Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Hello Again

I've been a bit MIA on here recently. I think after going through our second May 29 I was feeling a bit wrung out. We were heading into summer with a wiggly little boy and I didn't want to use this space that never fails to make me root around inside my head and study myself. Instead I spent my free time hooting at monkeys and roasting hotdogs with friends and biking through the sticky air with my little family. The summer was lovely and full and now we're undeniably in fall and Ryann's birthday is staring me down.

Four years old in five short days.

Last year was hard and foreign. We couldn't conjure the girl she would be at three. But at four I somehow have no trouble seeing a girl with limbs too long and elbows too sharp. In the past few months, all of her friends have shot up by inches and are suddenly kids and have no hint of baby left. For a while it was easy to imagine that they hadn't changed that much. They hadn't left her behind. Until we realized that the baby brother of one was passing the age that Ryann was at the end. The shock to see him next to his sister was jarring. It hurt. There's no more pretending or imagining. Ryann shouldn't be a baby anymore. And this year I can imagine her dragging Clif around the house, reading him books, helping me in the kitchen, sleeping through the night. She would be twice as tall as her brother, who at not quite fourteen months has already far surpassed her own actual size. She wouldn't fit in my arms easily anymore, although she would still end up there frequently. Bent and jumbled in order to fit. I don't know why I have no trouble seeing her this year, her first as a kid, and couldn't at year three, her last as a baby.

Part of what has driven me back here was finding myself reading to Clif through ragged cry-breathing after a particularly bad temper-cry on his part. I found myself panicking and thinking of his insides twisting and dying and us getting to the ER too late and repeating the cycle again and again and again until my insides have twisted and died and there are no more babies left to lose. I kept reassuring myself as I held him while he screamed that he felt strong and his legs were still working and he wasn't hot or cold and he hadn't thrown up. He seemed normal and healthy and mad, which is really something so strong to hang on to, as any parent of any sick kiddo knows. But my scare over it all made me realize that in being absent from here during our lovely, wonderful summer, I've been repeatedly stuffing and hiding all the little hints of trouble and worry and longing that have popped up. It's not healthy, it doesn't feel good when they finally start oozing out, and it's not necessary.

So this is all to say that I'm back. Maybe not regularly, but surely more often than once every few months. It's looking like this will be a full and crazy year(s) we're headed into - Jared's graduating with his Masters in May, applying to DMA programs (fingers crossed he stays here in NE, we don't want to become a commuting family!), we're expecting a (surprise!) third baby in mid-May, Jared has his debut professional recital at our alma mater at the end of May, I will be spending the month of June hanging with the kids and my extended family while Jared is exiled to Austria (hardy har har), and the last long trudge through graduate school begins in the fall. Agh. Let's just focus on this week - date night tonight!

And of course some unrelated hilarious pictures of Clif making a run for it with his chosen pumpkin.




What the What?!

I was stumbling through the cobwebs of my blog today and realized that these pictures were just sitting in a draft post, never having seen the light of day. How could that be? What a little munchkin he was.