the squibix family blog

This is what happens when I get two pairs of Christmas socks that are too small. My feet aren't as petite as they were before I had my babies and started spending long periods of time picking up heavy things and moving them to different locations.

I've written about making a sock monkey before. They're not at all hard, though more time consuming than you think for something that necessarily comes out looking "homespun." The only downside to making sock monkeys is you really need a new pair of socks to pull one off. In a used pair of socks it's the heels that go first, and it's precisely the heels that you need to create the shape of a monkey (two to be precise: one for the butt and one for the nose). You can make a bunny form a worn pair of socks but it looks even MORE homespun, even on the verge of venturing into the "trash" category. So unless you have a new pair of socks that just ain't working for you, a sock monkey isn't really upcycling in any way.

On the other hand, maybe the upcycling obsession is a little much in this case. Maybe you can show your friends enough respect to not give their kids trash toys made out of your old dirty socks.

I don't really know who these monkeys are destined for. The next pair of siblings to have a birthday, perhaps? The next two one-year-olds who invite us to parties? The couple at church who I barely know but I know are having twins? All possibilities, now that they're in the "finished" drawer. Oh how I love that finished gifts drawer.

Of course, Harvey and Zion were eyeing the first monkey as it came together, each of them fighting for their turn to hug it. So if I run out of steam next month maybe these could serve as impromptu Easter gifts for my boys. On the other hand, they act like that with EVERYTHING I sew. They pretty much want every toy they have ever seen or heard of, ever. And Harvey already has two sock creations that he never plays with. Except to throw at me when he's angry. So maybe no more monkey business for that one...

I am excited to participate in this year's leap of faith, even if I expect to be a bit preoccupied over the next two months. As long as it's not called "keep your house clean of faith" I think I can manage. Doing a little more bible reading and a little more praying will be right up my ally when I'm bedridden. And then after that I'll get to enjoy all those extra middle-of-the-night awake moments that are prefect for praying.

I'll be asking God for some stuff, two things actually, which really seem like one thing in the end. The first is to supernaturally smooth out my relationship with Harvey. Don't get me wrong; I really love Harvey. He is sweet and smart and fun to be around... often. But he's also going through a phase where sometimes, sometimes for moments and sometimes for days on end, he tries to make life as miserable as possible for everyone around him. He wants to fight with someone, and we just happen to be the people he lives with. The fact that this is a normal stage of development doesn't make it any more pleasant to live through. (Seriously, I am about done with the word "options," as in "I don't like those options for dinner!") My dearest hope is that our love for each other can survive both my legitimate disciplinary measures and his legitimate raging against the machine.

So during this leap of faith I'll be praying every day for God to give me more of the love that he has for Harvey. Love that I assume is truly, supernaturally, demonstrably unconditional.

And there's one more thing.

I want to be a person who welcomes other people into my life. I mean, sure I host two home groups a week and I am even as I type this getting ready to welcome another human permanently into my home (contractions are 7 minutes apart and 15 seconds long, so I think I can bang out the rest of this blog post.) But I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that hospitality is different than really loving people. Sure, I welcome many people into a home when it's clean and I've made fancy snacks. I welcome people into a specific impression of me that I have cultivated, as an accomplished homemaker or at the very least a consistant hippy.

This month I would like to think about inviting people into my vulnerability. I would like to think about connecting with people where I'm not clean and put together, where I don't know what I'm doing, where it's not about ME offering THEM something but us actually loving each other. As frightening or annoying as that sounds.

Those are the prayers I'll be floating for myself this Leap of Faith, and I trust that God will do something productive with them. And here's where I offer you an invitation.

During this season I'll be praying for my friends that God does good stuff for them. I'd love for YOU to be included in that group. If you would like me to pray for you during this leap of faith, please leave a comment after this blog post, or email me separately if that feels more comfortable.

There are other ways you can get involved in our church's leap of faith this season. If you're in the area, please do join us for church on Sunday mornings. There will be fun new things to try during each of the church services from now until Easter, and as always there are free coffee and bagels. If you're reading the blog from somewhere (gasp) outside of Massachusetts, you can still help yourself to the daily bible guide that starts this March 9th (I think this will be on the website; Dan can you link this later if I don't have time to find it before my labor picks up.) And you can also pray for me and let me know how I can pray for you.

Please do take a leap with me this year.

I called the midwife at 6am, and she got here before the kids woke up. Harvey woke up first, a little after 7am, and he found me hanging out in the bath. By this time I was having contractions 15 seconds long and 5 minutes apart. They weren't too terrible, but they were enough to make me close my eyes and clench my fists, and Harvey was very excited to see that something was happening. He sat with me in the bathroom, and after each contraction he exclaimed brightly, "All done!" and "That was a short one!" I was overwhelmed with feeling grateful for Harvey, my sweet compassionate firstborn, especially when Dan came in to offer breakfast and Harvey said "I don't want to leave Mama."

Then Zion walked into the bathroom, looked at the two of us, and burst into a plaintive, "I WANT TO GO TO GRANDMA BETH'S HOUSE!" We had a pizza play-date already scheduled for that morning, and the way Zion saw things it looked just enough out the ordinary that he was worried about a disruption to his plans.

I didn't want to mess with their schedule, so I gave the boys the choice. Do you want to stay and watch the baby being born? or do you want to go to grandma's? Even with Harvey's doula tendencies, there was no question in either of their minds. If the baby was not going to emerge from the womb holding two personal-sized pizzas, then watching the miracle of life was inferior to grandma's.

Grandma came and picked them up at 9:30am, and I was a little sad to see them go. At the same time I was starting to have contractions so strong they made me cry, so I was equally happy to be the sole center of focus in the household. Without the boys to distract him, Dan did a champion's job of filling the birth tub and taking care of me. Within a half hour I was in warm water sipping lemon juice from a straw. Another half hour later I was holding a baby.

We do these things quick around here. As long as the kids were at a play date, I figured I'd do the hard stuff first and get in the maximum time for relaxing.

In all respects this labor went better than my previos two. It was quick, but not emergently so, which meant I had longer to face the intense sensations that made up the experience. As for the pain, all I could think of was that gospel song, "Oh sinner man, where you gonna run to?" Left, right, in or out of the water, there was nowhere I could run to hide from the awful thing that was happening inside of my body. "Run to the sea," I thought to myself, "Sea will be a boiling." No shit.

Imagining the end times made me feel a little bit better about my predicament. Also I conjured up an image of the Lord presenting his face to the smiters (incorrect biblical reference, but whatever) and those two things together made me think I could probobly bear up under a few minutes of suffering.

As it turned out the whole thing was quicker than I expected, so that the contractions that threw me into the revelations-style reverie only lasted 20 minutes, and the two pushes that followed surprised all of us with their finality. The midwives rushed a bit getting on their gloves, but this time they believe me when screamed "THIS BABY'S COMING!" and there were plenty of hands in the water to scoop up the baby, perfectly pink and crying and beautiful.

Of course, at first I thought they were handing me my beautiful baby girl. I saw his sweet face and curly hair, the lower half of his body obscured by my arms, and I thought: here she is, the sweet little girl who's the answer to all our prayers.

Because before we conceived the children were praying EVERY DAY for a baby girl. "Please give Mama and Dada the seeds of a baby gu-guh" they said. How could God not listen to the sweet prayers of blond children?

And because we tried to maximize our feminine chances by timing conception four days before ovulation...

And because the baby in my belly was smaller and made me much sicker than the other two...

I thought for sure this one would be a girl. I didn't even have any boy names picked out.

I waited a few seconds for my arms to stop shaking. When I thought I had control of my limbs again I lifted the little body towards me to check. "Are you a boy or a girl?" I asked, almost for forms sake. And what did I see? A beautiful, feminine, LIGHT baby boy.

At this moment I was glad that my kids were not present, because I cried and I cried and I let myself feel the full weight of disappointment. The long wait of pregnancy. The agony of labor. Did my family need another boy? Had I failed them all?

And though life is long and we might get the baby bug again, or we might just screw up and slip with birth control, I had really intended to make this pregnancy my last. I thought so many times over the course of this last year: this being pregnant thing is just too much. It's not even fair to my kids. It's not fair to deprive them from motherly consortium for so many evenings in the pursuit of "planned" illness.

And so I mourned a lot of things yesterday. Not only the loss of pink frilly baby clothes which I intended to buy. I thought:

I'll never watch my child in a dance recital

Or braid long hair

Or teach someone how to put on makeup.

I'll never help anyone get ready for prom

Or shop for a wedding dress

Or stand beside a birth tub holding my daughter's hand, telling her I did this and it's going to be okay.

And then I thought: Well, maybe it's better if I don't have a girl, if I clearly have such horribly oppressive expectations for her entire life trajectory.

The kids got home from grandma's and were excited to meet the little one.

"I wanted a girl," Harvey said to Dan.

"I know," Dan said. "We all did." There was a respectful pause. "But this baby is cute too."

The baby made some newborn mews and the boys both giggled. "I like his noises!" Zion exclaimed. "He sounds like a kitty!"

"His hands are so tiny," said Harvey, kissing them. "I love you little baby."

And just like that my sweet sensitive (surplus) boys teach me how to be loving. By holding lightly to expectations. By facing surprises. By looking at what's actually in front of them and smiling at it and then getting distracted by toys and a huge blow up birth tub in the room.

This is the family I love. The real people God's given me to be with and to be surprised by and to constantly challenge my expectations. It makes me glad I don't get to plan everything out myself. As much as I think my plan is the best. Real life has a way of being blessedly different.

Dan's omelet was perfect of course, but sometimes the more specific the thing you ask for the more likely you are to be disappointed. The night of Elijah's birth I asked someone to bring over Ibuprofen for my cramping. She brought a full bottel of Ibuprofen PM, an interdicted substance for anyone nursing or needing to wake up every hour with an infant. Similarly, yesterday I confessed that I needed another pair of newborn pyjamas. I soon found myself with 12 pairs of 3-month outfits that are twice the length of Elijah.

With each transaction there is a predictable series of emotions. First the rush of relief when someone says they will solve your problem, then the flood of gratitude when that person puts a newly minted plastic bag in your hand. Then the slow burn of frustration, anger, and shame. Frustration when you realize the thing isn't really going to solve your problem at all. Anger that you have to find another way to solve your problem. And shame that you've put your pride on the line by asking for something, that someone has put out love and effort trying to get you the thing, and that now it's all for naught. You have fruitlessly 'used up one of your wishes.'

Now, in all fairness, people who aren't nursing don't carry around medical encyclopedias in their heads. People without babies don't have a sense of how big they are, and they don't know that 0-3 is a totally different size from newborn for some ungodly reason. And pyjamas and over the counter medication can be procured from Amazon with free two day shipping. In the mean time there's laundry. There's an expired bottle of ibuprofen in the cabinet.

Is it worse when you don't get something you're asking for from God?

Our church is currently observing a season we call Leap of Faith where we put our pride on the line to ask God for something we really want. I blogged about my current hopes this season, and I am praying for various things for my friends. I want for them (respectively) that they would: find more sources of income, have more time for creative work, connect with their neighbors, or conceive a child.

These are things that either happen or they don't happen; You either do or you don't get pregnant. Just by asking you're either setting yourself up for relief and gratitude or frustration anger and shame.

With asking God for something there's a sense of risk. It can feel like a big thing in a any relationship to work up the courage to ask for something and then deal with the disappointment of not getting it.

Though we love baby Elijah (and we really really do), every single member of my family had prayed earnestly for a girl. How do you process that sort of disappointment?

Do you ask yourself (like I did following the Ibuprofen/onesie debacle):
Am I doing a bad job of communicating?
Is it possible to ask for a very specific thing and not be rude?
Does the specificity of a request damage a relationship because there's more opportunity for error?
Is asking for help even worth it? Am I better off taking care of everything myself?

In answering these questions, I find that my relationship with God is much more resilient than my relationships with people. I am quicker to forgive God when I don't get what I want. This may be because God gives me other things that I like, like my beautiful baby boy. Or because I trust that God knows what's best for me. Or because in the end he's God, the judge of the universe, and I don't really have any other choice.

Indeed, every time God doesn't come through for me, I see it as a chance to make our relationship stronger. I get to affirm (like it's some great sacrifice) my love and trust for him beyond my capacity for understanding.

With people I tend to be less forgiving. Which is probably unfair, since they're so much farther away from omnipotence.

This season I hope to be able to forgive, to love, to accept help, and to leave myself open to disappointment. Not just disappointment from the God who I love, but from people who I sort of love but sort of find annoying. I hope (within the bounds of socially accepted time frames) I can keep on asking and keep on receiving whatever I get.

We got this car 5 days before the baby was born. Just look at all the stuff we can store, baby included! And that's not even counting the two back seats.

This is where the kids sit. At the moment I snapped the picture we were getting a bale of straw thrown into the trunk. Now that there's straw scattered all over the floor the van really feels like home.

The only problem with the van (well, outside the environmental impact of driving at all) is that I have to get out of my seat to hand the children food. I find I'm doing this between one and several times a trip, and we haven't taken many trips so far. At one point in our journey today I was squatting in the middle of the van handing Zion his water bottle, when the road suddenly turned and I was thrown against the side door.

"Are you okay?" Dan asked. I nodded as I struggled to my knees.

"Isn't it good we have so much room in the new car?" Harvey exclaimed brightly, "that you have room to kneel down, Mama?"

Once at our destination, the boys enjoyed the children's museum with their friend Eliot.

While Elijah enjoyed sleeping in the sling.

The weather was so warm that we could even eat our picnic lunch outside! Despite the piles of snow everywhere there are signs that spring is coming one day.

Baby E stayed toasty in the sling with an added blanket outside just in case.

After lunch we took in the discovery science museum, where there are nice soft lounge chairs for mama to sit in. I mean, something something the boys did science.

It was a fun day, but by mid afternoon I was ready to get back in the van. Adventures are tiring, especially when interspersed with nursing and poopy diapers. Luckily there's a nice long spring ahead of us. Here's to time for adventures and resting both.

So yeah, things are pretty much going exactly as expected.

Thankfully we have wonderful family and friends in the area, and today Harvey and Zion went to play at one grandma's house while the other grandma came over and held Elijah for over an hour. So I had the biggest blessing I can imagine right now: a quiet hour around my house HANDSFREE! I ran around just putting stuff where it belongs. Having a 3rd baby has given me a newfound pride in how much work I do every day just putting shit away. I don't mean this in a bad way; rather the reverse. It makes me feel important to believe I'm indispensable to the household, at least in this one area that no one but me cares about.

People have asked how the kids are doing with the transition, and I think the answer is also "as expected." Harvey is in love with the baby and excited to help with dressing him or pointing out every time he opens his eyes. At the same time he's thrown off by the disruption to his routine, and unsure how the breakdown of parenting responsibility is changing. He compensates by asking Dan to actively engage him every single second. Can you play legos with me? Can you fight with me? Can you read me TinTin? Dan is very quickly teaching Harvey to read in the hopes that it'll give us five minutes of peace and quiet one day.

Zion also asks to hold Elijah and says very adorably, "I wuv you baby Elijey." At the same time he's taken to coming into our bed in the middle of the night, which I don't mind if that's what he needs, except sometimes I dream I'm trapped inside a submarine. Also Zion has ramped up his being bad on purpose, breaking Harvey's legos and saying "I'm gonna hit you, Harvey" which is more annoying than actually hitting. On the plus side, Zion's doing a good job verbalizing his feelings. He's been saying "I love you Mama" more frequently, and also "I'm mad at you Mama" both of which feel like good emotional awareness.

Physically I am doing well, healing much quicker than I did with my previous two births. If there's a word that characterizes this third birth experience it would be "mercy." I am very much aware that while I have some complaints, postpartum could be SO much worse. My body may be tired and misshapen, but it's not broken.

My brain, on the other hand, is suffering from exhaustion. This evening Dan asked me to steam a squash for soup and I sat there looking at the vegetable for over a minute thinking: how do I cook these things again? I'm supposed to cut them up, right? But I don't think we eat the skin on this food, and if I cut it up the skin will still be on. There must be some way to make the skin come off... nothing... still coming up with nothing... have I ever cooked a squash before? Oh, I know! A peeler!

So we seem to be making it through somehow. Baby Elijah is a delight. And now there's soup in the fridge.

Dan said he didn't get any good photos from Elijah's birth day, but I saw this on his computer today and called shenanigans. The image says so much to me. How much I loved the baby in those first few minutes, despite the unpleasantness of birth and not having a name picked out and oh my goodness another child with a penis.

But look at that cutie sucking his thumb. Look how beautiful he was right off the bat.

Of course, I tried to do a little photoshopping for the sake of modesty, and Dan laughed when he saw my attempt. "Um, are you making art?" he asked.

"No, I'm making a photo for the internet, and I won't ask you to make it better, because you'll work on it for seven hours!"

"Seven hours! I'll work on it for fourteen hours!"

Then because he loves me but has real work to do, Dan gave me five minutes of his amazing photoshop skills to made my modesty curtain look passable. So that's the explanation for the photoshop you see. I put a lot of myself on this blog, but I stop short of bearing nipple.

Gratuitous homebirth propaganda: check!

If they're all going to be so darn cute we may have to go ahead and have a couple more.

Dan: "A hoodie? For a baby? What's he got to put in his pockets?"
Leah: "OMG, a hoodie! For a baby! Look, he's like a little boxer, punch punch!

Leah: "He looks like an elf!"
Dan: "He looks like a clown."

Leah: "Look! Elijah is a little bear!
Dan: "Can you stop taking pictures and get in the car?"
(Actually, Dan didn't really say these words. They were communicated through a meaningful look.)

Okay, so this isn't a new outfit, it's a sweater and hat I originally knit for Zion. But oh my goodness, look at that little reindeer herder! I had a pink combo ready too, but I won't suffer Elijah that. The next friend to conceive a girl will get extra organic-cotton lucky.

Oh my beautiful little newborn. I love you so much. Now I gotta go fold your laundry.

And so it was that the whole entire family took an impromptu trip to the Concord river.

We got to see that big float of ice hit the bridge, and the boys had a ton of fun running around the monuments. If it wasn't for the chilly weather, Dan's wet feet, and my exhaustion, we might have even PLANNED such an outing.

Whenever plans go awry I find myself overwhelmingly thankful for the character of my husband. He hardly ever shows disappointment, he can turn his expectations on a dime, and he seems to have a limitless capacity for waiting around while I wrangle three kids in coats into a van. Or maybe he just stoically holds his complaints. All I know is that while I would have had the countenance of a storm cloud sitting beside the parking lot with wet feet and a broken bike, Dan looked like a beautiful ray of sunshine when I pulled in.

Whether he's turning a cold afternoon into a fun family outing, or hugging children who need a time out, or putting a fussy baby to sleep by leaving him in his car-seat and turning on a Sousa march (I can't believe that worked, by the way), Dan reminds the rest of us that life can be filled with love and sunshine. And we all love him madly for it... even if it means fewer breaks.

Now Elijah's got it on, albeit layered for the cooler weather.

Looking back through my pictures, I was struck by how YOUNG I looked only 5 years ago. Young and overwhelmed.

Good Lord, I used to wear makeup!

Now I'm old and wizened, and while taking care of a newborn is easy stuff, keeping the house clean doesn't seem to be.

Why is there always laundry in the background of every photo now? Wait, I know the answer.

I got the idea of using their artwork on cards when I realized their desire for experimenting with paint far surpasses their desire for saving their creations. So for a while I was cutting up their unwanted canvases and gluing them to cards. But now they're into decorating the cards themselves, saving me a second step.

Zion is deep into his blue period, while Harvey experiments with red and things that can be mixed with red.

Harvey also refuses to confine his artwork to the outside of the card, which means my words sometimes need to snake around his beautiful drawings.

Meanwhile, those of you who think I'm a heartless mother for sending their creations out through the mail will be happy to note that some drawings DO make it to our fridge. Here are two of my favorite Harvey sketches:

Harvey has captured the essence of what it means to be a chameleon in a way that's both explanatory and touching. It makes me happy every time I see it on the freezer. Hmm, I should send him a thank-you note.

I am thinking about the meaning of STUFF right now, as I contemplate getting rid of some baby related things. These are things that have been both useful and precious to me. My maternity clothes (bar the jeans I am still wearing for the next month) are in bags ready to go to my pregnant friends. And I am in the process of bagging up the things that are too small for Elijah. These I have promised to give away too. I thought this would be a joyful process. My laundry room is so filled with boxes that I can barely move around in there. I am ITCHING to clean house and get more space to do laundry. And yet, and yet. For some reason I find that letting go is hard.

For starters these things are useful. I'm not 100% sure I'm done having babies. The percentage is small, the part of me that wants to try for a forth, but fertility is a long time and I'm still very young and there's comfort in having those huge boxes of clothes in the basement. The crate of maternity things, the bag of newborn items, they speak to me in a whisper that says, "You're ready. Whatever happens, Leah. You're ready for anything."

The truth is, though, I'm not really ready for anything. A forth baby would be a huge decision. Not only for my family and for my body, but logistically we don't really have a place for a forth child to SLEEP. I can't enter into that decision lightly. I can't to lull myself into a false sense of security just because I've got some sweaters, a few pairs of pants, and some newborn onesies packed in tubs I can see every time I do my laundry.

I have friends who are pregnant NOW, who need things to wear this minute, and that is more important than a hedge to my bets that is slowly turning into mouse bedding. (For those of you who don't have basement mice, I should explain that they sneak into sealed plastic tubs and rip up wool garments. Something something treasures in heaven) Plus, if I do get pregnant again, I'm sure there will be bags of clothing coming back in my direction. Shouldn't I expect to reap the generosity I sow? Or if worse comes to worse, there is always new clothing to be had out there in the world. There are Old Navy and Kohls and their online maternity shops, and for a couple hundred bucks I could have an entire new wardrobe of potential mouse bedding.

So yes, even if there's a chance I might need them again, giving things away is a practical idea. And yet, and yet. I gave away my most useful maternity sweater last night and it felt like a little piece of me was dying.

I have been wondering what I should save out of Elijah's newborn clothes. What is too absolutely precious that if it never makes it back to me in a box of hand-re-rounds I would mourn its loss? There is the white terry onesie with the duckies that all three children have worn. I would not even consider it if I saw it on the rack new in a store, but for some reason I cannot let it pass through my hands. I will put it in a box somewhere, along with the handmade sweaters and the Loved Baby hat, and if they don't come out for a mythical 4th child then I will pass them on to my first grand-baby. Then my future daughter-in-law will look at me, and she will look at the shitty terry onesie, and she will think: This??? This is your precious thing?

And I will say "We women, we don't make sense."

Better yet, let's give all of it away. I am tired of endless sorting in service of an unknown future. I am tired of guessing what provisions I might need, buying in bulk, worrying if I am now ready enough. I am tired of storing away products and plans for potential events, events for which I can never be actually prepared. I had a dream last night that friends came over for lunch and I used up my emergency freezer raviolis. Do you hear that people? I AM DREAMING ABOUT EMERGENCY FREEZER RAVIOLIS! How much power does my pre-pwork have over me that it is taking up the space reserved for the present?

So though it is hard, though it takes a little bit out of me each time, I am ready to give things away for now. I am ready to trust that the future will be okay, no matter what its material needs are. I am ready for more room to do laundry.