7/52

I watch as the teacher hands my toddler a puzzle piece shaped like a guitar, and obediently, he places it in the guitar-shaped hole. She picks it back up and this time, pretends to strum it. He squeals with glee at this because she has inadvertently hit upon his absolute favorite thing in the world these days. He takes the piece from her and strums away happily. She lets him do this for a minute or two and then shows him a bucket to drop the puzzle pieces into. He cooperates for a couple rounds of this then goes back to pretend strumming.

“See? That’s called perseveration.”, she says matter-of-factly, turning toward me.  “He wants to keep going back to the same activity. You can let him do things for awhile, but when he it reaches the point where his play non-productive, you need to redirect him.”

“He does REALLY like playing guitars these days,” I reply, a bit taken aback by the term “non-productive” play, which, frankly, sounds as absurd as “jumbo shrimp” to me.

“Yes, but did you see how I couldn’t get him to engage in another activity?" she asks.

I nod, my mind wandering now as she continues her work with Jonathan.  I realize I am feeling sad for my baby who is probably confused as to why this lady I let into the house to play with him isn’t letting him strum his guitar anymore after showing him how to do it in the first place.

At the same time though, worry is creeping in and I am remembering another toddler I knew who concentrated on one thing at a time for FAR longer than this one ever did … and still does.

The two are brothers.

When my oldest son, Ben, was just a little more than a year old, I casually mentioned a few concerns to our pediatrician, but, as good a doctor as he was, he was about as non-alarmist as they come. (I nicknamed him “Dr. It’s-just-a-flesh-wound”) I remember him waving his hand at me dismissively and saying it was nothing. I wanted to believe him, so I didn’t bring it up again.

In many ways, my first-born was kind of extraordinary. He stood on his own, without holding on to anything, when he was six months old. He walked just two months later and took off running two months after that, the shortest little thing on two feet you ever saw.

He knew all his letters, shapes and colors before he was two.  He could recognize a piece of music after hearing just a couple of notes. I have to admit, my husband and I kind of thought we either had a genius on our hands or that we, as complete rookies, were pretty much rocking the parenting thing.

There was another side to the story though.

Like his baby brother, he was a late talker -- probably close to two before he really picked up words.

When he did learn words, he would say them over and over again. “Light” was one of his first ones and I started dreading walking by any light switches because if he wasn’t allowed to stand there and flick them on and off for 20-25 minutes at a stretch, he would scream.

“Whoa Whoa” was another, his word for the “round and round” motion a fan makes. I had to explain to friends we had just met that the reason he really wanted so desperately to get into their backyard was so that he could stare at the fan inside their heat pump. There was a period when he was two years old where he would seek out heat pumps everywhere we went. His favorite part of a zoo trip at that age was finding a giant, industrial sized one near the lion exhibit.

Everyone thought it was funny and quirky.  We even encouraged it, making him a book of fans and lights cut out from catalogs. He slept with it at night.

It wasn’t *just *the obsessions. He also seemed to be ultra sensitive to his surroundings from the time he was just a few months old.  Restaurants were notoriously a nightmare scenario for us. It seemed he just couldn’t handle any situation that was overly loud, crowded or echo-y and would just cry uncontrollably. My husband and I got used to one of us having to take him outside while the other got food boxed up and paid the bill.  

We stopped eating out for awhile.

We didn’t even realize this behavior wasn't normal until we had a second child. Simon could happily sit through dinner at a restaurant or could tolerate a walk through a Yankee candle store or a visit to an indoor pool, all places that made my first son at the same age completely lose control.

Those specific quirks eventually faded, but gave way to others. For instance, there were a few months when he was three where he wouldn’t wear shorts or short sleeves because he didn’t like the way his arms and legs felt uncovered. I have pictures of him playing on a beach in south Florida with sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt on. He wore that outfit the entire trip.

The obsessions continued and do to this day. Periods of time throughout his eight years have come to be defined by whatever he is into at the time. Keys, violins, volcanoes, clocks, space, bugs, fish, cars, Star Wars, math, sharks, maps, flags, money, football... the list goes on and on.

During these phases, he rarely talks about anything else and will often start talking about the topic as soon as his head leaves his pillow in the morning. Often, an unrelated question from someone will be greeted with a random fact about whatever he is into. For instance,  I may ask, “Ben, would you like syrup on your pancakes?”  and get “Did you know that the whale shark is two and a half school buses long?” as a reply. Eventually I will get an answer to my syrup question, but not before learning three more facts about sharks.

Every year at school conference time,  I ask his teacher if I should be concerned -- I’ve asked about the obsessions, about his one-track-mind, about his fear of fingerpaint in preschool, about how he fidgets and gets distracted, how he can't carry on a real conversation. 

Year after year, one teacher after another assured me he was fine, progressing, participating, intelligent, a pleasure to have in class and well-liked by his peers... all the things you want to hear from teachers.

I was starting to feel like a paranoid, crazy mother,  I decided to try to quiet the voice inside that was telling me something was different about Ben because, after all, teachers were trained to spot problems, not me. They’ve seen every issue there is including, of course, the one that was always lurking in the back of my mind and the word every mother these days fears.... autism.

Teachers know it when they see it and they didn’t see it in Ben.  I should have been relieved.

I managed to push it out my my mind for most of first grade. His teacher that year had no complaints about him, he was thriving academically. He seemed to have friends.

Second grade was a different story, I received an email on the second day of school from his teacher informing me that Ben seemed to have trouble sitting still, tapped his fingers and his pencil constantly and was distracted. I immediately lashed out. The second day of school? Really? How could she even know him yet? Why couldn’t she let him stand and work like his first grade teacher had? Or gently remind him not to tap his pencil?

The emails came fast and furious the whole first half of the year… poor organization, his desk is a mess, can’t find his supplies, didn’t finish his classwork, didn’t follow directions, illegible handwriting, had to miss playtime to redo the assignment... every time the teacher’s name appeared in my Yahoo inbox, I internally cringed as i clicked on it.

I feared she was a Ritalin-happy teacher who couldn’t handle little boys and that Ben was just one in a long string of students she wanted to quickly and cleanly slap an ADHD label on. And THAT, for sure, I was having none of.

When I went in for the conference, I was prepared for a fight.  Instead, I found myself sitting in a child-sized chair at 8:30 in the morning, across from the teacher who very calmly told me Ben was one of the smartest children in her class and one of her best readers. She continued, “He has an astounding vocabulary”...  “an amazing mind for mathematics!” The glowing compliments just kept coming. I was confused... why was I here again? What about the 27 emails complaining about how distracted and unorganized he was all the time?

“He’s easily distracted and I think he would really benefit from a checklist to remind him to stay on task.” she informed me.

I breathed a sigh of relief and thought, “Wait, that’s it?” Of course, I agreed to the checklist.

But deep down, I knew that wasn’t it.

Second grade was also the year I discovered Ben didn’t understand friendships. He would call other children friends and then I would witness them making fun of him directly to his face. Ben would be completely oblivious. Few things are more heartbreaking to witness. We had one of these “friends” over for a playdate once and the mean things I overheard him say to my son brought tears to my eyes. It became clear to me that there was some kind of social disconnect going on.

He may have been excelling academically, but socially he was floundering...  

My mind stops wandering and I redirect my attention to Jonathan's speech session. The teacher has been doing an artfully choreographed tap dance for the last several weeks hinting that maybe he’s more than just a late talker.  I’ve had enough of the dance.

“Be honest with me…” I hesitate for a moment before I continue. “What’s going on here? What else should I be worried about?” I brace myself for her response.

“Well....” I can tell she is mentally sifting through what she is and is not allowed to say to me. Stupid lawsuit-fearing world we live in. I wish she could just level with me and be done with it.

“There are a few red flags for some things... we’d have to bring in a psychologist to make any kind of diagnosis though.” she replies.  

This is when I decide to tell her. 

I take a deep breath before I begin. I've become used to people telling me my worries are unfounded, but somehow I can tell THIS is someone who might actually hear what I'm saying and give me the answer I have needed to hear, but simultaneously don't want to hear.

“You should know, he’s a lot like my oldest son.” Then, I tell her about Ben. I tell her everything. The fans, the lights, the screaming fits, the obsessions, the friends. She listens, REALLY listens, and offers the occasional careful comment. She also suggests I schedule a consultation with our pediatrician.

It’s surreal to find yourself in the pediatrician’s office without a child in tow. But that’s exactly where I was one evening two weeks later. Since we had switched to this doctor a couple years prior, I had been vaguely hinting at my concern (so Ben wouldn’t catch on) at the well-child appointments. He had encouraged me to schedule a time to come in on my own a few months prior, so my visit came as no surprise.

As he flipped through Ben’s records, I scanned his office. My gaze fell upon family photos lined up on the windowsill. There were pictures of his granddaughters. Smiling, beautiful babies who probably talked right on schedule and didn't freak out in restaurants.

My eyes continued around the room which was so very different from the sterile-feeling, spartan exam rooms where I had sat with my children so many times. It was homey and comfortable. Mounds of papers covered every inch of desk space and on one wall, a shelf was full of thick, important-looking medical books, more family photos, and various knickknacks, probably gifts from patients over the years. I found myself wondering what things he had discussed here with other worried parents today. Did my silly thoughts about my 8-year-old’s social skills seem trivial in comparison?

One look at the sincere concern in his eyes told me they didn’t. 

I fiddled anxiously with my keys and my cell phone, unsure of where to start exactly.
He leaned back in his chair, pen in hand and encouraged me to start from the beginning. So, in the span of about a half hour, I covered almost eight years of worries as he listened intently and took notes.  He asked lots of questions. I cried as I struggled to answer some of them.

“What part makes you tearful?” he asked. I suddenly felt like he was more therapist than pediatrician. “Are you worried about what the tests might show us about Ben?” he continued.

“No. It’s not that.”

I took a deep breath. “I really don’t care what label they put on him. It’s not going to change who he is. And we LOVE the way he learns. He’s so curious and smart and so fun. Every one of his phases is an adventure for all of us because we learn along with him. I just... “

The tears started again.  “I want him to have friends. I want people to understand him and right now, there aren’t many other kids that do.”

The doctor shared his thoughts about everything I had told him and then scribbled down a name and number to call to set up testing for my son. A huge weight instantly lifted. I was actually relieved that he didn’t say it was NOTHING.

FINALLY. 

FINALLY someone had actually heard me.

There isn't an end to this story yet. The testing isn’t until next month and I don’t even really know what to expect as far as what we are dealing with because there are actually lots of possibilities, including, of course, the “A” word.

All I know is, because of genetics, it’s pretty safe to say that whatever is going on with Ben is probably at least part of what is going on with his little brother.  Basically, this means my oldest and youngest sons may very well a lot have more in common than just their poker straight blonde hair and impish grins.

I may not know the outcome, but I do know it will be a happy one no matter what. They are still my babies. They may use their brains in a different way than other children, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are smart and sweet and adorable to a fault.  

And, the world better look out. 

Why?

Because as far as I know, every person who has ever changed this world for the better is someone who was able to see it a little differently than most.

6/52...

I was seven years old when I first had the thought that I was fat.

SEVEN.

I was a silly incident, really. My second grade teacher offhandedly told me to suck in my belly so she could get past the row of desks. I went home that night and cried and cried to my mother that my teacher said I was fat. I’m fairly sure that poor, unsuspecting teacher who didn’t even mean anything by her comment was the recipient of some mother-bear wrath the following day.

Around the same time, for whatever reason, the kids in the neighborhood all decided I was fat too and felt the need to remind me of this constantly. I believed them and truly thought I was obese from about second grade to sixth grade. Looking back, it’s really kind of a wonder I didn’t end up with an eating disorder.

I look back at photos of myself from those days and, while I was certainly not THIN, I was by no means overweight. Actually, what really kills me now is that, when I look at the old pictures of myself, I can plainly see I had an athletic build. My mother probably tried to tell me this then and I’m sure I didn’t listen because all I could hear were the voices of my friends.

When I was 12, I started taking gymnastics and discovered I was pretty good at it, especially for someone who started six years later than all the other girls in the class. The gymnastics teacher told my parents I was built to be a gymnast and offered me a spot at a training camp one summer. (life mistake #1,343, by the way, was refusing to do this, but that is another story altogether)

The era during which I did gymnastics was the first time I think I ever really began to have any positive feelings about my body. I can actually say I started to like the way I looked and respect what my body was capable of.

Then, just when things were going well, along came puberty, which was my own personal living nightmare. Really. I think I was the only girl I knew who was NOT thrilled about the idea of growing boobs and wearing a bra. Despite my unhappiness about it and determination it would not happen to me, they grew anyway, and I spent the next three years wearing baggy shirts to hide them.

When I think of all the time I wasted back then being dissatisfied with my body, I want, more than anything, to go back in time and reassure my younger self, “Really! You are okay! And also? All these undernourished skinny girls you think you want to look like? Most of them aren’t going to look like that twenty years from now. Wait until you see them on Facebook when they’re 35 and have had two kids! Girlfriend, stop worrying, put on some cute clothes and just go run and jump and flip and climb and try to be kind to yourself. Also, try not to fall victim to the hairsprayed bangs phase. You'll thank me later."

I look back now in disgust when I consider that children the age my oldest son is right now were able to have such a profound effect on how I would see myself for the next twenty years of my life. I also wonder, somewhat fearfully, what other children are saying to my kids right now that is going to negatively shape their thoughts and opinions about themselves forever.

Today, at 35, having been pregnant and given birth three times, I can say I have a new respect for my (now REALLY ridiculously imperfect) body. I still don’t love it as much as I should; but even I have to admit that successfully growing three entirely brand new people from two cells is a pretty amazing accomplishment, nevermind the physical changes that I watched my body go through to produce, house and nourish an entire other person for nine months at a stretch.

Pregnancy was immersion therapy for me, in a way. There was a feeling of total liberation to be a helpless bystander in all of that -- completely at the mercy of my body and the hormones and the process in general. Really, what else could I do but stand back and marvel at it all while simultaneously being just a bit horrified at the lack of control I had over the situation and feeling slightly like one of those sponges you throw in water that grows to 20 times its size overnight.

Even now though, having experienced that and being completely amazed and in awe at all of it, I’m ashamed to admit it’s *still* nearly impossible for me to look at my body and see beyond my physical imperfections. In the mirror, I can only see what’s wrong, not what’s right.

My stomach has never been flat EVER and those three babies pretty much sealed the deal that it never will be, no matter how many crunches I do. Ironically, my backside is *completely* flat, something for which I routinely curse my mother’s genes. My upper arms are disproportionate and look like they belong on someone three times my size or on a body builder (I blame mom for this too); and don’t even get me started on the stretch marks on my hips and boobs from the shock my body underwent during my pregnancies when I gained a pound a week for the first 23 weeks every. single. time.

I am slowly trying making peace with the things I can't change and trying to be kinder and gentler to myself. When I am somewhat successful at this, I am able see all these things for what I know they are -- badges of honor, reminders of a life’s journey and milestones, and family traits passed down. Together, I know they are a part of what make me uniquely me and they tell my story.

Other days? I just can’t drown out the voices of those kids from my childhood.

I used to think this was just me. As I have gotten older, however, I’ve started to realize just how consistent certain parts of the human experience are. Now I think... no, I don’t think, I KNOW... everyone around me has these voices in their head too -- voice that berate and belittle them, that tell them they too fat, too thin, too short, too tall, not enough this, not enough that, just plain NOT GOOD ENOUGH. I find myself wondering now what I said to other kids years ago that they carry with them to this day.

My eight-year-old son just in the last year has become increasingly self-conscious that he is small for his age, something he never even used to notice. Then, one day, he started coming home from school telling me his classmates told him he was the size of a kindergartner. This year, they tell him he is too small to play well on a team at recess. One child feels the need to remind him on an almost daily basis that he is the smallest child in the class. It breaks my heart because he never thought twice about his size until other people pointed it out.

We do our best to remind him of all the things he is good at despite his size. We have shown him athletes who have excelled even though they are small. Our words seem to make him feel better now, but I wonder how long that will be true?

I wish more than anything I could protect my children from people who would set out convince them they are not good enough, but I know that’s impossible. At some point, the opinions of their peers will hold more value than the opinions of their mom. It would be nice if they could grow up always feeling that they are perfect just as they are; but there will always be someone in their world who will tell them they are not.

I can only hope that they reach a point in their lives where they have the confidence to unapologetically be who they are and to be proud of the way they are made, the whole package, imperfections and all. Then again, I’m certainly not there yet myself and I don't even feel like I'm close. So maybe it's all just part of a journey that takes an entire lifetime to complete.

Which reminds me, my grandmother called me the other day to wish me a happy birthday. "35" she said, mulling my age over. She sighed. "I wish I were 35 again, but could still know everything I know now."

That made me wonder what my 84-year-old self would tell my 35-year-old self. I imagine it would sound something like, "Stop being so self-conscious. Not everyone in the Safeway is staring at your shirt the baby got food all over this morning. I promise. Your stomach is not as gross and unworthy of sunlight as you think it is. Don't be so hard on yourself. Put on some cute clothes, and go run, jump, climb and flip with the kids while they aren't embarrassed to be seen with you. Oh and don't buy into the skinny jeans fad. You'll thank me later."

My 84-year-old self is wise. I should probably listen to her.

5/52

When I was in the first grade, my teacher had all of us draw pictures of what we wanted to be when we grew up. Mine showed a stick figure me sitting at a big yellow desk with a piece of paper and a pen, a work in progress in front of me. At the bottom, I wrote, in my best six-year-old handwriting, “When I am grown, I will be a poet.” I also drew a giant trashcan, for even at six, I must have known there would be a lot of really bad first drafts.

I have always loved to write. I wrote poems and stories from the time I was very small and wrote and published a class newspaper with my first computer when I was in third grade.

Even so, my childhood aspirations were all over the map for awhile. In no particular order, I wanted to be: an archaeologist, a chemist, an astronomer, a newspaper editor, a radio announcer, a lemonade stand entrepreneur, a pediatrician, a gymnast, a psychologist, and, my personal favorite, the next teen pop singing sensation.

I was convinced I would be completely and totally awesome at anything on that list too because my parents told me so and everyone knows parents don’t lie!

It wasn’t until one day in ninth grade English class that I really started my journey back to the aspirations of my six-year-old self. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to be listening to a discussion about Great Expectations, but as usual, I was daydreaming instead. My apologies to Mr. Charles Dickens. I just never found him very interesting.

My gaze wandered, and eventually stopped on an assignment the teacher had written on the board for her Journalism class. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I DO remember thinking, “I could do that!”

Perhaps realizing a singing career was not going to happen for me, I dumped choir for journalism the following year. I was instantly enamoured with the class and three days in, I made my mind up that by my senior year, I would be the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper.

I adored my teacher, a strict, very hard-to-please woman who was actually very kind, but also well-known for loud tirades when students were disrespectful or did sloppy work. She scared us all just a little; but her high standards are what drove me -- I was determined to win her over.

I will never forget when, one afternoon, toward the end of the school day when all the other students were talking and laughing in the few minutes before the bell rang, she pulled her chair up next to my desk and said quietly, “Erin, you are interesting. SO quiet.... but SUCH a talented writer.” She punctuated her comment with a smile. I don’t remember what my reply was, but I’m quite sure my face went from zero to crimson in half a second. Inside, I was beaming from ear to ear.

Two years later, I actually *did* succeed in becoming the co-editor-in-chief or our school paper, but only because my good friend Reggie, who was actually selected for the job, wanted someone by his side who knew how to work the computer layout program.

Just to give you an idea of what I was up against,you need to know that Reggie was one of THOSE people -- the kind you can't NOT like who was a star at everything he tried in life. After high school, he went on to Northwestern University’s Medell School of Journalism and has since worked for three or four different tv stations, including CNN as an on-air reporter. Yes. I think that sums it up nicely. I was happy just to ride his coat tails that last year of high school.

As for me? After high school, I actually started out at a college that didn’t even offer journalism as a major. That’s what I got for choosing a college based on the pretty pictures in the brochure. After the money ran out, I transferred to a better (read: CHEAPER) school with a well-known mass communications program.

My first official journalism class was Newswriting.

I will never forget Dr. Kim. He was an older professor, probably 70 or so, and reminded me a bit of Yoda, but without the calm, zen, Jedi side. He yelled for most of the three-hour class every week in a thick Korean accent, standing over us while we wrote headlines and leads flailing his arms and pointing and saying we needed to work faster and use less words. I am a stronger person for having survived that experience, but after that, I was pretty sure I did NOT want to be a news writer.

My last journalism class I ever took was Feature Writing, which is to say, human interest-type stuff. It was much more my speed, in fact, I got As on every assignment and my work was always being read to the class. I did so well that the professor, who was a columnist for a local paper, told me I should definitely pursue a career as a feature writer. I didn’t have the heart (or the guts) to tell him the only reason my stories were so good is because they were completely fabricated -- every last one of them down to the last quotation mark. because I absolutely HATED interviewing people.

It seems interviewing is, well, a bit of a necessary skill if you are planning on being a journalist of any kind.

I decided journalism was probably not for me after all.

I started taking advertising classes, which appealed to my creative side and didn’t require asking questions of perfect strangers. Having grown up around the advertising business (my father has been a jingle writer as long as I have been alive), I knew my way around and I turned out to be pretty good at coming up with slogans and taglines and clever campaign ideas for fake businesses. I even had a professor call me into her office for the sole purpose of telling me she thought I should consider being an advertising account executive. I laughed because I honestly used to choose my college classes based on which professors had reputations for assigning the least amount of oral presentations. Besides, who wants to be an account executive? All the fun jobs in advertising are in the creative department! (I blame television and movies for this misconception, by the way. "Crazy People", I'm looking at you!)

And me? I was funny! I was creative! I kept toys on my desk! I had studied and memorized the entire history of every influential ad campaign EVER. Clearly, I was BORN to work in advertising.

Right after college ended, the ink still wet on my diploma, I started an internship at a small agency near my home. I wrote one radio ad for a local car dealership that they thought was funny and that actually got produced -- also I knew how to spell and correctly use semicolons and the head copywriter needed an assistant. I was hired.

The first thing I did was bring in my Mr. Potato Head and Barrel of Monkeys to keep at my desk because you know, that’s what creative types do -- that, and spend their days playing ping pong and thinking outside of the box.

The disillusionment spiral began.

The reality was that I spent my days proofreading ads for home builders and packages for pretzels. I learned I am really a quite BAD proofreader, despite being able to spell and my fearlessness of semicolons.

The writing I got to do was rarely interesting or fun. I quickly learned that our clients, which at that time were an assortment of car dealers, home builders and hospitals, preferred their advertising firmly INSIDE the box.

The days were long and slow, the office politics relentless. And again, I was a REALLY bad proofreader, something which was constantly getting me into trouble. The things I most enjoyed about my job were not part of my actual job at all -- answering the phones when the receptionist went to lunch, archiving old radio spots and talking to my coworkers.

On particularly bad days, when I felt as if my soul was suffocating, I would rip everything off of the bulletin board over my desk and replace it all with a single quote, a favorite of mine to this day:

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.”
-Bessie Stanley

This quote is basically my life philosophy and you, dear reader, having just learned that about me, have now probably ascertained in three seconds what it took me five years to learn -- that I had made most definitely made a huge mistake in my career choice.

In saying this, I don’t mean to imply there was anything inherently wrong with the company, or my job, or the advertising industry, just that it was a particularly bad fit for ME. I needed to feel like I was doing something positive, fixing something, helping people, just generally putting GOOD out into the world, and I wasn’t doing any of that, unless of course, you find yourself particularly moved by some wonderfully descriptive copy about the flavor and crunch of a particular brand of pretzels.

Mercifully, my ill-chosen career was temporary because my husband and I planned that I would stay home with our children. As soon as I got pregnant with our first child, the countdown began.

After the baby was born and I settled into my new career as a stay-at-home mom, the biggest adjustment was the lack of opportunity for adult conversation during the day. Other than that, I can honestly say I have never missed my job.

I don’t consider the years I spent there time wasted though. because if I had chosen the “right” career path, and who knows what that would have been, it would have made it a hundred million times harder to quit and not look back when I had my babies. So in one respect the wrong career was, for me, the right one after all. I don’t really have any regrets.

My true job right now, first and foremost, is being a mother. And this suits me well. There are three little people on whose lives I can make the biggest impact there is. The work is hard, SO ridiculously hard... and the hours are long, but the rewards are plentiful. I’m happy and fulfilled just knowing three lives “breathe easier” because I am here.

I am also a writer. My six-year-old self knew it. The paths I took never strayed far from it. I forgot it for awhile when writing became a job I dreaded going to every day; but it’s a part of me I can’t deny. I AM a writer. I have ALWAYS been a writer. I WILL always be a writer.

I don’t need it to make a difference in the lives of thousands or millions or even hundreds.

As a mother, if I can raise my three little people to be good, kind, and productive members of society, then I have put good out into the world and I have done my job.

As a writer, if I can touch even just a handful of people with what I have to say, than I’ve done what I am supposed to do.

For me at least, THIS is the meaning of success.

4/52

I definitely dislike change more than the average person. I know this for sure about myself. I often have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into anything that is new and different. Even so, I have to admit that, more often than not, change is for the better... at least eventually. After all, a season that lasts forever most certainly would not be as special as a season that gives way to a new one. This is a good reason for me to never move to Florida. Well, that and the fact that my hair and the humidity there are sworn enemies.

My husband and I moved into our first house eight months after we got married. By the time we found it, we had seen every house in four zip codes that was within our price range -- from new construction to handyman specials and everything in between.

Ultimately, the house we bought was a near exact replica of the three other ones we had looked at in the same neighborhood. By all appearances, it wasn’t anything special and I can’t really explain what made it stand out to us back then. All I know is, the minute we walked through the blue-grey front door with the tarnished brass number 29 on it, it just. felt. right.

I know this is not all that unusual, this feeling of being home. Our Realtor says he can see it right away on his clients’ faces when they walk into the house they eventually choose. In our case, we made it as far as the bottom of the stairs in the basement before my husband and I looked at one another and agreed outloud that we had found our house.

We drove to the parking lot of a nearby office building, conferred for about three minutes with our Realtor and made our offer. The sellers accepted it and somewhere in there someone must have mistaken us for adults because a few weeks later, we found ourselves at a settlement table. signing stacks and stacks of papers and getting handed a set of keys.

I loved everything about that house. Sure, there was plenty to be changed and fixed and painted, and I readily admit I cursed the vintage 1980s white laminate cabinets in the kitchen from the day we moved in -- but there were so many little things to love...

... like how year after year, the little dogwood tree in our front yard signalled the change of seasons with its cheerful pink blossoms in the spring, and shiny red berries in the fall.

Or, how, on the fourth of July every year, we could sit and watch fireworks over the rooftops from our bedroom window and, in the fall, from the same window, we could see red and orange treetops for miles.

How, at Christmastime, when we put electric candles in all of the front windows, it looked like a little dollhouse.

And, I loved how, each spring, we planted the same pink and white impatiens in the flower beds that somehow flourished, despite being the completely the wrong flowers to plant in the relentlessly full sun.

We brought out first baby home from the hospital and sat him in his little infant carrier on the floor of the nursery. “This is your room!” we told him, excited to finally have a real use for one of the extra bedrooms. The baby, of course, just slept. But in that moment, I felt the house smile.

I quit my job to stay at home with the baby and it was then I began to see beyond just our little house, to the neighborhood surrounding it -- two hundred or so little dollhouses just like ours, connected in groups of six.

It sat tucked away behind an older section of town, scattered amidst an unspoiled oasis of woods and wide open grassy spaces. You’d never know that just on the other side of the woods was the busiest nearby road to points east and west. In fact, outside in the afternoons it was almost eerily quiet, with only the birds, the mail truck and the occasional lawnmower breaking the silence. On nice days, I would walk the baby around the block pointing out birds and trees, doggies and butterflies along the way.

A year or so passed and I was vaguely aware of a few other moms and babies who were outside sometimes. Being painfully shy though, I knew it would probably take one of those moms throwing herself in front of my car before I would ever introduce myself.

At the same time, not even consciously considering the moms across the street, my most frequent prayer request went something like, “God, please send me some girlfriends who get me and also, just so you know, when you do this? You will need to make it REALLY obvious that they are the ones you have in mind.”

If you don’t think God has a sense of humor, you really do need to hang around with me for awhile. Wouldn’t you know, one of those moms actually DID jump out into the middle of the street and flag me down one afternoon?

After I slammed on my brakes and rolled down the window, she peeked in and introduced herself. Her name was Beth. She asked if I wanted to meet up at Panera the next morning for breakfast with all the other moms and their kids.

It took every bit of courage I had, but I made myself go to that Panera the next morning with my two-year-old in tow. And that is where I FINALLY met the group of women who would become some of my most dear friends and my sanity’s saving grace.

Around 4p.m. on any weekday when the sun was shining and sometimes even when it wasn’t, everyone would begin to congregate under the big shade tree in the common area in a veritable explosion of bikes and lights sabers and baby dolls and sidewalk chalk.

The kids loved it because they had complete and total freedom within the boundaries of the common area to the end of the street. The grass where they played most often all but gave up trying to grow underneath the

pounding of all the light-up tennis shoes and bicycle tires.

The moms were happy to have adult conversation and built-in child entertainment during those two hours in the day when the clock always seemed to slow to a crawl before the husbands returned home from. We talked. We laughed. We searched for inspiration about what to make for dinner. We broke up hundreds of fights and kissed even more boo-boos.

The summers were idyllic with sprinklers, waterguns, and warehouse-club-sized boxes of popsicles. And when the long hot days would stretch into evening, the glow sticks and flashlights came out with the lightning bugs.

It was during one of these summer evenings, as a gaggle of children with bare feet and popsicle stained mouths ran circles around all of us, that one of my mom friends looked around at all of us and said, “You know, these are going to be their memories. THIS is their childhood.” I think we all took a mental photograph of our children in that moment. It was so profound and beautiful and TRUE.

And oh, how our little houses smiled upon all of it.

During my most trying times as a mom, those days, those friends... they were like pure oxygen. I tried as best I could to enjoy every moment, to commit every detail to memory, and to somehow slow it all down, to keep it forever.

The dogwood tree in our front yard had not yet welcomed spring when the first house went up for sale.

It was inevitable, really. People don’t buy townhouses to stay in them forever, although the change hater in me had held out hope that we all would. The truth was though, that our families had all gotten bigger and those little houses were bursting at the seams with toys and pets and furniture and children. Also, the real estate market had changed and the bigger, “forever” homes, the ones we had all always talked about together in abstract someday terms, suddenly became a more tangible reality.

The day the very first family moved out, the neighborhood kids all played in the yard just as they always did. The rest of us fought back tears and eventually just let them go when we all looked around the house as it was being emptied out. If I had ever needed proof that the only thing keeping a house from being just four walls and a bunch of echo-y rooms was the family inside, this was it.

Probably the worst part was that the view from my kitchen window was of my friend’s empty house, the very same friend who, four years before, had waved down my van as I drove through one afternoon and turned out to be my answer to prayer.

Of course, time passed as it tends to do and the sadness faded, as it tends to do. Our old neighbors came back to visit now and then and we saw them other places too. No longer neighbors, but still very much friends.

The next house went up for sale and our group lost one more. There were more tears, but at least we but all knew now that it wasn’t the proximity to each other’s houses that made us friends.

There were bets on who would be the next to go. Never once did I think it would be us.

It was a Saturday in January when my husband, the three boys and I were all home at the same time. On this particular day, I had stepped on one too many Legos in the living room, my husband had been on the boys all day to find someplace else to play, and the next door neighbors were throwing one of their weekly drunken football parties outside of our back window.

We sat down and started looking at real estate listings. The very first result that came up was a big stone house with a huge yard, plenty of bedrooms and a playroom. Part of me knew the minute we saw it that it was meant for us. It may as well have had said in big red letters at the top “Tom and Erin’s New House”. I didn’t want it to be true, but I knew it was.

Within a month, half of our furniture and belongings had disappeared into a storage unit and the little house in the little neighborhood that we loved so much and that had loved us back was officially on the market. The for sale sign in my kitchen window was one giant, glaring, in-my-face reminder every day that our house was no longer our home, it was a commodity to be bought and sold.

We did eventually sell it, after a long two months of strangers traipsing in and out of it with their comments and their criticisms and their dirty shoes. The giant metaphor of a moving truck arrived one morning to pack up our house and our memories to deposit them all in our new home. I walked my oldest son to the bus stop at the end of the street and turned around to look back.

In my sight line was the moving truck and our house on one side and the two houses my friends had recently moved out of on the other. I cried on the walk back for the season that I now had no choice but to admit was over.

It is only with the benefit of time and hindsight that we are able to see the purpose of these all too temporary seasons in our lives -- how we got there, where they left us, what we gained from them.

It’s easy to see now that our little house was meant to be our beginning, our safe place, a checkpoint on our life’s road for us to meet the neighbors who would become our treasured friends. Yes, I know now that was its purpose for us and it served us well. We were exactly where we supposed to be for as long as we were supposed to be there.

And the new house? For all the upheaval and change that came with it, it was home almost as quickly as the old one had been and was everything we needed as a family of five. We could breathe again. We could spread out. We could finally stop storing the bicycles and recycling in the laundry room.

It just. felt. right.

Change had struck again and somehow, I had survived. Again.

Maybe, just maybe, someday I will learn to trust it and embrace it.

Then again, probably not.

3/52

Among seasoned mothers, the company line when you ask them how they knew they were finished having children is, almost always, “You just know.”

I have to say, I’ve gotten a lot of fantastic advice from other moms over the years, but this is one bit of wisdom I never found particularly helpful.

My husband and I always went back and forth about whether to have two or three children. Sometimes, when I was feeling adventurous, I even liked the sound of four. (of course this was before we even had ONE)

I always sort of assumed there would come a point when my brain would realize that logistically, we simply could not handle any more children. I also assumed without my brain to keep it in check, my heart would never know when to stop -- forever whispering in my ear, “Just one more!”

My heart was definitely still in charge after our second child.

All the while, my brain was practically begging to not have to endure another round of being pregnant, of not sleeping, of constant toddler vigilance, of potty training -- for goodness sake NO MORE POTTY TRAINING. (At the time, my 2-1/2-year-old son was insisting on wearing big boy Spiderman underwear like his brother, but still happily peeing on the floor every time I turned my back.)

My heart simply wouldn’t listen. It is a pull I imagine only a mother can know and one I can’t really describe except to say that sometimes, I would be with my two boys, playing or giving them breakfast or just some other mundane task of daily life and I would suddenly feel like I had forgotten someone or that someone was missing.

It took my brain awhile to get on board. Even when we were officially “trying” I wasn’t even completely sure we were ready. Ironically, my husband, the one of us who actually had come from a family of five, needed even more convincing than I did.

It was almost Christmas when I found out. I entertained the idea of keeping it a secret and telling him on Christmas morning. For three days straight though, he was relentless about wanting to bring sushi home for dinner. I eventually ran out of other carry-out options and I had to tell him.

He was very excited, of course, but in that third-time-around-the-block kind of way. I showed him the pregnancy test and got him up to speed on the due date and whatnot. After that, I think we kind of just moved on to getting the kids fed and bathed and put to bed. Such is life for the third child, I suppose, even in-utero.

I was fairly sure from the beginning we were having another boy because if there is one thing I know about God, it is that he has an absolutely fabulous sense of humor, and the idea of me with three boys was about the funniest thing I could imagine.

The day of our scheduled ultrasound, we took our two children with us. My six-year-old desperately wanted a baby sister and I had been preparing him for weeks that he probably would not get what he wanted. The technician started the ultrasound. and we all stared at the images starting to form on the screen. Almost immediately, my husband and I exchanged “Did you just see what I just saw?” glances.

She was kind enough to break the rules and let us turn our video camera on when she checked the gender. Though I had seen it already, my heart raced as I waited for the official reveal -- possibly my favorite part of pregnancy next to the actual birth. Some say it spoils the best surprise there is in life. I say it gives you something to occupy you while you are waiting.

“Well, that looks like a penis!” she said as she pointed to a spot on the screen. I laughed. Really, what else was there to do after I’d just been told I was now the mother of three little boys? Yes. God is indeed a funny, funny guy.

The six-year-old almost cried. The three-year-old, not yet understanding how his world was about to be knocked off its axis, was happy to hear he was getting another brother. My husband was relieved to know he had escaped having a teenage daughter for the third time straight.

We cruised along uneventfully through the summer, that is, until my doctor began making comments at my appointments about this baby being bigger than my other two. Toward the end, she would measure my enormous bump, feel around for the baby’s head and then smile and exclaim, “Hrm... This is going to be a big baby for you!” She was always very zen about this, whereas I was starting to have frightening visions of birthing a Thanksgiving turkey. She would then laugh at my inevitably panicked expression, help me heave my hugely pregnant self off the table and send me waddling on my way with a pleasant, “See you back in two weeks!”

August finally arrived. The baby’s official due date was the 26th and I had had a couple false alarms. The most memorable was a true case of Murphy’s Law in action, with contractions starting one night at precisely the same moment my oldest son woke out of a sound sleep crying that his ear hurt. I sat with him, rubbing his head until the pain medicine kicked in, all the while breathing through contractions every two minutes and wondering how I was going to get him to the pediatrician in the morning and still get myself to the hospital. Certainly not my first balancing act as a mom, and I was sure it would be far from my last.

I did get to the hospital and, not surprisingly, I was sent packing for lack of progression and smiling too much. Just as I was leaving, another woman came in leaking all over place. I heard the nurses declare her a “gross rupture”. Ah... water breakage... the ultimate quick-admission ticket. I enviously watched her disappear down the hallway. I sighed heavily, then, after glancing around to make sure no one was watching (except for my very amused husband) I jumped up and down a couple of times. Nothing. It was worth a try, anyway.

I was scheduled for an induction a few days later. Except for the fact that I was 39 weeks and six days pregnant, I just barely met the minimum requirements, but I was hugely uncomfortable, not to mention my oldest son was starting first grade the next week and I was eager to get home and settled in with the baby before school began.

On the morning of August 25th, we snapped one last family picture of the four of us, and out the door we went.

It all started out pleasantly enough. We arrived at 9 a.m. I got suited up and settled in with the tv remote, my laptop and my cell phone. I was excited and relaxed. My husband did some work in the corner. I played on Facebook and made small talk with the nurses.

The mood in the room took a decidedly negative turn though when the nurse tried to find the baby’s heartbeat. I pointed to where the doctor usually found it.

Silence.

She tried another spot.

More silence.

She asked if I had felt the baby move at all that morning. I couldn’t remember. In fact, I couldn’t remember ANYTHING at that moment. Every single one of us in that room was afraid of the same thing and no one was saying it out loud.

Five excruciating minutes passed as she moved the monitor to one spot and then another, and another.

Finally, the familiar whooshwhooshwhoosh of the baby’s heartbeat pierced the silence. She found it very high on my right side, in a spot we had never heard it before. It was very faint, and even with the monitor turned on full volume, it was difficult to hear.

The worry had been substantially downgraded, but there was the new concern that he had flipped, something that would, for sure, change the course of the day.

Already in a precarious emotional state after the scare the last few minutes had brought, I don’t know how I maintained any composure as I asked how this was possible. I had JUST been to the doctor two days before and he was facing head down. He was so big at this point that his movements rocked my whole abdomen. They were painful and completely unmistakable. There was no way I could have missed an intrauterine 180.

They sent for the on-call midwife and she came almost immediately. I quickly surmised she did not approve of the fact that I was being induced for a non-medical reason. Clearly she and I differed on the definition of “medical reason” because I considered not being able to take a deep breath a pretty valid one.

After a quick check she announced, almost gleefully, that she could not feel the baby’s head. Then she prodded all over my belly and couldn’t feel the head either. I thought for a minute she was going to tell me she didn’t think my baby actually HAD a head. Instead, she announced she needed to get the ultrasound machine.

“This probably isn’t going to go the way you want it to” she said, abruptly, as she turned to leave.

As soon as the door to my room clicked shut, the stress of the morning’s events hit me all at once and I burst into tears. The nurse tried her best to reassure me -- “Don’t give up, it might not be … it’s very rare for a baby to flip once you start feeling contractions... there’s still a chance...”

The midwife returned, wheeling a cart behind her.

She unceremoniously squirted gel all over my belly and plopped the probe down. Instantly, on the screen was the outline of our baby’s head, exactly where it was supposed to be. I cried some more, this time out of sheer relief. She made some comments about his positioning and why the heartbeat was high. As it turned out, he was just in a really strange, sort of twisted position lying up against my right side.

I really should have known better, but I looked at her and I asked, “Should I be doing this?”

Can officially opened. Worms all over the place.

I got to hear how she REALLY felt about inductions, though she added, of course, that it was my doctor’s decision and mine ultimately. Then, having said her piece, she left.

I am not ashamed to tell you that I called that midwife some not-so-nice names.

The next thing I knew, my doctor appeared in the room and I was never more thankful to see her. She sat down on the end of the bed and answered every question I threw at her. Her calm, softspoken manner and reassurance made all the stress, panic, and doubt that had built up all morning leave my body completely. Finally clearheaded, I agreed to let them start the pitocin.

Over the next few hours, I Facebooked my labor progress, read the first page of The Help twelve times, realized I couldn’t focus and eventually managed to sleep a little. I awoke out of a sound sleep to an audible *pop* followed by a gush. An hour and a half later, I got the second best epidural I have ever had.

At 5:15, my doctor came back to check on the progress. The baby’s head hadn’t come down all. At first she seemed confused and then she announced that she could still feel a bag of water. She brandished a foot-long crochet hook with which she planned to remedy that situation, while I contemplated how thankful I was to be numb from the waist down.

Two words describe the next few minutes: Nile. River.

My doctor has this very funny way of announcing things sort of triumphantly and this was no exception. “That is why the baby’s head wasn’t coming down!!!” she declared. We all shared in the excitement as the river flowed... .and flowed... and flowed.

I suddenly realized that I could take a deep breath for the first time in MONTHS.

At 7:30, she put a pressure monitor on the baby’s head, cranked up the pitocin and announced she was going to go take a nap while I finished my job of dilating. A nap sounded like a brilliant idea to me. However, as luck would have it, I would not get one because right after she left, the pain started.

I mentioned it to the nurse who then asked for the epidural to be topped off. I was told to wait 15 minutes to see if it helped.

Ever the rule follower, I watched the second hand circle the clock exactly 15 times before I called her back in.

Things got MUCH worse very quickly. I had reached the Level 10 + VERY Sad Face on the little pain scale illustration they keep handy in the hospital room. Realizing I was also feeling a ton of pressure, I quietly asked if it was possible to have gone from six centimeters to ready to push that quickly. The nurse said probably not, but woke up my doctor from her nap anyway.

She came in around 8:20 and I told her I really thought I needed to push. She said I could do some small pushes to take the edge off while she got ready. I truly have never seen anyone get dressed so slowly in my entire life. At 8:40, she and my mother were at the foot of the bed carrying on a conversation about the necklace my mom was wearing. As much as I hated to break up the girl talk, I said, “I REALLY need to push. Can I please push now?” At least I said please.

And push I did. I don't remember how many times it was, but it was through only a handful of contractions. The baby’s head came out, face up, apparently, and it felt like FOREVER until she let me push again. Then she had to pull him quite a bit to get his shoulders out. Even a year and a half later, I giggle at the mental image of this tiny, five-foot-nothing Indian woman, pulling with every ounce of strength she had to get that baby out. At 8:50, she won the battle.

"He's a BIG baby!" she exclaimed as she placed him on my chest. I could tell even she was surprised at his size.

We gasped a few minutes later when the scale read 8 pounds, 4.6 ounces. He was a solid two pounds bigger than my last baby. (I blame the Italian ices I lived on all summer.)

We finalized his name at the very last second, having waffled back and forth for nine months. He would be Jonathan Ellsworth Graff, his middle name honoring my grandfather.

Awhile later, the doctor had left, the nurses were filling out paperwork and my husband, mother and mother-in-law had gone out to the waiting room to catch everyone else up. For a precious few minutes, Jonathan and I found ourselves in the room basically alone together. “Do you have any idea what you have gotten yourself into being born into this crazy family?” I asked him. He looked at me, blinking a few times. Then he let out one of those newborn sighs. Clearly, he was clueless.

It wasn’t long before the big brothers were herded nto the room to meet him. They piled onto the bed like puppies and that’s where we took our first picture of the five of us.

As I looked around at this newly revised version of our family, I realized something. For the first time, it didn’t feel like anyone was missing.

When I wasn’t paying attention, my head and heart had apparently reached an agreement and at once I knew that this must be complete felt like.

Since Jonathan’s birth, I have formulated my own answer to the question, “How do you know you are finished?” and it’s pretty simple, really.

You are finished when the last person arrives.

When is that?

Well, all I can say is...

... you’ll just know.

I promise.