June1
I cannot count the times I have plopped down on Jasmine’s couch, usually with coffee in hand, to tell her of my latest parenting mishap. “You will not believe what happened to us the other day” I’ll say, as Jasmine gears up for a story. “Norah and I were at TJ Maxx, I was trying on dresses and when I looked down Norah had a piece of CHEWED UP GUM IN HER MOUTH!” I’ll yell, “CHEWED UP GUM FROM SOMEONE ELSE’S MOUTH! GAH!”
Jasmine will laugh and settle back further into the couch. “Ha!” she’ll say, “I have a better one. No seriously, it made Garrett gag which…you know. I’d had this cup, this cup that I was using to spit in because I had that awful phlegmy cough and it was sitting on the counter. I keep forgetting that Isaiah can reach up to the counters and well…he did. He reached up and grabbed it and. ANNNDDDDDD…HE DRANK IT!!!!!” she’ll yell. “HE DRANK THE WHOLE THING AND IT WAS ALL OVER HIM! AND THEN HE LOOKED AT ME AND SMILED!”
“BLEHHHH!!” we’ll both yell, laughing and making puking sounds. And then we’ll move on to other topics like Did You Watch Daisy of Love Last Night? OMG! or I Gave My Baby Dr Pepper and She Loved It. Does That Make Me a Bad Parent? or maybe Um Hi. If You Make Me Watch Yo Gabba Gabba Again I Will Kill You.
This is, in short, our friendship. We are made up of laughing and gossip and coffee, sarcasm and serious talks about faith and grace. We are made up of adventures in parenting, messes and mistakes. We are made up of trying to love our husbands, our babies and one another.
I do not know how to fully express how important this friendship is to me. Maybe its because I was the new mom who was bent on being exceptional, determined to be a great mom and never have a need for help. “I can do it” was my mantra, and I repeated it over and over again, diapers and breast milk and blankets barely covering how tired I was, how desperately I needed a break. And then one day, 4 months into the Perfect Mommy Marathon I came to visit Jasmine and Garrett and Isaiah. And as I watched them play with Norah while she lay on a blanket on the floor, I heard them tell me “Its ok. We love you and we love Norah and we will help you. We will keep her safe”. And they did. They smiled and talked with her and protected her from Isaiah’s exploring hands and feet. As I sank deeper into the couch, I began to realize that it was ok to ask for help. It was ok to recognize my limitations, and in fact, recognizing those limitations makes me a better mother.
I still struggle with this, the crazy desire for self-sufficiency when it comes to motherhood, but I’m working on it. I am working on remembering, when I feel the pressure of going it alone, that I am not a one woman army. I have my husband and my parents and my friends. Motherhood was not designed to be a solo-sport. It’s too hard, too demanding, too involved.
And I suppose, for me, that’s what this is all about. I am clearly not a perfect mother (in fact, as I am typing this I’ve watched Norah get her head stuck between the couch and the wall, eat a half chewed Wheat Thin from the floor, and chew on a shoe), but I don’t know where I would be if I was still trying to do this all alone. I’ve seen glimpses of that place, and it is not pretty. So if this project can help other mamas (or daddies!) feel a little more bonded, a little less like the crazy lady who checks her baby’s poop (I admit, I am a poop checker), then I’ll consider it a success. If we can help others, whether through tales of teaching our babies to make us nachos or our overestimated construction skills, whether through our humor or our tears, our achievements or our failures, then that will be great.
This motherhood–it is one tough and beautiful business.
Sadie
As I read Sadie’s blog, I started to tear up. I looked up from her writing and asked, “Sadie! Did you cry when you were writing this?” She laughed and I laughed because we both knew the answer- of course!! There is something about motherhood that makes cry. There is something about motherhood that makes you say to yourself, “Oh holy hell! I am in this alone, I am going to screw this kid up and everyone is going to blame me…” Or at least that is what I said to myself. After I had my son, I had a severe case of Postpartum Depression. It, at one point, turned into psychosis. I began seeing spiders crawling all over my son. I began slapping my three month old baby to get the spiders off of him. I realized, at that point, I needed help. I can’t say that the pressure to be a perfect mom created the Postpartum Depression/Psychosis. What I can say is that is certainly aided in the burden and anxiety that I felt. It, in essence, made the depression worse. From the moment I found out I was pregnant I realized that someone had put me in this invisible competition. I tried my best not to engage, but at times the pressure to have the “perfect pregnancy” overthrew all my efforts. When Isaiah was born, the competition just got worse. There was this overwhelming pressure to “measure up”. It wasn’t till after the depression had subsided and I was heavily medicated that I realized that maybe motherhood looks waaaaay different then what I ever thought it did. Maybe motherhood was about working your way through it. It isn’t a destination. It is an ever changing crazy ride that really doesn’t end. You never stop mothering. As Sadie wrote, our relationship has been a nurturing driving force in keeping me (and her) sane. As are many of the friendships I have with other moms. When the walls are torn down and we are able to be authentic with one another so much can change. We have to encourage one another and remind ourselves and each other that Postpartum Depression doesn’t make you a bad mother; a screaming baby doesn’t make you a bad mother. Doing it different than everyone else doesn’t make you a bad mother. So what! My two year old enjoys a sip or two of coffee… I am not a bad mother!
All that said: We created this site, because we hope to impact others with our stories. As Lauren Winner once commented, I too believe memoirs are a powerful form of connection that lends itself to transforming the lives of others. I know that I made it through that awful Postpartum experience because of my husband, my family, and other mothers who, well, mothered me.
So please join us for the ride. We might not always say it in the most grammatically appropriate or eloquent way, but we are who we are and we hope, in the meantime, you’ll find something that inspires you, makes you think, entertains you, reminds you that motherhood is a beautiful wreck, or all of the above.
Stay Tuned!
Jasmine
A couple year of years ago I was walking with some friends of mine. We were on this path that was shaded by huge and beautiful trees. The conversations were asinine and I was tuning out; I kept glancing at the way the sun pierced through the emerald and garnet leaves. Just as we walked by a low hanging branch, a little brown pod caught my eye. It was swaying back and forth. We had slowed our walking pace and I was stunned to see something so small thrash so violently. A small pieces of orange color shot out of the pod. I immediately realized what it was, what was happening, and I tried to communicate. “Look,” I commanded my friends. They attempted to follow my finger and make sense of what I was now only shouting garbled words about, but they failed. I couldn’t form words and they couldn’t understand what astounding thing I was seeing. It was so amazing to see this beautiful butterfly struggle out of her cocoon and alight on the branch next to her. She waved her wings in and out, slowly, to dry them off. None of my friends ever saw the butterfly. They tried. They stood there looking for several minutes trying to figure out what I was “ooooohing” and “awwwwing” about. It was a beautiful moment, between me and that butterfly. The ironic thing was that the butterfly seemed just oblivious as oblivious of us. It seemed to not notice me or how beautiful it was.