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amberellenw

a tearful and thankful nod to kindergarten

Mrs. Brown and a group hug with her littles - 8 boys, 3 girls - before their end of the year program last week.

I’m an emotional wreck this morning. It’s the second to last day of Kindergarten for our oldest. Tomorrow, what’s become a second family to her will cease to exist. And I am grieving.

I am mourning the safety and kindness and comfort she’s been able to return to day after day for the last year. I’m grieving the innocence and freedom she’s experienced and exhibited. I’m grieving that she will never experience an environment so uninhibited and accepting and playful and authentic ever again.

Kindergarten is a unique grade, because it falls at an incredibly unique developmental stage. Innocence and impulsivity, honesty and heart, purity of personality and perspective, enthusiasm and energy, curiosity and increasing capability … they’re coming into themselves but are yet unfettered by life’s constraints (those imagined, ridiculous, and/or real). 

And, it’s just SO hard to say goodbye to this stage. 

Yes, there is new and beautiful and necessary and boundless to come … but I am so very aware (my education and profession have taught me this) it will NEVER be this way again. 

So, this week I grieve. 

She is mourning, as well. We’ve had lots of conversations about having more than one feeling at the same time and where we’re feeling it in our body and what we can/want to do with it all … 

And I’m holding her tight, marveling at this precious almost six-year-old we get to walk life alongside. She is effervescence and beauty and creativity and LIFE, and I just adore her …

Finally, I am grateful for the place she’s gotten to do school at these last three years. Grateful for the privilege to choose into it and to be present — to drop her off and pick her up and join in at times — throughout it. Grateful for the teachers she’s been taught and influenced and loved by. Grateful for the kids she’s played and fought and learned with — grateful for the families from which they came.

Because this is what’s true: While names and faces may fade from explicit memory over time, their bodies and minds WILL retain and navigate from THIS FOUNDATION of kindness, safety, love, play, and freedom they experienced with THIS kindergarten class. That is SUCH a big deal.

I am just so grateful. And sad. For now …

LOVE.

gettin' down to The Git Up

I don’t know what it is about choreographed dance. Line dance. Group dance. Songs like this. I don’t know what it is, but I come ALIVE with this stuff. I feel actually good. Great. Hopeful. Like life is so, so good.

People enjoying themselves. Laughing at themselves. Enjoying one another. Moving their bodies. Smiling and feeling sure and silly and free …

And I feel almost ridiculous saying all that. But, if I’m being honest, it’s always been a true thing for me. Most of my best memories are on Cowboys’ dance floor. I kid you not. I imagine it must be what it’s like for musicians when they sit down with others for a jam session. It feels like human connection and like something bigger and better than ourselves.. It feels like possibility. Life hums. Vibrates.

For me, it’s something approaching a concept of Heaven I could actually look forward to …

So, I’m gonna grab my baby girl and we’re gonna dance in the living room to this on the daily for a while. We’ve already been at it. She lights up. Which makes my heart leap. Maybe she’s got some of her momma in her. And, if it’s this part, I’m gonna help her enjoy it as much and as long as is possible.

Love.

I am grateful

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I am grateful. For her. And him. And them. The dogs. The parents. The friends. The clients.

I am grateful. For the house. And the cars. And the bank account. The job. The work. The insurance.

I am grateful. For sun. Saturdays. Hot water. Cold lakes. Good wine. Fun music. Soup. Chocolate mousse. Soft sheets and pillows to cover my head. Lululemon leggings and messy buns. Long naptimes and short hugs and face smushes.

I am grateful. For grace. And life. And hope. Moments of peace. The power of prayer. Promise.

Amen and love.

2 weeks old

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It’s all still hard, but it’s getting better. Whether that is because of the human ability to adapt to new circumstances or because it’s legitimately slightly easier two weeks in than it was at a week and a half in, I can’t honestly say .... but it’s a tad bit better.

And she’s still adorable. And warm. And squishy. And when she falls asleep on me, immediately after nursing? There’s very little in the world that feels better.  

But she’s been air-side for TWO WEEKS. It feels so much longer and like it’s flown by at the same time. If this is any indication of how fast time will move through her childhood, I’m terrified and sad ... I don’t want to miss it. I want to cherish it. I want to be transformed by the pure joy of it. She’s precious and I never want to lose sight of that ... in fact, I want it to be so real for me that I can’t help but transfer that truth to her ... that she’ll believe it about herself and act and feel accordingly. 

I’ve spent a lot of time holding her and praying over her this past week - for her protection and health and wisdom and salvation and sanctification and innocence and confidence and mental health and relationships ... and I just get the sense that God and I are going to be talking a lot more simply because she exists. 

That’s not a bad by-product of these hard and sacred times.  

Love. 

UPDATE: It’s a few hours later and I’m on the edge again. A little resentful, a lot lonely, a whole lot more insecure - about my mothering, my instincts, my future ... and it’s feeling really heavy again right now.  I’m tired with no good sleep in sight. I can’t poop or sit comfortably like I could just two weeks ago ... and it’s crazy how body discomfort can really mess with a mind (see previous post at 37 weeks, ha). 

So there’s that real life. 

Love. 

 

40 weeks

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It’s my due date, and I already have an almost two week old baby girl.

I’m celebrating by changing a dozen diapers, offering up my boobs every couple of hours, trying half a dozen techniques to calm crying (with little, to no, success), and sitting and standing with an excessive amount of caution due to tears in the lady parts.

This ish is hard. Harder than I could have expected. Harder than I wanted. Harder than I would have signed up for. We’ve walked into a very harsh reality. One that is self-doubt inducing, emotionally overwhelming, relationally challenging, and worldview confounding.

In these first days as a family of three, I’ve marveled at her every feature, took thousands of pictures, cuddled her close and posted my pride on social media. But, in and out of those days, I’ve also had what one mom friend called “buyer’s remorse.” I’ve wondered out loud, “what have we done?,” and “what if I’m not wired for this ... what if I forced His hand and she’s going to pay the price for what I lack?” I’ve felt my blood pressure rise, my survival instinct flair up, at a hint of a whimper. I’ve worked hard at breathing deeply when she’s at my breast, hoping against hope that somehow I can spare her reading (and transferring) anxiety from her caregiver. I’ve struggled, tears streaming down my face, just wanting to hear my husband say all these feelings are normal and that I am a good mother, that, somehow, he’s seen me show up and impress him with my maternal instincts. And I’ve cried more, alone on the corner of the couch, when he’s remained silent. 

This is hard. She’s beautiful and precious. And I can’t help feeling like she deserves better than I’m giving her. And that’s all I’ve got right now.

Love.