Last Saturday, I pawed through a time capsule of sorts. Let’s call it “parenthood.”
The day before, my second son wheeled his carry-on through security, moving out of our home–to be fair, as we knew what happened when he was wrestled from my abdomen on an unseasonably warm January day 18 years ago. He finished high school in December. It’s time.
A few weeks ago, I needed to take my son in to have a couple of teeth extracted.
Can I just say this is not my favorite mom-job?
So–a lot of women I know are in that window of life where one’s body starts needing repair from growing, then expelling a human.
If you’re not there? Hey, super-fun stuff.
My daughter was 14 months old when she got glasses and began to wear the felt purple eye patch I’d stitched for her. Coincidentally, it was the same month, she started walking at last and pushed through her first tooth. We’d noticed she frequently went cross-eyed.
It wasn’t until she could talk that the opthalmologist was able to understand she didn’t have a muscle problem. She had a genetic condition from my side called Dewayne’s Syndrome, from a missing cranial nerve.
As an author and voracious devourer of fiction, I consistently get a kick out of the comedy Stranger than Fiction (2006), with Will Farrell and Emma Thompson.
Will Farrell’s character, IRS agent Harold Crick, begins to hear a narrator’s voice over his life–a narrator who has power to determine his circumstances. And who indicates he’s going to die.
Harold seeks a literature professor’s advice (Dustin Hoffman), who suggests he start to find his author by determining whether he’s in a comedy or a tragedy.
Months ago, I stumbled upon what I thought was an epiphany: silicone scar strips…which promised, with 4.5 stars on Amazon, to fade stretch marks, people.
My heart lifted. My first child ballooned my belly like a watermelon, complete with stripes. When another mother asked to glimpse my stretch marks after I mentioned their severity, she gasped aloud with some equivalent of Good golly.
As part of the premise of this blog, I commit to uncomfortable conversations worth having. And the onus of that falls on me—toward authenticity in the midst of my own doubt and weirdness.
So today, I’m opening the convo with something I regret.
I still recall with vividness my son’s drawing, proclaiming my anger issues to the world.
It was in red marker (his favorite color). Chunky hands rested on wonderfully slim, stick-figure hips. “I made you look mad, but you’re not mad in this picture,” he explained.
Ever marveled over how your child is different from the one you’d pictured?
When I found out I was pregnant 16 years ago, I was over the moon. In fact, there were a few days during a women’s retreat when I suspected I was miscarrying. Fear clutched my heart with thick talons.
So usually you’re following my life at a bit of a remove. But it seems (weirdly) you like a personal update on my life this side of the screen. You will not get them crazy-often, because I find The Janel Show makes me cringe like you might with a loud potato-chip eater.
But I do enjoy connecting with you people.
So here’s a list of 8 things swirling around in my life right now–as if we were sitting down for a latte. (Decaf, please. I am told people like me should not be caffeinated.)
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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