Motherhood: Paris

I wake up to a small face inches away from my own, big blue eyes searching me, a long whine escaping his mouth, pulling me out of peaceful sleep and into the reality of Thursday morning:

He's not the only one who woke up on the wrong side of bed.

Maybe it's stemming from being jarred out of sleep so early.

Or maybe it's from feeling like I'm walking a never-ending road of healing.

But most likely, it's all about Paris.

John is leaving for Paris soon on a work-related trip ... and I am not.

So, currently, I detest Paris. Or maybe I just detest what Paris is doing to me.

I'm staying home with the boys and likely waking up to mornings like this every morning, which would be sweet if we could forgo the whine {and I'm embarrassed to admit that most of the whining comes from my own lips} but

I'm tired.

I'm still climbing my way out of the post-miscarriage anxiety and depression haze

I'm still trying to heal from this balance issue.

And I'm not ready.

Here's the thing about motherhood in this season of life:

I desperately want to mother, but I suck at doing it alone.

And here's the thing about Paris:

I want to go to Paris, but I am in a season so drenched in mothering that I cannot see past its thickness.

I told myself a few months ago when John first asked if I wanted to come along riding on his coat tails of frequent flyer miles that Paris could wait but the kids couldn't; they wouldn't be 3 and 5 forever.

A few months ago, fresh from the loss of a third baby during pregnancy, I thought that was a travesty. I wanted to soak up every ever-loving minute that these boys were small and mine to keep safely in the nest. Savor every moment, you know.

Today, with Paris looming in the near distance, I think it's a darn good thing 3 and 5 don't last forever, because my patience with 3 and 5 lately has been slim ... and I can only imagine what it will look like when I'm alone with 3 and 5.

We weren't meant to mother alone, and I know this keenly during times John is home and I am feeling well.

But when he's away and I'm still sporting tender wounds, the magnifying glass sharply focuses on my intolerance and my impatience and my limits.

Enjoyment and savoring? Those come harder when I'm simply in survival mode.

My writing off of Paris was a little short sighted. Because here's the thing about Paris and motherhood and this season of life and the intersection of all three I didn't know to put together:

there's only so much tolerance, so much patience and so much enjoyment a mother can experience when she hasn't set her own limits well.

So I'm taking a lesson from Paris, setting aside my grievances and setting my limits; I'm giving myself permission to receive the help I'll need and abide within these margins I've set.

I'm coming to understand that what I need to be a good mother isn't really a trip to Paris.

And what I need to be a good mother isn't simply to survive mothering in Paris' wake.

Rather, what I need is to recognize my own limitations, accept them and gracefully allow the gift of help from those who also know the importance of me staying within the lines right now so that there's enjoyment and savoring in the surviving.

Bigger Picture Moments: I Want My Freakin' Village {Part II}

It wasn't the right house or the really even the right neighborhood.

Miles from a central downtown and situated just off a crowded, two-lane thoroughfare, I almost drowned in the silence of our new neighborhood as a mom then with only one toddler.

I longed for the kind of streets in which I grew up and into my own skin while outside playing kickball or freeze tag with a dozen other kids until the streets lights would flicker on and moms everywhere began shouting names from the screen door; though those days of neighborhood play came with hard lessons and hard knocks, I knew my neighbor's names, and I knew them as ones I could call on to borrow eggs or to come and check in on my sister and me when my mother's job ran long into the night.

After a few years of living here, in this quiet neighborhood that seemed neighborless, and driving miles and miles several times weekly to friends' houses for playdates that were saturated with the promise of adult conversation, a hot cup of coffee or tea and worn out children by afternoon nap time, I began uttering begging prayers

to move

or for our friends to move closer something anything for there to be a neighborhood village because honestly?

I loved this virtual community and my friends from all over our large and sprawling county but those people are hard to call in emergency, time-sensitive binds

or over to last-minute play when we need to see faces other than the ones that live in between these four walls

and, you know, you can't borrow eggs from a blog.

Somewhere in the midst of this crying out for community and trying {and failing} to find a new house in new neighborhood teeming with little kids, little buds of green began popping through the soil, I began shifting my energy from moving to making this a place I wanted to live -- a place with blossoming relationships and entertwined vines of friendship.

I met {through Twitter, nonetheless} a friend who not only lived two minutes away by car but also my brain twin through hours spent in conversation and communion of the hearts and minds.

Then a few more buds popped through just as I was about to force John to beat a for-sale sign into the ground -- another mom I'd really only known online turned out to live down the street.

A few more new faces slowly emerged, moving into the empty house on our street and we found each other through handshakes in the midst of knee-deep snow mounds and moments of serendipity while connecting virtually via an online group as we typed on our computers only three literal blocks away from each other.

We've cultivated slowly each relationship with conversation and time, offerings of help and hand and heart, and I saw that in effort more buds of friendship began to blossom in the neighborhood that seemed to be void of neighbors.

****

It's almost 8 o'clock at night, and I find myself all out of our eggs mid-recipe.

I briefly consider running to the store, but before I even give it a second thought, my thumbs are busy messaging three faces I not only recognize and call neighbor but also call friends.

And only a few moments later, I'm out my own door and standing at hers, chatting on her front porch while her littles sleep inside as the sun begins to fade into the horizon.



Just before the street lights click on, I bid her farewell and begin to walk the path back to my own house

through a neighborhood that just didn't seem right not just because of its location or proximity but because it was lacking the basic part of the word -- neighbors.

Two eggs in hand and thankfulness heavy on my tongue, my heart, I find a village, my village, in that word's restoration.

And, I find my village, too, in the realization that in order to have a neighbor, you also have to be one.

This week, we're sharing our moments at Brook's!