Lisa for Real

Kindergarten Graduation in the Time of COVID

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Yesterday, I was a mom to a kindergartener.

Today, I am a mom to a first grader. 

Just.like.that.

No pomp. No circumstance. No big party with her classmates with treats and hugs from her teachers. No end-of-year clean up to bring the experience of filling the room with her creations and laughter full circle. 

Instead, we received her belongings, worksheets, and artwork in a black garbage bag. 

Instead, there was a final Zoom class with 20 classmates. Twenty six year olds individually voicing their mix of feelings about kindergarten ending. 

As the children bravely and innocently shared, tears fell.

I mourned.

I mourned for the moments that my daughter doesn’t know she missed. I mourned this “new normal” that has replaced inperson connections with abrupt electronic contactless transactions. I mourned that no proper goodbye exists during this time.

As a lump in my throat and a tightness in my chest grew, the sadness flowed.

My emotions were not only of the moment but bottled up over the past three months of quarantine. Fermenting and bubbling under the surface while I scrambled to keep it together as employee, wife, daughter, sister, friend, neighbor, teacher, and mom. 

I mourned the robust and engaging lessons my daughter would have had instead of my husband and I playing teacher. I mourned her friendships that never got a chance to truly blossom. I mourned all of the what-if’s. 

I mourned the inability for me to change any of it.

Change.

I realize, above all, I am mourning that everything is changing. The changing that is inevitable because our children do nothing but grow and change and we have no control over it. After six years of constant change, I am again reminded that I will be battling these emotions for all of motherhood – in times of COVID or not.

I will mourn again and again the change from old normal to new normal. 

After these emotions flow, I will be ready to embrace the change.

I will be ready to embrace being a mother to a first grader.

Inspiration: This exact moment in time of quarantine is a tough one. I have competing emotions and emotional priorities. While the world is uniting and dividing around Black Lives Matter, our individual lives continue. Just as our lives continued as the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world. My daughter graduating from kindergarten is not a small milestone and while I have wanted to focus on advocacy work and writing, these emotions bubbled up and I had to share.

He is Real and He is Mine – A Bond is Born

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Nine days postpartum, I shed my first tears for my son. And I finally felt like his mother.

As I looked down to see his peaceful sleeping face resting on my chest, I came to the sudden realization that he was real and he was mine and he was here to stay.

I became overcome with throat choking, stomach clenching, tear inducing emotion.

Overcome with all that had happened over the past 14 months. Back to back miscarriages, multiple scares during the pregnancy, and extra ultrasounds and blood draws made it a roller coaster of a journey. I had questioned many times whether I would ever hold him, and now here was this beautiful soul.

Overcome with perfection in my chubby baby. In the hustle and bustle of becoming a family of four, I had not had the time to really take him all in. His complete purity. His brand new skin and toes and nose and smell. His infinite potential.

Overcome with the lessons I had learned and will learn from him. His patience and ability to go with the flow had already astounded me. I could tell he had an old soul who came here with a purpose. (My secret nickname for him is little Buddha.)

Overcome with the possibility that this is my last baby. I had been in a bit of denial about this but it really hit me that I may never have another baby, never have another sacred fourth trimester. I wanted to squeeze every drop of infant goodness during our time together but also scared that I won’t do enough and not have any more opportunities to enjoy those first days again.

This overcome of emotions is pure love. It is the rawness of motherhood. The foundation of a lifelong relationship. A wave that rushes in, nearly knocking you off your feet, taking your breath away with its beauty. No matter how it feels for the mother, it is this love that fuels during those restless nights and challenging times.

A bond between mother and baby is as individual as a snowflake or a sunrise. With my rainbow baby, it took a little longer to realize and feel it – perhaps because of my previous losses or the fact that I had a demanding toddler to take care of as well. But I’m so glad that it came.

I’d love to hear – do you have an exact moment where you felt that first bond with your child(ren)?

Inspiration: I decided to write about this moment because it took place so strongly and unexpectedly.
The birth and first days postpartum with my son were very different than with my daughter. With my daughter, we had a long delivery and then were able to savor our first 48 hours together at the hospital. My husband and I didn’t tell anyone we went to the hospital to deliver her and did not have any visitors until my mom came to help out when we got home two days later.
With my son, everything was a little rushed (birth story to come soon!). I labored at home for quite a while. I ended up being 7 cm dilated by the time I went to the hospital. Delivery came only ~3.5 hours after getting to the hospital. We only stayed 24 hours after the delivery because we wanted to get home to our daughter who had spent her first night ever without me. And those 24 hours were jam-packed with tests and paperwork while trying to get acquainted with our little guy. My husband and I enjoyed a few hours total of just being the three of us but in the back of my mind and underlying many of our conversations was our daughter at home. We wondered how she slept, how she was at daycare, how she ate, etc. It was like another half of my heart and brain were somewhere else.
Leaving the hospital with my son, I didn’t feel the same as with my daughter. I was there for half the time and both my husband and I felt that the care was not as good as our first birth. The nurses did not offer to wheelchair me down like they did last time which really left a sour taste in my mouth. Additionally, I felt rushed and anxious to get home to see the new big sister.
Three and a half years ago, as I was waiting for my husband in the hospital lobby with my daughter all wrapped up in her cocoon of a swaddle, I sat down in a chair and stared down at this miniature bundle and tears fell down my cheeks onto her little body. I couldn’t hold back the intense release of emotions from the past 48 hours and I was overwhelmed with the love I felt for her. I felt like a mother – her mother – right then and there.
As I waited in the lobby this time around, I stared down at my son a little disappointed not to feel the same way. When this moment of finally feeling like his mother came at home 9 days postpartum, I felt compelled to capture it.

This Is Not My Story

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Have you ever had a true eureka moment?

I have had many and one of my biggest was a life realization that I made ten years ago.

I was getting my health coaching certification through the Institute for Integration Nutrition and was practicing my health history intake with a local student. I was the client and she was the coach. Being that this was my sixth practice session as a client, I was trying my best not to just go through the motion of answering the questions but to really imagine I was doing this for the first time so that my partner would get the most out of the practice session. Little did I know that that would serve me more than her.

I remember distinctly, I was sitting on my bed answering the first general questions about my weight, menstrual cycle and digestive system and then we started talking my childhood. She asked me about my father who had passed away three years prior. See, my dad and I never had a “relationship” where we shared stories or he took me fishing or taught me about boys. I honestly can’t even remember a true conversation we had aside from figuring out what was for lunch. His verbal communication was impacted by his epilepsy which he developed as a child, and because he never worked and stayed at home, I never really saw him as an authority figure (Yikes! Just realized I may have some issues about work and authority as I write this. I’ll have to come back to this topic another day). Due to his disability, I ended up having to take care of a lot of things in my household that normal children wouldn’t have to. I have learned since, that as a survival mechanism, I took on a lot of these responsibilities in stride and hadn’t thought much of it.

As I was explaining this to my partner, she said, “Well, it sounds like he’s had a huge impact on your life.” And before I could automatically downplay it and really minimize his role in my life as I always have, I had a huge light bulb moment.  I realized that I had been equating the lack of relationship and connection with my father to a lack of influence on my life when in reality, I could attribute almost everything to him.

Imagine you have been telling yourself one thing all of your life, whether consciously or subconsciously, and then you realize in one second that it is completely false.

I felt like my whole world turned upside down in that moment.

My first instinct was denial – I tried my very best to maintain the belief I had held for twenty-plus years. But as every argument against the idea was broken down, I started to incorporate this new truth. And would you believe it that my life made more sense than ever?

We live our day-to-day lives and our interpretations of what happens to us are the stories we tell ourselves. They shape our character and create our “truths.” But our truths are not the ultimate truth. They are the laws and standards we may live our lives but like real life laws, they can be challenged and change if needed.

A couple of weeks after my miscarriage, I was trying to process everything. For whatever reason, I though the worst of my life was behind me, that my challenging childhood had happened and it had shaped me to be an awesome person living an amazing life and that I finally had control over everything. If that isn’t a red flag, I don’t know what is!

My miscarriage was trying to my ego. My life was not following a plan that I had set out for myself. I got pregnant with my daughter right as we started trying and I thought I had this whole baby making thing down pat. But as I lost not one but two pregnancies, I was sent spiraling. I started saying to myself, “this is not my story – this is not what is meant to be happening to me.”

Like a well-written story, everything in our life stories happens for a reason.

Details are not to be overlooked as they can foreshadow something later on in the story or they perpetuate a theme that the author wants to share or they create conflict that the protagonist must overcome. It all serves a purpose. I have believed this ever since my eureka moment during that health coach practice session.

But when life throws us off a path that we are comfortably moseying down, we want to believe it wasn’t meant to be, that is it not a part of our story. As children, we are still forming our truths. We take in our life experiences and those form the foundation for how we interpret our lives and the world. And I have found, as we get older, our truths are challenged. This can either send us into denial or into an evolution where we incorporate new truths into our lives.

With the miscarriage, I was searching and searching for the lesson in why it happened. I kept coming up against a wall, telling myself that this was not meant to be, that “this is not my story.” But I realized as I was processing everything happening – what a damning thing to say! If it’s happening in my life, it IS my story. Whether or not I have control of it, I have to own it. Denying it will not make it any less of my story.

Life is not just about the things you can control.

Life will throw you curve balls, fastballs and change-up’s. You will not always be in able to tell what’s coming. And you do not have full control over it. But never, for a single second, claim you are better than the circumstances. Never disown those moments because they are perhaps the most pivotal in your story.

Growth can certainly happen when we challenge ourselves but how often do we push ourselves so we are teetering on the edge? So that we feel if we breathed the wrong way that we are done?

As much as we’d like to believe we are strong enough to push ourselves to the brink, we are not brave enough to do that to ourselves. Growth and expansion happen in those curve balls and fastballs. You may come out swinging when you are pitched them or hunker down and take the ball. What you do in the moment is important but the lessons are actually in the replay. Incorporating those challenges into our lives enable us to continue to live our story, to continue swinging.

I’m not sure that this was the ultimate lesson of my miscarriages but at the least, it has been a micro-lesson, a reminder that I need to own my story and it is only when I accept my circumstances that I can make the best of them.

Inspiration: I created this image and a short write up for an Instagram/Facebook post as I was starting my healing journey after my miscarriage. I wanted to expand upon it and add it to my blog so I could reference it instead of sifting through my feeds. As I was thinking about how this lesson has appeared during other parts of my life, I pulled in the story about my dad.
The evolution of this post in a few months shows that ideas aren’t something that are formed and then become stagnant, unless you want them to be. They are ever changing, morphing with new experiences and as we make more connections between what is happening and what has happened to us. I very much follow Elizabeth Gilbert’s philosophy in Big Magic that ideas have a life of their own. We have a choice of whether or not we keep them around. Sometimes they will float away or disappear as quickly as they come. I tend to hold onto ideas like my possessions, hoarding them and refusing to let them go even though I know deep down that the idea isn’t right for me. This is something I continue to work on and what I’m finding is that as I let go of more physical things, I can also let go of more mental and emotional things. This will be a lifelong challenge for me (bless my husband who initiates most of our spring cleanings) but as I get older, I’m starting to see the value in having less in my physical space as it allows me to have more freedom in my mental space.

Echoes of Fallen Trees – My Fourth Mother’s Day

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miscarriage story

“If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound?”

If I was asked this last Mother’s Day, I would have said, “Of course, it does.” Though my answer would have had no actual basis or reasoning other than my logical thinking, and I would have likely preceded my response with a slight eye roll coupled with a “No, duh.”

A year later, I celebrate this fourth Mother’s Day with a concrete answer.

That fallen tree damn well would have made a sound.

To question the presence of a sound questions the tree’s presence at all. And while you and I may not have seen that tree fall, or hell, ever seen the tree before at all, it does not make it any less of a tree. And when trees fall, they make a sound (no, duh).

But that sound is not just an echoing boom that lives for a few seconds – it is also the echoes of its death, the domino effect of its absence. The living tree had a presence, an impact on its environment. It supported the earth it was rooted in. It offered a home to animals and shade to plants. It was part of an ecosystem. Its death would have also had a reverberating impact. The fallen body would house different animals. It would fertilize the earth and clear way to create new life. The ecosystem would evolve from its absence, being no better and no worse from it. It would just be.

This Mother’s Day, when looking to break my 5 month blog hiatus and share the reason for my absence, I could only think of this question.

Because the past year has had its own domino effect on me.

This Mother’s Day, I am no better and no worse than last year. I just am. I am beyond happy to be 5 months pregnant. My womb is graced by butterfly kicks and little squirms. And I am still absolutely enamored by my three year old, her antics, beauty and spirit.

But, I can’t help but to think of how this holiday would have been if I did not have trees fall in my forest.

In one scenario, I would have been a mother to a one month old baby, balancing a rambunctious toddler while practicing my fourth trimester.

In another scenario, I would have been 8 months pregnant glowing in anticipation of my upcoming birth.

This Mother’s Day, I know damn well that that fallen tree would have made a sound.  Because this Mother’s Day, I carry the vibrations of two miscarriages.

I bounce between joy, grief, anxiety, and hope because those little babies left their marks. Those experiences birthed a new me – a new woman, friend, wife and mother from the pain, loss, and grief. To question the absence of those trees questions the absence of life and I know that while a life may have silently left us as it silently arrived, it does not make it any less material and it does not leave any less of an echo.

 

Inspiration: I had two miscarriages in 2016, and since, I have been trying to figure out how to share my story. And even before that, I have been trying to figure out why I should share it at all. I created this blog because I feel my experiences are not meant to be lived in a vacuum. While miscarriages aren’t common conversation in our society, there is so much power that comes in sharing our stories.
I have come to realize our strength as women lies so much in our abilities to handle stress, loss, and the heaviness of life. This may not be something that we realize until we experience it ourselves or see someone else go through it. I feel it is especially important for those who have experienced miscarriages to share these stories with women who have not. Those gaps in experience divide us mentally and emotionally but stories bridge those gaps.
My heart breaks for the women who experience their miscarriages silently or do not receive the support they need during that time. It is so important for us to come together and the lack of understanding should not isolate anyone from the support they need.
While no miscarriage is the same (just as no birth or death is the same), I can now say that I did not support my loved ones in a way that they needed after learning of their miscarriages. I feel guilt for that quite often and while I cannot go back in time, I hope sharing my point of view will open the eyes of others who may have friends and family going through a loss. I look to continue sharing more about my miscarriages in the future.

Why I don’t want my daughter to be a princess

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16.07.23 daughter princessOne evening last week, my daughter came home from daycare, had her milk and went to put on a skirt that my mom made her. After slipping it on over her head, she plopped down onto the bed and stated with a bright smile…

“I’m a princess.”

I saw red.

No, her skirt was not red. Nor anything else in the room.

I was red inside – completely fuming.

I turned to my husband and said, “We need to get her out of daycare now.”

A bit of an extreme reaction?

Yes.

But I did not want to raise a princess lover.

I know that kids choose their own path, and I am a believer in that, but honestly and naively, I never thought that MY daughter would ever take the princess path. I really should know better because my sweet nieces, daughters of a non-princess anything mom, love their Disney princesses.

So, very calmly, I  asked my daughter, “Oh, really? What is a princess?”

I’m pretty sure she said “I don’t know.”

But honestly, I can’t say.

I wasn’t even listening to her.

Instead, I was drafting the email in my head to her daycare teachers about how I did not want to perpetuate gender stereotypes.

I was scorning Disney and pink and all things frilly and frail.

I was trying to figure out which of her classmates might have possibly put the princess idea in her head.

Since last week, my daughter has said she’s a princess several more times. Each time added more salt to the wound and put me a step closer to drafting that letter to her daycare teachers.

It has been eating away at me, and when I read this article this morning on the clear designation of girl and boy toys, I had enough.

I posted it to my Super Mom Village Facebook group  and vented a bit. It sparked an amazing conversation, and I got some really thoughtful responses. But they were not at all what I expected.

My fellow moms did not rally with me and lambaste Disney and princesses. Instead, they essentially questioned my fundamental reasoning and said maybe a little “self reflection” needs to be done.

“Who me? Self reflection? There is nothing wrong with my view on princesses.” 

Or so I thought…

As I relived that moment after milk on the bed and the subsequent times she has said “I’m a princess,” I got a queasy feeling in my stomach and a lump in my throat. Every time. Both reactions are signs that something is amiss.

After I walking around in denial all day and trying to rationalize my way out of it, I have come to the realization…

“Crap. I have princess issues.”

The reason I don’t want my daughter to be a princess is due to my own beliefs, limitations and experiences.

What beliefs you ask? The real question is which one? Where do I even start?

I never grew up with princess movies, toys or even pretend play. I played sports, X-men, and Encyclopedia Brown with my brother and guy cousins. That being said, you’d think I would have a neutral view on princesses. To the contrary, I feel my identity tied so much to not being a princess and not having those memories that if my daughter becomes one, I fear I won’t be able to identify and relate with her.

I see princesses as heavily associated with fairy tales, which is not exactly how my life has unfolded. I have always held a deep belief that my daughter should “earn her stripes.” Not in a cruel way like subjecting her to age-inappropriate situations, but to be knowledgeable about the world beyond first world problems, understand that not everything is a fairy tale and that she is the creator of her future. To me, having princess fantasies would make her less in touch with the greater issues of the world. But as I write this, I realize I sound cruel and heartless – more like the evil stepmother in the stories than a loving mother. 

I think of princesses as weak and kind of useless. One of the Super Moms said, “Can I ask what’s so wrong about wanting to be a princess? Princess Di was pretty badass.” My friend had a good point. If my daughter was a princess, she’d be a pretty bad ass one, and she definitely wouldn’t wait to be saved by her prince but would bulldoze her way out of a sticky situation! I should have faith in her abilities beyond her belief that she is a princess.

I see princesses as frivolous. With ridiculous fairy tale problems like finding her prince, or falling under a spell and waiting to be saved, or spending all of her time at balls and talking to animals. Basically, not contributing to society. I can’t have a daughter who doesn’t see how ridiculous those issues are! I want her to save the turtles and whales and solve global warming! But these things are all beyond my control. (I’ll have to write about control issues another time!)

I see being a princess in direct opposition to the values I want to teach her.

Those include independence, empathy, self confidence, understanding world issues, and serving a greater purpose.

In a nutshell, I fear what princesses represent. However, this is an unfounded fear. I have demonized princesses and fairy tales in my head. Seen them as the sole reason that little girls become weak women. I have projected my beliefs and insecurities onto how I want to raise my daughter. 

But what mom isn’t guilty of that? What can we do but provide experiences and share our principles and philosophies to help mold the future of this world?

But where do my beliefs end and hers start?

I know I want her to be her own person. For her to do her own thing, to create her own memories and experience even more than I do. I know I want her to take charge and simply to kick ass . But I have been under the misconception that the only way to do that is for her to take the path that I took. After all, how can I be a great mother when I can’t directly relate to her experience?

It seems I’ve got a bit of self work to do in this area.

As she gets older and I continue my self development, I’m realizing that raising a daughter is going to be where a lot of my self work happens. And I am simultaneous excited but scared to unearth these inner demons. I know that working on myself directly impacts my mothering and my daughter. It’s a journey that can only benefit the both of us.

So what beliefs do I need to breakdown?

In this instance, I need to think outside of my princess stereotypes. (Conjure images of Princess Di.) I need to let go of trying to control all of her situations. (But I still may send a note to daycare.) I need to believe that growing up differently than the way I did is okay. (Take a look at all of my amazing friends who are strong women and know that every single person took a different path.) I need to trust that I can be a great mother even if I can’t directly relate to her challenges. (I’m resourceful, I have many experiences that I can pull from my tool bag to help her and if I can’t, it’s okay!)

One of the brilliant Super Moms said, “Have faith in the foundations that you set for her. Ultimately she will end up being herself, regardless of whether you approve or not.”

She is absolutely right. The best I can do is share my principles and have faith. My daughter will choose what she wants.

Who am I to decide for her?

Inspiration: I was on an unintentional break from this blog but this experience was eating away so much at me that I knew I had to write through it and bring me out of writing hibernation. My princess issues run deep because they intertwine with many other beliefs as I described above. I’ll be working through this for a while but I know that I have uncovered and peeled away a layer of gunk stopping me from being a better mother, role model and woman.
What word is your “princess”? What beliefs are you holding on tightly to at the expense of your child or friend or family member’s development or health? What standards have you created for yourself that are unrealistic or short-sighted? Comment below! No judgement. Just love.

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