Until.

Until a friend on Facebook said, “Nine was so hard for me… All I could think was, The blink of time I’ve had him, that’s the same amount I have left with him and then he’s going to move away and never call me.”

And then ohmygoodnessmybaby’sgrowingupholdme.

It’s not just Noise. Funk, too, has become all angles and long limbs and big shoes. And secrets and complicated emotions and damning logic. And conversations beginning to skirt around The Talk. (omgholdme)

It’s going so. damn. fast. 

And even though their growing older comes with its own challenges, it comes with so much good stuff, too. 

When they were little, I found it so interesting to watch their personalities develop. Their senses of humor, their temperaments. It was amazing to me that the little blob that came out of me was a person. Doing person-y things.

What strikes me lately is how they have this whole other life that I am not a part of. Inside jokes, books I haven’t read, stories with their friends. Kickball rules and school politics and pop culture that I am only vaguely aware of. 

The other day, Noise was singing a song on the radio. Hubs was with him, and asked him how he knew the words. “I really like Imagine Dragons,” Noise said. “I like that other song they have out, too. I think I’d like this album.” 

How in the hell does a two year old know who Imagine Dragons is?!?! Because in my mind, that’s EXACTLY what Noise is– two. Maaaaayyyybe three. It’s not that I don’t see him as the confident, mature, smart young man he is– in the MOMENT I see him there, before me, his glasses at an awkward angle on a face that is suddenly devoid of the chunky cheeks of his earlier days. It’s just that there’s this jarring disconnect between that and the sweet toddler with the dimple who loved to sing “Amazing Grace” all the time. 

It’s all creeping up on me so fast. And part of me is sad that because I am back to work I am missing more of all this— but part of me isn’t. He’s *supposed* to have his own life. They are supposed to have their own jokes, their own experiences. 

As my sister once indelicately put it, after I lamented years ago about missing Noise’s first steps, “You’re going to miss a lot of firsts, and that’s okay. You don’t want to be there for his first blow job do you!?”

Indeed I super don’t.

Super. Don’t.

Someone once told me that in parenting the days are long but the years are short. And that’s absolutely true. True, and wonderful, and awful. All of that.

I just want to remember as much as I can. 

My Noise.

I love him so, so fiercely.

Funk and Squeak give Noise their full endorsement.

He is the quiet ringleader, introverted and kind, oblivious and knowing.

He is too smart for his own good. He overthinks everything.

He is a comedian, making us all laugh even when laughing seems the last thing we would want to do.

People just want to be around my Noise. He’s the kind of kid that many kidless folks have looked at and thought, “man, if I knew I could have a kid like Noise, I would do it in a heartbeat.” He is respectful and appreciative, honest but not unkind.

His sister and brother think he hung the moon. He is mostly careful and caring with them. He wrestles with Squeak for hours and does gymnastics with Funk– but never for long enough. He could never do those things enough to satiate their desire to be with their big brother.

His idea of a perfect day is all day at home in his underwear, alternating between reading and Wii, with fruit to munch on.

He is friendly to all, but has few close friends. He gets overwhelmed by people, which makes their craving for him all the more challenging. We were afraid that his smarts, coupled with his introvertedness and his homebody-ness, would mean being bullied. But so far, other kids seem to love Noise and want him around whenever he comes around. Which takes some doing for him.

He has read every Harry Potter multiple times. But he’s waited for every movie “until he felt ready.” Thanks to overthinking it, this process has taken about two years.

He loves sports and movies and his iPod and his family and state and town and school and and and….

Noise loves everything. He loves almost everyone. He might not be able to really relate to everyone, but I rarely hear him say a bad thing about *anyone*.

And I love him so, so much. I love his wit and his smile and his awesome. He is awesome.

Funk. Ooooohhhh, Funk.

Lately, my relationship with my daughter has become more complex, more vexing, more rewarding than when she was small. My relationship with Funk has always had a different hue– maybe the mother/daughter thing, or differences, or our similarities.

Lately… she just irks me. She is contrary and sassy, rolls her eyes and crosses her arms and storms off, her adorable ponytail swinging. She is mercurial, and from day to day– from minute to minute–  I never know which version of Funk I will encounter. Things that I think will be no big deal are THE END OF THE WORLD!!! And things that I think will cause a major meltdown are dealt with with grace and aplomb. And it’s the NOT KNOWING which one of these things will occur that makes me batshit insane.

Last week, as I began my new job, she was particularly prickly. I expected this to an extent– all children are narcissistic by nature until taught otherwise, and my children, though fabulous, are still children. I wasn’t expecting how mean she would be about it. How she would seemingly sense my weakness, my doubt, my fear that I had made a bad choice and pounce the eff all over it.  Funk has always been able to push my buttons like no other, and this is really stating to bloom. Unfortunately.

I was lamenting the situation with a friend, who also happened to have taught Funk at school, and her take on it was that we are so, so similar. That made me proud, embarrassed, and defensive all in the span of about 5 seconds.

I know that I was this way, at this age, and that it only got worse with time and puberty. I really want to have a good relationship with Funk, but I also need her to know that I am not her friend, and I have no problem snapping her back into place if needed. This weekend, she was sent to her room over and over again for just being shitty, to me and the rest of the family. Each time I let her out, and asked her if she could dial down the sass, that ponytail would shake, the hands would fly to her hips, and she would snap, “I’M NOT SASSY, MAWWWWWWWWM.”

So, back into her room she would go. At one point, I stopped to talk to her, and I told her that this wasn’t a fight she would win. That I am always open to hearing what she has to say, when it is said in a respectful way. But that I wouldn’t tolerate a stranger treating me with such an attitude– much less my kid.

“I’M BEING RESPECTFUUUUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLL!!! AAAARRRRRGGGHGGHGHHHH!!!”

Eventually, she emerged tearfully and apologized. “I am just SO CRANKY, Mom, and I really love you and I guess I just blew up.”

I told her I’d been there.

Because I have.

Then I told her that the great challenge of my growing up (and between you and me, my adulthood) was learning to control that overwhelming, bubbling-over anger, sadness, crankiness– and forcing myself to filter my feelings and feedback. This was especially true in circumstances where adults did not treat *me* with respect– I just couldn’t stop myself from being rude and flip and caustic. I had a smart mind and a smart mouth and the two together were relentless. (It is this same trait that makes it SO HARD for me not to confront Funk once the sass starts BECAUSE I’M THE MOM IS WHY.)

I believe it will be the fight of her raising up, too.

So, I try to soak up the good times. I teach her to sew. I treat her to her first pedicure. I watch Barbie movies with her and play Littlest Pet Shop and we roam the mall. Because the upside to her being “just like me” is that when she is in a good mood, we have so much fun together. We have the same sense of humor, we want to do good things for people, we love shoes, and curling up for a good movie and a snuggle. We have a good relationship and she tells me all kinds of things about her feelings and dreams and thoughts and ideas. When she’s not slamming the door. (Which dear jeebus I will take that effer off the hinges so help me just like my parents did to me.)

I just keep doing these things, hoping that as her sass escalates with time and hormones, this relationship will be a foundation we can build on to work through it.

Hubs says that when Funk hits puberty, he will be taking the boys and moving away. They will return to whomever lives, never speaking of the other again.

I’m hoping for something better.

So far it hasn’t shaken out like I thought it would. I thought Squeak would really struggle— he’s been home with me for four years. Nope.

I thought Noise would rebel– he likes to curl up at home and read Harry Potter novels in his underwear as much as possible. Nope.

I thought Molly-dog would pee on things. She’s used to being able to come and go as she pleases. Nope.

FUNK. Funk is the one with a problem. She doesn’t understand why everything had to change, why I “stole their summer.” She says going to BGC is exactly like going to school only for longer hours and with more obnoxious boys from other schools. Which a) SHE LOVES SCHOOL, and b) I don’t remember her going to the pool once a week with all her friends at school.  Whereas I *thought* she would be excited to have some more time with her girlfriends (she normally spends her summer with a pack of stinky boys from our street, including her brothers) that hasn’t been the case. She comes home crabby and sensitive and emotional, and wakes up the same. I have worked exactly two full-time days and in that time have been told that she will “never get to do anything fun ever again unless it’s on a weekend which is only two days” more times than I care to count. 

I’m trying really hard not to engage it. She just needs to get it out. I’ll give her a few more days and then I am going to call her out on it– I’m not going to become her punching bag just because she’s working through things, but I understand that her life as she has known it is very different. This is the case for all of us, but different people deal with change in different ways. 

Me? 

I’m okay so far. I miss them. But for the moment Funk is making it super easy for me to work through those feelings. I decided not to feel guilty. There’s no value in it, and I am doing this because this is what our family needs– the same way I became a SAHM four years ago. We are in a new season. Choosing not to feel guilty has only worked about 50% of the time so far. 

My sewing fingers are itchy. I decided I wouldn’t sew when the kids were awake to be interacted with, but so far I am too pooped by the end of the day after everyone is down to do much. I hope that will pass as we adjust. I miss making things. I actually sewed up a leotard quickly for a friend’s little girl on Monday and it was so therapeutic. 

I need to figure out dinners. It’s a crazy whirlwind from 5-6 and dinner so far has been a bit dodgy. I guess I either need to lower my standards or up my repertoire. 

How did I do this before? How do you do it? I am not doubting my ability… I am really asking how you do it?

Oh. My. God.

I start. In the beginning of June.

I have been home for four years and two months. I transitioned into stay-at-home motherhood with a fresh new baby, a three year old, and a soon-to-be kindergartener. I re-enter the full-time workforce with kids entering 4th and 2nd grade, and a pre-kindergartener. 

I am… god, I don’t know what I am.

I know this is the right time, I know it is the right thing, even though I am sad about leaving this behind. It was always supposed to be a season– not the rest of my mothering journey. And it actually was supposed to end two years ago. Even a year ago, I wasn’t ready– we weren’t ready. 

But I think we are as ready as we can be, now. I’m still sad to lose the ability to pick up and hit the pool on a random afternoon. I worry about missing those sunny afternoons when we all curled up on the couch with our books. I cry when I think about the fact that my youngest child has never NOT had me there– and now he will be on his own all day in day care. 

I worry, worry, worry. Shit, the other day I was crying because I felt guilty about what this would do to my DOG for the love of Pete. 

BUT. I can take time off to hit the pool. We can read in the evenings. The kids are psyched to go to a day program with all their friends. Squeak is (somewhat cluelessly) excited about his new school. As conflicted as I was about working when the older kids were littler, they don’t even remember when I worked full time. So there goes my worries that I was ruining their little lives.

Evenings are going to be crazy, life is going to be insane, but I think it’s time. I loved my career, was good at it. If I don’t go back soon, I will lose the ability to do so. This job is a great opportunity, with good people, and good pay. I worry that my kids are “losing me,” but they aren’t. They need to see me working and being successful outside of the home just as much as they needed me in the home four years ago. 

Mostly…  It’s time. I wouldn’t mind to wait another year for Squeak to be in school… but it took 6 months to be hired now.  And also he is driving me batshit crazy (this is mostly since I took the job. It’s like he senses a disturbance in the force.)

Also, we super need a second bathroom and we can’t move until I start bringing home some scratch. 

I had that interview. It went awesome. I won’t say more other than: good people, good vibes,  good stuff. 

But since the interview I have been floating around in the ether, waiting.  This is hell. I am not a patient person. I have a bit of a control issue when it comes to my own life, and I am a worrier. And nothing brings out my worry and lack of patience like a good dose of ambiguity.

It’s perfectly normal that these folks would want to interview other people, take time, meet, all those very rational things. But I am, as I sometimes put it, a scab picker. I cannot leave a scab alone. I have spent this past week picking the scab off my interview over and over. There was a problem with my resume (from HR, not me) and I have been stewing over that. Wondering who the other candidates might be. Worrying that I won’t stack up. “Trying on” going back to work. Stewing about childcare, our daily schedule, and how I will get dinner on the table by 6. All things outside of my control, and 90% of those things don’t even require my worry until I actually HAVE a job. Also, I already worked FT before, I made it work, it will work.

No need to worry. (She tells herself at 2am every night.)

I didn’t expect to like this opportunity or the people so much, to want the job so much. Add to that the licking of my residual shitty-job-search wounds, and I am a freaking basket case.  

Chances are good I won’t hear anything until next week. 

But the whole blog thing worked last time, so why not give it a whirl again?

P.S. Even if I don’t get this job (please let me get this job) I did look freaking fantastic. So it’s good to see I still clean up okay. 

A-hrm.

Anywho.

We didn’t get pregnant right away. This flew in the face of the belief I had held since 5th grade sex ed– that if I even one time had unprotected sex even one time or even thought about sperm or penises or even heavy petting I would get pregnant with a litter to rival Octomom.

But it didn’t happen right away. In fact, it took almost a year. (That’s a lot of wet spots, yo.)

What started out as a natural, fun process quickly became a laborious chore that involved thermometers, graphs, bizarre post-coital yoga poses, and many, many tears. At one point, sitting there with yet another frowny faced pee stick, I turned to Hubs and said, “if someone could tell me that within the year we would be pregnant, I wouldn’t be so upset every time we’re not. It’s the NOT KNOWING if it will EVER work that hurts the worst.”

Obviously, eventually, we did make a baby. And karma had its way with me by rewarding my worry with two unplanned pregnancies after that.

All this to make a point: I am trying to go back to work full time.

I know that in this space I rent my garments (and yes this is the correct past tense of “to rend one’s garments,” I totally looked it up) and gnashed my teeth about my baaaaaaaaaaaaaaabies and how I just wanted to be home with them and I was missing sooooooooo much!  And I wouldn’t change a thing about the past four years. (Four years! WHAT?!) But Squeak is nearly ready for kindergarten. The kids are in school all day. And from a financial perspective, it is time. Past time. Kids’ activities and appetites have outpaced our ability to remain a one-income family. (And yeah we’re not technically a one-income family since I have a PT job and a business and stuff but let’s face it, it ain’t a real salary.) I also started to really *miss* working, specifically working in my chosen field. I missed making a difference, having an impact. I missed wearing grown up shoes.

I have (mostly) loved these days. But this was always meant to be a season, not our lives. And that season seemed to be drawing to close.

To that end, long about October, I started applying for jobs. Specifically, one job. It was this one perfect job, a dream job, that made me finally take the plunge.

I never, ever in a million years contemplated that I wouldn’t even get an interview.

For that job, or for more jobs after that.

As Autumn turned to Winter, and then Spring, I applied for, and was rejected from, MANY jobs.

It has been a long, soul-crushing slog as I navigate the constant annihilation of my self-worth and sense of competency.  In October, I would have told you that I am a valuable, well-educated asset to any department that might hire me. I would tell you about the national awards I have won. I would tell you my success stories. And I would tell you that taking this time out has seasoned my skills, my perspective, and my abilities. Not made them moot.

If you asked me today, I would probably just make a squishy sad Oliver face and say, “Please, sir, may I have another job?”

There have been many times in the past months when I have second-guessed my decision to re-enter the workforce. Wondered if this might be a sign that I should wait until all the kids are in school. Or the economy improves. Or or or. But this is always tempered with the feeling that I have somehow, unexpectedly, become untouchable.

Nightly, I toss and turn wondering what I could do differently. What might be the reason. By all accounts, I was well-respected in my past employment. I have the proper degree, the right experiences, a beauty of a resume and I interview like a beast.

I don’t know why. I just don’t know.

Any theories are only theories. Folks try to make it better, but the platitudes don’t do much for me, either. Sometimes, I want to go back to that woman four years ago, with her humongous pregnant belly and no humility when it came to her belief that she would always be able to be hired, and punch her in the face. Then I realize I just said I wanted to punch a pregnant lady. Even if that lady is myself, it’s still not ok.

I just never really even considered that I wouldn’t be able to get back in. This search is the first time ever in my professional career that I have not at least gotten an interview for a job I applied for.

If you told me that, within the year, I would have a job, it wouldn’t hurt so much each time I don’t get one.

But for right now, I gotta tell you, it stings like hell.

And so it began with Funk and gymnastics:

Cuteness, no? What could be better than a pudgy four year old in a leotard, I ask you? (NOTHING, THAT’S WHAT.)

But time has marched on, and Funk is no longer that pudgy little girl in the leotard. She is a SEVEN year old, thankyouverymuch, and over the past six months her love of gymnastics has flowered into a passion– nay, dare I say– obsession.

This is Funk on the way to her very first honest to goodness gymnastics meet. Competing with those Parks and Rec girls, a ragtag bunch of knobbly knees and missing front teeth, she was all aflutter. It was obvious from the get-go that our girls were not the well-coifed, heavily made-up product of the “big gyms,” but they could NOT have been more happy. They were all lovely.

And I wouldn’t be Funk’s mother if I didn’t feel she was exceptionally lovely.

She was so lovely, in fact, that she was “on the podium” (fourth place or above) in every event, and third All-around in her group.

And that while I felt like she was getting pretty good before this meet, you really could have knocked me over with a feather. She was so poised, so focused, so… HOLY CRAP THIS IS GOING TO COST A CRAPTON OF MONEY.

It was on the way home that Funk first asked us about going to a “real gym.”

Yes, that would be the afore-mentioned well-coifed, heavily made-up production gyms.

See, our little ol’ Parks and Rec program only goes up to a level 4 in gymnastics. We don’t have a lot of the right equipment, and we definitely don’t have the space to keep moving girls up the skills ladder. For those of you versed in gymnastics, we don’t even have a springboard floor. Parks and Rec was made to give kids a taste of a sport… for them to take somewhere else.

After the first meet, we decided to wait it out another year. Funk is only a level three right now, after all, and we reasoned that one meet does not an Olympic gymnast make. Parks and Rec is planning to build a real gym and grow the program, hopefully in the next two years. And P.S. gymnastics is helllllllllllllla expensive. Those “real gyms” cost bank we Pairs ain’t got.

And then Funk had the opportunity to compete in another meet. In the time between the first and second meet, however, two big things happened: 1) Funk turned 7, and 2) she fell off the beam in practice. We noticed in practice that she was more tentative, a little more scared. We braced ourselves for the real test: a bad meet. In the first meet, Funk competed as one of the very oldest six year olds. In the second, she would compete as a newly-minted seven year old with girls almost a year older. Add to that equation her newly found wobble on the beam, and… well… we reasoned that we could best assess her love of the sport after a BAD meet, even moreso than after a good one.

But she didn’t have a bad meet. She didn’t have as great a meet as the first one, but she scored a 9.4 on the bars and took fifth in her group. Even with her wobble on the beam. And she didn’t slow down. And she doesn’t appear that she will.

On the way home, we were talking about how different kids have different barriers in gymnastics– in some kids, that might be a lack of flexibility. Other kids might struggle with remembering the routines. Others, we hinted, might have fears they need to overcome.

“Lucky for me,” she said, “in gymnastics I have no barriers at all. I will be just as good as I work to be.”

And so these are my days, in the gymnastics gym but also in the living room and the trampoline and curbs the right width to be a beam and pretty much everywhere.

And so we discuss it. Move her? Don’t? Gymnastics is such a high-pressure, sometimes dangerous sport. There are ugly politics and moms with large blonde hair who chew their gum like cows and wear bejeweled shirts that say, “GYMNASTIC MOMS BEND OVER BACKWARDS.” And it’s hard work and so competitive and crazy expensive and so much time and did I mention I’m going to need to sell a kidney?!?

But she loves it.

Bottom line, she loves it. She works for it. And she’s good. So we’ll tour gyms in the next month. Start learning the lingo, asking the questions, and finding out whether it’s even possible. Or desirable. Or necessary right now.

And then I just have to figure out what to do about this, because I cannot sell both of my kidneys. 

It’s a problem.

One, because ain’t nobody got time fo dat (listening to me bitch), and two, because it does nothing to actually improve the situation (other than get it out of my head and into the interwebs.)

I could become a sewing blogger. I have a lot of fabric that I have nowhere to store and a sewing area that is in the middle of my tiny G.D. house and I sew stuff.  I only occasionally sew over appendages. I don’t see other sewing bloggers doing that shit, so I guess that could be my angle. “See what kind of effed up injury Dawn gets THIS time!”

I could regale you with my mommy tales, but these stories are swiftly becoming Not Mine. My children are getting older and their stories more complex. (Although last night Squeak was setting the table and he slipped on a melted piece of ice and stabbed himself in the ear with a fork, nearly completely piercing it. So that’s weird. But hardly a blog post.)

I could bitch about people I know, but that has a tendency to come back and bite me in the ass. ( BUT OH COULD I TELL YOU SOME SHIT.)

I could tell you about all the cute DIY renovations I’m doing to my tiny house, but a) we’re not and b) TINY FREAKING HOUSE.

When I started blogging a loooooooooong time ago, it was a way to reach out and say, “you, too, right? I mean it’s not just me, RIGHT?” Now that I have been around a while, I KNOW it’s not just me, and I feel like it’s all been said, and most of the time it’s been said better by someone else.

And, depressingly, in five years I’m pretty sure the same exact blog posts will be being written.

Because what I have to say is basically the same as lots of other people. We’re white and middle class and we have kids who are loud and obnoxious and wonderful and we have hobbies and some extra pounds and thoughtless partners and cramps and blah, blah, blah, you know? First world problems.

I only have one bathroom and “WAH” says the child across the world sharing an outhouse with his eight siblings.

Oh. Right.

I loved, loved, loved blogging.

I think…

I fear that I have lost my Voice.

It’s a stunning metaphor for my feelings on adulthood. I feel like I forgot to show up for classes on how to be a “successful adult”– totally spaced every single class.  How To Be Thin. How To Have Moneez. How to Keep A Spotless House. How to Have a Yard That Doesn’t Make Your Neighbors Sigh and Close Their Shades. How To Know Whether You Should Have a Full-Time Job or Not Have a Full-Time Job So You Can Raise Your Preshus Babies.

To make matters worse, I feel as though everyone else totally showed up for these classes except ME. They are sitting there with their smug faces and their blue books and their sharpened pencils, ready to kick ass on this test.

But here I am, clueless– being forced to take the test anyway. Failure eminent.

[There was a lot of self-pity and wallowing in this space. Many paragraphs. I took it out because even I thought I was being pathetic.]

Anyone else ever feel that way? And I ask not because I want you to say nice things about me, because my logical brain knows that I’m doing fine and my kids are fine and my house is fine and my yard well it’s awful but what the hell I never claimed to have any interest or skill in gardening. I really want to know. Is this the mantle of adulthood?