Barking Mad

Diaper Backward Spells Repaid, Think About It!

There is scarcely a week that goes by that I don't get a frantic phone call, text, Facebook message or email from my oldest daughter Meg, asking me if it's normal to have to pee all the time, fart continuously, feel stabby at the sight of her husband after he leaves the toilet seat up, and then cry uncontrollably during a Kleenex commercial?     My answer is always the same..."Welcome to pregnancy!"

Despite me being an occasional smart-ass, Meg still obliged me when I asked her (Okay, so maybe I didn't ask so much as badgered!), to send me a pic of her baby bump!    Would you just look at her?  Is that not adorable?!?!  She's beautiful!  She is absolutely gorgeous. 

Meg, 13.5 weeks along

Truth be told, I love getting all the phone calls, texts, email and messages from her.   While I'm still having a tiny issue with anyone calling me "Grandma" (oh, and they won't be...we're trying to come up with a clever, cute and young-sounding name!), I am giddy with excitement and joy that my own beautiful daughter is about to have her own child.   Of course, you'd better believe I do get some small amount of joy when I answer the phone and she wails into the line, "Moooo-oooommmmm, I just laughed and peed my pants?!?!  Is this normal?"   I told her to wait until after the baby gets here and she sneezes!   I may or may not have her believing she's going to have to invest in Depends.

I would do anything to not be an ocean away from her, while she and her husband serve their country with the United States Air Force (and don't even get me started on my reaction when she told me that they'll probably deploy her after the baby is born...otherwise you'll end up having to come hold me and bring lots of Xanax and wine!), and be there for her so that I can see the look on her face when I share some of the more alarming terrifying humorous wonderful things about being pregnant with her first child.  

I wish I could have taken her out to lunch after she'd had her first ultrasound and sat there with her and ooo'd and awwwww'd over the photos.    I long to take her shopping for maternity clothes and then place my hands around her beautiful little baby belly.   I'm going to move heaven and earth to make sure I'm there for Meg in July when her wee little one arrives.   She's asked me to be with her in the delivery room and there is no where I'd rather be.  Until then, I thought I'd share a couple of my own special memories of being pregnant for the first time, with her...and with you.   I would love you to join me as well, in the comments, and leave a message for Meg, letting her know of your own special pregnancy memories; whatever they are., sweet, funny, poignant or even a little nauseating! 

Meg,

It was December of 1987 and I was pregnant with your sweet brother, Joshua - who I know is looking down on you now, from heaven - and I was in the car headed back to Aunt Meta's house.  I was just a little over four months along and still experiencing a fair bit of morning sickness, except I always had it at night.   I was trying my best not to be sick in the car so I was focusing on the dashboard and concentrating on the patterns the street lights would make on the old olive colored leather of that ancient Ford Falcon.   I shifted in my seat and that's when I felt it; Joshua moved.   At first it was a bit like a butterfly fluttering it's wings inside me and then there was a stronger "thud" deep inside and that's when I was absolutely certain that I'd just felt the baby move for the first time.

I was so young back then, younger than you are now.  I hadn't even been 19 for a month, yet when I felt your brother move for the first time it solidified in my body, mind and heart that this baby was something special and no matter what, I'd love him more than anything and fiercely protect him.   The thought of being someone's mother actually became a lot more real to me than it had been prior to that moment.

I placed my hands underneath the gray waist strap of my seat belt and cradled my growing baby belly.   I smiled at the thought that in just a few short months, this baby that was cradled inside my womb would be cradled in my arms.  For those two short years, I did exactly that. 

Out of everything that happened those nine amazing months I was pregnant with my first child, Joshua, that is the moment that stands out the most in my memory.   It somehow helped ease the awful nighttime vomiting I'd experience all the way to the end of the pregnancy, the stretch marks, the constant need to pee (just wait until you hit the end of your pregnancy!),  using an industrial sized rubber band to fasten the button on my jeans, the bombarding my ribs would take from those baby feet, and the inability to get comfortable.  Just knowing that there was this small life inside me, life that I had helped create, helped fade the other small annoyances of being pregnant.

To this day, 23 years later, I smile whenever I see a butterfly light upon a flower or leaf and then flutter it's wings as it prepares to take flight.  I always think of when I first felt Joshua move. 

My gorgeous girl, I'm so excited for you as you move through this beautiful stage in your life.  So, don't worry about it seeming like your boobs are as big as melons, peeing when you laugh, or feeling slightly stabby because Ray left the seat up.   Think about all the wonderful things you have to look forward to...leaky boobs,  stretch marks, sleep deprivation, not showering for a week, that wonderful newborn baby smell, tiny toes and little fingers, unbelievably soft baby-skin, first smiles, coos, giggles and all the amazing things that are just around the corner as you prepare yourself to step onto the road of motherhood.

I love you...today, tomorrow and always.

Mom

Of Gorgeous Girls With Guns, Gaby'isms, and a Thank You

Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl...

above image credits, me

...who, after a year at a pricey private college, decided that asking her parents to pay another $50,000.00 a year for tuition wasn't cool and didn't want to take out a loan; so she decided to join the United States Air Force and let the government help her pay for her education.  

Now we all probably know that that the gorgeous girl I'm talking about and the one pictured above, is none other than my amazing daughter, Meg.   If you're new to the Barking Mad asylum, to bring you up to date; once Meg finished BMT (Basic Military Training, AKA, boot camp!) and tech school, she was sent to her permanent base over in the UK.  From there she is working and awaiting her deployment to the middle east.

Fast forward to the last two months...having my eldest daughter so far away has been, well, hard.  Really hard at times.  Especially when you get a call in the middle of the night and said daughter is so high on pain medication that she's singing everything to you.   Almost two months ago, Meg was babysitting for one of her Sergeant's and face-planted into the metal bars around a trampoline she was jumping on, with the little ones.  She broke her nose and tore her face up.   Thank God and grace that she didn't send me this picture right after she took it, which was two days after she broke her nose...

I got the above photo about four days after the trampoline incident.  Had I gotten it immediately I would have hijacked a plane just to be there for her.

Two weeks after she had the run-in with the trampoline, she got into a near-fatal car accident and couldn't even be removed from the car until the Jaws-of-Life were brought in and she was cut out of the car.   She was pretty bruised and broken in places but has recovered very well.  That was about three weeks ago.

There is nothing like not being able to be there when one of your kids is hurt.  It hurts a mother's heart in an almost indescribable way.   Meg and I have grown extremely close in the last three years and hearing her sob, in pain, on the phone after her accident, was nearly too much for me. 

Now, a few weeks after the car accident, Meg is feeling well, working and apparently, despite some very serious security issues in Europe which have affected every American military base over there, (which she wasn't permitted to go into), my gorgeous girl is still having the time of her life over there!   She sent me a couple of photos taken with her cell phone and despite being forced to wear her complete "battle rattle" (that's what they call it when they have to completely kit-out in metal-reinforced battle gear, weapons, etc.) for 18 hours a day due to the earlier mentioned security issues.   I don't know about you, but I happen to think she's still one of the most gorgeous women ever, even in all her battle-rattle!  And that smile?  That smile is so freaking brilliant it could melt an arctic glacier!

Of course, this next picture, which isn't the greatest quality, brought back the stark reality of exactly what she's doing and what her job entails.  Seeing my little girl (she'll always be my "little girl" much the same way Gaby will always be my "baby."), toting a massive machine gun that's nearly as big as she is tall, well, it was just a huge reminder of just how much my daughter, and all those other hundreds of thousands men and women who serve in our military are willing to put on the line so that we can all rest a little easier.

That's my girl standing there with that big gun, standing ready to protect all of us against the boogey-men of the world.  Remember her the next time you think Freedom is really free!

Woahhhh...that's my girl standing there with that big , BIG gun! 

**********

I know I've said this a million times, "four" is really kicking my butt.  Sometimes though, Gaby says something that is way beyond her years and kicks me off my "mommy mountain" whilst she's at it. 

We had been asking her to pick up some toys for the better part of an hour.  I had reminded her for the umpteenth time that I would take the toys away, for a week, if she didn't pick them up.  Once again, she lollygagged and played and wasted time.  Frustrated, I stood up, put my hands on my hips and said:

"Dammit!  Just pick up the toys once and for all!"

Gaby immediately stood up, placed her own hands on her hips, looked me dead in the eye and replied:

"That's not my name!  That's not even how you spell my name!  That's spelled D A ....M I T!  Mine is spelled G A B Y!"   She had to pause to sound the word out, in her head.

She had me there.  Her name in fact is not "Dammit."  I had to leave the room at that point and bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud. 

**********

When I originally sat down to write about losing our house via a "Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure" process I was very aware of some of the flack I might catch for that post, especially considering that I know what all of these homes that are going to, and have been, flooding the market are going to mean to those of you who have managed to keep it together, and beat this economy.  I know that it's going to do nothing for the value of your homes.   There were a couple of comments reflective of that sentiment and several more emails. 

I originally thought I'd apologize to those people who left me those kinds of comments, or those who called Gareth and me, "deadbeat homeowners" via email.  However, I'm not going to.  Gareth and I did not take out a mortgage knowing we couldn't afford it.  We didn't live beyond our means.  We had a very nice cushion in our savings account, and never could have imagined the sequence of events that would take place and wipe us out; financially and emotionally.  Life happens. My family is not solely responsible for the real estate market crash, or the downturn in the economy.  I don't think I need, or owe anyone, an apology.

What needs to be said though is a huge "Thank You" to all the other people that left comments which expressed the fact that they understood that "life happens" and weren't seeking to cast us in the role of the bad guy and saw that I just needed to pour this all out.   This is not an easy situation to be in...for anyone.  So many of us, myself included, spend far too much time casting aspersions on those around us - people we don't even know - and judging their situations without even having the slightest idea of what they've gone through or what led them to be in the awful place they're in.  We make assumptions based on what we read or what little we know, when in truth, the little bit we do see, is only the surface.

Thank you so much, to those of you who took the time to read that post and see how utterly devastated we are, and reached out, via your comments, emails, texts and in a couple of cases, phone calls.  Thank you for trying to see beyond the surface and realize that we aren't bad people, but simply a family who had a tsunami of crap nearly drown them and as a result, lost their home.   We are but one in probably thousands of families who have lost their homes over the last two years.

When Meg called yesterday to tell me what was going on over there, I couldn't help but start to tear up.   Hearing her voice brought back a lot of good memories of the house.  She'd read the post and she already knew what was going on.  Meg said, "Awwww mom, don't cry.  We're all gonna be back in Maine soon enough and you'll be bitching about my perfume and boyfriends in no time, and then we'll be back out on the beach during a Nor'easter, laughing at the wind and then running for Dunkin Donuts to get a coffee so we can warm up! Cheer up mom!  I love you!"  

When we got off the phone I sat and watched some videos we shot back at the old house.  I smiled despite the tears and then thanked God for blessing me with such an amazing kid!

Because I'm feeling like reminiscing I'm reposting a video out here of the night we hosted "British Night" at our house and Meg invited some of her friends over for curry and some other"unusual"food. 

The original post is here.  Oh and please ignore the house and crappy paint job in the background.  We were in the midst of repainting the kitchen when we hosted this dinner.

 

A Piece of My Heart Flies Away Tomorrow

What a way to celebrate Mother's Day...watching Meg leave for the UK, knowing I won't see her for at least a year, possibly longer.  I don't let my mind go to the other possibilities...the ones where I know she'll be going to Iraq not too long after getting settled into her base in the UK.  No, I won't think about that. 

I know I said I was going to post the rest of my breastfeeding but this week is the last I will have had to spend with my eldest daughter for a long time and I just couldn't bring myself to finish writing it when my heart wasn't really in it.

Instead, I've been absorbing every moment of having this brave, strong woman at home with me.  She's so different from the girl I watched pack an overnight bag as she prepared to leave for boot camp back in November.  Her little girl edges have now been honed into strong, defined womanly lines...a woman who knows how to use a weapon in defense of her country and her fellow man.  A woman who spent weeks crawling through the 90F+ sand in the Texas flatlands in order to learn how to ambush the enemy and take down combatant strongholds and grew the kind of backbone some grown men will never have! 

There are tattoos where there was once smooth olive skin...but there is also a mettle to her spirit which makes her stand taller and stronger.   There are now the bright orange embers of cigarettes that rest between her lips instead of school-girl lollypop flavored lipgloss...but there are also oaths of loyalty and commitment that flow with a confident sense of capability.   This child, who grew from but the tiniest seed in my womb, now - some twenty years later, stands proud, determined, and courageous and ready to embrace the adventures that await her and do whatever may be asked of her.

My brain knows all this yet my heart feels the keen pain of a mother about to set one of her own, free...really and truly free, at last.  Yet, as I write the words, and then look over them, it just feels like a tangled up jumble coming out of my head and I don't feel adequately equipped to articulate the cyclone of emotions, thoughts and memories going through my head right now.

I'm so excited for Meg, yet I grieve for the past that we never fully experienced because I wasn't there for 8 years, and I think that my regret over the errors and mistakes I've made, keeps me from genuinely being able to completely let go.  But then, when do mothers ever really let go? 

Despite my inner emotional tug-o-war, I'm coveting every moment of having her close to me, and laughing like a fool at the antics of she and her friends who have come all the way from Maine, Massachusetts and western New York to spend these last stateside days of hers, with both Meg and her family. 

More than all of that, I want her to soak up this time of acting silly, staying up all night, cramming four bodies onto one small air mattress, eating too much junk, and laughing...especially the laughter. There will be time for the business of being an adult, in the days, weeks and months to come.  Right now  I want her to cram as many of these crazy-fun moments in and to hold them close and revel in the light of these times and then be able to call upon them during times when the darkness and harsh edges of the world surround her. 

 

   

 

I want her to...

...remember sitting on the shore with her mom in Maine and just inhaling the salty breeze off of the Atlantic.

...smile when she thinks of Gaby running into to her bedroom with Bunny Bunny Bunny and jumping into bed with her.

 

...laugh when she thinks about having her best friends here at the house and squished around her as they watched Paranormal Activity.

 

...giggle when she remembers wading out into the lake and being splashed by Linda.

 

...feel great about herself when she thinks about how incredibly proud I am of her and how much I love her. 

 

...know how amazing I think she is and how I don't think I could ever ask of myself, the things she is asking of herself and the things her country may eventually ask of her.

My mommy-heart is both bursting with pride and stinging with the pains of letting go.  Only  a mother could experience this sort of painfully happy conundrum.