Lisa for Real

218. A different expression of a child’s love

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Yesterday, I wrote about why I often respond to my kids’ requests to do things with “maybe.”

In further thinking about how I communicate with my kids, I realize that being vague also appears in my responses to my kids’ questions about what is going on that day or what’s for dinner or what we are doing this weekend.

I become inexplicably frustrated with them for asking perfectly normal questions! Heck, as an adult, I want to know these things as well. But instead of giving them the straight answer, I’ll withhold that information and will either answer vaguely, say they don’t need to know or distract them and tell them to go play.

In thinking of the origins of why I hold back information, I realize it likely comes from my childhood. Growing up, information was given on an as needed basis. There was a lot that my mom had on her mind but they were never shared. I’m not sure if I asked questions but if I did, they most certainly got shut down. I never had a model for a healthy, open line of communication between child and parent – a result of Chinese culture, my mom’s personality/trauma/beliefs and our different dominant languages. I was left to figure out many things for myself and in some distorted way, being quiet and solving the problem myself was fulfilling a need for my mom for me to be obedient and became the way I showed that I cared and loved my mom and family.

While my children are growing up in a very different household than me, I can see myself repeating that pattern. I expect my kids to react the way I reacted but that doesn’t make sense in the relationship I want to cultivate. Their desire for information does not mean that they don’t want to earn my love and the information I have does not need to be withheld so that they will remain attached and try to earn my love.

Phew! There are quite a few layers to this one pattern I have but breaking it down helps in knowing it is not me but my inner child who wants to recreate the same pattern of expressing love that is familiar to her. I will be chatting with my inner child to say – “It is okay. I have the ability to communicate better with my kids than my mom did. I want to cultivate a real relationship with my kids based on open communication and understanding. I know that they are asking because they want to be informed on what is going on and that is perfectly reasonable for a child. We don’t need to repeat the patterns of my mom and my relationship.”

Today is significant

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Today is significant.

It is the last time that I will be a year postpartum.  I will never be able to experience again much of what has happened in the last 366 days. (Through modern science, we can replicate a lot of things but childbirth is not one of them.) I have tried to archive every memory of this past year in technicolor detail but I have already forgotten more than I can remember. 

It is no wonder our youngest children always remain babies in our eyes – because we want to hold onto that feeling, always.  That feeling when their tiny hand first grasped our finger.  That feeling when we saw their first smile. When we received that first drooly kiss.  When we saw their first steps. And so on. 

The final firsts.  How incredibly bittersweet they are.

They are a reminder that motherhood is a constant barrage of beginnings and endings. At a pace unmatched by any other wonderment of our lives.  Highlighted with intense highs and lows as joyfulness and sadness gleefully tag each other in and out as they please. 

As I mourn and celebrate this final first, I also examine this re-emergence from postpartum.

Today feels very different from the other two times.

Today is significant.

Through a biological lens, this current life stage I am in are my fertile years with puberty and menopause as the bookends. And long ago, this life stage would have been filled with lots of babies. This is the time of life when Woman embodies the power of Creation.

My body, having already returned to its cycles, is overflowing with intense, creative energy, but I have no desire to add to my brood. 

Instead, I feel that energy driving me to write again, to coach again, to create projects again. Redirecting my focus to bringing about the change I want to see in the world.

Just as I am clearing my bookshelf of my pregnancy and birthing books for new material, I feel my heart, body and mind re-calibrating, shifting and shimmying about to make room for my next creations and projects.

As I hold white-knuckled onto that first year of postpartum, I also feel propelled forward to a different kind of potential. Such is motherhood, a barrage of beginnings and endings.

Today is significant.

It is the start of the rest of my motherhood.

Inspiration: Every significant moment and milestone of this past year has had an echo sometimes whispering, sometimes SHOUTING, “Savor this because it’s the last time!” Today’s echo is the loudest and one filled with incredible sadness. But at the same time, I feel a need to, an urgency to, create. To create for good, for change, for me and for my family. And so here I am, one foot trying to stand firm in the land of postpartum and the other foot trying to make marks on the rest of the world.

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.