The Menagerie Book 1 Review

The Menagerie is a middle grade novel written by the author of the Wings of Fire series, Tui T. Sutherland.  I have read the first seven books of the Wings of Fire series, because my kids love them so much. However, I could never quite get inside their dragon world as well as I wanted. Something about the anthropomorphism that gets me all in a haze of understanding. However, in this series, which The Menagerie is just the first book in the same titled series, I didn't have that befuddlement as much. I could envision each scene and actually could feel for the characters some more. It's not the most in depth of novels, but the fun back and forth from the mythical aspects and reality is fun. How they have to be hidden in the real world but still exist. In some ways it has a Percy Jackson aspect to it but without all the fighting and gore. The fighting and gory scenes were also some of what I didn't enjoy about the Wings of Fire series. There are mishaps and adventures and hidden twists in this one and it will make you stick it out to the end. If you like Griffins, then this book is for you. 

Neurodivergence part 1

There is a series called Divergent by Veronica Roth. It's not the most amazing series ever, there are things that could be developed more but it brings you along for the ride in a way that I, at least, identify with it. The society tries to pin each member into a faction that they identify with based on a test. Cue the personality tests, right? The protagonist however is split between two factions and she has to choose one or be eliminated. I feel for this character in this way, she isn't like her parents and she isn't just different in one way, it's in many ways, she's divergent after all. 

I have taken so many personality tests in self discovery, I love personality tests. They are so fun to try on this or that idea. But really a lot of times, I often find myself split in between a few different categories. With the Myers-Briggs test, it's the E/I factor that often has me debating if I am an INFJ or an ENFJ. It feels like there is no clear answer. When it comes to the four temperaments, I feel mostly melancholic but also see a choleric and a phlegmatic, though that last one probably comes as a trauma response, oh life. And then you have the beloved enneagram that gets at one's core weaknesses. With the enneagram, I have typed myself anywhere from a 1 to an 9, but never a 3 or 7. Currently, I've landed on a 5w6, but really it could be a 6w5 depending on the day, because both are so very close to how I operate. But let's not forget those tests that label how you operate how to operate in strengths and weaknesses in the work place, the strengths finder test, and in that one I am all over the place, people cannot place me one bit. 

All of this is to say that as fun as it is to try on this or that, I know you can get stuck in being one thing, but hah, I really cannot be one thing. I want to try and understand myself, but in understanding myself it becomes more and more confusing. It would be nice to have more peace with this, right? Maybe that will happen in time, I can hope. 

In the last year, I had a behavioral evaluation for my son, who I thought was a quirky kid, and his school that I have him also thought he was a quirky kid. Well, he did turn out to be a quirky kid with like 4 different diagnoses that meant, he was neurodivergent. Applause, ladies and gentlemen. The divergent mom created a neurodivergent kid, who would have thought, huh? On top of that if you add in K's ADHD hyperfocus abilities, you know we are set to have a whole slew of quirky kids. And for sure we do. 

When I began to understand my oldest son's qualities, some of them I didn't have trouble with comprehending them, they weren't scary to me. With one in particular, it was more difficult to see. I was strongly questioning the diagnosis. "What do you mean he's autistic or special needs? Why do people keep saying that?" He's not like the autistic kids that I knew. It didn't matter that so many strangers and well meaning people had tried to tell me that my kid was extra special, or really for them he was so dang hard to control, they always had to call me for reinforcement, cue the homeschooling. He was so freaking smart and gregarious, that it worked for a good while to have the world be our school. With the diagnosis, when I dove deeper into it, it was like oh, ooooohhhh, I can see this. And then of course I thought about my other kiddos and for sure they all are quirky in their own rights too. I mean usually you don't have the principal having you tell you about melt down incidents for your 6 year old but mine totally does. However, again, what should I have expected? Nothing less than this, and actually it's pretty fascinating and I actually mostly love trying to help them be the best human being they can be. It's like the lab followed me home even though I gladly left academia behind. 

I'll add more to this soon, but I think I need to stop for today. So let's label this part 1 of ...

Chicken encounters 1

Tiger likes to spend her days poking at anything and everything. She will poke at all human feet, even as they are moving. She will peck at the floor, she will peck at the door, she will peck at an apple core. Tiger makes sure she will get the first special bit of food. She will trample her fellow hens to make sure she will for sure get that treat, or be the first to anything ever. The one characteristic of Tiger that is in contrast to her aggressive is that she is the easiest to catch. She can be very docile in someone's arms, you can actually get her to fall asleep in your arms when you lay her on her back. 

When in conflict

 I have decided its a pretty taxing thing to feel in conflict always with the church you belong to. To know that you have thought about things a lot and have researched and listened to others, and just cannot have the point of things that you once did, it's a bit brain fraying. I've been watching what the people say that are still devout and its interesting because I think they simplify the situation so that there are no grey areas. But there are always grey areas, and most people live in the margins of those grey areas. To listen and to understand what is actually happening in a situation instead of just having a hard and fast rule takes time and effort. But I think we are better for it. I see this as a parent, it's easier to say no to all the things, but sometimes you have to give a yes where you normally would have a no. I wonder if perhaps its just easier to demonize the other viewpoint than it is to have compassion. It's so interesting to see how God shows up in different ways to different people. I know he's an all encompassing God, so in the end he can handle our differing ways of solving problems. However, it would be good to see more listening and learning to situations that are outside of your own. 

High School selections

 I can never quite think of a great title, but alas, I want to write. I have been dealing with high school applications for my oldest, and it has been a huge process. It is because we live in the city of Cleveland and there are just so many different choices. There are so many public magnet schools and then there are the private schools, and then there are the charter schools, and last the private charter schools. He has so far checked out 4 different schools. His first choice is a private school that is $34,000 a year to go. It feels preposterous and completely impossible to actually send him, but the thing is I love it too. 

 The high school is a mastery based concept high school. It's not the rat race of grades and "must get into college at all costs" high school. Instead its a model of real world problems where you dive deep and learn the things you need to learn along the way and then interact to solve a problem for a community business or organization. It feels like homeschooling at its finest but with the resources to actually be able to pull it off. 

I really, really hate the rat race of grades and such because its just not really how I think life should be. I also don't ever remember being stressed to the max as a high school student in that way and I was the valedictorian of my high school class. Why are we making the teenagers so stressed out about their life choices? All I think is that it mostly means that the teen will become burnt out. And perhaps this was the one thing that I was stressed out in, sports. I had gotten to a level of soccer that no longer felt fun and I didn't think it was worth doing it any more in that level. But that wasn't really the same stress of must achieve, but more so that I didn't want to do it anymore and so I ran instead. 

It is fascinating to see it through his eyes, and I think he definitely sees where I am coming from but also is his own person, and probably stresses a whole lot more about these things like his dad does. The first born child is geared toward people pleasing a bit. We shall see as it goes on, where he gets in and what he chooses come May. 

Mother's Day

 So much of me hates Mother's Day. It embodies memories of fighting with my own mom, burying my baby, taking a kid to the ER and just all these expectations. Somehow I feel like it would be nice to just be taken care of all day, but to actually get that where I am in life, that's not going to happen, at least not by the people around me. I am going to get a massage, and I am sure there are other ways I could take care of myself. I don't think I'd mind sitting in the coffee shop by myself for breakfast and writing. Perhaps this is what I should do.  I love words of affirmation, so perhaps I will once again write some stories as words of affirmation to myself, that I am doing this motherhood thing. Yes, I think I just might do that. 

Poem, 1.5

 To feed, to clothe, to give a roof over one's head. 

Those are the basics. 

 To be able to accept, hear, and understand. 

Those are the things that bring love. 

Somehow the latter is so much harder. 

Perhaps because we fight to still have the former. 

When will we learn. 

Reconciling being made in the image

 One of my favorite songs by the Rocket Summer, "Just A Moment Forget Who You Are" has a line in it where it says, "Because who you are is perfect. You were made in the image of greatness." In Bryce Avery's only slightly subtle way, he is referencing that we as humans are made in the image of God. And taking that we are made in the image of God, that we made to be something that is all good and true and loving, doesn't that mean that we should be good? 

Mr. Avery isn't the newest to comment on people being made of good. However, there seem to be a prevailing cultural idea that people are awful and bad. I think we have taken the idea of original sin and made it become that people are just these vile things that need to be killed in order for there to be good in the world. This doesn't seem right. 

I am wondering, how do we as a society reconcile being good inside with the idea of original sin. Because according to original sin we are prone to always choose the bad thing, but it can't be as black and white as that. If you take the garden of Eden scene where you have people choosing to do evil, to go against what was good for them, how does this make sense with us having good inside? Because to me we have to have good inside for this all to be worth it.

Science seems to be leaning towards people not having needs met which leads them to have behaviors that are non productive toward actually getting the need met but are correlated with not having that need met. So what do we do with this? Is it possible to have original sin make sense and also be good inside? 

I have been often told that a sign of growing is to see that two opposing truths can be possible at the same time. Where is that here? Is it possible to have the ability to choose to do bad things and also be good inside? I think so. But where does this leave God? What need was God not providing that led Adam and Eve to go and do something contrary to what was supposed to be all good and true? Or was it simply a curiosity killed the cat measure, and what does that mean anyway? I remember learning in the book, THE Neuroscience of You, that more curiosity can lead to more vulnerability and when taken to more extreme measures it can actually be detrimental. Is this coming into play here? Was their curiosity too much?

I really do struggle with the cultural idea that we are not worthy of God's love. This makes no sense to me because if he is a father in the way that a child should know a father, we are loved. He wouldn't be all loving if we weren't? Yes, he does let us go and figure it out on our own, sometimes terribly, but we are loved. If we aren't loved, I am not sure that's a God I want to do everything for in my life. 

But this doesn't mean that everything that I do is excusable in the sense that it doesn't matter if I go kill someone or degrade them with my words because no matter what I am loved. First, that person is also loved. And second, we want to be trying to display that love to others, in our imperfectness, we still can show that love. Shouting or murdering others isn't love. We all have dignity and that dignity is represented best when needs are met and people are treated well with love. And love isn't destroying the other person, its finding connection and bringing them closer to the source of love. We were made in the image of God. 

What does this do exactly for the doctrine of original sin, I am not entirely sure if I've figured out, but I know for me I need a God that loves me no matter what and loves who ever I am in conflict with no matter what, but that encourages us to find that dignity and beauty in everyone around us, and encourages us to apologize and make amends when we mess up to remember that dignity of self and other. A God that wants us to fight for the people really being stripped of this dignity and love. I will continue to try to do that, I was made in the image of greatness (and so were you) after all. 

On the Fringe part 1

If you know me, you know I read a lot. I think I have so far read close to 120 books this year, and that doesn't often include all the picture books and curriculum books for my kids. In my reading, I have been trying to discern where I belong. I can't seem to leave Jesus. I hate where stagnant Christianity is at, but I cannot throw Jesus and God out the window. I know for some this is necessary, there has been too much hurt and trauma and the hierarchy is so slow to change that to hold on for something to change seems like a lost cause. Everything that I thought was good and true, I know now is compromised by money and power. And knowing that why should I stay with Jesus, and for me its because he's not even in the same realm. Instead he's down with the people who are just trying to make it through the day, the people being persecuted by the police, the people masking to fit in, the people that don't fit into the mass of people because they are LGBTQ+. He's with the people trying to decolonize and reclaim their dignity. He's with Lizzo and her amazing ability on the flute. He's even with the people that are trying to destroy all of those people, because he loves them even if they are so very wrong in their actions. Perhaps they just need to listen more and cling less to oppressive ideas, and just like the person that was waiting for Jesus to rescue them from the flood and they passed up all the people sent them, maybe just maybe these folks will eventually take Jesus up on his message. There is a bit of a prodigal son in all of us and also maybe they will be the workers that only work for the last bit of the day because it takes them so long to catch on, but Jesus still loves them. That I know. Because I once was that person. I used to think people needed to think like me to be good, they had to uphold my standards to be my friend or acceptable for my children. That someone that didn't go to church on Sunday was just lazy or a heathen. 

I had to stop trying to be so good. I needed to meet myself and other people where they are at, not where I think they should have been. I needed to grow in my understanding of salvation, and honestly I think there is universal salvation. Maybe this is presuming on God, but also, I am pretty sure God being truly good seeing the suffering of all the people that the comfortable have deemed bad and is just going to scoop them up in the end and say welcome home. I am not sure the rest of us will really understand heaven, but hopefully, God being good, he will say welcome to us too. 

I guess I wonder if I see myself as part of the suffering in society. I definitely have had trauma, but I know most days I am now safe and comfortable enough to explore these ideas of what is good and what is love and what is grace and what is mercy. 

Part 1

Reconstruct

 I think for so long I thought that if I just did all the things right I would be good and be in the good graces of others, but now I am so full of grey areas that perhaps all I can do is know God is always here and that I need to care for humanity in a way that is real and not an idealization of what is thought to be, or only a perspective that is relevant for me or people who are more well off than me. I wish I had more words here, but what I can say is that I am learning and I will keep learning and continue to think and be compassionate in my life. I will try to be okay with being uncomfortable in not always agreeing with those around me. These are skills I need to learn and grow in and that's okay. 

Things I am learning that I want to do more for:

Actually helping people get affordable housing.

Help with the immigrants at the border more

Help improve air quality for others.

Help advocate for gun control methods, especially with background checks. 

Somehow remove big oil's hold on society so that we can actually have a planet for my children once grown.

The tree grows

Sometimes i get jealous of perfectly manicured lawns with weed protected flower beds and just the right sized bushes and trees. It seems like it would be nice to have it all under control. To know where this one bit is going and that nothing will surprise you or be a nuisance. Or even that things could be curated to be just the right manageable size. 

The thing is my yard is never like that. I often have an experiment growing one place, an  over run raspberry patch or strawberries popping up everywhere. Many times I have to cut out the trees that try to grow in the bushes and choke out the flowering shrub. Sometimes one tree overtakes another and we have to ax the more mangled one to minimize the chaos. And there are so many clovers and weedy things all around. But to me its beautiful if I let myself acknowledge it. Sure at time we have to take down something dying or pull out the never dying ivy. But there is beauty in it because it is alive. It is growing. 

I have been contemplating this all for what seems like a long while, at least since early pandemic stages. I found myself trying to keep a certain appearance of things, but more and more, I realize that its just a different yard. That sometimes, its simply a story book house, with possibilities instead of a perfectly manicured plot of land which is never going to be what is inside my head, so maybe its okay to have it not be outside as well. 

And so things grow in my yard. And they grow particularly well often. We have a lot of science experiments and perhaps also some volunteers planted by squirrels and the compost bin. But it is absolutely full of life. This is also true of inside my house. I know that some days, I would love a minimalist home with neat and tiny things, but with 7 people in a 1200sq ft house, mostly at home all day, this isn't going to be the case. We are going to be living, and living we should. 

So the life is there and the tree grows, the one outside and the one inside. And sometimes its scary in that growth, its unpredictable, and its full of unknowns. It still happens, at least if you let it. Sometimes the weeds pop up and sometimes the branches are lopsided. But it is growing!! And in growing, it isn't stagnant, its becoming who God is intending it to be, with some love and some maintenance and some science experiments, it can thrive and keep extending and strengthening those branches, unafraid to test the waters of something outside the box that one knows. 

I am glad the tree grows. I don't think God would want it any other way. 

It's not that I don't love you

 It's not that I don't love you, that I have to go away.

It's more that I do, because we didn't know how to play.

This game of changing roles, to be a supportive friend.

You couldn't be that for me, and I tried so hard to bend.

To be what you needed me to be, but that wasn't me at all.

Instead it often made me curl up into a ball.

I'm learning that I need to know I'm okay.

And that for now that means that I can't stay.

I think you did a lot for me and helped me to grow.

And hopefully you will someday be able to let go. 

Compassion

After reading The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen, I am renewed in my understanding of who God is and who he is not. One large take away from Nouwen is how he says that God's only authority is his compassion. It's almost a double take. How does a God, the maker of the world only rule by compassion. Compassion is love and grace and mercy. And these are God in actuality. But what is compassion? 

Compassion isn't engagement enmeshment. A friend once told me that compassion can simply be putting a blanket on a drunk family member and then stepping over them. One can't force a person to see the beauty of good things, of God, of better relationship, of better coping mechanisms. 

Compassion is making sure you are fed so that you don't lash out at your children. It somehow is easier to hurt yourself to be holy than to help yourself or another so that you are actually closer to God. 

Compassion is also making sure you get what you need to be a whole person. That can be assurance, food, rest, a shower, all those things that we want for our children that we too need. 

I realize perhaps I need more compassion for myself in all this. I had to make hard decisions and walk away from some pretty tough things for me. I struggle often to know with myself that its okay to be okay. That its okay to be able to have time to rewire my brain to know that good can come of my decisions, not just ill judgment. To have compassion is to somehow really know that I am doing okay and be surrounded by people that can be that for me. 

I started and finished this many days apart, many of them searching for God in the cracks this Lent. I know he's there, I've felt him there, but somehow we are still learning how to really know him at least in this season of life where everything feels backwards. But I think there can be compassion in the growth too, there's got to be. I don't want to worship a God that wouldn't let me grow, so I'll choose to believe he wants me to. 

Confession

I have a confession to make. I am trying to figure out how to feel about confession. Part of me knows that I am super hard and scrupulous on myself and I am trying to reconcile what that means when it comes to confession. Is what I did actually a sin? Do I need to actually go? Why is going so stressed? Are we all supposed to be so scrupulous?  Are most people not this way? Do most people just make mistakes and not think about the impact they have on others? I am just unsure of what to think.

I do think that every time I come out of the confessional I do feel loved. I do get told not to be so hard on myself, that I am fighting the good fight, making hard choices etc. And yet, somehow it just doesn't make sense at times putting it all together. 

I have figured out that I want to be able to make more mistakes and not berate myself. I do think that would be best. I am not sure how that is confession addressable though. I wonder if this carries over to my kids, and I do think it does. I am sure they will need just as much therapy as me, even if I have tried to break the cycle of abuse. 

Anyway, if you are someone that reads this and I know you, or don't know you. Pray for me. Also, Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Different from what you expect

 I remember telling myself a story about being left out. Years ago, I saw a social media post of a friend and many mutual friends getting together and i had FOMO and all of a sudden felt excluded. I had rationalized that I had said something that had this person pull away, as another encounter she was distant too. 

So i first texted her and she had no idea why I was upset. She had her own issues and life that wasn't trying to shut me out. It just was what it was. But I called her and told her my interpretation, and really she could have called me silly or just dumb or yelled back at me. But she sat and she listened. She listened to all my grievances and was glad to hear me out. She explained how the situation was much different than what I had thought it to be, and I don't think I fully understood that day, but I got a different response than I expected. 

You see I usually expect someone to either be doing something behind my back to exclude me or to blow up back at me. When I didn't get this response, my brain was perplexed. And as I now have learned about how the brain learns that you can actually be retrained to know that a different response is a possibility and then actually know one is loved, this friend's response years ago is sticking with me. I am thankful for this encounter. 

As I lay here

 I was sitting in bed trying to sleep just a little longer this morning, but my head decided to wander in thought, so I thought I should get it out. 

It went from first how divergent in character I am, to how I would not survive an internment camp to how there are so many at the border that are living this internment camp life daily. To I wonder if there is an authority that lets human trafficking happen because it benefits them and their selfishness. To the idea that perhaps they don't even know that they are being selfish because they have grown up thinking abuse is right. 

And that had me finally thinking about the police. I know that the police are a hot button issue. A lot of people think we need them and really that we need more of them so there will be less lawlessness. My hot take is that we don't. That a system that was founded on catching runaway slaves and has never ever had that addressed is going to remain bias no matter what. Even the "good cop" is going to have internal bias to think that a certain profile is a criminal or that everyone is a criminal as I learned certain police departments do. The former perpetuates abuse the latter perpetuates mistrust. I am not certain of the solution. 

My bias would be to take away all of the guns in this country sans hunting and sport rifles. I can allow people to hunt animals and use them well and to have sport rifles like archers have bow and arrows for target practice. I really don't think we need to have weapons every time we leave the house. At times I am terrified that every third person is carrying a weapon concealed in their clothes when out and about. I try to let it not bother me when I send my kids off in pairs down the street together, but it creeps in there every so often. Honestly though, they aren't the target. 

The mentality that we need more guns on our person when the police are a mess is so odd. And I know this is such a complex issue, because the brown skinned person, they aren't likely to really be cared for by the police, at least not in the same way. So in some ways, a self protection measure makes sense. But I absolutely wish it didn't have to be that way. 

But how do we actually solve the bias of going after the brown person? How do we solve the abuser mentality that goes along with police work? Scrap it? Counsel the heck out of people? Undo our patriarchal society that allows always at least half of our society to be less than? If you know please tell me. The abuse the hurt, it's just not okay.  

This pandemic

The pandemic is still happening. Its been interesting living in a pandemic. I birthed a baby in a pandemic, I helped start local recycling iniatives in this pandemic. I taught my kids in this pandemic. Life has gone on around us and yet its been drastically different in some ways too. 

Nature is always growing and cycling and adapting to whatever comes its way. Beautiful flowers can grow in sidewalk cracks and trees will expand despite little care for them. Their roots are usually solidly deep. The squirrels will collect their acorns and hunker down for the winter. The bees, butterflies and mosquitoes will continue to pollinate things. The storms, though, a bit rougher, continue to give us rain. Sadly there is climate change, but not due to a pandemic, but we are aware of it more in the pandemic.

I think that is it, we are aware more. At least I hope we are aware more. Perhaps too often we carried the status quo and became robotic in our daily lives. I know for some because of circumstance, in pandemic times it became more chaotic, but for others, it simplified. It gave a chance to step back and see. To see what we really want or need in our lives. To see where help is needed. To see how we view one another. To see what we really are capable of doing. Perhaps it helped us to be healthier, perhaps it helped us to find a creative solace as many of the norms changed. Perhaps it created a big giant fog that has yet to be lifted. But the pandemic did something, something to hopefully open our eyes and see things in a new way. Because we should always be trying to learn and be curious, otherwise how else will we ever learn to see beauty in this planet and lives of ours we were given.

I have learned a lot about things in the pandemic, and as I said last time I am not an authority, but perhaps I can share what I learned. At least, I will record it, so perhaps I won't forget that I did at one time know it. For now, this is enough, tomorrow is another day to write. 

Not an authority

 I have struggled to write anything in the past year. I think perhaps its mental fog, my normalcy was no longer there and everything just jumbled up. But also I realize more and more as I get older how I am not the know it all authority that I thought I once was in my early twenties. Perhaps this leads to more compassion for others in different situations, at least i hope. And also I've been listening a lot more. And I think this has been good to do. I don't feel unfulfilled in this way but yet different. I do, though, want to write again. To make sense of the jumble inside my head. 

I am throwing it out there that these are my thoughts, my opinions. They are likely to grow and branch and not be completely stagnant, again, I at least hope of this. But I am not an authority, except to myself and my children. I just want to stay curious and keep learning about people, about God, about life, about myself, about nature, about other cultures, and everything in between, And today I will begin. 

Birth Story

 I absolutely wanted to write down Oscar's birth story. But I haven't been able to because we had a high needs baby that would not let me sit down to type at all. Honestly I was often terrified to pick up the phone, because it was going to end in a breakdown. Walks weren't even peaceful because somehow they just wouldn't work for little O. But we have gotten some treatment and fixed a tongue tie and I feel like today is the first day I can breathe with this baby. So here is his birth story.

For the month prior to Oscar's birth there was a lot of prodromal labor, meaning a start and stop of contractions that were warm up ones that would be getting my body ready for the read deal. The problem with prodromal labor is that it never becomes real labor that amounts in a baby and its oh so tiring. I think I was miserable enough that a few friends sent a meal prior to baby and I absolutely appreciated it. 

So 37 weeks came and went. 38 weeks came and went. 39 weeks came and went. 40 weeks came and went. The whole neighborhood was watching me as there was nothing else to do in the pandemic but be on baby watch. Any time someone saw me out on a walk they would be surprised that I was still pregnant. We went on a lot of walks, many to the local coffee shop. Oscar is half made of Metropolitan Coffee bakery. 

At one point I realized that I was paranoid that I wasn't going to be able to go into labor with the kids home, so I grumbled about it and eventually Keith believed me that this was what I needed as I kept not going into labor. I also was concerned with the positioning of Oscar because there was so much start and stop labor that I though maybe he was stuck. So I went in to an ultrasound clinic for a position check. It caters to the homebirth crowd and maybe the unsure about pregnancy crowd. It was great to see him and while he was in love with his hand, it wasn't in his way for exit. I felt incredibly relieved. 

The boys went to their grandparent's house that night and I definitely felt more at piece because my late night kids weren't on site and I could rest a little better. Just the girls remained and they are down by 9pm at the absolute latest. And on top of that because I was supposed to have forest school with the kids the next day but I told the other moms that i wasn't up for it, the one said we want to take your girls to the zoo, and so I knew in the morning my girls would be gone. 

So what do you know but at 5am labor started, and it continued and became stronger instead of fizzling out. I put together a puzzle in between contractions and then started another one while sitting on the yoga ball, but the second one never got finished, the contractions were too hard. I have to note that this whole time I was watching the Gilmore Girls, its my labor show, it is so familiar and calming that I am just in a zone with it. I texted my midwife at 8 to let her know that labor was happening and by 11, Keith said you should probably tell her to come now. So we did, and she came by noon. Baby was born at 1pm on the dot after just two pushes. The amazing thing was that he was 10pounds and 2 ounces. I had no idea that he was that big because his labor wasn't that terrible. Stella at 10lbs was tough, but she was also positioned the wrong way at first and had to spin on her head a bit. Oscar was in the perfect spot to come right on out. I think he was getting there the whole time in the last month of the start and stop labor. 

So we had him and it was pretty calm despite having a baby. The girls came home the next night and the boys the night after. They all mostly loved their new brother. 

But then something went amiss. Little buddy at about a week old started needing a lot of care, a lot of movement and just became uneasy to settle. He stopped nursing to sleep. He started having to be rocked all the time, or bounced or walked up and down the stairs. Part of me though, well maybe now I finally get my high needs baby, but also I was emotionally a wreck because it was hard, like really hard and 1 week post partum you should not be getting 10,000 steps without trying because you are just trying to pacify the baby. At 3 weeks it was a bit worse, and we visited the subject of reflux. I took the baby in at a month old and they said that dairy was possibly the culprit and I kind of thought he didn't react well to it. I made him super gassy, so we cut that out and still have it cut out mostly. And yet it still wasn't the issue. 

It wouldn't be till 7 weeks old that I was able to process that this wasn't okay, and I called a breastfeeding hotline. And the lactation consultant listened to me and based on all the things I was saying told me that I should have him evaluated for tongue tie and reflux. And it turns out he has both and a mild case of laryngomalacia, which makes him flare up a little more even so and have some weird breathing things. It is supposed to slowly resolve itself to be fine by age 1. 

And so here we are, processing and loving on this little guy. Welcome to the world Oscar. 

Btw, yes, he is named after St. Oscar Romero.  

Coping with what is

 Five kids is actually hard. I love them all, and I wouldn't not have them, but this period of taking care of a baby with four bigger kids is hard. Maybe some are better suited than me at this. Maybe they can take it all in stride, but some days are a struggle. And mostly I am coping and making it through, but it is tiring. And perhaps this is redemptive suffering, and perhaps this is how I am to see God right now, in the inability to just be free, but to have limited abilities. I know I feel this each baby, and perhaps this is my last baby, and it feels like it is,  it feels like its harder and harder each time to take another on. The thing is, is that I absolutely love this baby, despite his colic and need for constant motion. Actually that makes me love him more as I have to get outside of my head of what I know and think should be happening be present to what is. So we carry on as hard as it is trying to learn and to love.