Time, wishes, and raindrops

The Anniversary Clock that couldn't.

Today is Hawk's 4th birthday, which, to all you parents out there, is more than just a day of celebration.  It's also a day of remembrance.  Like, I'm sitting here at 7:49 am listening to the first rain in months and thinking, "Four years ago today I was in the hospital with Hawk nestled in my arms and happily latched onto my boob; Rooster was passed out from sheer exhaustion on the tiny little hospital bed to my left, his broad shoulders painfully folded in; nurses were coming in and out checking on my bleeding, asking me how I felt; and my heart and soul were realigning with the weight and honor of motherhood."

Yeah, so that's what I was doing on October 9th four years ago and today?  Today I'm alone in a dark apartment.  A massive rainstorm is bathing the parched ground outside and not a crack of sky is evident.  I can hear birds calling and raindrops on rooftops, the ticking of my keyboard and the purring of the cat.  But, I am alone.

Hawk is with his grandparents this morning.  I just called to wish him a happy birthday on the speaker phone.  Apparently, I woke up the whole house. "I can't talk right now because I'm too sleepy" he says in his Jersey accent. -- Goddamn, I love that little guy. --   But more importantly here, even if he weren't with PapaMimi, he'd be with Rooster.  He'd be apart from me.  On his birthday.

My life is so different from four years ago it seems almost unrecognizable.  The last month or so has been more brutal than all the rest.  I'm having a terrible time of reconciling my life today with my hopes from yesteryear.  I don't regret the divorce, but I regret needing one.  I wish that my life and my choices were the right ones for me and that my family were intact.  That I could get all my needs met and still be a "party of 3", be with my baby whenever I wanted to be, and safe with someone.

I don't want the old life I had, but I'm in such a place of flux.  I have no anchor, no base.  I'm in a transition and could be for years.

For our first anniversary, my parents gave Rooster and me an Anniversary Clock (this thing that you wind once a year and its pendulum twists).  The story goes that if it stops "ticking" then it's bad luck.  I'll never forget the day it did just that.  I laughed and said to my husband, "Oh my gawd!  Does this mean we're going to get divorced??  Say it isn't so!"  And he laughed warmly and said it was just a mechanical malfunction.  We never did get that clock to go for an entire year.

And yet, I wouldn't trade anything for Hawk.  I'll take all the broken clocks, the lonely mornings, the tears, the struggles and tribulations for one minute of knowing that kid.  I have to consciously beat down thoughts of losing him and remember to live my life with him as if we'll make it to 70 and 102 together.  The love and tenderness I feel for his little gassy, funny, precocious, sweet, thoughtful, and mercurial butt is all-consuming, all-defining.

Without trying to sound too dramatic, in some small way, motherhood is the negative space to my Me.  It shapes me without being me.  And so that makes today even more important because in a way I was born today, too.  It's still Hawk's big day, but I will also take this quiet morning alone to open my own little present to myself: knowing him and loving him.

Being awesome requires eye protection.

D-Day: It happened

I'd like to say I have no regrets, but that's just not true.

The divorce was final last Friday, the 2nd.  The day before my birthday.  I didn't make a big deal about it; I only called my mom, sister, and a friend or two after the fact; even less knew it was happening that day.

The entire thing took about 90 seconds.  Rooster came with me and my lawyer because, as he put it, "I've been a part of everything else in this marriage.  I should be a part of its ending, too."

He remained seated in the tiny courtroom, my lawyer and I stood in front of the presiding judge.  My heart pounded and I yelled to myself to calm down and to remember to breathe. 

I didn't cry.

When it was done, I turned around and walked back to Rooster.  His face was fallen, his eyes searching.  He quickly stood up and joined our exit.  Now we had busy work: papers to file, streets to cross, more papers to file. 

We shook hands with Rosemary on the corner outside the courthouse and she went right and Rooster and I went left.  "Where'd you park?"

"Over there," I pointed across the park where a dozen homeless people were milling around beside a white-washed pavilion.

"Wow. That was surreal."

And my throat closed off and my eyes welled up.  All I could do was nod.  "Yes it was," I managed to squeak out.  "See you tomorrow morning at the docks."  We hugged and I lingered in his embrace for a moment longer than I needed.  I'd see him tomorrow to go stand-up paddling.  This wasn't a Big Goodbye.

"Hawk woke up this morning and said he missed you," he gently offered.

"Thanks.  I needed to hear that."

And now I went left and he went right and as I walked by the homeless people at 9 am in 95 degree weather I noticed a rather large topless man with black underwear hanging out of his low-slung pants.  His pale skin dewy with sweat visible from the sidewalk.

"No," I suddenly decided to text Rooster, "What's surreal is seeing a 300 lb, half-naked man glisten with sweat at 9 in the morning and being divorced."

He chortled back and I went and sat in my car for an hour and let hot tears leak down my face as I tried to untangle the vortex of emotions inside of me.  Happy?  Sad?  Relieved?  Numb?

Yep.  Pretty much.

It's done.  We're friends.  We have Hawk.  We survived.

Waiting

 

Sunshine leaping into my arms.

In a few days I will be divorced. 

It will either be the day before my birthday or just after.

I no longer feel things.

This really should've been written in Haiku.  Divorce Haiku.

You hope beyond hope

Stars stutter your mind and heart

Wrong, pain, shit, stillness

My mother said something significant to me recently.  She asked if I was sad about the divorce because she "couldn't tell."

The truth is I am a master at concealing my feelings -- and let's be honest, it's a whole lot easier to believe that someone is ok rather than it is to believe they're unraveling one slimy scale at a time -- and I don't even mean to be. 

I don't try to deceive or misrepresent. I just can't share.

I've been loved and supported throughout this process and I have soaked it up like a desert-walker at a trough, but I only take what is offered.  I don't ask.  I simply cannot. 

This divorce has murdered me.  The Jessica that was is really no more.  And I don't say that to be dramatic or to illicit sympathy.  It really and truly just is.  I'm sure Rooster could say the same thing, or anyone who's ever gone through a traumatic and significant shift in their life.  It changes you.

I was changed after Dad died.  I was changed after Hawk was born. And now I am changed again.  Irreparably.

I have so much to say every day, but find that it's intense and sad.  I should probably write more to get it the fuck out of me, but I am embarrassed by the immensity of it, its boringness.  I read so many amazing blogs from people I really admire and I wish I could be more like them: pithy and bright, not dark and morose.  But... fuck.  I don't know what else to do. 

I have a post planned about how to muddle through a divorce with a 3 year old.  I think I have some really incredible tips, but I feel like such a failure (in life in general) that I haven't been able to muster the shell of self-acceptance needed to put it out there for public scrutiny. 

I can't believe one person even still reads this.  

But, here I am... tick-tacking away... doing my thing.  I'm ashamed and not ashamed all at the same time.  How can one human being be so goddamned conflicted anyway??  I'm exhausted.

Hawk is the light of my life.  He asked for me to come over and play with him while he was at Rooster's house the other day and I about had a fit I was so excited.  He's never done that before.  When he opens my bedroom door in the mornings his face is split in two with a smile and he says magical things like, "Good morning, sunshine!  Did you have good mommy-dreams?  I'm still a giraffe-tiger!"  What. the. fuck.

I'd like to say things will change around here, that the mood will get lighter, but that's a goddamned lie.  I have no idea when that will happen (at least I'm confident it's a "when" and not an "if").

Rooster is still my closest ally through all of this and that's almost as painful as if he were my biggest adversary. We're as thoughtful and considerate in the shredding of our relationship as we were in the braiding of it.  Ah, the irony. 

And there go the dozen emotions in as many directions.  I'm like a bomb that went off: shrapnel, broken bits, a splatter.  Divorced.

About a year later

I just realized it's been about a year since I first announced to the world that Rooster and I were splitting up.

And this morning I found my first grey hairs ever.

Coincidence? Mebbe.

I haven't colored my hair in 7 months in order to cut costs, so they've finally had the freedom to blossom among the dark wheat colored strands on my head --the little bastards -- but I'm certain they'd be there regardless.

Honestly, I don't really care. This past year has proven my mettle beyond a shadow of a doubt and I'm proud of myself.

Let me repeat that: I'M PROUD OF MYSELF.

I made the tough decisions, I strove forward, I didn't settle; I did the opposite of all those things when it would've been ridiculously easy to do so. Freakishly easy.

Some might think I gave up on my marriage, but the truth is I reinvested in myself and Hawk. I didn't want to suffer in that relationship for another 40 years and show my baby that misery and malcontent were acceptable in a longterm relationship. That was simply unacceptable to me.

Rooster wasn't happy. I wasn't happy. And though we talked endlessly, burned holes in couches in therapy for a year, cried buckets, and still loved each other, we decided reconfiguring our partnership was the best thing for all of us.

We earned the right to re-write our lives. We were never idle participants.

So wow. A year later. I can't believe it. And I can truly say, "I have the grey hair to prove it."

No air

After two and a half hours of laborious attention to detail there is a heavy silence in the room.  The voices have stilled.

I have just agreed to the final stipulation.

It is a heavy, vibrating space.  My mind blank and rustling in the breeze of the previous emotion; a shivering leaf in the moment before the heavens bear down.

My lawyer looks at me.  "Are you ok?"

"Yes," I answer with stolen breath.

She looks at Rooster.  "Are you ok?"

"Yeah," he says.

"Ok," her mouth moves.  And in a moment that lasts an eternity later I hear:


"It's done."

A giant, silent gavel slams down with thunderous finality sucking the oxygen out of the well-lit and sparsely decorated room.  Like a vacuum on the cavity of my body all breath is whipped from me; snatched like a baby in harm's way.

"It's done" echos through the remains; rattles in the cage of my heart; tells me to fuck off.

I can't breathe.  I fight tears.  Her face is kind, sorrow-filled.  Rooster is calm, enviously still.

I struggle to compose myself, busy myself with papers, a drink of water.  They begin to talk.  My eyes fill with salty tears.  I lose one down my hot cheek. Perhaps two.

I focus on their voices, the timbres, the syllables.  One, two, two, three, pause, etc.  Lilting noise keeps me anchored lest I fly away in a swirl of regret and pain and bullshit.

I can do this: I will not feel.

I will not.

Later.

Maybe.



maybe.

Put me back together again

All the king's horses and all the king's men 

couldn't put Humpty together again.

I don't feel as despondent as ol' Humpty, but I definitely feel as though I'm on a wall and I'm a big, giant, awkwardly shaped fellow about to teeter one way or the other.

• The job market is dire.  
• My divorce decree is *this* close to submission.
• I've been separated from Hawk for almost two weeks straight.
• I have no money.
• I am wrecked.  Wrecked, wrecked, wrecked.

It's a lot.  I told my mom that I need to by a Lotto ticket so at least that way it'd be one thing I didn't have to worry about. Her erudite response was, "Why don't you want to work on the other things, too?"

My answer?  "Mom, I can't buy a ticket somewhere that will solve my [job, divorce, broken-heart] problems, but I can buy a ticket that'll fix my money ones."

Still haven't bought that ticket.

I've been stuck in an eddy of self-doubt and reproach the last few weeks, but particularly this last one.  It took my sister calling on Saturday (July 9th) to give me a clue as to why.

"It's Grandma's birthday today.  I just remembered.  And 5 years since Dad died yesterday."

"Holy shit.  I totally forgot."  Though in reality, I don't think I forgot at all.

Our bodies do mysterious things.  We absorb every experience we ever have into our cells, our memories, our very fibers.  Consciously, I've been preoccupied with my here and now and my scary future, but my core... it knew.  It remembered.  We can ignore, deny, or even be so little as to not even have the language to understand, but still, experience is housed inside of all of us.

I've felt a lot of relief since identifying this particular rapid.  I can at least navigate it better now, face it head on, whereas before I had no idea how I'd gotten stuck in that eddy.  It's helped me feel stronger, more focused, less out of control and depleted.

But it's still hard.

I'm not going to say it's the hardest thing I've ever gone through, but it's very well tied.  And sometimes I wonder that maybe it's not more painful because I refuse to let myself go there - I really don't know.  Last time I felt this level of grief I was a newlywed, not a mother.  My guard is up.  High. 

After I realized I'd missed Dad's anniversary I called Rooster in tears.  He's still the only person whom I truly trust with my feelings about my father; he was with me every step of the way and helped guide me through the haze of putting myself back together that year. And, true to form, he was there for me again.  Listening and supporting and letting me cry my jagged little cry on the phone making no sense whatsoever.

So maybe I really have fallen off the wall and cracked and now is the time for piecing my shit back together again.  I can only see a new Me right now, not the old.  That woman doesn't exist anymore.  Only the new and improved Humpty is around here.  I guess I better get rolling...

How do I make money??

I played trivia with friends last night. Bought a $2 Lone Star, tipped a buck, then our team won and my share was $4.  So, essentially, I made $1 last night.  So now who's a bad ass?  

This is a question I pretty much have on my mind 24/7.  It's difficult to figure out the exact equation for job:loss ratio.  I mean, at what point is a $10/hour job worth it?  Should I get "just anything"?  When I was nannying for friends a few months go they paid me $12/hour, but I doubled my gas bill and was literally so exhausted at the end of the day I could barely sit upright let alone look for work.  I know it sounds so simple to so many, "Well, just do it.  You have no choice."  But really, I did the best I could and it involved not having so much left over to look for real work.

So, how destitute do I have to be before that $10 seems adequate and worth the time/energy loss?  I haven't figured that out yet, but I'm hustling other ideas.  I'm going to open an Etsy shop once I've built up a library of things to sell.  My parents want to give me a commission for selling some of their shit on Craigslist.  Rooster will give me 100% of the profits if I can move an old armoire out of his garage so long has he has no involvement in it.  I'm going to sell my old car.  And my sister -- the loving, sweet, big little sister that she is -- has been sending me a few hundred dollars a month that helps me just barely stay in the black.

I've considered moving apartments, but then I'd probably be further from the city and Hawk's amazing school if I wanted to keep the level of comfort I have.  Should I sell my car in order to save about $50/month in gas?  It's paid off.  Does that make sense?  I don't have cable and so I watch Hulu and the Instant stuff off Netflix which is $9/month.  Rooster suggested I get rid of my iPhone, but it's only $85/month and I need a cell phone regardless.  Does that make sense?  I basically don't eat on the weeks Hawk isn't here, so I save money on food.  When I go out and have to buy my own drink, I get $2 Lone Star, because yeah, having a life and socializing is imperative for my happiness.

I think I'm missing something, though.  I try and pretend that I receive NO income whatsoever and think about what I would do differently.  But honestly, my brain can come up with no answers.  I'm worried I'm secretly a loser (yeah, yeah, yeah, this post was me on a good day).  Lazy.  Good for nothing.  A colossal piece of shit.  Shouldn't I be doing something work-related right this second, for instance??

June has been a really great month for job opportunities, though.  I've applied to half a dozen jobs this month alone!  Compare that with half a dozen since March since I have limitations on the jobs I can apply to: I'm not flexible with hours and shifts I can work and I don't speak Spanish (ohhh, how I wish I did!), and for the last 3 months most available jobs were weird shifts and required a language I don't know.  However, I start volunteering at a reputable agency here in Austin soon and I found a supervisor I highly esteem.  Things aren't all bad.  (You see this circular internal commentary?  You suck --> you're trying --> try harder --> you still suck.)

Friends and family are always telling me I should get paid for my writing so I did some research on freelance stuff.  Ohmyfuckinggodareyouserious??  Pages and pages of bullshit.  Cents per copy.  Business relationships.  Contracts.  Legal issues.  Casting a wide net.  It's who you know.  It's a full-time job.  Blahblahblah.  Can you say overwhelmed??  Maybe I should have taken up all those advertisers looking for space on my blog. Anyone want a Better Homes and Garden link up?  A post-swap?  Maybe Kraft dinners?  I'm into it now!!  Please come back!

In a post-Bush economy, where do the over-educated and slightly-behind-the-eight-ball folks go for cash??  Please.  I'd really like to know.  I need help!

When I know I've done something right

My little boy's love handles are gone.

Being unemployed and muddling through a divorce is not fun.  No. fun. at. all.

I spend the better part of my day feeling like shit because it's somehow my fault I'm unemployed, because, naturally, if I were doing it right I'd have a job.  The other part of my day I'm feeling half way between joyous at being out of a painful relationship and crushed that my partnership with a wonderful human being is forever relegated to "father of my child" instead of "partner forever."  There's also a whole lot of swearing, laughing, searching, thinking and hustling going on, too, but that's the gist.

Sunday, as you all know, was Father's Day and Rooster decided he'd like me to join him and Hawk for the day.  It was my custodial day and I would have been happy to let them hang together sans moi, but I was happy to be a familial unit, too. 

Rooster and I have so many relationships with each other right now. We are co-parents, divorce adversaries (and allies), friends, and exes.  It's a lot to manage. 

Sometimes I have to ask him to not cross the streams when I hear him start a sentence with, "So..." I know it means DIVORCE and depending on which relationship I'm in with him at that moment I might have to say, "Please, can we just put that on hold and just hang today?"  He obliges, but I know he's waiting for the moment when the paradigm shifts and he can get whatever's on his mind out into the space between us.

Sunday was all friend and co-parent day.  Hawk has really melted into our new family structure and no longer clings to one or the other of us when we're all together.  We swam at Barton Springs and ate at a favorite greasy spoon.  When we dropped off Rooster Hawk was sad to see him go and even before we were out of the driveway he was saying he missed his Daddy.

I don't know how many times I've said something like, "I know you miss Daddy, Baby.  I bet it hurts in your heart, huh?"  He'll respond in the affirmative and I'll go on, "Daddy misses you, too.  And when you're with Daddy Mommy misses you and you miss me, too.  We all miss each other these days, but it's ok.  We all love each other and when you're apart from someone you love, sometimes it hurts.  It'll get better, I promise." 

He tells me misses me whenever he's with Rooster and that he loves me very much.  We hug, we hug tighter.  We talk endlessly about MISSING SOMEONE.  Oh God, how it breaks my heart that he's so familiar with this ache; his little, bitty heart.  Missing someone.  GOD.

And then Sunday nights and Monday mornings are heavy-hearted ones for the both of us.  By now Hawk knows that he's going to stay the night with Daddy the night after school on Monday.  He's excited, but then gets quiet.  "I live with Daddy, and you, and Papa-Mimi.  I live in lots of places.  But I really just want to live with you."

I know he doesn't mean it literally -- when he's with Rooster he says the same thing -- but it's his longing, his anticipated missing of me that makes him say such a thing.  He knows he's loved by these three households and loves them all fiercely in return, but his mind is trying to catalog all the players in his life.  It has to make sense in some way.

"When I'm gone living with Daddy you need to be strong," he goes on.  "Don't cry, don't be upset.  I love you and I will miss you, too, but I will see you soon."  I burst into tears and hold him close to me.  Where has this child come from?? This sweet, amazing, brilliant, tender child.

"I will, Baby, I promise, but it's ok if I'm sad, too.  But I'll be ok.  I just love you very much and wish we could be together all the time.  But I want you to be with your daddy, too.  He also loves you very much and misses you when you're with me. This is what we all have to do.  We all have to be tough."

I don't know if I'm rambling, if I'm showing and sharing too much, but I'm overwhelmed.  By his kindness, my feelings, my life.  Fuck, this is hard.

But I know I'm doing something right if Rooster and I can identify our strengths and spend an afternoon together celebrating his fatherhood and if my little boy can self-assuredly pass between me and his father and his grandparents.   I might not always feel like a success, but I think that maybe I might be a bigger happy ending than I give myself credit for.  The job will come in time, but success -- to some degree -- is already here.

This shouldn't be easier

Fishbowl of life. This fish watched me my entire dinner.  So weird.

I had my wisdom teeth removed last Friday and spent the weekend in an opiate haze I struggled against despite having spent the better part of my undergraduate college career looking for exactly that sensation.  Hawk was supposed to be back in my arms on Sunday, but there was too much pain and too little thought process to make that happen, so he went back to Rooster on Monday and I missed out on 3 wonderful, little-person-filled days with him.

So there I was, toothless, kidless, and jobless all last week -- friends called on me, the internet entertained me, I scoured the internet for jobs whenever I was sober enough to do so -- when I got involved in conversations about balance, life, motherhood, relationships, and self.  Luckily I was 100% sober by then.

I'm miserable, but I'm also extremely happy.  Rooster and I are very certain this is the right thing to do, and as we proceed with all the divorce minutiae I wonder why the price has to be so high for this feeling of individuation, freedom, and excitement.  The weeks I don't have Hawk I am Jessica: all me all the time and it always felt utterly out of reach when I was in a pair.

I come and go as I please; see whomever I choose for however long I like; wake up and go to bed as I see fit; eat ice cream for dinner and stay up till 3 watching Murder She Wrote.

It's not as if I didn't or couldn't do these things when I was living with Rooster, I just never gave myself permission.  Why does it seem like couples worker harder and get less relief with two adults in the house than single parents on their own?? 


I have a theory on this (of course).  Lauren of Hobo Mama happened to post an article yesterday that really spoke to me.  I've been harping on the isolation of a SAHM for a while (how a mother is isolated, has no sense of self in this economy, all the while being pitted against other mothers), so it's always a boon for me to see it in published form and embraced by the general public.  So that's what's going on for the mama in the pair.

But here's the thing.  I don't want women the world over to have to separate from their partners just to get some breathing room and to feel like a grown up.  There has to be a middle ground and clearly Rooster and I had no idea how to make that happen and neither do any of my friends.  It wasn't until I left the building that he was able to spread his parenting wings and really take over for me.  I get that marriage and relationships are hard, but are we making them harder than they have to be by simply not giving ourselves permission to leave the house if that's what we really need to do? 

Or maybe it was a product of my personality and relationship... I don't know... what I do know is y'all are working really fucking hard and now I feel like I'm cruising.  Sure, I'm crushed with fear and stress about my employment situation, but over all, I am free.  And Rooster is free, too.  He can go mountain biking whenever he wants, or go for long rides on his motorcycle with no fear of my reproach because I want him home due to exhaustion.

I guess it's all about permission.  Couples need to embrace the idea that their partner has varying needs and then take it a step further and give them permission to pursue satisfying them -- whatever they may be.  Some mothers might need a lot of socializing time outside of the home and her baby; another might need to earn money; a father might need to be able to sit in his underwear and watch the game uninterrupted for an entire weekend.

We have to give everyone permission to find relief or else.  Literally.  There is always an "or else."  Not necessarily divorce or separation, but damage is done, certainly.

All this from listening to and watching my fellow friends struggle under the [self-inflicted and socially adopted] oppressive demands of being a parent.  It's not just the mothers who are suffocating.  I know the fathers are, too.  I'm here to tell you, though, that by 3 years old it does get better.  The kids might be ready for a pre-school or other organized activities (if that's gonna be your route) and you can breathe lighter and spread your adult-wings.  And I'm also here to beg you to find someone to watch your child overnight so you and your partner can go out and just be John and Peg, or Sally and Sarah, or whomever.  Not Mommy, not Daddy, not a butt-wiping, life-saving, cooking, cleaning, thinking-five-steps-ahead-at-all-times, parent.  Just. YOU.

It's such a weird position to be in these days, an outside observer of the nuclear family.  I get the definite sense my partnered friends look at my life with envy -- and I do, too.  Of course they also look at me with pity, and -- quite frankly -- I do, too.  Guilty on both counts.  In any case, we all need to look more closely at our system and our relationships if what I'm doing feels better than what I had.  It shouldn't.  It just shouldn't.

Let's do this bitch

I've been feeling a lot better later.  Lighter.  More focused.  I'm still jobless, but at least I don't feel like I'm slogging through waist-high mud anymore.

People have suggested meds for this bullshit, but it's situational, not quite yet chemically based.  I know the difference.  Not that I'm against meds -- oh, definitely not -- but a job-a-day will definitely get these blues to go away.  That and signed paperwork and a big step f.o.r.w.a.r.d.  So, yeah.  No meds required... just yet.

Basically, I'd be a really bad lottery winner.  I need shit to do and I'm rather bad at finding things when I'm paralyzed with fear and sadness.  Funny how that works.  But I'm managing.  Applying to jobs as I find them; dreaming up an Etsy storefront (anyone want small paintings of random flowers by an amateur artist??); watching marathons of Murder, She Wrote; crying and laughing (way more laughing, by the way -- I'm too dead inside to cry); spending lots of time with Rooster and Hawk on off-weeks, savoring every second of my on-weeks.

 

Season 3, ep. 8: "Magnum on Ice." 

Speaking of Rooster, we went to Hawk's first-ever parent-teacher conference the other day.  Here are some highlights as told by Hawk himself (well, not really himself, but you get the gist):

• I eat at just about any opportunity (both snack times and lunch) and I eat each piece of my lunch separately (chips, then sandwich, then fruit, but never a little of each all at once)
• I have forgone the pre-nap hug-n-kiss instead preferring to just go to my mat with a book
• I get along with all the kids and have begun sticking up for myself when someone snags a toy (“Hey!  That’s mine!  I was playing that!) whereas I used to just stand there bewildered
• Fleur and I will often have to be separated at nap time because we like to just stare at each other while holding hands instead of sleeping
• I frequently compliment the female teachers on their outfits to great appreciation of my observations
• I always like to help a teacher out and answer, “Of course!” when asked
• I usually nap, but Hannah can’t figure out what the combination is that makes it so
• I love the “Jump Up!” song
• I am particularly good at the “Guess What Animal This Is” game and it’s also my favorite
• If Hannah can’t find me, I’m usually in the sand pile
• Once, when Keenan kept hitting me and I finally hit him back, I got upset and Hannah had to reassure me that I wasn’t in trouble (though, hitting is never encouraged)
• I don’t share my food (as a rule), but I will occasionally ask someone else to share and then I’ll give something back in exchange
• I really take eating seriously: no funny business.  Just sitting and eating.  No playing and running around
• Hannah can always count on me to be mellow and stable.  I’m sometimes the only kid in Dungeon room who goes quietly to his mat before nap time. 
• I also just use the baño.  I don’t play in it

I totally cried.  But happy tears this time.

We also went to the Houston Space Station (or whatever it's called). Oh. my. god.  I don't even care about space except that it's beautiful and fun to look at and imagine about, but I was still awed by some shit.  Especially that Saturn V rocket thing.  Wow.  I mean, as a kid I liked the planets mostly because they were pretty -- not because of the science -- but building something that massive that flies to outer space??  Pretty fucking cool.  Even for this artsy, loved-English-assignments kid.

Did you know they put Model Ts on the moon? Either that or this is just a bad Grapes of Wrath re-enactment.

Space shuttle landing, natch.

Really.  Who looks more excited to be here?  He might have said something about how he's been "waiting my whole life for this moment!"

Saturn V engines.

   

Yesterday my sister told me she thinks I should start "hustling."  I wish it meant getting dates, because that'd be awesome.  But alas, she meant jobs. However, I've decided that I'm somewhat reliving my 20s, but in a much smarter way.  I mean, just look at this picture of me and my BFF.  Don't I look super smart?  The cigarette really proves it.  Can I get a job from being colossally cool on a Saturday night?

So, my next big project is to update this site.  It needs a new look and definitely a new tag line (I came up with that one during a crying jag - so lame).  Man, I gotta update my BlogHer profile and my FB one, too, now that I think of it.

Also, this blog is going to see more of me.  As in ME.   Not Mommy Jessica or Feminist Jessica or Natural Parent Jessica.  I mean, they're all in there, but I've decided to let more of the ribald, crass, grown-up in me come out, too.  It'll be like a French braid of feminism, parenting, pscyhotherapeutic rhetoric, and cussing.   I hope you'll like it.  I wish I could somehow make this site into a sex column and answer everyone's sex and relationship questions, though.  Non-sequitur you say?  Nah, not really.  I'm surprisingly good at that kind of stuff and I think it goes with everything else seamlessly. 

Ok!  Coffee's kicking in.  Time to dress and tackle the day, my couch, my life, and the world!

The loss of a pregnancy never had

Ever since Hawk went to daycare I've felt like something was missing.

These days, the strangest things trigger my sense of loss: a trip to my old grocery store, walking by the fish tank in the mall on a late mid-week morning, meeting a friend for a coffee downtown.

I tell myself that all of this would be happening regardless of my marital status, but it just somehow adds insult to injury.

I see mothers with their children cooing at them and carrying on conversations in that lilting singsong that mothers have.  I see them piling into their cars with arms laden with groceries or shopping bags seemingly content with their position in life and I think, "That was me."

What paralyzes me the most, though, are pregnant mothers.  Their bellies swelling with a sibling, their little ones expectant big brothers and sisters, their families growing.

Before Rooster and I admitted that we were falling apart we tried to get pregnant.  For roughly 18 months we tried.  I never said anything on this blog because I didn't want to jinx it. 

The first time we tried to get pregnant it worked in the first week and I naively I figured it'd be just as easy for round two.  After 3 months and no pregnancy, I started charting my ovulation.  After 10 I went to a fertility specialist who wanted to immediately put me on clomid.  I balked since I checked out 100% and didn't want to generate twins just because I was desperate to have a baby.  Instead, Rooster got checked out and we discovered things were a bit amiss.  We tried IUI, but that didn't work, either.

Meanwhile, I was raising Hawk, spending afternoons in the park and planning weekly meals; trying valiantly to deny the state of things between me and my kind, loving partner.

Eventually, Rooster and I had to look at each other and be real.  There were times when I hoped I'd get pregnant just so I could give Hawk a sibling, marriage crumbling be damned, I'd make it work!  It was that important to me. 

I myself am a big sister and Larry (my sister - and no, that's not her real name!) is an inspiration, a support, and a friend I can't imagine my life without.  I used to joke with Rooster that I didn't want Hawk to have to deal with our crazy asses alone for his entire life.  I wasn't really joking.  We're going to be a motherfucking handful.

And now my sister is trying for her second baby.  I have blogging friends who are on their second pregnancies, too, and with each joyful sharing of news I feel punched in the gut.  Chances are extremely slim that I will ever feel a life growing inside of me again, a babe at my breast, Hawk as a big brother.

I don't agree that "It could happen," because I won't let it.  I don't want to argue my rationale, but suffice it to say, I'm 35 years old and I'm trying to reboot my career; I don't want a huge age gap between my children; I don't want two daddies, two schedules, two disjointed lives.

I realized I was holding my breath for months in hopes that no one I knew would get pregnant again just so I wouldn't feel my own loss.  Selfish, I know, and I'm ashamed to admit it, but there it is.

I feel nothing but love and joy for all my pregnant blogging friends (Dionna, Lauren, Allison, and Arwyn), those women whom I know in real life (at least 4 I can think of off the top of my head), and those who are trying, but it also shines a spotlight on my own void -- something I need to just work through, I know, but it's there nonetheless.

For months, before I told anyone about my relationship, I couldn't speak about a second pregnancy without tearing up.  It was the one topic I tried to avoid with all my friends and family as I told them what was happening to me and Rooster.  I can talk about it now without feeling overly emotional about it, but if I think on it long enough, the tears will come - oh, they most definitely will!

I feel like I've let Hawk down.  Robbed him of the bond only a sibling can provide.  I grill any only-child I come across, "Did you wish you had siblings?" "How do you feel about your parents' aging?" "Were you lonely growing up?"  For the most part, you only-children out there are pretty well adjusted folks with an air of sophistication about you I've always admired and coveted.  You're not spoiled, weird, reclusive assholes!! Well done! haha

I know that a sibling doesn't guarantee happiness - lots of siblings are freakin' jackasses - but based on my own experience it's been a breathtaking journey of love and life to have a baby sister.  I feel things for her I don't for anyone else on the planet and I wanted that for Hawk like I want air to breathe.

But it's over. 

That window is closed and I'm walking past it with as sure a stride as I can muster.  I tell myself I'll love my bright, Star-Wars-obsessed little guy all the more for it; try not to think about horrendous what-ifs and I'll not laugh at "The dingo ate my baby!" jokes, because, really, it's not that fucking funny to have a dingo eat your baby.  Come on! 

I've said before that I never thought my life would be linear, so I need to embrace that belief and be happy with what I've been given which is one little boy who is sunshine and rainbows, and a few years spent with his wonderful father.  It's really not all that bad.  Maybe, if I'm lucky, my future holds step-children, or even just another's children, and I can grow my family in a different direction.  I'm down with that.  Definitely.

Expressionless

parle pas.

When you're someone who likes to share it's more than just imparting information that makes you tick.  It's a sense of connection, of vitality, of life.  When I share I get to feel how I make others feel, how my stories might resonate with them or make them laugh.  I love to see people bowled over from my ridiculous (true) stories or to feel their support in warm smiles and tight hugs.

But I can't share anymore.

I'm cut off from my heart, my emotions, my will to pretty much do anything other than put one foot in front of the other. 

But I like to think you'd be shocked to know it. 

I make a good show of it; the whole "fake it till you make it" thing really does work.  I'm feeling better this week than I have in months and I have been socializing with new and old friends regularly, giving myself a break, all while doing the hard ass work of sledging through divorce terms such as "custody," "community property," and naming the fucking cats in the divorce decree.  -- Yeah, Digby and Lola will be in ink on my divorce papers.  Lovely.  --

I know I don't hide it all all the time, but I try.  A select few have called me out for not being myself and I've asked to be allowed to go through my process my way and promised to do my best to stay connected to them.  They've agreed; they love me and are worried I may never return to my old self.  The truth is there is no way on earth I could come out of this the same person I went in, but I don't want anyone to worry unduly.  I'll be a new and improved version of Jessica on the other side of this.  I'm convinced of it.


Hawk and I have rounded the corner of Mommy-Hating that we were swirling around in like an eddy in an angry river.  When he's with me he's 100% Team Mommy, when he's with Rooster, it's Team Daddy.  I'm beginning to understand that he has no recollection of the two of us together, and when Rooster and I mix company on off weeks Hawk's whole equilibrium gets shoved out of whack. 

We've stopped so much mixing and things have stabilized and my heart doesn't break each time I hear, "No, Mommy, go!  I don't want you here!"  Well, that's a goddamned lie, it does break, but not with quite same vigor as it did before I figured it out. 

I've been holding so much back I imagine this is what it feels like to be male (sorry, dudes).  I never cracked when Hawk hurled toddler slurs at me, I never cry when my friends ask me how I'm doing.  I talk about the divorce, its proceedings and status, like it's my taxes. --  I stubbornly admit that I cried when I saw I had to name the cats in the divorce decree.  It was salt in my wound, the last straw.  I was a broken-backed camel, with a salty wound. -- I am in more control of myself now than I ever have been and not sharing is the key... well, that and being dead inside.

Bears hibernate and so do I.

But I'm luckier than those hairy bastards because spring comes each time I look into Hawk's eyes and when he tells me how very much he loves me.  Any disagreement, slight, or complication that's been on my mind ghosts away the second I am brought back to real life: to my son.  The one and only creature on this planet that matters.  The one for whom I'm working so hard for.


There's no accounting for the path of a life, but we can count on love.  For me, it's the love of my baby, my sweetest little one, and his for me.   This much I can share.  I can shout it from the rooftops and feel more human for it and not at all vulnerable or sad.  It's invigorating and life-affirming. 

Being with him is like coming up for air. 

Loopty-lou of life: Some seminal moments

 

Hawk 'n Rooster.  My dudes, redefined.

There have been some seminal moments in my life since I last posted.  All good, some sad.  I'll list them in order of precedence in my mind:

Numero Uno:
While at Rooster's house, Hawk grabbed a curtain rod (don't ask) and pulled the two pieces apart.  He handed me one, kept the other for himself and started making light saber noises with his.

"Mommy," he says between "vhooms", "you're Luke Skywalker and I'm Darf Vader."  And he raises his sword and strikes mine down.

My freakin' heart exploded.  I mean, intelligent, imaginative play; a worthy opponent; Star Wars!?!

♥

No. 2:
Rooster and I officially filed for divorce.

The day it happened I was in tears.  I felt like each cell had a tiny string attached to it and they were all being slowly pulled in different directions.  It was a feeling of implosion and explosion all at once.

I spent the evening at Rooster's eating chicken tetrazzini and sharing the documents with him.  It was at once horrifically sad and wonderfully exciting.  I love the way our relationship is transforming and molding to our situation.  As adept as we were at communicating through our marriage, we're equally agile in dissolving it.

I'm proud of the way we're handling things and I am eternally grateful for his support, intellect, kindness, and devotion.  We have our moments, for sure, but honestly I'll take our "moments" over other divorcing couples' any day.

No. 3:
Hawk has become very popular at school.  Numerous times teachers have come up to me to tell me that the other children like him very much, particularly the girls.  One little girl he's always with, Fleur, even told the teachers that she loves him "very much."  And whenever she's around when we pick him up she races over to hug him.  Sometimes multiple times.

Ok, that deserves another ♥

I can't tell you how happy this makes me.  For kids to be successful, they have to be liked in some manner.  Either it's a spirit they have or a talent, but it's something other kids are drawn to.  And by "successful" I mean navigate through life towards their own goals with as little barbarism as possible.  Likeability is a key factor in this.  I know some people are born with it, others have to learn it, but I'm glad it's coming naturally to him at this point in his life, because who knows?  it may not last his entire school career.

Hawk's two best friends at school: Keenan on the left, Fleur on the right.

 

 

   

 Spiderman. 

  

 

 Spiderman again.

 Today it's a cape.

 

 

  

Safety first, yo.

No. 4:
Hawk wrote his name (with some direction from me).

 

No. 5:
I took my body measurements and I'm 41-32-43.  This makes me very happy; I've never been so content with my body in my life.  The numbers aren't what I used to want, but I love them now.   It's true what I've heard about your 30s all along: they really do fucking rock.  I think the days of hating my body may very well be over.  Woooooo!

No. 6:
Hawk prefers Rooster over me, in a major way.  I'm toughing it out, but it hurts like a bitch.  I'm finding little moments to connect with him and keeping a stiff upper lip about the whole thing, so it's not too fucking awful (no, wait.  It actually really is), but it still sucks ass.

In Hawk's eyes, it must seem like I've abandoned him -- we spend so much less time together than before.  It's another hurdle we have to get over, I guess.

I often repeat, "It's a phase, it's a phase, it's a phase."

 What I woke up to one morning.  Yay!

  

A cupcake after dinner. There may or may not have been a meltdown incident after this.

 

A Wednesday morning (on an off-week) spent reconnecting over pancakes.

It's been an eventful week or two, for sure.  I can do this, though.  I'm feeling the momentum building...

What is a displaced homemaker?

Displaced dog-lover.

This is a displaced homemaker:

A woman who was once dependent on another's income, but is no longer due to a change in marital status (divorce or death) or a sudden change in financial situation (partner loses his/her job), and is forced back into the workforce.  

Apparently, officially speaking, I'm right on track with my loss of identity, confusion, and fear.  As is my defensiveness and unspeakable desire to run away from it all.  We displaced homemakers have a lot of bullshit going on (emphasis mine):

She must cope with the rigors of basic survival, provide for herself... and get on with the business of deciding what she will do with the rest of her life.  These are no small tasks under the best of circumstances.  Goal setting may appear to be an easy task, but for an individual whose entire life is in disarray, even setting the goal of picking up an employment application is a major activity.  The displaced homemaker, at this point, is usually struggling to make it out of bed each morning, and often feels incapable of more formidable efforts.*

So... now I have another label.  First it was small, like, College Graduate; then a little bigger, Owner of a Masters Degree; then huge, such as Wife and Mother (do they keep getting bigger in life??); and finally, Divorcee and Displaced Homemaker.  

Ok, I'll take it.  I'm a displaced homemaker, a mother, a woman, and struggling.  Really fucking struggling.

I mean, half of my life includes being wrapped in soft, sweet arms; kissed with innocent lips; snuggled with and adored; filled to the brim with purpose and meaning.  The other half I am alone; wholly grown-up; drunk with friends; adrift; empty, terrified, and jobless.

I am thrilled at my freedom to be Me, but also deeply struck down by it.  I don't entirely know who that is anymore.  I am a mother without a son half the time, I am a wife without a husband, an ambitious woman with no job, an animal lover with no animals, a care-taker with no one to take care of, a lover with no one to love.

This separation/divorce thing is splitting me in ways I didn't even know were possible.  Not only have I separated from my life partner, but I have been cracked away from ideas and identities that were integral to who I was as a human being.  I had no idea I would be this shattered, this broken.

I feel dead inside every moment I am away from Hawk without exception.  My heart is icy, downright black.  I care about nothing.  Getting out of bed, being industrious, holding conversations are all becoming feats in and of themselves.   I do it all, every day, but I'll admit it's a struggle.

As I see myself slipping I understand that it's part of the process.  I knew this was going to suck.  -- What?  Did I really think that everything would be peachy?  No.  I knew it was going to get dark, I just didn't know it'd also lose who I was in the process of discovering who that was in the first place.

I think, "If only I had a job.  It'd keep me busy, give me something to do, someone to be..." But it's not that easy.

I had a conversation the other day I wish I hadn't.  I can't tell you how many times people ask me about my job search and how it's going.  I'm getting used to it.  I know that people care about me, but it's like asking "So, how's the cancer thing going?"  I don't really want to talk about it (it's painful and terrifying), but I do because I know friends and family are worried.  But this particular chat struck me to the bone like the others hadn't.  I was asked, "Why don't you just open a private practice while you look for other work?  That's what so-and-so did."

The question is innocuous, I know, but the message I got was, "You're not doing it right.  You're not doing enough.  Look at this other woman, she did it right.  You have no excuse to not be working."

This is a perfect example of my current state of mind, of how goddamned wounded I am.  I don't really know if that's what this person thought about me by their "helpful suggestion," I just have no buffer because I am lost and I am mourning.

My face, neck and chest flooded with heat and I had to fight the tears as I took a deep breath and responded as non-defensively as humanly possible that a) I don't want to start a private practice right out of the gate after a 3.5 year absence from the field, b) I have zero capital to do so even if I wanted to, c) I don't want to be isolated as a new therapist from my colleagues and would prefer an agency setting or other cooperative, and d) I don't think it's as easy as this friend of a friend made it seem; I have friends whose private practices are only just now in the black after a year of work and they had monies in the cache to do so.

I was gently argued with on these points, then given a couple of concessions.

I felt somehow simultaneously vindicated and even more defeated when I walked away.

I'm treading water from technical skill alone, not strength.  I only look normal:  I bathe, put on makeup, laugh easily, socialize.  I don't think people understand what's really happening to me; how sensitive I am.  How hard I'm fighting to keep my walls up and remain protected from the outside world.  What a big fucking deal this all is.


I have lost everything I knew and loved.  Everything I thought I was.  This isn't just some fucking bad mood.  I'm not weak.  I'm not making this a bigger deal than it really is.  This is awful.  And I don't give a fuck if someone else has it worse or it could get worse.  Of course it could get worse.  I'm not so self-absorbed or ridiculous that I don't know that, but really, what good does that line of thinking do other than make me feel stupid?  It doesn't make my feelings go away.  I appreciate some perspective, but I'd really rather skip over the idea that I'm not allowed to feel this way just because some other schmuck has it worse than me.

When I visit Hawk and his dad, Rooster, at my old house my heart clenches.  I see the plants I painstakingly put in the ground, the wall colors I spent weeks debating on, the old friends from across the street, the hopes I had sunk into those four walls.  When I look closer I see nail-holes from removed pictures, rearranged furniture, a masculine feel, a new smell; Rooster feels different.  He doesn't need me.  Hell, he doesn't want me. -- But of course!  It's all (say it with me) part. of. the. process.  The mother fucking process.

I feel like that house and its inhabitants are my ghost arm.  I'm limbless and I can still imagine I feel it, but it's gone forever.  What I had is gone.

...

sigh

...

And in case you were all wondering, I'm actually ok.  I'm just hurting.  An ok, hurting, displaced homemaker.

*I did a search for the psychological definition of "displaced homemaker" and stumbled across this paper written in 1981. 

New bank card

I'm exceedingly sad today.

For some reason today feels worse than all the other days.  And I'm not at all sure why.

Maybe it's because the test is over and done with and I don't have anything to fill my thoughts but with WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?  WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU AREN'T DOING ENOUGH!  DO MORE!  WORK HARDER!  TRY HARDER!

I have to get a job.  It's very simple.  Yet, I still feel horribly displaced and out of sorts by all of this.  My baby is away from me every day and I only see him three hours a day during the week.  That barely feels like mothering to me after doing it for 24 hours a day for more than 3 years.

I know that many displaced homemakers such as myself have gone through this and it's comforting to know there's a universe of women who know what this is like... but it still sucks shit.  It sucks. fucking. shit.  And a half.

This past Friday my financials with Rooster split.  Meaning, half his paycheck goes into my own separate account now.  I received my cards in the mail weeks ago, but never activated them.  I thought I was lazy, but really, I was in denial.  As I slid the card in the ATM slot Saturday to activate it a little piece of me shredded.  My own account.  Alone.  Separately.


Rooster is cracking under the financial strain of doubling our expenses.  I don't blame him.  Meanwhile, I continue to shatter into a million tiny bits and pieces.  A little here.  A little there.


I look into Hawk's ocean-colored eyes with the dark blond lashes and I see love and hope.  I look into the mirror and I see sorrow.  Stark and lingering.


I'll be ok, I know this, but... but I don't know what.


I look at my friends and I see more love and support.  I would drown if it weren't for them, their belief in me.  I am dried up inside.  I care about so very little anymore.  I feel almost nothing when I am alone.


Every day I think about my future and my baby's.  I am proud of myself and feel strong then I get sucked into a vortex of fear and self-doubt.  I love my life -- love it -- but it also feels like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  One week I am Jessica.  Rowdy, raucous, bold.  The next, I am Mommy.  Loving, responsible, devoted.


Each week causes me whip lash they are so utterly different and each so potent in their affect on me.


My bank card somehow proves this.  I am on my own.  Alone.  Both me and myself.

Attachment parenting through separation: It makes it a little better

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have shared the parenting essentials they could not live without. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

(Ed note: Originally written for the carnival 2/2/11.)

I woke up in that cool, pre-dawn light today with my nose cold.  Austin is currently 18 degrees due to an arctic cold front.  I snuggled under my down comforter and stretched.  It'd been a rough night.  I'd woken up at 3, 4, 5, and now 6.  Hawk is sick.  Really, really sick.

It started two Sundays ago with swollen eyes and a pinkeye, ear-infection, and sinusitis diagnosis.  It was my week to have him and Rooster was in Kansas for a death in the family.  I parented solo, and happily; I was in total control of all his care.

This past weekend Hawk started out strong, but by Sunday he was clearly not doing well again.  Rooster returned to town and we did the switch.  Monday, I went to the house to see Hawk.  He looked like hell.  Rosy-cheeked, glassy-eyed, quiet.  Later that afternoon Rooster took Hawk back to the clinic and they diagnosed him with a slight infiltration of pneumonia in his right lung and now a double ear infection.

I was still hosting a friend of mine from out of town and as soon as I dropped her off at the airport I headed back to see Hawk.  Parting with him when he was so sick broke my heart.  I'm his mama.  I keep him safe and strong and well, right??  I stroke his hot cheek and tuck him in, get him his "cowd water," give him his medicine, keep track of his breathing and heart rate.  I am simply there.

But not any more.  Now I am a mile or two away, alone in my apartment texting every hour with his father.  I can't tell you how many times I've talked to Rooster about Hawk over the last few days and I'm grateful for that, but goddamn this is by far the worst feeling as a parent I've ever felt.  Not only is my baby sick (and really sick), but I am not there to comfort him.

If it wasn't for the simple bond that I've built with him through attachment parenting -- gentle, loving, and supportive -- I would lose my mother-lovin' mind right now.  Through all of this, this whole divorce/separation bullshit, I've relied heavily on my philosophies that being intuitive, meeting his needs, and believing in his strength will get us all through this.

Attachment parenting -- and the entire attachment theory in general -- posits that if you wholly meet the needs of a child they will survive when you are absent.  They will be ok.

I don't know... I feel like we're living proof that attachment parenting through separation works.  Hawk seems to have settled into his new routine a lot faster than other kids have.  Yeah, it's been hard, it's stressful, we all have our moments, but Rooster and I have learned to sink into the mild trauma of transitions and navigate them with little to no bumps along the way.  I can't speak highly enough of understanding developmental milestones and a child's cognitive abilities.  It's eye-opening and enlightening to say the least.

And this can be applied to any family, not just one who's cracked in two.  Any family can fall back on the tenets of gentle, natural parenting whenever there's a disturbance in the force, you know?  Any family can give their kid a break and look beyond the behavior to outside forces that might be causing it.

Yesterday Hawk spent the day with me so Rooster could work, but today Rooster is taking a sick day and I'll just go over to the house to relieve him for a few hours.  I'll get to be close to my baby and touch his soft cheeks and hold him close, and I'll get to fill my broken heart with his sweet baby love.

I cried a little this morning as I watched videos on my phone of Hawk dancing to Katy Perry and shouting, "Happy birthday!!" over and over.  He's so precious, so innocent.  Being apart from him is a special kind of hell that I have only had a month to get used to.  I know it'll get better, but damn...  I just thank my lucky stars that I've done it all the way I have so far.  I can't imagine my life without this connection.  It makes me feel lucky despite everything that's happening and for that I'm eternally grateful.


Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

(This list will be live and updated by afternoon February 8 with all the carnival links.)

• Not Without Him — The love Starr at Taking Time shares with her husband is the foundation of her parenting.
• I Cannot Imagine Parenting Without B(.)(.)bs — From an uneducated dreamer to a breastfeeding mother of a toddler, nursing has forever changed Kristy at Strings to Things's relationship with her daughter and her outlook on life.
• Raising a Child in the Internet Village — When Jenn at Monkey Butt Junction has a question or concern about parenting, she turns to the Internet. What did parents do before Google?
• Partner in Crime and Parenting — Bethy at Bounce Me to the Moon can't imagine parenting without her husband's sense of humor - he brings her laughter and love every day.)
• I Make Milk — Patti at Jazzy Mama can't imagine trying to mother her babies without her breasts, but she could do it if she had to.
• New Perspectives Bring New Beginnings — MJ at Wander Wonder Discover, who is a former authoritarian mamma, has gained perspective via parenting.
• Time Out! — Mrs. Green at Little Green Blog explores how time apart can increase your capacity to give unconditionally.
• Unimaginable Without Him — Kristina at heyred designs is celebrating her amazing partner, without whom none of her parenting experience would be possible.
• My Parenting Necessity — Claire at The Adventures of Lactating Girl needs "me time" in order to be the Mama she wants to be.
• Babywearing As a Way of Life — Darcel at The Mahogany Way talks about the benefits of babywearing in everyday life.
• Parenting Partnership — Sometimes Abbie at Farmer's Daughter doesn't appreciate her husband enough, but she definitely couldn't imagine parenting without his help.
• Parenting Essentials — Momma Jorje loves her parenting products, but she needs you even more.
• My Parenting Must-Have: Support — Joella at Fine and Fair wrote a letter to her daughter about the role that support from friends and family plays in her mothering.
• More Than Just Hair — Think doing hair is full of fluff? Too girly? Useless? Karli from Curly Hairdo Ideas used to think so too.
• The Minimalist Parent — The parents at Living Peacefully with Children embrace a minimalist perspective when it comes to baby gear. A good sling is all they need.
• Without My Breasts — Charise at I Thought I Knew Mama can't imagine parenting without her breasts; here's why.
• Loves Books, Loves People — Seonaid at the Practical Dilettante discovers that the library is a perfect fit for her family's needs.
• An Ode to the Maya Wrap — RevMama's next child might be named Maya, because of her fondness for the sling.
• Avoiding the Padded Room — Pecky at Benny and Bex is here to testify that it takes a village to raise a child.
• My parenting essentials, from Tivo to battery-operated monstrosities — Lauren at Hobo Mama presents a list of parenting essentials you didn't even know you needed (and probably don't…).
• Attachment Parenting Through Separation: It Makes It a Little Better — Jessica at This Is Worthwhile talks about how she couldn't survive her separation without attachment parenting and the bond it's afforded her with her 3 year old son.
• Parenting Essentials — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares the principles she used to parent her children from infants to adults.
• My Parenting Essentials — The things that are truly essential to Kim at In Desperate Need of Entertainment aren't things at all.
• I'm No One Without My Sling — How baby carrying is essential to the parenting of Jessica Claire at Crunchy-Chewy Mama.
• I Cannot Imagine Parenting Without... — Isil at Smiling Like Sunshine talks about what she needs to raise her children.
• February Carnival of Natural Parenting — Through her experiences over the last five and a half years, Casey at Love What Is has discovered her most important tool for parenting is using her instincts.

• CNP: I Cannot Imagine Parenting Without __________. — The Artsymama discloses the one thing that gave her back control of herself as a parent.
• Laugh Until I Cry — Laughing with her sons keeps Acacia at Fingerpaint & Superheroes connected and grounded.
• I Cannot Imagine Parenting Without — Luschka at Diary of a First Child realizes what the one thing she can't imagine parenting without is, and it turns out it's not a thing after all.
• It Takes Two — Here are a few of the reasons why Jenn at Adventures Down Under cannot imagine parenting without her fabulous husband.
• Stopping to Listen — Though it wasn't easy at first, Knocked Up - Knocked Over cannot imagine parenting her daughter without listening first to what she is telling her.
• The Essence of Parenting — There are many wonderful resources that make life easier for Michelle at the Parent Vortex to parent, but the essence is the relationship between parent and child.
• What I Cannot Live Without — Sybil at Musings of a Milk Maker considers her computer to be a parenting lifeline.
• True Blessings: White Noise and Grandparents — Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment can't live without her white noise machine and the support of her parents.
• The Necessities! — What "stuff" does a natural parent like Lily, aka Witch Mom really need? Not much, it turns out.
• Mama Showed Me — Mama Mo at Attached at the Nip writes about how parenting wisdom is passed on by example.
• Ode to the Loo — For Joni Rae at Tales of a Kitchen Witch, the bathroom is her safe place, where she can take a minute to calm down if she is feeling touched out.
• Go, Mama. Go! — Andrea!!! at Ella-Bean & Co. has been able to integrate her many roles through her get-up-and-go parenting essential, exercise!
• My Other Half — Becky at Old New Legacy realizes what a relief it is to have her husband parent alongside her.
• Grace, Love, and Coffee — MrsH at Fleeting Moments realizes that lifelines can take the form of the profound, or the mundane. Both are ok.
• Supportive Spouse, Check! — There are so many parenting tools and gadgets that are superfluous, but the one essential, for Danielle at born.in.japan, has been her supportive spouse.
• Why I'm a Babywearer — Meredith at Becoming Mamas reflects on the ways babywearing has enhanced her mama baby relationship...and made life easier to boot.
• It's Marvelous Out Here, Kiddo! — Rachael at The Variegated Life can't imagine parenting in the big city without the marvels of Prospect Park to share with her Critter.
• Yes, Thank You — Amy at Anktangle offers tips on how to ask for and accept help, an essential for successful parenting.
• Parenting Essentials Checklist: Mom’s Inner Rebel and Her Kids’ Voices — Olivia at Write About Birth reflects on raising global citizens and saying no to societal norms.
• Eco-Mama Online! — An Eco-Mama living in the mountains of a nature island, Terri at Child of the Nature Isle finds it essential to connect to nature and to connect online.
• Sorry, We Just Sold the Last One — Nev at The Adventures of Lime confesses she missed out the day they handed out patience.
• Laugh — Tashmica at The Mother Flippin' Blog reveals her super power, her talisman agains mean mommy.
• My Priceless Parenting Resource — What do books, a magazine community, my mother and the local playgroup have in common? Lucy at Dreaming Aloud tells us...
  
• The Gift of Shared Time — Tree at Mom Grooves strives to experience the world from her daughter's perspective.
• Follow the Giggles — Dionna at Code Name: Mama can’t live without the sound of her child’s giggles - come watch her video and you’ll agree!
• Can I Mommy Without Boob? — Emily at Crunchy(ish) Mama shares her fears about weaning and losing part of that mother/child bond.