly unable to laugh at the ridiculous things you did but will be geniunely horrified instead.

A lot of your friends actually suck. You won't figure this out until you begin to depend on them for more than the location of that night's party or a ride to the mall.

2 am cheese fries will seem like a really great idea, until you wake up with orange goop caked on your finger nails and the feeling of a brick sitting solidly in your stomach.


Everyone goes through hard times and allow themselves to feel completed alienated from their surroudings. You will need to start figuring out which emotions are legitimate and which are not.

Spend too much money on frivolous things, even if you have bigger responsibilities than yourself. It will feel good at the time and occasionally that's all you can count on.


Meet people who excite you. Who make you nervous. Who force you to question things. Don't push these people away, even if it means you wind up with a couple scars.

Discover that loving someone is a balancing act. There's you. There's them. You mix and stir and whisk and hope that it comes out ok. Eventually, you'll realize that if someone really loves you they don't want you to change. They simply want you to be the best version of yourself.

Your friends will start to get married. And have babies. And buy houses. Avoid envy and panic. Enjoy the open bars and house warmings. Your time will come and you will suddenly find yourself nostalgic for simplier times. Try not to get stuck in that waiting place. This is your life and this time is not simply a placeholder.

Love your body. Form healthy habits that are sustainable. Wear dresses that are a little bit too short and outfits that might embarrass your father.Embrace non-ridiculous trends. Get it out of your system before it's too late.

Find that friend that you can call and talk at for hours to dissect your latest personal drama. Who will fit in seamlessly with your family. This is the same friend who will pick you at the airport at midnight and who google the guy you just went on a blind date with. Don't let go.

There will come a moment, normally after a bad day or week or month, where you question your career path entirely. You will panic, wonder how hard it would be to start over. And then your paycheck appears in your bank account and you realize it's not so bad after all.

You'll spend a Friday night (or several) at home alone, watching a movie and being asleep by 9. This does not consistute a social failure. It means you are learning to take care of yourself.

Develop a backbone. Or at least wish you had one, or think about trying to get one.

Disappoint yourself by making a bad decision (or several) that felt very good at the time. This is a necessary lesson in humility.

Find a passion that doesn't involve the work you do to make a living. Do yoga. Take pictures. Play the guitar. Do something that makes it impossible for you to question whether you're interesting enough or not.

Stop buying bottom shelf liquor or cheap beer. When you're out of college, it's just not cute to show up to a party with a 30 rack of keystone.

Attend less house parties, especially if the host still lives with their parents.

Induldge. For me, it's as simple as buying a new color nail polish every time I go to Target. There was a time in my life when I couldn't afford something that small and my growing collection reminds me that I've gone forward and upwards.

Drink more wine. Out of legitimate wine glasses.

From bottles, not boxes.

Learn to cook. If you're male, this will serve you VERY well. And, as a woman, I don't care if it's sexist- I find pleasure in being able to prepare meals that are healthy and delicious (perspective: in college--- I burnt ramen noodles. Full circle)

Paying bills will always be horrifying, no matter how much money you have.

Stressful days are a necessary precursor to happiness.

Keep secrets.

You will question every decision you make. This uncertainty triples when you become a parent.

You're going to get a lot of things wrong. Try not to beat yourself up over it. The things you do to "screw up" your life may end up being, ultimately, whats needed to repair it.


You're going to wake up one morning in total awe of a life that suddenly feels like it belongs to you.


Every year goes by faster than the last and before you know it this time will be over.

I've run out of cliches and half-truths and advice that I sometimes forget to take myself. But between the letting go and holding on and growing up and staying young and the millions of other contradictions that define the young twenties- it's a pretty awesomely terrifying time.

On why my three year old is probably trying to kill me

Gracie,

This morning, I picked you up from your crib and you instinctively wrapped your arms around my neck and squeezed, burying your head of sweaty, sleepy curls into my shoulder. The sunlight was streaming through your window and for a moment, I stood, breathing in the scent of you, feeling the weight of your body against my chest and appreciating the potential of the day.

Because not every morning starts this way. More often then not, you stir as soon as you hear me enter your room and begin to screech with a ferocity I naively assumed was reserved for moody teenagers "Mama, I'm just trying to sleep! Leave me in my bed!!!"

Listen little duck...I get it. The internal dialogue I have when my alarm goes off at 4:45 am is even less pleasant. But starting my day literally dodging your flailing limbs and trying to reason with you about why rain boats are not appropriate footwear for a 95 degree day? No fun. Did I mention I attempt to do this before I've had even a single cup of coffee?

The term "terrible twos" is a joke. I don't know if it is evolutionary inflation or what- but, only a few months in I can tell you that three is undeniably harder than two.

A few weeks ago we were out having breakfast with Mimi and Grandpa. You had taken off your shoes, covered every available surface with maple syrup and were doing everything but eating your breakfast. I looked at them and in full seriousness, trying to mask the panic in my voice, said "I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can actually be the parent of a three year old child"

They politely attempted to hide their sly, satisfied grins. They had been waiting for this moment at least since I has hit adolescence and gained an affinity for eye rolls and door slams and blatant defiance (probably earlier). This is the just desserts, karmic comeuppance that every parent holds on to, clinging to the hope that just one day, their child will understand the beautiful and almost unbearable disaster that parenthood ultimately becomes.

G, you push every last button I have. And when you find one that evokes a particularly interesting response? You push it again and again and AGAIN. Our house will not stay clean for more than 5 minutes, unless you are not home or are sleeping. Our living room looks like an entire pack of toddlers breezed through on a seek and destroy mission and our kitchen floor is covered with pebbles because it was easier to let you "plant" them so I could finish cooking dinner.

The laundry? Oh the laundry. For a tiny person, you certainly dirty a lot of clothes. I just can't keep up and on more than one occasion I find myself picking an outfit for myself up off my bedroom floor, checking to make sure it appears to be reasonably clean and wondering, only for a minute , if I had already worn in that week.

You have this look, where you throw your hands on your hips squint your eyes and say phrases so loaded with disbelief and disdain that I swear someone has hit the fast forward button on my life to the time when you will discover that you obviously know better than I do. Because this is played out in miniature, tiny human fashion, I have to turn around so you can't see me laughing, every single time- which only serves to infuriate me more.


Just today, you poked me in the stomach and asked me if there was a baby in there because it looked like there was. Last week, we had an enlightening conversation about female anatomy and you informed me that you had "small boobs" (please don't repeat this at daycare) just like me. I can forgive you these discretions because I have a distinct memory of telling my own mother that her bum resembled jello jigglers (for the record, my mother is one of the tiniest human beings I know- I can't even begin to imagine a world where any of her body parts resembled jello) Children are not kind.


By the time our nighttime routine is finished, I am tired. And I don't mean a little bit tired. I mean to the bone, don't want to move a single muscle or exercise the use of even one brain cell, exhausted. I crawl into bed at 7:30, with the intention of watching just one episode of mindless television or reading one chapter of the book it's been taking me months to finish before moving on to housework or other more productive ventures.I always fall asleep, only to be woken up by a phone call or text message from a normal functioning adult and have to try to pretend like I wasn't out cold at 8:30 on a Friday night.


When you burst into an enthusiastic
rendition of "Red Solo Cup" (thanks Auntie Robyn) during our once monthly trip to the fancier (aka more expensive) grocery store nearer to our house I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. This is a common dilemma.


Typically, when we are in public or spending time with the people I have been complaining to... You are a vision of sweetness and light. With your gorgeous blonde curls and giant blue eyes that stare up at me behind fluttering lashes, willing me to just try and get too comfortable, to put my guard down for just one second (do you know what can happen in one second? iPads get smeared with Greek yogurt, milk is spilled all over the floor, hot pink nail polish decorates furniture, pages get ripped out of favorite books and the clean sheets of my bed become the perfect place to construct Play-Doh monsters). You make everyone laugh and run up to hug my legs just because and you make me wonder if it's not you, but me that is just a huge, inflexible ogre of a mother.


You, my dear, are sneaky like that.


I'm sorry. I'm sorry for losing my patience for the umpteenth time and raising my voice even though I internally cringe every time I do so. I'm sorry for threatening you with ridiculous things like ridding the world of pink ice cream. I'm sorry that sometimes we don't read books before bed because the idea of choosing just two books that we both agree on and reading them in a way that meets your requirements is just too overwhelming. I'm sorry sometimes we eat cheerios for dinner.

The things that make this time so difficult are the same that make it so wonderful. You are learning new things by the second, pushing the boundaries of your little world to the limit and sometimes, breaking straight through them.


You're already too smart for your own good and the number of moments I find myself in a viable battle of wits with a three year old is embarrassing.  Grandpa taught you about traffic signals recently and you are now my (literal) backseat driver, telling me when to slow down and when to stop and chastising me when I "cut it too close".


So let's keep on forgiving each other, ok? Choosing our battles and ignoring our messy house and bending the rules. Because if I'm not perfect, I certainly can't expect you to be.

In the moments you make me laugh until my stomach hurts, the times you do the right thing when you don't know I'm watching, the way you talk about being kind and thoughtful with a wisdom the defies your age...
I know we'll be ok.

I know you'll only be little for such a short while and before I know it I'll be looking back wistfully at these days and reveling in my slightly distorted memories of a simpler time.

And if we both make it to your 18th birthday, alive and relatively unscathed- I'm going to throw you myself one hell of a party


Just cut me some slack. Please?

I still love you to the moon and back,

Mama

Bandaids

We have entered the bandaid phase in my house.



If you have ever parented a small child, you will know exactly what I am referring to.
Bandaids are a strict necessity for every blemish, imaginend, implied or actual. I buy boxes of character themed (that was my first mistake) bandaids more often than I buy gallons of milk.



The smug, alpha asshole parent that existed in my brain before I became an actual parent of a three year old toddler terrorist is laughing at me, because certaintly I should be able to calmly explain the difference between when bandaids are necessary and when they are not. This, however, would imply that I am able to calmly accomplish ANYTHING these days and that logic is easily applied to an illogical situation. And if a Hello Kitty bandaid ends a tantrum that's been going on for 20 minutes? Then I'll buy stock in the damn things.





Given Grace's affinity for bandaids, I have also spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to remove a bandaid that has been stuck somewhere for so long it looks like it might be in danger of adhering to her skin.




We've soaked it off, painstakingly using a warm washcloth and soap. We've let it run its course until it fell off on it's own, but this has led me to finding bandaids in various unpleasant and embarrassing locations in my house. And I've done just what the old adage says- distracted her with something else and ripped it off so quickly she barely even noticed it was happening.

All of these methods have led to mixed results.


I recognize I just spent far too many paragraphs blabbering about bandaids- but there is a point to be made here, I promise.

My life has been....in flux...for these last few months (which is in large part to blame for my hiatus from writing in a public forum). Along the way, I managed to let my (emotional) self get pretty beat up. I sought solace where I could and I measured my success in continuing to wake up and will my feet to move with purpose across the floorboards.

With these wounds, came bandaids. Industrial sized, super adhesive, not going to budge bandaids.

For a while, I coddled myself. The emotional equivalent to the "soak off" approach, if you will. I wrapped myself in friendship and streaming Netflix and retail therapy. When the combination of wine and self-reflection became too dizzying, I became ambivalent. I started to allow life to happen to me. As long as Grace was happy and healthy, nothing else mattered. I had lost sight of the way my own fulfillment and happiness were inexorably intertwined with hers.

And then? One day...

I ripped that sucker off. I steeled myself for it, ignored the nagging voice of uncertainty inside my head and I just ripped it off.

It's not the initial pain that got me, because what had preceded it was worse. It's the residual sting. I'm finally feeling fresh air and sunshine but along with that comes the threat of further damage, of wounds that don't heal but simply worsen.

That sting...the insistent buzz of doubt and left-over insecurities...it's annoying, and sometimes worrisome but mostly it reminds me that,even with much work left to be done and the outcome of it all still unclear...things are healing.

If I'm going to expect Grace to rip off old bandaids with minimal screeching...then I most certainly better start doing it myself. I am constantly reminded that my daughter has made me stronger where I was once weak. Whenever I find myself questioning my decisions I imagine what I would want her to do in the same situation.


This is transition, but it's not the end of the story. I know I wont continue unscathed...there will be new challenges and injuries and mistakes.

But, in my house, there are always new bandaids.