Writing Leads the Way...

As another due date comes to an end, I am once again awaiting the birth of a child who I know will come when she is ready.  That is what I want...ultimately...for her to be fully cooked and prepared to enter this world as a healthy, strong human being, my baby, my 2nd born, my sweet Lander Lee.

And as we anticipate her birth, we gear ourselves up for some new challenges, mostly related to the toddler-hood of our 1st born, my sweet Jack Patrick.  Jack-Bo, as he is well known, is a mostly easy-going, agreeable, brilliant almost 3 year-old who keeps us entertained each day with his amazing abilities, unique sense of humor and genuinely kind heart.  But as in all families, some days are better than others.  Jack is still a toddler, going through toddler changes, testing toddler boundaries and discovering toddler independence.  He is finding his own way in the world more and more each day, but his is still only a toddler sized world, his exposure limited to what we allow and what we teach him.  We are pretty honest and open with him.  We don't hover or shield him from all the evil truths in the world, but we do "toddler-size" the bigger issues in life to accommodate his level of maturity.  Of course we want him to be a nice boy, to treat others with respect and to understand there are consequences for his actions.  He is no dummy; he is learning all too well the meaning of "consequences," as lately he has been going through a hitting, scratching and kicking mommy and Daddy stage when he does not get what he wants. Mostly this behavior is related to bed/nap time or else potential treats or special outings. Still, as parents, it is our job to guide him and teach him right from wrong, and help him find acceptable ways to deal with anger or frustration.

Sometimes when Jack is having a tantrum I relate to him so closely.  It is like his acting out is a reflection of exactly what I am feeling in that same moment.  I, too, want to scream out, and sometimes I do!  He has witnessed fights between his parents; he has even witnessed multiple arguments between myself and MY parents.  He has seen that relationships can be complicated and that we are not perfect, but he has also seen that life goes on, we all recover, and the love within our family never stops flowing.  That is a truth I am proud of living...

This morning I experienced a sadness that until today I had not felt yet as a parent: that of your child so angry that he tells you he does not love you.  Regardless of what I know to be true, that he DOES love me with all his heart, my own heart shattered during our terrible exchange.  To make matters worse, my expectations for  Lander's "due date" day were completely destroyed, and part of me hoped that she would not come yet so that there would be time to move past the hurt Jack and I were both feeling.  It all started when I asked him if he wanted to go to breakfast...

"I got a great idea, Mommy, let's go to the mall!"

"That IS a great idea, Jack!"  I'd be able to walk around, maybe kick start some contractions, and we could eat lunch at his favorite place in the food court and ride the carousel again.  Then I looked at the clock on the computer: 9:45AM.  "Okay, the mall isn't open yet, so let's..."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!  I want to go RIGHT NOW!"  He lays down on the floor kicking and screaming.

"Jack we are going to go and we can have lunch there, but we have to get dressed...."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!  They ARE open!  I want to go RIGHT NOW!"  He stands up and begins slapping my bare leg.  When I catch his hand in the midst of the 3rd or 4th slap, he takes the other one and claws at my same thigh.

"Jack, this behavior is unacceptable; if you hit Mommy again you will have to have a consequence.  I said we will go to the mall and have lunch there, but we have to wait until it is open."  All through my calm lecture he is screaming and flailing about, either not understanding what I am saying in the first place or else just too far gone to reel himself back in.  He hits me again. "Okay, forget it, we're not going."  

He continues to freak out.  I tell him to go to his room to calm down.  He screams "NO!" at me again, so I scoop him up and deposit him in his room and close the door.  He screams and cries for another 15 seconds and then I hear him playing calmly.  I sit back down at the computer and decompress, my heart racing in disbelief at how such a situation even occurred. Somehow he immediately took my "the mall isn't open" statement to imply we would not go.  Either way, I cannot reward that type of behavior. I gave him several chances to HEAR what I WAS saying.  I even tried to ignore the first few slaps, realizing they were out of frustration, but in the 5 minutes that this all went down, I had to be the parent first and foremost...and sometimes that is the hardest job in the world.

Maybe 10 minutes later he came out of his room and said,

"Mama, I being a nice boy, is the mall open now?"  

I hated to answer as I did, but it was the right thing to do.

"I'm sorry Jack, the mall IS open, but we are not going.  You hit mommy and scratched me, and that behavior is unacceptable, so now we won't be going." 

Tears stream down his face as I am talking; he starts shaking and running in place and screaming again.  He presses his face against my leg and then hits me multiple times again, although with less force than before and intentionally making eye-contact as he does it, testing me. Then he throws himself onto his knees.

"I don't love you, Mama!"

I sigh.  My heart breaks.  I take a deep breath and look down at him on the floor.

"Well, I still love you."

That was the end of it.  15 minutes and my whole life changed with an experience so hurtful...but I managed to move on with the day, made other plans, picked up the pieces of my broken heart and kept on going.  And eventually, (not even another half hour from then), Jack came around to his senses and told me how much he loves me.  He hugged and kissed me and we got dressed and went out to run some errands.  He mentioned several times about going to the mall another day, and I said yes, we will try again another day.  We talked about how he hurt my feelings, and he offered to kiss my boo-boos on my leg where he hit me.  He told me his feelings were hurt too, and I said I was sorry that his feelings were hurt but that he still can't hit or scratch Mommy.  In the car we listened to his "songs" as he asked things like "Is this 'Dancin' in the Dark?'  Or Adam Levine?  Turn it up, Mommy."  He was completely unfazed by the morning while I was doing my best to keep the sadness I was feeling from surfacing.  Inside I was grieving for the loss of our perfect day together, one that would quite possibly be our last before his sister was born.  I suppose it seems over-dramatic as I sit here writing about it now, but I am 40 weeks pregnant and my emotions are on high alert...

And although our day was mostly pleasant after that, with only one time-out and a few basic reprimands, the evening brought on its own set of challenges as bedtime approached.  Daddy carried him upstairs as he hit and kicked, knocking a picture off the wall in the hallway.  We told him if he continued with this behavior he would lose his stories, and he chose to continue, so that was that.  Daddy restrained his little arms that were wildly flying at me while I brushed his teeth, and then we managed to wrangle him into this jammies, wash his face and hands and go potty one last time.  Despite his tears and pleading, the battle of bedtime came to an end with no stories read, but lots of prayers said.

Daddy took the dogs out and eventually went to bed.  I played some Words with a friend, and when my phone battery died I tried to go to sleep myself.  But as I cuddled up next to my boy, I began caressing his hair and rubbing his soft arm, patting his back and then I gave him a hundred kisses.  I just talked to him, while he was sleeping, telling him how much I love him, how proud I am of him, how Mommy and Daddy support him and want him to know we believe he can be anything he wants to be and do anything he wants to do.  I reminisced out loud about the first time I met him, the first time I touched him, BEFORE I ever saw his face, as his little head popped out of me and I felt with my own hands his thick hair swishing in the birthing pool until one last contraction confirmed his arrival into this world, and into my arms for the first time.

My whole life changed in that moment.  Jack was not the only one born, as I was born again too, as his mother, as the person I knew I was always meant to be.  My purpose was defined and concrete, even touchable, as I inspected each and every inch of his perfectly formed body, memorizing each curve and wrinkle so that I would never forget the day we were birthed together.

I don't know if it will feel the same this time.  I know lots of people worry about if they will be able to love their 2nd child as much as their first.  I do not have that concern.  I already love her just as much, and she is still safe and cozy inside of me!  And each day I love them both more and more; I cannot imagine NOT having enough love for both b/c I think with each child your heart grows, so there is always enough love.  The journey with each child may be different...the challenges greater with one over the other, the ease of one over the other as well.  I anticipate going through each stage of development with Lander and having to re-evaluate my parenting based on HER needs, HER personality, HER abilities and maturity level.  Not everything is the same all the time, not everything in life is fair.  Sometimes you have to bend in order not to break, and sometimes you have to break in order to truly heal...but the one constant is that I will always love my children with a customized love plan for each one.  I can't take the credit for the concept of a "customized love plan" for each of my children, but the person who pointed out its powerful meaning helped me to heal from some of my own personal struggles while also giving me confidence in my instincts as a mother.  So while I may not be re-born as a mother again during Lander's actual birth, I am just as certain that her mother is who I was meant to be.  I know I will inhale every bit of her being in those first moments and store those memories forever inside my heart right next to the place reserved for Jack, but in a newly grown partition just for her.

The reality that I am having another baby is setting in, and yet I am still in such disbelief that this is my life.  My wildest dreams have come true; I am married to my soul mate and I have the family I have always wanted.  Nothing else even matters.  Brett said it best in a conversation with Jack last night after a late work call.

"Daddy, who was on the phone?"  (Jack is in the bathtub.)

"One of daddy's workers."  (Daddy is standing and fiddling with things in the bathroom.)

"Work is mean.  I don't like anybody to go to work!" (Or something similar...)

"Well Daddy has to work to make money..." (Tries to explain that money is needed for food, toys, etc.)

"Money is old!  I don't like money!"  (Anything he doesn't like is deemed "old" these days.)

"Yeah, you've heard us talk about money a lot, huh?"  (Daddy sits down on the step stool by the tub, and Jack gazes up at his hero.)  "Well, money makes the world go round...but that's not what we're about.  We're about love...and family."  (The conversation continues as Daddy bathes his boy...)            

And that really IS what we're about.  The McQ Zoo is about love and family.  I thank God that we know and believe that, and I thank God again that we live by that.  In fact, it is b/c of God that we have the blessings of our family and therefore feel SO MUCH love.

When I started writing this post I was thinking about the changes we are about to experience with the birth of a new baby and all that Jack is going through...I was thinking about the Bob Dylan song "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and how some of the lyrics of that song could relate to our newest family dynamic...I Googled and listened to that song and others from that time period by similar artists while I wrote...thinking the music was inspiring me...

But as they often do, my thoughts shifted during the composition of this piece. Sometimes the writing leads the way, not the writer, despite one's efforts to create inspiration.  That is why writing is so therapeutic to me; it helps me see answers to questions I didn't even know I had, and that I may not have recognized otherwise.  Tonight I started writing b/c I was worrying about change, maybe not even realizing that I was worried, but perhaps just thinking deeply about what is to come and knowing I needed to work it out in my own mind through some good old fashioned stream of consciousness; what I (re)discovered though was that once again, the trend continues: the trend of unwavering love.

Things in The McQ Zoo are not about to change after all.  There may be some differences, but our foundation is the same solid, secure and safe place it has always been.  We have God to guide and provide for us, and we have our unwavering love.  Honestly, now we'll just have even more of it!  

And I can't wait!

P.S. Wow!  I sure do feel so much better about my whole day and what happened with Jack-Bo this morning!  Thank you in advance to anyone who reads this post and/or comments on it b/c this is an awesome reminder of just how much writing means to me and my own personal health.  I really feel like I can go to sleep now, and THAT is a HUGE deal for this insomniac!