search: empathy

dexter: one month

Ten pounds! I celebrate your hugeness all while cradling your tiny body in a single arm. This month has brought you the understanding of day versus night and I get to see your eyes more while the sun is up. You have now pooped on your Daddy four times. Thank you, Dexter, for not extending me the same courtesy.

Speaking of poop (well, let’s face it, that is one of your three main activities these days), you make the Blue Steel face when you’re trying so hard to push one out. Remind me to watch Zoolander with you when you’re old enough so you can appreciate the similarities in the pictures we’ve taken.

It hasn’t been easy for me. After 3 hours of crying, it’s all I can do not to sit you in your swing and run for the door. Sometimes I doubt myself about this mom stuff, but I hope you never doubt that I’ll keep trying.

I tell you constantly that you are smart and strong, and you prove me right when you lift your little head off my shoulder and push yourself half off my lap with your kickboxer legs. You are smart. You are strong.

When you stare at my face and wave your right hand around, I’m tempted to turn an ear your way. One day soon I’ll get to hear the story you are desperate to tell me. Until then I will have to settle for those quiet moments when it’s just you and me in the rocker at 2am. You nestle yourself under my chin and grunt yourself to sleep. I might dream of 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, my son. But I could sit in that rocker all night.

Happy One Month.

 

dexter: day 4

You’re only on your fourth day of life, Dexter, and already you are your own little person. I’m staring from across the room as your Daddy tries to burp you and wonders exactly how hard to tap your tiny little back. It hasn’t been easy these last couple of days. No one told me how a walk across the hospital room could be excruciating and much energy it would take to tear myself out of a hospital bed when you cried. The C-section was never my plan, but I can’t regret it. It got me you. The tiny baby with the reddish tints in his surprisingly dark blonde hair. The wrinkly face with the big eyes that go all round when you get hungry. The way you immediately quiet when I touch your face and say your name. The funny left foot that kicks straight up in the air like a flagpole.

You, Dexter Lenox Dean, were worth it. Welcome to the world.

 

big dreams

when i was 13 years old, i could easily name all the professions i DIDN'T want to be. not a doctor (eww, too much blood), or a vet (too many dogs), not a teacher (kids are annoying), or the president (not enough power). other than that, my options were open.

just 4 years later, i walked shakily to a podium and urged my classmates to build their dreams into beautiful castles. to gather the stones of their own journey and refuse to look back. my mind danced with visions of literary greatness, political lobbying, and covert ops.

then college happened. what had been previously praised as limitless options was tied down by the label "undecided." no major seemed to point directly to where i wanted to be, so i tried advertising. the idea of being my own think-tank appealed, and the thought of writing short messages for the world was a strong seductive force.

for a time.

now i teach. i demonstrate, i mold, i provide the foundation for other peoples' dreams. it is a noble and wonderful profession. and yet some days it's not enough. some days i open the blueprints of my castle and grieve for the stones not gathered. and lately i wonder if "undecided" has forever captured my limitless options.

anniversary

two years ago yesterday i married my husband. i laugh and shake my head when questioned about the wedding. i encourage others to elope and throw a grand party. i complain that the details have become blurry and that the day was a kaleidoscope of faces and family.

truth? i wouldn't have traded my wedding for all the hawaiian islands. i loved the debates over whether a song was appropriate for dancing or a little too "booty shakey." i smile over the fact that candles hung in mason jars and my grandpa's air force pin was clipped safely under my train. best of all...i will never forget walking down the aisle.

that walk wrecked me. it humbled me, lifted me up, caused tears to stream down my face, and imprinted the moment as a memory that could outlast alzheimer's.

at that moment i knew how much i was loved. how much i had been loved. how much i will always be loved. at that moment i thanked God for his many blessings.

and two years later i'm still thankful. 

written expression

every month i look at my amex statement and am reminded of this cookie jar of my thoughts. i miss the opportunity to express myself in more than 140 characters. perhaps july begins the search again.

blood and diamonds

sometimes, it's what we choose NOT to talk about that defines us.

like anyone else, i peruse the magazine covers as i wait for my groceries to be bagged. did you know angelina jolie is coming clean about her relationship with brad? and apparently they've discovered obama's 34th birth certificate. the glossy covers are hard to ignore and even easier to chat about over coffee.

then whenever i get around to checking twitter, i can tell you what my friends are watching, drinking, hoping at any given moment. i might even be able to give you a scandal-by-scandal account of the bachelorette...though i've never watched the show.

we are connected... no, informed, in so many ways.

tonight i sat down to watch the movie blood diamond. it took a hollywood adaptation to bring me back to the streets of amsterdam. to the girls in the windows. to the human trafficking flyers. to place me once more in a darkened auditorium watching a documentary on invisible children. to hearing a 15-year-old talk about how many he has killed. to a classroom studying the history of violence in south america. to creating ads exposing the human rights stories of the "disappeared" in colombia.

the final line of one of my favorite goo goo dolls songs comes to mind...

"what's the point in all this screaming, you're not listening anyway."

it's been a long day. a couple minutes before deciding to post, i lay with my head scrunched into my pillow, softly explaining why i don't want my last memory of my grandfather to be in a hospital bed with wires.

it feels selfish. but my throat begins to close just thinking of that 5th floor room.

he used to be chief of police. and yesterday i was driving home remembering the one time i ever saw him tear up. not cry, mind you. but eyes that looked glassy just for a moment. that was the christmas only days before we left michigan. that was the christmas when we made him the "world's best grandpa" sweatshirt with the handprints.

weakness was not in his vocabulary.

but now the parkinson's is weakening his will. and the dementia makes him sad. and all i can think about is a sweatshirt with tiny orange and red and blue handprints on it.

my eyes turn glassy, but no tears. i think maybe i got that from him.

i won't grow up

i have this bizarre need to watch a disney movie. mulan is high on the list right now (which is odd considering it was never my favorite).

we sang a couple rounds of "under the sea" after club tonight and "a whole new world" is sighing its way through my brain at the moment.

a cup of hot tea. a warm blanket. a day spent on a couch with princesses and beasts and an evil witch named maleficent. that's all i ask.