My bed is your bed and why not: Every living thing in this house winds up in my bed every night already

One day, these googly-eyed boys will demand privacy. Hmph.

One unexpected memory that sticks out for me from childhood is being allowed to stay up late to watch Saturday Night Live with my parents. I can't remember how old I was, but probably not really old enough to get most of the jokes, not that it mattered. We all knew I'd be asleep on the couch long before Chevy Chase tripped over something or Eddie Murphy hee-hawed his way through a Gumby sketch. 

But somehow, this routine really meant something to me. Partly, it was a privilege because my little brothers weren't allowed to stay up that late, but mostly, it was because I got to be with my parents by myself. I'd drift off to sleep to the sound of their laughter, one on each side, and even with my very limited wisdom, I sensed that these routine moments were the important stuff. When you're little, the adults in your life are your assurance that everything is OK.

So now, when both kids wind up in our bed almost every single night, and I can't quite stretch out because the dog has taken up the area where I'd like to put my feet, I can't help but smile a little. Anderson barely fits between us these days, one arm stretched out on top of me, one on Kurt, and David seems to think his feet belong in my ribcage. It can make for a fitful night. But I know how fleeting this is, and I'm struck by the magic power that seems to draw us all together so often, whether it's our bed or a small bathroom, dog and cat included. It's safe and warm, and a little claustrophobic, but mostly, it's a kind of love I couldn't have imagined.

I know in that really, really hot moment - seriously, they are both little furnaces - that they are both content in one of the happiest places they can imagine right now, right between mommy and daddy. I realize sleep-sharing to any extent isn't for everybody, and I've read about all the terrible outcomes we'll all face as a result of this "permissiveness," but I'm not buying it. We have sweet, independent, well-adjusted little goofballs and I'm not sure why their growth won't continue based on where they wake up each morning. I'm sure someone will fill me in via email or the comments below. ;)

At any rate, I have a feeling life will look a whole lot different this time next year. A lot can happen in 12 months. My goal is to keep recognizing the beauty in the seemingly mundane, no matter how much the big picture changes. We can't slow down the fleeting, but new things are always on the horizon. Here's to hoping the new things involve changes for the better, as opposed to angry, hulking grizzly bears that have migrated to the suburbs seeking revenge for all those times they've been excluded from a lovely forest pic-a-nic.

Gratitudinously yours

Available on etsy.

I like the annual November trend where people spend time reflecting on the gifts in their lives each day in November, a nod to Thanksgiving. But I’m pretty bad about sticking to a schedule (you may have noticed I haven’t updated this blog in 8,000 months), so I’m going after this in one fell swoop and I’ll just trust that you believe me when I say I try to practice gratitude on a daily basis. If you don’t believe me, I can probably live with that, too.

1. Waking up every day as part of my imperfect family. I’m grateful that my little family is healthy, even if we include a hardiness that allows for my boys’ very healthy full-throttled screaming on a near-daily basis. I’m thankful for the Super Nanny, who taught me the proper time-out technique that keeps us all a (relatively) safe distance from the brink of insanity. I’m especially thankful that I am number one on my kid’s top ten list of most beautiful women in the world, including Princess Leia and all of his grandmothers and even his aunt and two of my best friends, Jo and Melinda.

I’m also grateful for a husband who gets me, who loves us in both word and deed, and who is uncommonly patient about irksome quirks. For example, people who have a really hard time sitting in the passenger’s seat and not completely freaking out. I have heard about people like that, and he’s really understanding.

I also count my blessings when it comes to extended family. We are way more than lucky to live a life surrounded by supportive people, who are not only interesting, smart, and loving, but on whom we could call, and have called, for help in even the most asinine situation.

2. Friends, i.e. sounding boards, support systems, hilarious companionship, sources of baked goods and fruity adult beverages. People who care about you, not in spite of your various flaws or just because you always feed the meter when you go downtown together, but just because you are you.

3. The Intangibles. No, not that movie about Al Capone. I’m talking about those often unnoticed bits of human interaction that do more to keep the world turning than anything we could actually measure. Interpret as you will, but I want it noted for the record that I’m grateful for these moments:

That time when I allowed someone else to be gracious and kind instead of commandeering the situation and trying to save face.

That time a stranger stopped by our table at a restaurant, told us we have a beautiful family, and then paid for our meal before she left.

That time we paid it forward.

That time my 6-year-old made my gravely ill grandpa well up with tears when he shook his hand after losing the peg game.

That time my dog visited that same grandpa and just laid her head on his lap the entire time, as opposed to doing her usual routine of leaping around the house knocking things off tables with her perpetually happy tail.

That time my baby boy told me he wasn’t a baby anymore but that he would pretend to be one if it made me feel better. It did.

The sound of crunchy leaves.

The way the hills pop up around my city whenever I return from out of town, from every direction.

Snort-laughing.

The unexpected gifts that grief brings.

Being a big sister, a future aunt, a granddaughter, a daughter, a mother, and more, and recognizing that despite the days when it doesn’t quite feel like it, that I’m a part of something more than this.

But also, I’m grateful that I’ll never have this all figured out, and that I have so much more to see. I’ll never really grasp how tiny our lives are in the grand scheme of the universe, or how fleeting the existence of the human race really is. Astronomy totally freaks me out. I’m also grateful to have grown up in the ‘80s, because phrases like “totally freaks me out” come out so easily.

Really, though, I’m just grateful to be here with you.

Burning my mommy wars draft card

Why I will never win the mommy wars: reason 44, letting the cat lick my newborn.

I can sum up my opinion on the "mommy wars" in one short sentence:

Shut up.

Just shut. up. How's about I worry about my own breasts, sleeping arrangements, and food sourcing over here, and you worry about your stuff over there? My breasts thank you.

Because here's the thing. It's a lot like politics in this country.

We are privileged to live in a country where the debate about politics is centered on relatively small issues. "Oh! I don't think we should fund our billions of dollars of infrastructure that make our lives soft and easy like this. It should look like this and you are an a-hole if you vote for the guy who thinks it should look like this." Meanwhile, 2/3 of the world lives in poverty.

Your vote really matters when it happens under the watchful eye of a heavily armed guard and the very real threat of violence.

I'm not saying don't vote. Don't get me wrong here. I'm just saying that it's very easy to lose perspective when you live a comfortable life in a land of prosperity, and when you wind up devoting energy and time to dictating what is "right" or "wrong" to other parents raising apparently healthy children... there's been a disconnect.

I realize I'm at risk for sounding all preachy, sanctimonious and hypocritical. I'm willing to risk your disapproval and eye-rolling anyway. I understand that I don't understand what it's really like to live a life so different from my own, one where it would be a luxury to have any choices at all, let alone endless choices on a daily basis. But I'm trying hard to appreciate those choices.

There are kids without mothers or parents at all, as this blogger so eloquently reminded us last week, who want nothing more than a family. There are women and men living a life of pain without children of their own, through loss or infertility. There are families going through serious illness who have much more important things to worry about than how long I breastfed my children. It's hard to view the mommy wars as anything but petty and needlessly hurtful when viewed through a wider lens of context.

In truth, I used to seriously fret about how I was being perceived as a mother. I beat myself up regularly, sure I was damaging my kids in some way because nothing I did ever seemed to match up with any one method. Then I realized I was contributing to the problem by expressing the opinion that we should all be striving for some idealized version of what a mother is supposed to look like. I think the heart of the mommy wars so often lies with the insecurity that when someone else is doing it differently, we must be doing it wrong.

When it comes to the mommy wars, no one will ever be declared the winner. There aren't any spoils of war for the victor, though there's plenty of collateral damage in the form of a generation of insecure mothers crippled with self-consciousness and shame. So, seriously, TIME magazine, judgmental mothers (and especially judgmental non-parents), and sellers of damaging books: it's time for you to shut up now. I plead conscientious objector, and I encourage you to do the same.

In truth, there's room for all kinds of moms. So far, my children are kind and healthy. My family is happy. So we keep moving forward, with the knowledge that while there are no guarantees in life, we are beyond fortunate to be living this one.

P.S. Join this "Opt out of the mommy wars" Facebook group! Clearly other parents agree with me. Let's keep this groundswell of grass roots "leave me alone" activism going.