A Tall Girl's Adventures in a Tiny World

About 10 years ago, on the eve of my mom's birth/death-day, I dreamed about her playing with a toddler-aged boy in the backyard of my childhood home. I watched from a distance, wondering who the child was, until my mom picked up the baby and walked toward us. The baby had strawberry blond hair that shimmered in the sunlight, fringy curls around the ears. His head was nestled into Mom's shoulder a bit so I could only see it in profile, but I clearly remember the round cheeks and button nose. I asked where she found him. She smiled and said simply, "This is your son." Mind you, this dream took place long before I even thought about having children, but I recall waking up feeling comforted and calm, settled into an understanding that everything in my life was going to be ok. It was the first peaceful, happy sort of dream I had after Mom's death, and the baby was just perfect. Fast forward to March 2010. My newborn son slept on my chest in a dark, quiet hospital bed i...

I filed our taxes last night. Which doesn't matter to anyone, really, but Uncle Sam and me. But reviewing one's financial statements for the past year forces one to think a little bit about the past year. And as I laid awake in bed last night I thought, wow, I'm really freaking proud of my family! Let's review the year that was, shall we? Big Daddy gets laid off from his 12-year job a mere 3 weeks before we give birth to Baby #2. Instead of spiraling into doom and despair, we regroup, rededicate, refocus. Baby #2 arrives , beautiful and perfect, and we adjust to being a foursome...and to sleepless nights, messy diapers, and marveling at the wonder of infancy. Mommy is home on maternity leave while Daddy is home on severance pay; Big Brother goes from full-time childcare to half-day preschool and lots of time at home with both parents and his new sibling. We spend 3 amazing months together, a glorious springtime with nowhere to go and nothing to do but be a family. We...

I'm thankful for days like this, full of little gifts in the middle of the endurance-testing, gut-checking, dark-cold month of February: A glimmer of hope on a few rays of sunshine through the bleak, a robin or two chirping a promise of spring, a chance to play outside without hats and mittens and runny noses. A day to look around and say, ok, it's going to thaw, it's going to be lighter, it's going to get greener, we just might make it. And I'm so thankful for moments like this one to remind me of how sweet even February is: My baby's first recognition of birds flying overhead while he experiences his first swing ride. Look at the wonder in those big blue eyes. The world is beautiful, isn't it?

A lot goes on here between the hours of 4pm and 8 when Big Daddy gets home. I'm flying solo, without a map -- and often without a parachute. And most nights, when the cherubs are finally filed for the evening in their cozy beds, I sit back and think, man oh man, I cannot believe they let me keep these kids! Here are some of the strange-but-true happenings in the world of Tall Girl and her Tiny Men this week: * Flames in the oven. No joke. Fire. Burning tall. Flicking its tongue out the top of the oven door. While pre-heating for a gourmet fish stick dinner. As slightly frantic Mom moves the baby in the high chair and the big brother in his jammies to the front door, Sweet Boy notices the smoky kitchen and asks, "Mommy, are we going to die? OK...then we won't have to eat that." * Mommy goes King Kong on the Jumperoo because it won't fold right. While Sweet Boy is practicing piano. After kicking the snot out of this seemingly innocent baby toy, screaming like a bans...

Just when I start to feel really blech about my body -- when I look in the mirror and think, wow, have you got a long way to go, so long in fact that you should probably just buy a potato sack to keep you warm while you sit on the sofa gobbling all those cookies -- I trip upon something that puts things back into perspective. Read this mommy's love letter to herself , and view the love letter from her husband that prompted it. I defy you not to see the beauty in these stretch marks, or to realize how amazing the human body really is. Yes, I've got a long way to go. But this doughy middle has grown, birthed, and nurtured two humans. Two! Whole! People! The tiger stripes on my stomach remind me of the wonder of those pregnancy days, when every cell of my body rippled and stretched with new life. The scar above my pelvis recalls the pain and the sacrifice and the sleeplessness that I've survived. The slight sag of my breasts tells of the snuggly story of nursing a pudgy, love...

I, like many bloggers, set a New Year's goal for myself of posting more often. Well. Here it is January 25 and I'm posting for the first time. Safe to say this goal has gone the way of the "no more cookies" and "exercise once per day" goals. I signed up a couple weeks ago for this post-a-day e-mail from Wordpress. These neat little e-mails with blog-post ideas come to my inbox each morning. And I read them, mull them over while I'm stirring my coffee or walking to a meeting or sitting in traffic on the highway, then I get home, chase a baby, argue about homework and piano practice, make dinner, gulp dinner down, bathe the stinky monkeys, get the kids into bed, collapse on the couch for a moment, then go to bed myself so I can get up and do it all again the next day... yet I neglect to write. Hmph. Let's try to change this trend, shall we? Last week one of the post-a-day questions was: If you knew you only had one hour left to live, how would you spe...

This week was hectic. To say the least. New job for mommy, new daycare schedule for Baby Zen. Furnace breakdown and restart (with smoky, scary moments!), Big Daddy working three "late night" shifts (which is really only until 8 pm, but that might as well be midnight to a 5-year-old), and the topper -- Sweet Boy puked all over himself, his lunch, and his buddy in school Friday. But somehow in between all the zoom-around, I managed to collect our little angels in front of the tree for the annual Christmas card photo. Here's how it went down: First, Sweet Boy posed so I could get the light and angle and position in front of the tree. Just right. Aw, darling little elf, you know the drill. Then we add Baby Zen to the mix. He is obviously a newbie... Here we see big brother holding on to little brother for dear life, knowing that there may be some demerits from the naughty/nice list if the baby plonks to the floor. Now big brother is starting to really stress out about this gi...