I finally have a moment to reflect. On my birthday I always like to write down the highlights of the past year and look towards my goals for my next year. But on the big decades I like to write down all the highlights from the past decade.
My 20's were very full and fun years that included graduating form college, living Japan for 3 years, getting married and finishing grad school. I had some crazy jobs and did the majority of my life's travels.
So standing newly in my 40's I look back at my 30's. On my 30th birthday I was going to retire my birth control. I did and by Valentine's day I was knocked up. The following September the big sister was born. She was a planned homebirth and I had worked as a doula until about half way through my pregnancy. I was fully immersed in the LA homebirthing scene. I went to Gurmukh's prenatal yoga classes at The Golden Bridge yoga center. I shared a midwife with Cindy Crawford (which made my hubby quite interested in going to prenatal appts.) and attended Pam England's Birthing from Within doula training as a 'tester mom' for the doulas to train on and was really feeling ready and prepared for my own waterbirth at home. But 6 weeks prior to my due date I was in hot and heavy labor. Hubby was in Japan and I had an emergency hospital delivery. I gave birth to a daughter with a life threatening condition that required 'exploratory surgery' to figure out what was wrong with her insides. It turned out that part of her bowels did not develop properly and needed to be cut out of her and then re-sewn together. My midwife acted as my doula and I was able to avert a c-section, which would not have happened otherwise. After 3 weeks in the NICU we were home. She was on heavy drugs and it was a challenging first few months.
The little sister was not at all little at birth weighing in at 10lbs, but born into that water tub at home and all was well. I was in labor for days with my water broken, which again would've landed me a c-section in the hospital, but I put on a Depends pad and headed to the beach to do lots and lots of stair climbing, fluid gushing into my pad with each step. When she was ready I stepped into the tub and 2 contractions later with no pushing my baby moose was born at 10pm. By 11pm, I was showered, in my jammies and in bed with my hubby and 2 daughters and we slept through the night. Since she was already 10 lbs I did not need to fuss about feeding her every 4 hours as with a typical newborn. Now, 7 years later she still sleeps soundly for 12 hours at night.
My 30's were definitely focused around the girls - giving birth, nursing, washing diapers and wearing bra pads (I was a notorious leaker!), making baby blankets, and generally figuring out my parenting style. When the little sister was 9 months old I co-founded a school, we started and stopped a whole lot of play groups, book groups and co-ops while I was trying to 'find my tribe' and figure out my parenting methods. Some friendships went sour when parenting styles clashed and new friendships were formed based on commonalities in parenting. Our weekends were spent mostly at birthday parties.
Then the girls turned 3 and 5 and we set off traveling again. In between I was working as a Waldorf-methods preschool teacher while having at least one child homeschooling at any given time. They had the choice to attend school or not and it seemed they never decided at the same time, so one was always home. This is the first year both are not in school. There were many things to balance and a dissolution of marriage that happened in the middle of the decade. In hind sight it was certainly the decade of fluids for me! Lots of blood, sweat and tears, amniotic fluid, leaking boobs, night sweats, baby born in water, the man fluid that gets one preggers, menstrual blood that takes on a whole new dimension while trying to get pregnant, turning solid food in puree, pumping and storing milk, getting peed on, pooped on and barfed on- a lot. Not only by my own children but lots of others as well. My sister and I even did a mini triathlon- involving more sweat and water. Maybe all of life can really be summed up into stages of bodily fluids.
We are definitely right in the middle of the easy years right now and I feel it. I haven't been peed on for years now! We are in between the neediness of the young years and the challenges of the teen years. Those ahead of me told me about these years and they are in fact easy. On our trip to Iran they packed all there own clothes, managed their luggage entirely on their own and actually did a good job it. When they packed their own bags at 3 I'd have to check and sure enough- no undies, one pair of socks for 3 months, etc- but now they are capable little girls. They actually can cook on their own on the stove, ride their bikes to the park, run to the store for me, do their own laundry well, bathe themselves, dress themselves, get into the car and strap their own seat belt, they no longer require car seats, they can hike all the way up and down (!) a small mountain and they help carry in groceries. All those things that seemed so far away when I was trying to pull a sleeping infant and toddler out of car seats simultaneously, plus groceries and my purse while it's raining- and then realize that poop has just leaked out of one of the diapers and is now on everything. We've all had those moments and wonder if it will ever be easier. It is and I'm there.
As I stand on the brink of my 40's now looking towards my 50's it is with some trepidation that I realize on my next decade marker my job of raising my children will be finished. They will be 17 and 19 when I turn 50. My duties as mother will always continue but before I hit 51 they will both be legal adults. It's a sobering thought. I've been watching some of my nieces working their way through their teens and feel like I really ought to start storing up my energies now for the task ahead.
My hopes for myself as a mother I travel through my 40's is that my relationship with my girls remain intact and continue on as one of connection rather than domination. I hope to be available to them physically as well as emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I hope as they turn into young women that I can let them move through that process without my own stuff getting in their way. As they begin their interest in seeking romantic partners I hope they are smart about it and responsible. It will be an entirely different kind of parenting role that takes place as I will attempt to be enough of a friend to have them want to talk to me but yet enough of a parent that our parent/child boundaries do not becomes entwined. Toasting together with champaign on New Year's to me is different than 'partying' together. I've worked with teen moms professionally and hope that mine choose a different path but hope my heart will not close to them if they do choose that path. I hope to support them in whatever dream they have even if it remains as the little sister's currently is and she becomes a hair dresser. I hope that through all of their choices I am able to come back and stand in love and support of them for who they are, independent of their choices. I am also looking forward to seeing them turn into young women and eager to see what choices they make. Not too eager though! I'm definitely in no rush here.
And for myself aside from being a mother I hope that my own sense of self remains intact and that I have an idea of who I am when my role of 'raising' has been complete. I hope I can move gracefully into releasing that role and confidently stand in my role as woman. So many women write about turning 50 and finally feeling like they've 'arrived.' They are now mature and no longer bound by things that ruled them in the past- worries about weight, looks, what other's think and such fall away and they move towards the thing that drives their lives. I hope not to wait until I'm 50 to feel like that! I'm ready to now move enthusiastically towards that halfway mark and let the good times roll. And the continuing saga of the changes of bodily fluids! As the night sweats and tears turn back up and other fluids dry up, please may my sense of humor stay intact and my heart stay open.
AND A REMINDER THAT THERE ARE STILL A FEW DAYS LEFT ON THE DRESS UP SETS BDAY GIVE-AWAY. (scroll down) IT ENDS FEB 7th. good luck!
