Written under the influence (of hormones)
Here goes old news: I'm pregnant with my 4th baby. I've been so sick - as sick only as I was with Veronika, which is not pleasant. I kind of thought I was done with the extreme sickness as with the boys' pregnancies I could still sort of function, but this time, I've been bedridden again, now for almost 2 weeks and sick for almost 6. But anyway, pregnancy does not sit well with me. I think it's safe to say I hate it. And every time the same thing happens. I see my kids and how much fun we're having, especially now that all of them speak and their personalities are blooming and I think: More kids! Great idea! Then I get pregnant and everything changes, everything. I think: More kids! Horrible idea! What was I thinking? How did I not remember how much I hate this? I will lose my body and my freedom and my sleep and basically... control. I don't want this. I want opportunities! Freedom! My skinny clothes! Grown-up parties! And most of all: control! I want it how I want it. I don't want a baby seriously cutting into all that is mine. Obviously it doesn't help that in between those thoughts I'm bending over a toilet bowl. The baby, it took control! It took it all, right away. Poor me.
Yeah, so I'm a very grateful pregnant woman. I count my blessings and whatnot. Seriously though a part of me always knows that this is where my life is supposed to go. I had three kids and I couldn't bear the thought of being done. I love my children and I love my husband and here we are having more, it just doesn't get much more logical than this. The problem is I know I don't see life as it happens. I suppose most people don't. Being in the middle of the story makes it impossible to make oneself an objective picture of it, and although looking back often involves selective memory it is in some ways more accurate in describing what really happened.
Having my first three kids relatively close together was exhausting. I thought it would never end. I was overwhelmed and wanted it all to pass quickly. I don't wish those days back, but I do feel wistful sometimes. I see now that it was just a part of it all while at the time it was all I knew about life with children. The agony of making it through the day was right there beside the joy of the beginning of their (and our) lives. They are inseparable. Sure it could've gone another way, but it would still not have been easy. I struggle with the responsibility of it (see above), but I'm grateful to myself for having done it. I wanted another child because after a few years now I can see where all these diapers and tantrums are taking us to and I like it. I wanted more of it. Except when I didn't. It will always be this way, the commitment and the reluctance at war.
I'm not a happy pregnant woman and I'm not sure I'm a good mother, but my kids are good and it's about them. That is the perspective that connects me to the end of the story and keeps me bending over that toilet bowl a fourth time now.
Maybe next lifetime
I love Adele. I wrote about that a while ago and won't repeat myself. (And won't mention that I liked her before she was popular, which was like uh, 2 years ago? This girl is too young.) I realize part of what makes her so dear to me is the deep voice. I've wanted a deep strong voice all my life. When Lauryn Hill went solo I just couldn't get enough. Obviously the music had something to do with it, but the voice... Sadly I was not blessed with anything that could be called even close to "husky" or "dark" or "deep". Quite the opposite. My voice is light and squeaky at times. I was a soprano in choir. Probably not a full one, it took me a bit of work, I could've been a mezzo I suppose, but anyway. I don't have the deep voice. I don't sound experienced or heavy or mysterious or tragic. In my ears I sound nice. In the very non-exciting sense of the word.
Oh, to have a voice like Adele or Lauryn or Etta James... To make your statement in a song with that heaviness, it won't even matter what you say, people will listen. You can just belt out your point of view and silence you surroundings. In my head that's how it works. I don't know if when I listen to Adele it brings something out in me or I just wear her attitude like a coat for the duration of the song, but either way I can imagine this is what I sound like on the inside. None of that light soprano that glosses over anything important I think I have to say. I am deep and strong and mysterious, but the world will never know. I share this sad fate with millions of other delusional wannabes, who would if they could, but they can't so they just move their lips with the music and pretend...
Posted at 02:11 PM on December 06, 2011 | Comments (6)"Where is de cozy cozy fingy?"
Hey, I made myself a muff. What is the point of a muff? Good question. People wear gloves nowadays. Except for the occasional little girl with a nostalgic mother buying her stuffy looking old fashioned gear.
This is how my need for a muff came about. I bought a cross-body bag a few months ago, because I got tired of my big purse where I carried too much stuff and that I always had to hold with one arm, so it wouldn't slip off my shoulder. I bought the bag and suddenly my hands were free all the time, but then the weather got colder and I could never remember to bring my gloves. I kept trying to warm my hands in my jacket pockets, which albeit are not positioned properly for this purpose since they only have a top opening and would only receive hands coming from a neat vertical direction. Then I tried to push my hands into the opposite arm's sleeves, which were too tight and ANYWAY: Cold hands.
It's made of old felted sweaters, stuffed with polyester batting and the lining is a stretchy soft nicky-velour.
I kept thinking if I just had something warm to stick them in right here in front of me, while they rest on my new cross-body bag. And then: MUFF!
The problem is only that my kids are enamored with that thing. Nikola will incessantly beg for it and then Ivan would want it too and they both fight over it, while I try to stuff my cold hands into my pockets that are not made for that or try to squeeze them in the narrow sleeves...
Posted at 05:50 AM on November 17, 2011Halloween
This holiday turned into a bit of a problem for us in Austria. Traditionally Halloween didn't even exist, but has gained enormous popularity as an US import. Then again, since carnival (the time before lent every late winter) is the usual time here for kids to get dressed up, Halloween is now the holiday where everyone dresses up as ghosts, witches and such. Trick or treating does exist occasionally I'm told, but it seems more popular with the teenage crowd who uses it as an excuse to party and leave tons of trash everywhere. So... trick or treating for us is kind of out and we are left every year to find a Halloween-related event to take the kids to. They of course are excited to dress up and mostly not as scary creatures. It's strange to come here as a kind of Halloween experts only to look out of place with costumes that are just costumes and not particularly spooky or scary. But we keep our heads up and don't care because, like my husband likes to say - "We" came up with this thing in the first place. (I'm told it was the Irish, but I will leave this detail out for argument's sake.)
This year Ivan wanted to be a skeleton, and he picked a glow-in-the-dark costume kindly mailed to us by Grandma. That costume is SCARY, which is exactly what appealed to Ivan. He is 5 1/2 after all and all he wants to be is seriously cool. None of that sweet baby stuff anymore. Ahem. I think once the costume arrived and it was up close and personal, Ivan discovered he was quite terrified of it himself, but he did not say a word and put it on bravely every day, but only for a short amount of time, not that you would've noticed unless you are his mother and can detect the slightest nervousness in that kid's eyes. Oh, it is the funniest thing. Last night we left the costume under a light and then tried out the glow-in-the-dark feature in the - windowless - bathroom and again... SCARY, VERY SCARY. Ivan showed it off proudly, but also rather quietly and then promptly took it off, put it away in his room and then this morning told me: "Uh, mama, I could see the costume glowing in my room last night. (pause) I was a tiny bit scared." A tiny bit! Only! Gah, this boy is delicious.
Nikola wanted to be Thomas the Train. It was a perfect choice for him, as he is constantly on the run and this costume sort of just drapes over whatever he's wearing and can take a severe beating. He was a hit at the Halloween fest. The best part about Nikola is always his swagger and his absolute bullet-proof confidence. He is awesome and he knows it. It's just another day in Nikola-world.
Veronika requested to be Rapunzel, from the Disney movie Tangled. This was my fault, because I had bought a sewing pattern for the Rapunzel dress and then left it somewhere out for her to see and be able to say she wanted it. I don't know why I had bought the pattern, probably in one of those frequent irrational motherhood moments where you pretend that simply believing everything can fit in your schedule will gloss over the fact that you've been behind that schedule for years now. I groaned and said, OK, I'll make it for you. And the I procrastinated another week. I'm not usually up for complicated projects. The chances of being interrupted and therefore messing everything up several times are so high and real that I am positively scared of putting myself in that emotional state. ("This will never be done! Another mistake! I have to do it over! This will never work! I'm such a screw-up!" etc.) It didn't help that when I actually looked at the pattern, I realized I didn't like it at all, it barely looked like the actual Rapunzel dress. But this story has a happy Hollywood ending, where I actually make the dress! I ended up altering the pattern completely - which I never do - and I made it in time. I don't know what happened. Maybe my kids are older and I have a few more hours every day. It was a fun project. Veronika looked adorable.
As I was making the dress with the trims and the lace and tulle I kept thinking that this might be the last princess dress-up dress she'll request and the thought just took my breath away. Then again I reminded myself that the desire for dresses of other kind will not go away - since I still have mine alive and healthy at 35. It's just with kids... they mark the time relentlessly with their constant growing and leaving stages behind, one after another. I can't keep up.
Posted at 04:57 AM on October 31, 2011September
Apparently I now write seasonally.
Oh, the end of summer. People get sentimental around Christmas, but I am completely defenseless when it comes to fall. The last days of August are the saddest of the year: the last time you jump in the water, the cooler breeze on your skin, the darkness arriving at 8 pm, a full schedule ahead, none of it involving good friends and good food... Ideally summer represents the best things about life. Spending time with people you love surrounded by nature that seems relaxed and ecstatic just like the humans. It easily transports you to a realm out of time. Nothing else counts but the present and it requires no effort whatsoever. As if there was the same tune playing in everyone's ear. It's how things ought to be. Always.
Summer is best when you are a child. Never again does one feel the air, water and sky the same way. At the time we are completely unaware of it. Only later in life the memories come back and you realize what it was. Watching my children going through this stage I relish reliving the experience with them. Except this time of course I lack the innocence and I'm aware of time passing. An inevitable effect of having children: the painful sobriety about the shortness of life.
Summer is how life should be. Except for that eternal part. Every fall I fall into sadness that things are over. There are more summers coming of course, but I can't quite shake the chill that those are still numbered in the end. Finding peace in the moment without fretting over what's to come is the hardest challenge. I can only try. And retry.
Until next summer.