What's Left After the Thaw

It's another beautiful March day.  We spent part of the afternoon in the backyard, raking up bits of leaves (me) and picking up doggy droppings (Rick) that have become visible now that the snow has melted.  We're also finding what else had been covered up by Winter.

A pair of camouflage gloves.

Colorful bits of broken plastic and toys.

A veritable minefield of wood shards and snapped branches.

More than one piece of 2x4 with rusty nails sticking straight up.

Two halves of a Razr scooter.

Two bike tires with broken spokes and twisted metal.

Boy felt better when he broke things.

For seven months, we called him son, and meant it even on the last day.  It's been over a month and a half since that cold winter day when we said goodbye to him.  So much has changed since then, yet so much is still the same.  His smiling school picture is still on the fridge.  Maisy points at it often and says, smiling, "There's Boy."  His school library books still sit on his dresser - the one he pounded a hole through with a hammer on one of his last nights here.  Every once in awhile, I walk in his old room and think about how I should really stop by the school sometime to return them.  The shattered window in his room is still covered up with plywood, the door is still torn off of the basement room where we feed the dog, the paneled wall is still knocked down and ripped apart.  When Maisy feeds the dog, she points to these things and says, "Boy break door."

Some of the pictures on the fridge can still make me smile, though.  For the first month or so of school, Boy functioned pretty well.  He let me help him with his homework.  He participated in an after-school activity, and Maisy and I went to every one to cheer him on.  He was different then.  Everything was different.

I remember when he began to unravel, sometime in October, for sure in November.  But I'm not going to get into all of that here.  The Whats and Whys and Hows.

So what's left now?  After the thaw?  The hard freeze is over.  What's left behind?

A pair of camouflage gloves.

A 25-month-old who still says "I sister."  Who remembers Boy almost every time we pray before meals.  Who still says, "I miss Girly" even though it's been nearly 7 months since the last time Maisy saw her - when we called our amazing, supportive friends to pick Maisy up at the spur of the moment and keep her away from our house for the night.  Who still points to broken pieces of whatnot and tells me the things Boy destroyed.  Who responds with "Boy loves me" when I ask her in a sing-song voice, "Who loves Maisy?"

Guilt and relief.

A working knowledge of several area pediatric psychiatry units and a sense of which ones are more appropriate for a child with a traumatic history.

Guilt and a feeling of renewed youth.

Residual fear.

Questions.

Vivid memories.

Gratefulness for the care I received in my mother's womb, in my parents' home, from Day 1.  I realize now how critical those early days are, those first few years.  I worry a little about the impact of the hard months on Maisy, but overall, I know she is fine.  She has always been well cared for.  She has always been loved.  She has never known hunger, or the brain-changing confusion of a caregiver who is sometimes warm and sometimes cold and sometimes totally absent.  I am so grateful I can meet her core needs.  Give her this healthy beginning in life.  I wish Boy had had it.  And Girly, too.  I wish it earnestly, and often.

Sadness, yet a sense that I should somehow feel sadder.

Awareness.  Of mental illness.  Of the importance of those first three years.  Of Reactive Attachment Disorder.  Of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.  Of early sexualization.  Of trauma, and PTSD, and the effects of trauma on developing brains.  Of the complexity and desperation of trying to heal children with complex trauma and an assortment of acronyms.

HUMILITY.  I can have so much knowledge and compassion, go to so many trainings, apply this or that method, consult with therapists and experts, try, and try, and try again, and yet fail miserably.  Fail.  So rarely in my life have I failed at anything, and here I failed at something so huge.

Humility.  Powerlessness.  But with the thaw has come some peace.  I know that the Boy who was my son for such a relatively short time, is and always has been a child of God.  And even though I could do so very little, I know that God can do so very, very much.

What's left after the thaw?

Faith.

Hope.

Love
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Stay-at-Home Mommy Guilt

I hear that it's not uncommon for moms to feel guilty now and then. I don't claim to be riddled with guilt. Other than occasionally startling awake at 2 am and mistaking my husband's shoulder for my baby's head and panicking that Maisy is lost in our bed (though she has never slept in bed with us), I sleep very well at night. I never had an inkling of postpartum depression. In fact, I consider myself to be a happy person. Yet still, there's the mommy guilt.

I feel guilty that I spent $6.48 on a clearance baby dress today when I know the budget's tight so that I can be at home with Maisy.

I feel guilty for buying baby food in convenient plastic containers when certainly I'm capable of making my own!

I feel guilty that my bathroom is not sparkling clean at all times.

I feel guilty for not vacuuming daily to prevent the dog hair that inevitably is found clinging to my baby's drool-covered chin when we're at the grocery store.

I feel guilty when I take a little time out of my day to read while Maisy plays happily on the floor nearby. Why am I not cleaning the bathroom or vacuuming??? I blame my dog for the little black hairs that cling to socks and drooly fists, but isn't it my fault too for not being a better housekeeper?

I feel guilty that my daughter just woke up from her nap and she's now hanging out in my lap while I peck one-handed at the keyboard instead of playing pat-a-cake. Never mind, she just drifted off again, much too sleepy for pat-a-cake. Guilt-be-gone.

I feel guilty that I just finished my Master's degree and yet I only tutor four times a week, which barely covers the monthly student loan payments.

I know I'm blessed to stay at home with my little girl when many women balance full-time jobs and kids and have sparklier bathrooms too. For that, I feel guilty. Guilty, guilty, guilty.

Surely I'm not the only stay-at-home mom who feels this way. Yet I know I'd torture myself with guilt just as much if I worked outside the home. So why do I let myself do it? How do I stop?

Trust me, these are rhetorical questions. I have no answers. I think I just keep on doing what I want to do while I'm able to do it, which is stay at home with my baby girl, tutor a few students who need the help, and feel good that at least I tend to be pretty caught up on the laundry.

For the record, I know there are plenty of things I do right as Maisy's full-time mommy aside from keeping up with the laundry.  We read.  (Our favorite book right now is "Baby Loves Peekaboo.")  We sing.  ("Hokey Pokey" is the best song EVER according to Maisy.)  We play.  (Little blocks with bells inside of them are awesome, and Maisy is turning out to be quite the prodigy on her Baby Einstein piano.)  We smile at each other all day long, and we talk A LOT.  Maisy's "ba's" and "ga's" and "ma's" have been temporarily outshone by her new favorite sound, "AAAUULLLGGHHHAAAUUUGH!"  And I love it.  I love her.  Guilt or no guilt, I'm convinced there's no better job than being Maisy's mommy.