Change The World March 24, 2014

It seemed doable. Help me get my first book in order. Keep the house clean. Send the book to a few publishers. Do the laundry. Get a book deal all lined up. Make dinner. Totally doable. Except it wasn’t.

This is what I had in mind when I first heard my forever mom would be home with my new little person and I for almost a whole 12 weeks after he was born. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s one of those things she apparently read about in all the baby books and blogs and online forums and neglected to tell anyone. Maybe because she hoped it wouldn’t be true. But it was.

Tomorrow is the 12-week anniversary of dear Carter’s birth. And while mom has done a pretty stellar job (at least in my opinion) of keeping the house in order during that time, anything beyond that has all but fallen by the wayside. That thing all her friends told her about never having time to so much as shower on a daily basis? Truth.

So you can imagine how far my plans for our book deal didn’t get. I may as well have added changing the world to the to-do list. Ultimately that’s what I want to do with my book after all. But now that mom is back to work and we are in transition, I realized today the biggest thing standing in the way of changing the world is ourselves.

I watch as mom holds herself to impossible standards. She is always trying to do everything (and then some). Trying to be everything to everyone. And when it’s all said and done, she ends up losing herself in a disarray of high expectations and disappointment. It’s a nightmare to watch. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live.

To me it seemed doable. But maybe that was my mistake. What do I know? I have two main jobs in life – love my people with all of my heart and soul and share my joy with the world. Everything else is taken care of for me. The same cannot be said of my people. They work hard. They have long lists of things to do that don’t always get done. It must be pretty normal for people to have this problem.

Except I can’t say it’s actually a problem when you know the solution. It’s tough for just one person to do it all. To change the world. But we, together, can change the world. We just have to work together. We just have to live. We just have to do it one paw print at a time. All forward motion counts.

Today’s post is dedicated to my dear friend HuntMode, who helped me see the light on this topic today.

Thank you, Huntie, for your friendship and love.

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In Spite Of It All February 13, 2014

It’s kind of a mystery to me. And I think dad feels the same way. Lately this thing has been happening that doesn’t really make sense. At least not when you hear of this thing called post partum depression. It’s apparently fairly common for women after they have babies to feel a little blue. For some, it’s manageable and goes away on its own. Others need help working through it.

My mom has needed no such managing or work. She has looked at baby Carter through the eyes of joy and love from day one. This, in spite of her incessant lack of sleep. This, regardless of spit up and stinky foofters and messy diapers and occasional bits of screaming for no good reason. This, even after what I witnessed the other day.

There she was, holding Carter in the air above her, telling him how much she loves him when bam. Spit up. In her face. And it wasn’t a little bit. We’re talking little bits of partially digested milk clumping in her eyelashes. But still she didn’t crack.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so happy as she’s been the last six weeks that she’s been home with Carter. So today I found myself wishing. Dreaming. It’s been so nice having her home all this time instead of at that place called work. She’s been a little preoccupied with Carter (obviously), but just having them both here with me during the days has been such a joy. Add to that how happy I’ve seen her and I’ve been one pretty blissful doggie.

I wish it could stay this way forever. I wish she didn’t have to go back to that place called work. I wish it could just be us three amigos against the world every day. We could go on adventures and explore new places together and I could show Carter my favorite hiding places at the dog park. Life could be grand.

Except for one thing. Mom is a pretty smart lady. I know she has a lot of schooling under her belt. And I know how happy she is when she accomplishes something or makes a difference at that place called work. I’m being selfish, I realized, and selfishness doesn’t get you anywhere.

It’s all a big mystery to me right now. A big mystery I can’t control. All caused by this one little person. It’s a wonder how something so little is actually so big.