Family
We are a family of four that looks like three,
My mommy, my daddy, my sister and me.
If you look at our portrait, just three you will see,
No sister in sight, just mom dad and me.
But if you look closer, just past my head,
you will see a little something fluffy and red.
It's not a new blanket, that stays in my bed,
It's Elmo, in place of my sister instead.
If you ask mom how it feels to be a new mother,
She'll stop, and smile and remember another.
Then tell you her story, which is unlike any other,
For Saoirse made her mom, and I'm the LITTLE brother.
I find myself questioning why it is that we are always so eager to see our babies grow up. To do the next thing, to learn the next skill, to gain the next pound. It seems like there is always a milestone waiting in the distance to be achieved, and when it is, there is another.
As I have wrestled these past few days with trying to get my baby to sleep without me holding him - and desperately trying to break the swaddle - I began to think and wonder why I'm working so hard to push him to that next stage.
As each day passes he gets heavier and heavier. Holding him all swaddled up and straight is a strain on my back, and he just seems to scream and scream until he finally falls asleep, only to be jarred awake when I put him down. I try so hard to get him to nap so I can get something done - work on event planning, proof read a contract, design a poster, update a website. Running a business and a foundation and being a full time mom is more jobs than one person really can do in 24 hours a day.
But as I sit here, thinking about night wakings and schedules, errands and meetings, I start to think about how I said I would just put him in the carrier and go about my business. And I think about those days that I did just that and how much happier he had been, and how much better he had slept, and how he barely even fussed. Why am I fighting something that so obviously he needs - just to be with me.
He just needs me.
We are so focused on the next - we need to be focused on the now.
It all brings me back to Saoirse. Now, she was a champion sleeper - through the night at 10 weeks, 12-13 hours a night at 4 months. She took naps when she was supposed to, she slept without being swaddled, she fell asleep on her own. But then there was the hospital - and then coming home from the hospital, and crying in her crib and me not wanting to rush to her side because I wanted her to learn to fall asleep on her own again. And now, all I think of now is how I would give anything to have her crying for me to come snuggle her to sleep, to tell her that everything is ok, and to stroke her head and sing to her.
And I have the chance to be that for Lochlan. To just hold him, and snuggle him, and stroke his head and sing to him. It's hard to remember that there is no going back to that - there is no rewind when he is 15 and never wants me in his room. That this time when he needs me for everything is so fleeting and so precious, and should be cherished and enjoyed.
Tomorrow he will be with me. Tomorrow I will just think about the moments, and not about the tomorrows.
Today has proven to be a trying day. Emotions off the hook. Frustrations high. Anger manifesting. Tears flowing. Mind reeling. No peace at all. This time of year is trying as it is, but this year seems to be taking its toll earlier and more intensely than I remember from last year. Two days of bereavement events probably didn't make it easier. I feel like life has built up this wall of busyness; of things that have to be done; of not having time to deal with feelings and clutter and everyday life; of sleep deprivation. That wall is like a tower of wooden blocks - teetering every so precariously on one another, just waiting for a heavy step, a light wind, a shift in the rug, to topple it over into a mess on the floor. Anticipating when the wall will fall is impossible. The anticipation creates strain of its own. Maybe I need to rethink what needs my focus the most. Too bad the world doesn't seem to want to back me up on that.
I often find myself missing having two kids. It seems to be getting more and more frequent that I look down at my baby boy playing on the floor and miss that there is not a 3 year old entertaining him. It's been making it hard for me to play with him myself. I shouldn't be the one entertaining him - it should be Saoirse. She should be shaking the toy while I do the dishes. She should be showing him how to hammer the toys, while I do a load of diapers. She should be reading him a book, while I clean the dining room. He's missing it - all of it.
We went to Russell Orchards to get cider doughnuts and take pictures with pumpkins. (We used to take Saoirse to Smolak's, but we just can't go back yet.) I wanted a picture of Lochlan in a bucket of pumpkins, just like we had done with Saoirse both halloween seasons. I brought her little hat that she had worn in the first one (I spared putting him in her same outfit). I went to put him in a nice big bucket - and promptly go yelled at. Apparently pumpkins roll - and I shouldn't be putting a baby where pumpkins might roll and crush him (like I was going to just leave him there for a while). I wanted to walk up to that man and ask him if he understood that my baby girl could never sit in another bucket of pumpkins. That she could never hold her brother in her lap and take a picture in the pumpkin patch. That the world is full of risk, and sitting in a bucket of pumpkins is the least of my worries for him. But I didn't. He didn't need that from me. I just took Lochlan to a different bucket and did it anyway.
I will put him in her pea pod costume and parade him down the street on halloween. I will put the photos of him next to the photos of her and see if they look the same - even though she was almost 2 months older at halloween, and he is just huge. I will do the things that I would have done if she was still here with us. But I will do it all while utterly missing her actually being here. And knowing that I only have 18 months of comparisons before there are no more side by sides. And when that day arrives, there will just be one picture going forward.
The summer time is proving to be rough emotionally. We spent last summer so hopeful that Saoirse was going to be well, and she seemed to be heading that way. We spent all our time with her - doing fun things and finding things to do that would make her forget she was sick. We made sure she enjoyed every day.
Now, everything we do is a reminder of last summer and what we did with Saoirse. It's a reminder of all the things we did with her, and all the things she got to experience. But it's also a reminder of all the things she never got to experience. When we do find something new to experience, we are saddened that Saoirse didn't get to do it with us.
This is the double edged sward of our summer this year. A time when we feel like we should be enjoying ourselves, but instead we are forcing ourselves to try and be "normal." But, thanks to good friends and family, we have been coerced into getting out and enjoying the season.
