Joyful Jottings: May 2008

The last few days have been a shock to the system. I don't mean for this blog to turn into too much yakking about kids b/c I set up blogs for Simon & Anson specifically to keep it channeled to the individual (although at some point I might end up merging things...we'll see), but I guess I get to make the rules here since it's my blog, so I'll stop prefacing and disclaiming. :)

Having kid #2 is nothing like having kid #1. When I got pregnant the first time, I knew that I didn't know anything about being pregnant, giving birth, or raising a child - other than whatever came intuitively from the Mama-Feminine intuition that courses through the veins of every woman. I didn't make the mistake of reading too much or accepting too much advice, but I went to birth classes & paid close attention to every sensation & shift in my body, emotions & mind. When I got pregnant the second time, I felt like I knew what to expect because I'd done it before. In a sense, this is true.

But from early in my first trimester I realized it wasn't going to be the same...even though throughout the entire pregnancy (and STILL) I have this feeling of self-expectation. "I should know how to do this. I shouldn't be surprised by this. I should be able to let that go/deal with that/accept what comes/etc."

Should has been a word that's cursed me my entire life. I come from a quasi-conservative Christian family with high moral standards, education, opportunity, and encouragement. All my life I've had high expectations of myself and felt that much was expected of me by my family & community - not in a heavy-handed-parent way (as if they'd disown me if I didn't get all A's in school or anything) but in a sincere "we know you're capable of a lot and are disappointed when you don't try very hard to do the best you can" kind of way. This is a good thing to feel from parents, I've decided. But as a young person I was prone to distorting it into a negative thing...that there were all these things I "should" be and do and avoid, and if I didn't I was dropping the ball & letting everyone down. This is probably not at all uncommon.

Now, even in my pregnancies and other adult-life-situations, I can't seem to shake that negative "should."

But I digress a bit too much. This pregnancy I thought I knew what to expect - of myself and of the experience. I was wrong. It was different, and I wasn't prepared for it to be so. I kept making excuses "it's just b/c I didn't have a 2-year-old the last time" or "it's because we weren't simultaneously packing to move across country last time" or "it's because our house wasn't on the market last time." But even though those were all significant differences in my experience, none of them were the core of it. The core of it was just that I was different, I had expectations this time, and I wasn't as open to the experience being its own and brand new.

Oops.

During labor I was highly uncooperative. It all worked out, obviously, but again I think I had the pre-labor assumption that I could do it and I knew how, and I didn't open myself mentally/emotionally for it to be something different. And since Anson's joined us in the outside world, my system continues to be shocked with the re-realization that I can't know what to expect.

This brings me to the beginning: the last few days have been a shock to the system. Not only am I constantly saying to myself (and to Adam), "oh yeah, that's what it means to have a baby" but I'm trying to navigate this brand new territory of having an older child with a baby to adjust to himself. Adam and I no longer outnumber our offspring, so it requires more communication & teamwork to make sure both kids are responded to appropriately.

I have subscribed to The Sun Magazine for several years now. In the most recent issue, there was an entry in "Sy Safransky's Notebook" (the editor's jottings in the back of each issue) that gave me hope and helped me forgive myself a little bit. I tend to have a much easier time forgiving others and the world and larger other-than-myself things, but I am hard on me. Here's the excerpt:

ADMITTEDLY HUMANS AREN’T doing so well. But put any other mammal behind the wheel of a shiny new Cadillac, 440 horses under the hood, and see if it does any better. Would a chimpanzee willingly relinquish the keys just because he’d been forced to sit through a PowerPoint presentation on global warming by Al Gore? So let’s show a little compassion for our not-so-evolved species. I mean, how many millennia did it take Homo sapiens to harness fire, or plant crops, or invent the wheel? The Industrial Revolution didn’t begin until the eighteenth century. Is it any surprise that it’s taking us a while to clean up the mess? How long does it take any of us to learn from our bad decisions and failed relationships and lousy habits we can’t seem to break? Yes, the planet is getting hotter. But even if we were crowded together on a slow boat to hell, wouldn’t we want to extend some mercy to our fellow passengers?

I realize that this has nothing to do with little insignificant me, but somehow it helps to think that our entire species isn't as evolved as it could be, and about much bigger things than expectations of ourselves as individuals. It frees me in a way - it doesn't eliminate my feeling that I need to be responsible for myself, my expectations, own my experiences, etc, but it does help me feel like maybe some of my "fellow passengers" will extend me some mercy...maybe even enough that it will allow me to show it to myself and let go of some of the unrealistic expectations.

That all said, here are a few pictures of my family at present. These guys are the source of my greatest struggles & joys, challenges & opportunities, discernment & intention.