Sunday, August 22, 2010

"Only say the word and I shall be killed."

There are two stories intertwined in this one post. I'll try to keep it from being confusing.

We're Catholic, I might or might not have said that at some point before. Llama and I have just started going back to church since I finally feel like I can sit through a Mass without crying and making a fool of myself. This was our second week back, and Llama was in rare form. She has allergies or a cold (I can't tell yet), she was out too late last night and up too early this morning, and church is generally difficult for a 2 year old. So she was in full Llama effect.

At one point, she threw her cup toward the back of the church. I didn't see where it went, and I'm pretty sure a very nice man either caught it or was hit with it. (He returned it to me, but I'll get to that.) I whispered, "That was a bad choice, now you have no juice." That was perhaps a bad choice on MY part, because in her anger at being juice-less, Llama ripped off her plastic necklace that she had chosen to wear and threw that too.

At that point, I was remembering how Aunt Dots used to think that when we say, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you; but only say the word and I shall be healed," that we were saying, "...only say the word and I shall be killed." The fact that she continued to attend church and receive communion, believing all the while that she might at some point be killed as she approached the altar... well, faith is a strong and incredible thing, I'll just say that.

I was very embarrassed by Llama's tantrum and throwing of possessions, and I was wishing that God might see fit to kill one of us, and I was hoping it would be me. However, the necklace and juice cup were returned to me, and I apologized and thanked the poor targets. I hid Llama's stuff from her so that she would have no further throwing opportunities.

Mass progressed without incident until we were all offering each other peace, shaking hands and exchanging nice words. Llama took the opportunity to say, loudly, "WHERE MY JUICE CUP GO!?" How peaceful.

Neither of us were killed approaching the altar. Clearly Llama is feeling more peaceful, because she fell asleep in the car and I couldn't even wake her up for lunch. I know she's still alive because she's snoring.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Oh, the places we've been...

Well, welcome back to myself (again). I seem to have this nasty habit of living life and getting so involved in it that I forget to blog about it. And really, this is supposed to be the scrapbook/journal for Llama. However, as often happens, I currently have something to talk about that isn't open for discussion with a two-year-old, no matter how smart she may be. (And she is pretty smart, but that's for another day.) So, things we've seen or done this summer:

1. Bucket wrecked his car. He was and is fine. We bought a new car yesterday. It's a 2010 Chevy Equinox and it's silver. It's very fancy. My 2005 Subaru Legacy was the first brand new car I'd ever driven, and now this is the second. Bucket is a very special kind of guy, and so I get the "new hotness," and he gets "old and busted." The Subaru isn't old and busted in any capacity, but it does get much better gas mileage. And it's small and fast, which are desirable characteristics on the highway and not so much in the pre-school dropoff line.

2. Llama has TWO new cousins. They don't have secret blog names yet. The lucky parents are The Army Guy and Frenchy (a little girl born June 11) and Hawaiian Punch and iHusband (a little boy born August 4). I'm jealous.

3. This is the reason I'm jealous, and also the thing I most need to write about. I had a miscarriage. It was the third miscarriage. I had one before Llama, one when she was nine months old, and one in July. It's kind of the reason I dropped off the map (this time). I still just don't know what to say, other than I know with every part of me that I am a good mom, a deserving mom, and I will eventually understand the reason why I can't seem to do "pregnant" well. I finally went back to church today. I hadn't been all summer - first because I was pregnant and sick, and then because I was just so sad and angry, and there was a healthy dose of guilt in there. The guilt was and is unfounded, but that doesn't make it go away.

I have so much else to say, but apparently, I'm still not able to put it into real words. I'm not sure if that's because it's so hard for me to understand, or because I'm worried that putting this information out there will upset the people who read this who I love so very much, or what the reason might be. It's hard to even distinguish in my mind. I don't begrudge my sisters-in-law their gorgeous babies. I don't want to replace my Llama's baby times with new baby times.

In fact, I wasn't even a good baby mama. I like sleeping and drinking alcohol and not wearing pads in my bra and not feeling like a slave to a little tiny thing. At one point during Llama's very tiny times, I was sitting there in the middle of the night, looking at her nursing, and she popped off and looked at me with her giant blue eyes... and I thought, "You were sent here to destroy me." And then I woke Bucket and made him take the baby, because I was clearly too tired and stressed to be in charge anymore. I'm adding that story to illustrate how very much I was not a glowing, happy, lovely new mom.

I'm much better with a two-year-old. But I want her to have siblings with whom she can share all of the crazy. My brothers and I have shared experiences that have defined us and our relationships, and there is nobody who understands where you came from like someone who also came from that place. I'm not planning to be crazy or to introduce crazy or to even let Llama know what crazy is all about, except that THAT makes me crazy. Does that even make sense? Even "normal" families are crazy. Everyone has crazy and some people hide it better... but I want Llama to have someone to call and say, "What. the. fuck. is. Mom. talking. about!?!?!" and that person will be able to answer. Or not, and they'll commiserate about how batshit insane I am.

But I also want another child because I'm meant to have more than one child. I hope. I think. I mean, I don't know for sure or anything, but I just don't see my car as only ever having one baby seat in it. We have a lot of love and a lot of crazy. We can and should share it with another person.

I'm all over the map tonight. To recap: Bucket's car is gone and we have a new car. We have a new niece and a new nephew. Llama is an only child for now and I don't want it to stay that way, but it's not up to me and that's sad.

Fin.

PS: I say this all the time, but I have big plans for more posting. Ha.