As I read the article Melton’s words rang true to me – so much so that my response was something along the lines of, “Well, of course it’s hard!  Doesn’t everyone already know this?”  As I watched the Internet explode with re-postings of her piece what struck me most was that the article was causing such an uproar.  (It garnered more the 1,500 comments on The Huffington Post.)  Any parent will tell you that parenting is hard.  Any parent will tell you that there are days when everything seems to go wrong and all you want is for the sun to set and your kids to go to bed.  Any parent will tell you that there are moments when the only way to get even 30 seconds of peace and quiet is to go to the bathroom.  This is not novel information.  So why all the kerfuffle?

I think it’s due to a serious lack of both honesty and understanding.

The honesty problems belong to us parents.  As parents (especially as mothers) we feel compelled to address our children’s behavioral imperfections in one of two ways.  1) Don’t really talk about them at all.  Or 2) Talk about them with a self-deprecating humor that suggests we aren’t ever actually driven to our limits.  But this isn’t true, is it?  IEP (whom I love to the ends of the earth) can make me crazy faster than anyone else I know.  In a couple of years SSP (whom I also love to the ends of the earth) will fit that bill as well.  And I would wager that this is true for all parents.  So why can’t we say so?  I don’t know the answer to that question, but the mere fact that Melton’s piece created the dust storm that it did indicates to me that not enough of us are.

The understanding problems belong to the people who question us.  Just because our children can run us ragged doesn’t mean that we are in over our heads or that having them in the first place was a mistake.  In her article Melton likens parenting to climbing Mount Everest.  People don’t climb Mount Everest because it is easy or relaxing or enjoyable.  They do it because it is an unparalleled challenge, the completion of which is enormously satisfying.  This isn’t to say that parenting is merely one grueling step after another or that there is only a single, fleeting moment of accomplishment when they graduate high school.  Obviously there’s more to it than that or we wouldn’t do it.  Even climbing Mount Everest doesn’t take 18 years.

For me, though, the biggest take-away from this whole thing is that we each parent in our own way.  We each enjoy different things about parenting.  What one parent sees as drudgery another parent may see as a delight, and there is incredible freedom in that.  No one can (or at least no one should) tell us which aspects of child-rearing ought to be enjoyable to us.  For Melton navigating three kids through an afternoon’s worth of grocery shopping and other errands might be a chore.  For another parent it might be an adventure.  And that’s okay.

We can wish away the moments of the things we find maddening.  And we can relish in the moments that we love.  And we should never have to justify any of it.

I was then, and am now, flattered that he did this.  Most of all, it meant a great deal to me that he met with both of my parents, and not just my father.  My mother is not the type to take a back seat to her husband.  GAP knows this and wasn’t about to offend his future mother-in-law by confusing chauvinism for tradition.  I didn’t take their meeting as any indication that I don’t have control over my own life choices, and they didn’t either.  We all took it as a nod to a custom wherein a young man makes his intentions known and asks for the blessing of his girlfriend’s family.

However, I recently read an article that throws this whole custom into question.

I am certainly not of the delusion that everyone else has the same regard for tradition that I do, that my husband does, or that my parents do.  I know that women are not property.  We are empowered individuals who make our own decisions in life.  Whether or not GAP asked my parents’ permission, these things are as true about me as they are about any other modern young woman.  Yet I still have an old fashioned streak that likes to honor certain traditions, even if their relevance has been diluted over time.

So what struck me most about the article I read was how confused the author seemed to be over where to draw the line on the issue of asking permission.  She didn’t necessarily seem to think that there is a single right or wrong verdict for this tradition in the 21st century.  But she did seem a bit flummoxed over how to chart the right course under varying circumstances.  My response is this: why not just ask?  Very few women are caught off guard by a proposal these days.  Sure, we may not know exactly when and where the question will be popped, but we know whether or not we intend to marry the person we’re dating, and whether or not he (or she) intends to marry us.  How?  Because we talk about these things.  So why, amongst the conversations about religion and kids and all the other big issues that must be discussed before marriage, shouldn’t a young man inquire about his girlfriend’s views on asking permission, and about the views of her parents on the topic?  Shouldn’t this issue be on the easy end of the spectrum of marital pitfalls?

Marriage has served a number of purposes throughout human existence – economic, political, genealogical, and so on.  Today most marriages are about forming a mutually beneficial partnership and this has changed many of the dynamics of the institution itself.  One of the many improvements is increased communication between spouses, so I don’t know why this issue would ever become a minefield on the modern dating scene.

GAP asked my parents’ permission.  So did my sister’s husband.  I have friends whose husbands only asked their fathers.  I have friends whose parents only found out about the engagement after the woman had a ring on her finger.  The great thing about getting engaged today is that there are no hard and fast rules.  Perhaps this means there is more room for error.  But, as with many situations, I think a simple conversation can mitigate a lot of hurt feelings.

The process was bigger than GAP and I anticipated at the outset and ended up absorbing the entire holiday weekend.  Tasks included:  Select and purchase furniture.  Select and purchase bedding.  Select and purchase family meal from KFC.  Move all adult office furniture out of heretofore home office and into heretofore guest bedroom.  Reroute all computer, phone, and internet cables.  Realize cell phone is missing.  Vacuum many dust bunnies.  Select and purchase wall paint.  Paint bedroom walls.  Go out to breakfast because the house is completely devoid of any basic provisions.  Unsuccessfully shop for draperies.  Successfully shop for drapery hardware.  Select and purchase two file cabinets.  Drive to two different warehouses to collect said file cabinets.  Realize cell phone was left at first furniture store two days prior.  And on, and on, and on.  It was an incredible drain.

Nevertheless, the weekend contained some significant bright spots.  I always enjoy weekends at home with my boys, but weekends like this one remind me of how much I appreciate them.  I appreciate that even in exhausting and stressful circumstances GAP and I navigate life together without snapping or fighting.  I appreciate that IEP is a trooper, happy to tag along on errands and (for the most part) keep himself occupied and out of trouble.  And somehow, it is during trying times as often as happy ones that I recognize how truly thankful I am for the life that I have.

As for the Good Boy Room project itself, we got it all done.  The office was successfully relocated.  The new bedroom furniture will be delivered tomorrow.  The walls are painted.  The bedding is washed.  And IEP has slept on his Good Boy Bed every night since Saturday (we were able to bring the mattress home without the rest of the set).  Drapes have been ordered.  I’m still looking for a rug, but other than that we’re very close.  I’ve been amazed and impressed with how easily my baby has handled this big change, and I find myself quite proud of the little boy he’s become.  Each night when I tuck him in he goes down with a smile and I’m sometimes taken aback at how much he simply isn’t a baby anymore.

As for babies, IEP’s move into the Good Boy Room means that the nursery is once again vacant.  And somehow – as if being seven months pregnant weren’t tangible enough – seeing that room sit empty has made it quite real to me that we have another baby on the way.  I am easily transported to the weeks leading up to IEP’s birth, when the nursery was complete but the pregnancy wasn’t.  Many evenings I would walk in, sit in the glider, and stare at the space that had been so carefully filled with the stuff of a baby, but was yet so empty for lack of an actual tiny person.  I thought to myself, “There’s going to be a baby living in here soon.”  But no matter how many times I tried to envision it I really had precious little conception of what it would be like when that statement came true.  Now, with our second go around, I make the same statement in my head with much more knowledge of what the future holds.  What I don’t know, though, is who this baby is.  Is he a good sleeper and a good eater?  Will he nurse quickly like his brother or slowly?  Does he like to be swaddled?  Are the hours from 5:00pm to 7:00pm hard for him?  Much like meeting any new person for the first time I know both much and little of what to expect.

What I know for now, though, is that IEP is a Good Boy, with a Good Boy Bed, in a Good Boy Room.  For the past nearly-three years he has been as good a boy as I could ever have dreamt of.  I can’t imagine loving anything else as I much as I love him.  But then again, before he was born I never could have imagined loving him this much either.

My life is stuffed with blessings.

75% there.

Glass three-quarters full.

Six months and three weeks along.

Two and a half months left.

All of those things are true about my pregnancy today.  But only one of them makes me feel like I’m really getting closer to my due date.  I’ve been pregnant for 30 weeks.  I have only ten weeks left.  That feels like an accomplishment.  Every other version of the same math leaves me feeling as though the end is still not in sight.  So I’m focusing on the first countdown method, because I find myself needing a little pick-me-up in the attitude department.

I should be honest here.  Pregnancy is pretty easy on me.  Other than third trimester heartburn (which mercifully hasn’t set in yet), I get virtually none of the miserable side effects that often come with pregnancy.  I am keeping up with my usual routine, and while I’ve had to dial back the intensity level of a few things, for the most part I feel pretty normal.  So I feel a bit selfish admitting that I’m counting down the weeks to delivery, because I know I could have it a lot worse.  Nevertheless, I miss feeling like my old self.

Wishing these last few weeks away could be dangerous, though.  These are IEP’s last weeks of being an only child.  They are my last weeks of having only one little boy who needs me.  My last weeks of being able to devote myself entirely to him.  GAP’s and my last weeks of outnumbering our children.  Whether or not we are ready, big changes are coming and I would be remiss not to stop and cherish the life that we have had and loved for the past nearly-three years.

I’ve remarked to GAP many times recently that I never imagined that parenthood would be this much fun.  I thought I would enjoy it, but I have been surprised and delighted at how truly fun it is.  I believe that adding to our family will only add to that level of fun.  I will find joy in watching IEP take up the mantle of brotherhood.  I will get to be tickled all over again with the many milestones of the first couple of years.  And I will be able to look around at my life, never having envisioned myself as the mother of two boys, and recognize how much I love it and how well it suits me.

However, there is much about my life as it is that I love.  Aspects of that life are going to end, and I’m struggling with that.  From this vantage point I can easily see what I will lose when our second son is born this fall.  But I can’t yet see all that I will gain.  So I am left to take it on faith, to trust, and to believe, that what I give up will be outweighed by what I gain.  After all, it was because we are so head over heels in love with IEP that we wanted to have another child.  I know it will be hard for a while.  I know we will be in over our heads.  I know that there will be stress and hormones and tears.  But I also know that the moment my second little boy is born I won’t ever again be able to imagine my life without him.

But one of my favorite memories is from lunches at home with Grandmother and Granddaddy.  We ate in the train room.

Once upon a time the train room was the shared bedroom of my dad and my uncle.  I was told that in past years the walls were covered in team penants and sundry high school memorabilia.  By the time grandkids came around it had been converted into a sitting room, of sorts, with a drop leaf table next to the window.  This repurposed room became known as the train room because we so often ate lunch there at that table in the window, pretending that we were in the dining car of a passenger coach, on our way to someplace exciting.

Looking back (and through the eyes of a parent, now) I suspect that the train room was invented to make a simple lunch at home something exciting, glamorous even, and something to be eagerly anticipated.  Interestingly, this doesn’t take away any of the magic.  As I think back on our lunches in the train room I feel just as excited (mixed with some nostalgia) as I did back then.  Grandmother and Granddaddy wanted our visits to be fun and adventuresome.  And for two imaginative little girls, the premise of a railroad journey was a repeat hit.

I’ve been thinking back on the train room lately because IEP is a boy obsessed with trains.  He takes Thomas and Percy and Molly on our morning walks, down for naps, and up and down the stairs ad nauseum to ensure that they’re never far away.  And beginning this week he has started identifying any paved path (usually a sidewalk) as train tracks.

We walk two miles every morning (big dogs + small yard = lots of walking) and nearly none of our neighborhood streets has sidewalks.  But for the single stretch of our route that does have sidewalks IEP instructs me daily, “Mommy, ride on the train tracks!”  And each morning as I veer onto the sidewalk he shouts, “All aboard!!  Choo choo!”  And every time he says it I am taken back to the train room – to macaroni and cheese served in big mugs; to canned fruit on a bed of lettuce topped with a dollop of Miracle Whip and a sprinkling of cinnamon; to brown stained pedastal glasses that were filled with iced tea for Grandmother and Granddaddy and with milk for Anne and me; and to that big picture window of our dining car where we imagined that we were headed to new and exciting places.

Grandmother passed away a few years ago, and in one of my last visits with her she took a long and meandering trip back in her memory to the stacking of canned goods, the sewing of buttons, and lunches in the train room.  I can see now how much those times meant to her – that even as her mind faded these were the memories she still saw clearly.

Granddaddy is still here - 91 now, and sharp as a tack.  I try to visit him whenever I’m home, and when I do we talk about work, travel, current events, and IEP’s latest conquests.  We haven’t talked about the train room in a very long time.  But I know his memory of it is every bit as bright as my own.  There are just some things that we don’t forget.  And sometimes, when very little boys get excited about pretending that sidewalks are train tracks, we are flooded by our own memories of imagined dining cars and cross-country adventures.

The morning routine has been the same for several years now.  So I found it curious during my first pregnancy when, near the end of my first trimester, Scout stopped going downstairs with GAP in the morning.  He would go across the hall to the study, lie down, and wait for me to get up.  When I emerged he would greet me eagerly, then lie back down and wait for me to get ready to head downstairs.  He did this every single morning until IEP was born.

This time around he’s been a little slower to realize that I’m pregnant, and a bit more inconsistent in his attentiveness.  I think it probably has something to do with his protective instincts toward IEP and the fact that he can’t be in two places at once.  But sometime in the past couple of weeks he figured it out, and most mornings I get out of bed to discover that he is either waiting for me in the study, or hasn’t even left the bedroom at all.

Apparently, while there is no scientific evidence of dogs’ ability to discern pregnancy, there is voluminous anecdotal support.  Dogs are keenly aware of our body language, routines, and scents.  And all of these things change to some extent during a pregnancy.

Scout is the best, sweetest, most obedient, and gentlest dog I’ve ever known (and I grew up with dogs).  When we have overnight company Scout doesn’t follow us upstairs at night, but goes down to the guest room in the basement and spends the night with our guests.  When he was about three years old he found a burrow of days-old baby bunnies in our yard.  He checked on them daily (we assumed he was after a furry snack), and when they were old enough to venture out of their hole he lay down on the patio, making himself as small as a hundred-pound dog can, and gently played with them, never once pouncing or snapping.  We have it on video.  At six months old IEP pulled on Scout’s cheeks and ears regularly and Scout just lay there.  He walks at your side without a leash.  And when I am pregnant he stays close, making sure that I’m okay.

Taking a step back, maybe it’s not all that amazing that dogs can sense pregnancy.  They are highly social animals and highly attuned to their masters.  But even after having him in our family for five years now, sometimes Scout still awes me.  GAP and I have long said that Scout is the best dog we’ll ever have.  Perhaps it’s because he was our first, but even setting that bias aside, it will be hard for any other dog to live up to the example he’s set.

Every morning, until Baby #2 is born, Scout will stick close by my side.  And I won’t take it for granted even for a moment.

For the most part I don’t consider myself an impatient person.  However, every now and then I get anxious for something that is weeks or months or years away.  In these moments I try to remind myself of all the things in my life that have been worth the wait.  I’m feeling a little impatient about something lately, so I thought I’d go through this little exercise today.

1. A marriage proposal from GAP.
2. The ending of “The Grapes of Wrath.”
3. Our two-week vacation to Italy in 2006.
4. The release of the seventh Harry Potter book.
5. My first trip to New York (when I was 28).
6. The purchase of our first house.
7. The ending of “Gone with the Wind.”
8. Meeting my sister’s new baby (only a week after she was born, but it felt like much longer).
9. My first trip abroad (to the UK when I was 19).
10. The birth of IEP.

That last one is particularly salient to me right now, because it is another impending birth that has me eagerly anticipating the future.  To put a finer point on it, we are expecting our second child.  I’m about four months along now, and am due in early November.

In the first few months of a pregnancy the anticipation takes a back seat to many other feelings – exhaustion and nausea to name a couple.  But as I’ve started to feel more like myself, and as I’ve started to feel ever-so-tiny flutters, the abstract becomes tangible and my patience begins to wane.  Nevertheless, I don’t want to meet my baby a moment before we cross the threshold into November.  So in the meantime, I will have to be content with tiny kicks and blurry ultrasound images.

I’m keeping it light today, folks.  My job has been a bear lately.  GAP’s job has really been a bear lately.  And sometimes (like now) my brain just loses its capacity to do anything worthwhile.  Please, indulge me or forgive me as you find appropriate.

Tis the season of friendly competition.  March Madness just wrapped up and we’ve all spent the past few weeks ribbing each other about unforeseen upsets (“bracket busters” in pool parlance) and whose team was going all the way.  Admittedly, I had less fun with March Madness this year because I picked Pitt to win it all and, well, that didn’t quite turn out.  But I can take heart, not only because my whole pool’s brackets were crappy this year, but because there is a new competition on the horizon: Cupcake Wars!

A bit of background for you…

GAP’s family is competitive.  They are a family of eight.  Six kids, two parents, and split evenly between boys and girls.  Whether it be a friendly game of Bridge or a full season of fantasy football, the competitive streak never fails to come out.  If you didn’t grow up in this kind of family (I didn’t…) it takes a bit of getting used to.  But I have grown to really love it.  There are some competitions where I am a strong contender (Trivial Pursuit), and some where I am not (anything relating to football).  However, since this family is an equal opportunity score keeper, everyone has their moment to shine.

I’ve been a part of GAP’s family for nearly 12 years now and in that time we’ve all grown very close.  Much of that closeness came from shared beach vacations, shared childbirth experiences, shared holidays, and, lately, shared e-mail threads of our favorite Charlie Sheen quotes.  But some of it came from our little competitions.  We boast about our skills and gravitas.  We taunt and trash talk.  And, with the exception of a couple of white elephant style trophies, we only play for bragging rights.  At some point in time we’ve all been victorious and we’ve all been humbled.  There’s something very equalizing about it.

We will be gathering the whole group together over Memorial Day weekend to have portraits taken of the whole gang – all 19 of us.  It will be fun and relaxing and with any luck at all the little kids will cooperate with the photographer.  My mother-in-law couldn’t leave well enough alone, though.  She has instituted our family’s first ever Cupcake Wars, complete with rules and regulations:  There will be two divisions – sweet and savory.  One entry per person.  Submissions will be anonymous.  Last minute finishing touches will be allowed.  Scoring will be based on appearance (25%), creativity (25%), and taste (50%).  It’s going to be intense!

Even though general exhaustion around here has prevented me from relentless recipe testing these past few weeks, I’m really looking forward to it.  Because no matter what kind of showing I make, I am assured of a few things.  1) We will all have stomach aches by the end of it.  2) We will all laugh a lot.  3) The whole thing will be memorable.

I guess what I’m driving at here (at the risk of getting a little saccharine) is that “friendly competition” doesn’t tell the whole story.  More than being a fun diversion, over time, it builds memories and forges bonds.  At some level, at the end of the day, we all win.  So, I may not turn out my best work (my sweet tooth has been on hiatus lately), but I’ll have my game face on nonetheless.

GME was one of the most honest, curious, and lovely people I have ever known.  She is a testament to what this blog is about, and was a role model for me as I transitioned from a late-blooming adolescent into a grown woman.  And so it is that today I dedicate this post to her, and just a few of the reasons she will be so dearly missed.

She raised five kind and generous children, one of whom is my mother-in-law, who in turn raised six kind and generous children, one of whom is my beloved husband.

She had a passion for music and raised a family of carolers.  In keeping with their tradition that was founded back in the ’50s and ’60s her kids take their own children caroling to nursing homes (a massive group of nearly 30 now) every Christmas.

She was a reader.  Any time we visited her she asked GAP what he’d been reading (inevitably something political and challenging) and would ask to borrow it.  In turn, she would make margin notes in anything she read and would pass it along to GAP when she finished so they could discuss it.

She loved rain.  As a farmer’s wife she loved looking out the window to see darkening skies because it meant that her hardworking husband  could not go out into the fields and would instead be at home with her.

She was stubborn and humble.  In her later years as many of her grandchildren were getting married she was unable to walk down the aisle as part of the formal processional without the aid of a wheelchair or walker.  So she made sure that she was seated before the ceremony started so as not to draw attention to herself.

After September 11th she was curious about Islamic extremism and how it evolved.  Rather than plunge into day over day of cable news she ordered a copy of the Koran and read it to gain a better understanding of the religion itself and what might have prompted those men to do what they did.

She had eyes that sparkled with life.  No matter how many years her skin betrayed, her eyes were young until the very end.

And, all she wanted out of life was for the people she loved to be happy.  She hated all manner of sadness and was not one to indulge in it under nearly any circumstances.  And so it is that tomorrow’s service comes with strict instructions.  It is to be short.  It is not to be sad.  Men are not to wear suits.  We are all to wear bright colors.  And there is to be pizza afterwards.

GME was not perfect.  But she came awfully close.  Between life and death she chose the better option, but she will still be acutely missed for a long time.  I am thankful that I will live the rest of my life as a member of the family she raised.  Her life and beliefs will be imprinted on my own for the rest of my life, and I am better for it.

I was reminded of this last night.  We arrived at my in-laws’ house late in the evening.  After sleeping in the car IEP was eager to play for a bit prior to being put down.  Our bedtime routine includes a handful of books each night, followed by IEP curling up in GAP’s or my lap, rocking in the glider, and being sung to for a few minutes.  Last night my mother-in-law (E, for those who are frequent readers of comments here) was up to bat for bedtime duties.  As I listened on the monitor I heard her sing “Bless this House” to my baby.  It was the song that her family ended all of their caroling stops with so many years ago.  And it is the song that the entire family will sing together at her memorial service tomorrow.  It was late, she was singing quietly, and her typically strong voice cracked in a few places.  But I could hear GME coming through loud and clear.  And I was thankful, once again, for this woman whose life is now intertwined with mine forever.

It’s fairly common knowledge that there is a distinct positive correlation between the absence of family meals and the presence of a myriad of behavioral problems in kids.  This article by Kari Henley cites a 10-year study done by Columbia University which found that kids whose families eat dinner together fewer than three times per week had significantly increased likelihood of tobacco and marijuana use, eating disorders, and depression.  I don’t take these statistics lightly.*  And I want to be sure that our weeknight routine is one that facilitates awareness and conversation and involvement in each other’s lives.

So where does that put my family?  IEP is nearly two years old.  He eats his supper earlier than GAP and I do, and we eat together after he’s asleep.  Our days are fairly regimented.  We have a nanny schedule, a dog-walking schedule, a workout schedule, etc.  We’ve found a routine that works for us, but I wonder at what point it will cease to work for us.  Or more importantly, when will it cease to work for IEP?  Before too long we will need to eat dinner as a family, which will, in turn, up-end our existing weeknight routine.  I certainly value my evening workouts (regular exercise keeps me sane), but if my kids need me at the dinner table each night, I may have to sacrifice some of my gym time.  (Yet I also care about setting an example of physical health and fitness, and so where does this figure back in?)

The other thing that scares me a bit about the family dinner is my role as a working mom.  My own mother quit her job when she was pregnant with me and never looked back.  I’ve taken a different path and the wonderful example that was set for me as a child may not work for me as an adult.  I will need to find ways to make sure that we all sit down to a home-cooked meal each evening, even on days when I’m in the office until 5:30 or later.  I’m sure this will involve conscientious menu planning and Sunday afternoon prep work.  And knowing myself I’m relatively confident that I’ll pull it off most of the time.  But that doesn’t mean that the whole premise doesn’t still overwhelm me. 

As I write this I remind myself that parenting isn’t for the faint hearted.  I made it through the first six months of overnight feedings.  I made it through teething.  I’m currently surviving increasing two-year-old tantrums.  I suspect I will also survive all of the unknown challenges that await me.  I just hope that I manage to get dinner on the table in the process.     

*I do think it is important to point out that one misnomer regarding these types of studies is correlation versus causality.  Family dinners are correlated with more stable and well-behaved kids and teens.  They do not cause that improved behavior.  Rather, families who eat dinner together regularly are more likely to experience fewer behavioral problems because family dinners are symptomatic of parents who are actively involved in their kids’ lives.