It took me a while to get back here, to this blog template, and start typing. I don’t know what’s been up with me lately. This is supposed to be the “Lite-r” side of mommyhood… and then, Sandy Hook. How can I take this “Lite-ly”?
Since last Friday, I’ve been stirring in keeping composure, and yet composing a letter to my unborn son in my head, that I was toying with translating here in type. “What kind of world am I bringing you into? What am I setting you up for? Oh God, what have we done, and how can I ensure you’ll be safe? I apologize to you, dear son, that there really are monsters in the world… but they aren’t Where the Wild Things Are.”
Then over the past few days that letter to my son-to-be got lost in a sea of my own reality… the holiday preparations, the last minute gifts, trying to get the house clean, trying to keep it clean, juggling another job, oh God I need a nap again, how did this house get cluttered again?, honey can you change the cat litter?, oh wow I really need to start eating better (another Christmas cookie please!), I really need to exercise, I’m so overwhelmed I can’t keep up with this cleaning, honey did you clean the cat litter yet?, I don’t have the energy to cook, do I look fat in this?, the world is ending this Friday? Well what about all the presents I just wrapped?… I’m crying. I’m crying. good God I can’t breathe, I can’t take a breath… I can’t breathe.
Stop. Just … stop.
The thing that makes me stop? (and laugh? and snap out of it?) – a good swift kick to the bladder. Baby saying, “Mommy shut up. All’s good. I’m right here.” I suppose since he can’t hug me yet, a bladder-kick is the best he can do.
Indeed, things are exponentially stressful for everyone right now, with the holidays and tragedies and impending Mayan prophesies (which, at press time, seems to have passed)… sometimes it might be good to just stop and look at the person closest to you, and say, “Hey. Shut up. I’m right here. What can I do to get you out of your funk?”
You might wanna skip the bladder kick though.
