Three Months

Dear Bennett,

If you were a puppy I would have sold you weeks ago. In fact, I probably would have given you away for free. The ad on craigslist would have gone something like this, “Adorable puppy, free to a good home. I bit off more than I can chew and quickly discovered that I do not have the energy needed to give this puppy all the love and attention that he needs. I have no doubt that he can be trained, I just don’t think that I am the one to do it. Please call if interested. Leash and food bowl included.”

I look in the mirror and hardly recognize the hallow-eyed, angry, pessimistic, miserable woman staring back at me sometimes. When did my skin turn that grayish color? When did I become such a wuss?

Last night you screamed on and off for hours while your dad and I took turns rocking you. When you finally fell asleep, it lasted a grand total of 20 minutes before you were awake and screaming again. I let you cry in your crib for 16 painful minutes and 34 excruciating seconds before I finally went into your room to calm you down and feed you. I felt like the worst mother in the world. The biggest failure. Then you woke up every 2 or 3 hours throughout the night – again starving and again screaming – just like you did in the first few weeks that I brought you home. But – when I brought you home everyone said, “Oh, just give him 6 weeks and he’ll figure things out.” Six weeks came and went and then it was, “Wait until three months.” Well you turned three months old yesterday and now I’m told everything should be nicely sorted out by the time you reach six months. At this point, I fear that I will rocking you to sleep as a screaming teenager.

I keep searching for the silver bullet – the one thing that will turn you into a happy and content child. If I would just stop eating dairy… If I just hadn’t held you so much as a newborn… If I just followed these three easy steps… then, THEN you would be happy. All the babies on Facebook with birthdays close to yours are sleeping 10 and 11 hours each night, and all the books on the shelf tell me I’m doing it wrong. One book says to let you cry it out. The other book says that allowing you to cry so long will cause neurological and psychological damage. Either way, I fear that I’ve already broken you.

When people ask how I’m doing, I generally want to break down in tears. Instead, I usually just mumble something like, “There are good days and bad days,” at which point I immediately feel guilty for being such a downer, so I follow it up with, “But we are GREAT!” Other times it’s just emotionally easier to reply with a simple, “Good, how are you?” I cover my real feelings the same way I layer on concealer to cover the dark circles under my eyes.

It’s true: there are good days and good moments mixed in with the bad. Like that one time you slept for six hours. Or last week when you learned to roll over. Or when your face lights up with a delightful giggle because you hear my voice. It is immensely important for me to try to remember the positive. But there are also days when I truly hate being a parent – days when it feels like the biggest mistake I ever made. Because being your mother is the hardest thing I have ever done. Never before have I been filled with such completely debilitating self-doubt. Never before have I felt so angry or anxious. Or so helpless.

But, my dear, lovely boy, you are not a puppy. You are my baby. My flesh. And no matter how many meltdowns you and I have, one thing is sure: I definitely love you more than a puppy.

Love,

Mama

To Raise a Child

I just spent the last 24 hours in the hospital. A client at work was standing behind a door and didn’t see me coming. She tried to shut the door right as I was walking through with my hands full and the doorknob left a good three-inch bruise on my belly. Poor woman felt awful. My midwife sent me to the hospital to be monitored for a couple hours, but when the admitting OB saw the bruise, she decided to keep me overnight. It was awful. But as I lay there listening to my baby’s healthy little heartbeat, napping occasionally and dreaming about different ways I could escape, I had some good solid hours of reflection. And I wondered, “What does it mean to raise a child?”

I must admit that I have no idea. I have never raised a child. This little boy that is days or weeks away from joining our family will have a very novice mother and father. We love him dearly, but we have no idea what we are doing. Despite my ineptitude, the phrase “to raise a child” has some interesting connotations and has caused me some interesting introspection. So, little boy, here are at least three things that I hope it means to raise you.

I hope to raise you to God. To “raise” something implies a lifting, an elevating, a reaching upward. We often think of God as being up high, in heaven, somewhere in the sky. I believe in God. I believe we have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother. I believe their son, Jesus Christ, is our brother and our Savior. I want to teach you to reach upward to them. I want to give you experiences that allow you to believe in them as I do. And even though I want to raise you up to them, I want your faith in them to ground you and direct you. I want to help you get to know your Heavenly Father and your Savior Jesus Christ. I hope that through me and through the amazing grandmothers and aunts in our family, you are able to gain some understanding about your Heavenly Mother as well. Your Grandma and Grandpa have raised me to God and because of that I have great peace and happiness in life. I want you to have the same peace and happiness that comes from knowing God. You are my child, but you are also God’s child, and first and foremost, I want to raise you to them.

I hope to raise you to good.  There is so much that is good in this world. There are good books to read, good music to listen to, good art to see, good dances to dance, good food to eat, good friends to be made, and good work to be done. There are beautiful sunsets and gorgeous flowers and brilliant stars. You will meet people and see things that simply knock you over with their goodness. I want you to experience all the good this world has to offer. However, as much as there is good in the world, there is also bad. I know I can’t protect you from the bad, and to be honest, I don’t know that I want to protect you from all the bad. Because experiencing some of the bad will help you recognize the good. I want to help you overcome the bad with the good. I want to help you find the good and to elevate you above the bad. So, while you will inevitably be exposed to bad, I hope to raise you to good.

I hope to raise you to love. The most elevating force that I am aware of in this life is love. It will raise you and it will raise the people you share it with. Love will uplift you and you can use it to uplift others. I want to teach you how to love. I hope to demonstrate this love in the way I treat you and in the way I treat the people that we meet. I want you to know how fiercely I love you. I want you to know how fiercely I love your father. I hope our love with lift you, and I hope to raise you to love.

In Portuguese and Spanish you don’t “raise” a child; you “criar” or “create” a child. Raising a child and creating a child seem to go hand in hand. When people talk about their “upbringing” or the people who “raised” them, they focus on the lessons they were taught and the experiences they were afforded that contributed to their creation. I realize that much of your creation is already taken care of. The essential elements of a physical body are already fully formed inside of me, and long before I hold you in my arms, your Heavenly Creator will have already formed your eternal and spiritual elements. You will come to this world and already be your own independent person, with a unique personality and unique traits and perspectives. I am thrilled to get to know you. However, I also realize that a great deal of your “creation” is still up to me and your dad. We still have so much to teach you. Whether we intend to have an influence or not, who you become will largely depend on what we do to create you. Please be patient with us. We will make mistakes. We might make big mistakes, but as we try to raise you to God to good and to love, please know that your creation is our greatest treasure.

McRae

I love my middle name. I think it's because the name connects me to the grandmother I've never met, Norma McRae Chivers Cheney, who in my mind's eye is the perfect embodiment of grace, femininity, gumption, and faith. In honor of my grandmother, each of her children gave the middle name McRae to one of their children. Of the four kids born to my parents, they chose to make me the McRae of the family. Maybe that makes me feel special somehow, to think that I was carefully chosen to be the steward of her name and to carry on her legacy in some small way. Or maybe I love my middle name so much because my grandma's predecessors, the McRae clan of Scotland, have an elegant castle overlooking a lake, and a clan plaid that is the most beautiful combination of navy and forest green, and the motto "FORTITUDE," which if you think about it is a word that perfectly encompasses the meanings of the words grace, gumption, and faith.

My grandmother had three different last names during her lifetime. She was born to Edgar and Ethel McRae. They died within three years of one another when she was just a teenager, and as an only child, she had to learn quickly how to be independent and self-motivated. In her mid 20s she married my grandfather Robert Chivers, who after 15 years of marriage left her on the brink of poverty with five children to care for. She remarried Jack Cheney, who had also been previously married and had children of his own. Trying to merge two families during the 1970s was much more trying and tiring then they made it look on the Brady Bunch. So when you strip away the pain and the heartaches Grandma experienced in life, the death of her parents, the end of her first marriage, and the struggles of her second, she becomes just Norma. I think for this reason, my siblings and cousins and I have always referred to her as Grandma Norma. But the part of her that we carry with us, as part of our own identity, is McRae. For me, McRae represents her grace and her faith in the face of tragedy. McRae is her fortitude.

Once I asked my mom about Grandma Norma's funeral, and she told me a precious story that has remained with me ever since. My mom says that everyone at the funeral kept telling her that Norma was their best friend. Everyone. People my mom didn't even know kept telling her that Norma was their best friend. All the people there thought they were Norma's best friend, when apparently that's just the way  Grandma Norma treated people.

A few months ago my brother and his wife had their second child. They named him Oliver McRae, and don't tell the others, but I already know that he is going to be my favorite nephew. Someday I want to have a daughter named McRae. McRae Grace Sessions. And I want to teach her to be kind and compassionate, and spunky and persistent, just like my grandmother was. I hope she'll feel special knowing that she was carefully chosen to carry on the McRae legacy, and I hope that she will treat everyone like her best friend.

Zits happen

Somedays you just wake up with a giant zit in the middle of your forehead. You're not sure how it got there and any attempts to try and hide it would be futile, unless you're willing to do something as drastic as cut yourself some bangs. But eventually the zit would go away and then you'd be stuck with some very crooked bangs that you never really wanted in the first place. And bangs take a long time to grow out. So instead you let your dashingly handsome husband take you out for your favorite Thai food then whisk you away to a rooftop concert where you can swing and sway under a gorgeous summer sky. Then you come home and let him hold you all weekend long and after a while you no longer care about the giant zit about to erupt in the middle of your forehead.

Reasons I shouldn't start a blog

1. I don’t have any adorable children.
2. I’m not super crafty, and couldn’t afford the supplies necessary to be super crafty even if I was.
3. I’m not so good with make-up or fashion stuff.
4. I don’t go on super sweet vacations, and I usually forget to take pictures when I do go on vacation.
5. I can’t cook or bake (apparently there is a difference in the blogging world).
6. I haven’t run a marathon, half marathon, 5K, or completed a triathlon.
7. I don’t have a political agenda.
8. It would hurt my feelings and make me angry if people left nasty comments about my political views.
9. I’m not humorous or witty.
10. I feel uncomfortable talking about myself.
11. I’m not remodeling a house.
12. I don’t watch TV, listen to music, or go to movies all that often.
13. I don’t have a high-tech camera to take awesome pictures with.
14. I love eating out, but do not fancy myself a restaurant connoisseur.
15. I would feel uncomfortable telling a bunch of strangers that I deeply and passionately love my husband.
16. Announcing that I’ve spent the whole day cleaning the house, doing the laundry, and making dinner usually makes me feel more depressed than accomplished. (Don't get me wrong, I love a clean house, clean laundry, and a delicious meal, I just don't love spending the WHOLE day making it happen.) 

I want to note that I very much enjoy blogs that are written about many of these topics, and I'm glad that many of my friends and family and complete strangers write blogs about these topics.