"Is this a Mommy-Daughter night?"

When Lily was an infant and Jeff worked at least four nights a week, I remember so vividly dreading coming home on winter evenings alone, putting on NPR so I could listen to something of interest, stumbling through making a palatable dinner for one, and counting the minutes until the witching hour had at last passed and bedtime had arrived.

When Lily was a toddler and Jeff worked at least three nights a week, I remember still dreading coming home on winter evenings alone, enduring KIDZ BOP on the Pandora station, painstakingly creating a dinner that Lily might actually consume and I had no interest in, and counting the minutes until the tantrums had at last passed and bedtime had arrived.

Now that Lily is a preschooler and Jeff works only two nights a week, I anticipate with great excitement the nights Lily and I have to ourselves. By the time it's noon, everyone in the office has heard me talk about our Mother-Daughter Night, and Jeff reports that Lily tells everyone she encounters that it's going to be "just my special night with Mommy." We fluctuate between two favorite dates: a trip to the library followed by a visit to Panera or a visit to a game at my school followed by broccoli pasta at home.

With my commitment this year to attend one game a week, Lily has had no choice but to become my little sidekick on most Thursday afternoons. She's a cheerleader extraordinaire, shouting encouragement to the players, telling them "it's okay!" when they make an error, and even learning to spell out the school's name ("just like the big kids do!"). She's also got quite a fan club, whether it's the Lower School students who know her from extended care during faculty meetings or her favorite babysitter or the parents of my students who indulge her squirminess and giggles even when they've stretched my patience. She's been on the grass sidelines of soccer scrimmages, the wooden bleachers of field hockey games, and the polished floors of volleyball matches. Tonight, she took in her first squash match, and ice hockey is up next weekend.

Each time, at some point, she grabs my arm and asks if we might go home soon as she's getting a little bored and pretty hungry. So we make our way back to the car (where she clips herself into her car seat), open a bag of Smartfood to share on the drive, and take turns choosing favorite songs to sing along to on the winding back roads that take us home. Once there, she joins me in dinner prep, whether by chopping broccoli (with a very dull butter knife), measuring pasta, or simply telling me stories about her day at school as she colors at the butcher block in the kitchen (still perched in her learning tower, just as she has been for so long). When we finally sit down to eat, she happily hums "yum!" as she digs into her first bite of broccoli, pasta, and goat cheese, and she readily takes her bowl to the kitchen at the end of the meal, then leads the way upstairs to get ready for bed.

Is it always this perfect? No, of course not. Some nights hold unexpected tantrums, surprising meltdowns, or incredibly powerful bursts of frustration. (And those don't all always come from Lily--sometimes I'm just too overwhelmed at the end of the day, too.) But fewer nights hold those moments than they used to, and I found myself particularly grateful for that tonight as we curled up together in Lily's bed after her story, first quietly saying our prayers and then gently moving into favorite bedtime songs.

Here's what I realized tonight: Lily didn't cry today. (Or, at the very least, she didn't cry with me.) She didn't yell at me or lash out or get frustrated when things didn't go exactly her way. She rolled with what the evening brought, finding creative ways to solve problems (like the extra "D" she turned into an "A" when she realized she'd started "DADDY" off with too many "D"s). And she reminded me that, just as the infant and toddler stages didn't last forever, neither will this one.

So I'm going to soak up every minute of it that I get.

The Fourth Seat

I found our current dining room table on Craigslist when Lily was just a few months old. We borrowed a friend's truck and drove 45 minutes to pick it up, and we couldn't have been more delighted. The colors and style appealed to us, the fit was perfect for our dining room, and--best of all--it had an additional leaf that folded out from the middle, allowing us to extend our seating from 4 to 6 or even 8. As we sat at the table that first night, two chairs were left empty: the one that Lily would occupy once she was old enough and... the other one.

As Lily got a little bigger and moved from our arms into her high chair, I began to see our family materializing around that table, but looking at the fourth spot was always a bit bittersweet. We had yet to decide whether we would attempt to further grow our family to fit that chair or whether it would remain empty. The latter thought inevitably brought pinpricks of tears to my eyes; in spite of all that is our amazing daughter, I still sometimes feel that infertility and miscarriage robbed us of the family that we were supposed to have--the one we would have had if I just had been able to carry our early pregnancies to term. Now, with Lily over two and my own 40th birthday fast approaching, it just seemed I'd have to live with the constant reminder that I couldn't have all that I wanted.

And then a funny thing happened. That empty space started to get filled more days than not.

For the amount of food required to feed our family of friends at our annual Winter Whimsies party, the extra leaf was mandatory.

Lily had no trouble filling the additional seats we'd once thought we didn't need.

And, sometimes, chairs weren't even necessary at all--we just wanted to snuggle in as our perfect little family of three.

The days our table feels the most full, though, are the ones when that fourth seat (and often a fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth) are filled by the friends we are so blessed to call our family. It's not unusual to hear our door open at dinnertime and have a friend quickly pull up a stool at the corner to catch up about the day, and it's a rare weekend that doesn't see the table weighed down at least once with a variety of glasses, plates, and meals as an impromptu neighborhood potluck appears.

See, here's what I've learned about our fourth seat: it's not empty at all. It's full of more things than I ever thought a single chair could hold, some tangible and some not, some expected but most surprises. I've learned that my vision for our family table was so minute, so temporary, so myopic that only a complete upheaval of my design for my life could ever give me the freedom to allow it to hold all that it is able to.

Whatever your fourth seat may be, I wish it filled with more wonder than you could ever imagine.

Friday Night Family

Sometimes, life circumstances mean you don't live near your actual family. In our case, this is true because Jeff was willing to support me in our move to northern Virginia 8 years ago(!) when a phenomenal opportunity opened up at the school where I now work. It isn't easy to be away from your family for many reasons, but perhaps we feel it most strongly in those moments where we look at Lily and know how much she'd love to see her grandparents every week, how she'd adore the opportunity to help her aunt and uncle feed their ducks on Saturday mornings or go to dog shows on summer weekends with her grandma.  Those are just the moments when you miss your family, though.

When family is acutely needed is in a moment of crisis. The moment when you just need someone to pick up your daughter from school but you're both stuck at work, the moment when you both get a virulent stomach bug on New Year's Day and need someone to run out for Gatorade and Saltines, the moment when life socks you in the gut and it's all you can do to stay standing.

One of those moments happened for our best friends--two of Lily's godparents--last week. There was an acute crisis that was unavoidable and deeply sorrowful, and we just wanted to stop their hurting for a moment. So, we did the only thing we could think of to help--we took over their kids (and dog) for a couple of days so that they were free to travel to their family and be with them. And because they are our chosen family, it was a piece of cake: the kids know our house as well as they know their own, Lily was in heaven with plenty of attention, and Jeff got to be one of the neighborhood guys with a dog for a bit.

Because of all that--because it truly was no big deal to pitch in and help--it was shocking to come home Friday evening to the gorgeous bouquet of lilies pictured at the top of this post. Our friends had left them on our dining room table while we were out running errands, and I wish I had a picture of Lily's astonished face when she discovered them, then spent several minutes just gazing, whispering over and over, "I just love them." We didn't need anything in return for helping out--we just did what family would do in that moment. And then they did what the best kind of family also sometimes does--they said "thank you" in the most beautiful way imaginable.

And so we arrive at last night. A good friend in the neighborhood (the mom of one of Lily's besties) texted while we were out running errands to ask if Lily was still up for playing with her daughter while we sipped some wine and caught up. Of course we were! And so they arrived a half hour later.

And so our unexpected-but-perfectly-average neighborhood night began.

Over the course of the next hour, each swish of our front door opening brought more neighborhood friends into our dining room, each one bearing some beverage and much good cheer. (My favorite entrance arrived with a bottle of wine and a glass raised in each hand, singing out the infamous line, "It's all happening!") In spite of the rainy night, the fact that none of us had seen each other in over a week meant we were happy to crowd around our dining room table, munching on whatever snacks Jeff and I could find in the cupboard, catching up and eventually engaging in an hours-long game of Cards Against Humanity. (Don't worry, Lily and her friend were happily snuggled in sleeping bags upstairs before the jocularity really reached a fever pitch!)

The reason for the perfect end to our week was quite simple: though we live far from our family, we have chosen a family who lives in walking distance from our front door. There are no pretenses nor expectations, no need to blow dry your hair nor to touch up your make-up. We love each other because of who we are--because of who our families are--and that is enough.

Thanks, Friday Night Family. You rock our world.

The Birthday Girl with the Biggest Heart

The problem probably started here. (Though blaming The Kitten alone isn't really fair as Lily's heart was set on animals long before the Saturday in February when The Kitten entered our lives.)

As much as I tried to plan Lily's birthday as a tea party, as a princess ball, as some sort of preschool athletic contest, no plan made more sense than Lily's first choice: a pet adoption party. And so, when The Kitten entered our home just two weeks before the party, the plans were already in motion; she just fit in as a brilliant accessory.

The first step was to check in with the moms of the three friends Lily was having for the party. Once each mom told me her daughter's favorite animal, I headed over to Amazon to buy some adorable Beanie babies (and a roll of velcro--more on that in a second).

Tuesday night, the process continued with ribbon, velcro, and some serious blisters on Jeff's fingers as he began to execute the plans I'd concocted.

(Bonus points if you can find four creatures in this picture!)

Using ribbons I found in my mom's ancient sewing box (how cool is that?!), we spent the Tuesday night before the party cutting ribbons and velcro to make custom-fit collars and leashes that the girls would be able to take on and off themselves. Jeff even designed "wrist slips" so they could take their new friends for a walk!

Wednesday afternoon, I stayed a bit late at work to create some certificates and checklists for the party. Using some designs I found online as guides, I drafted my own preschooler-friendly versions.

Adoption certificate (l), vet checklist (r)

By Friday night after Lily's bedtime, Jeff had gotten everything we needed from Party City, and I was ready to start creating some goody bags. The idea was to go along with the pet adoption theme, and I was pretty pleased with the final products.

Each bag had "pet toys" (Animal Crackers), "Puppy Chow" (homemade from this recipe), "cat food" (Goldfish) and two barrettes (based on the favorite animals each mom gave me for her daughter). My favorite part, though, were probably the personalized labels that said "Lily's Pet Adoption Center - [girl's name]'s Take-Home Supplies - Thanks for adopting a new friend today!"

While I was busy assembling bags, Jeff was hard at work creating custom-fit "pet carriers" for each girl's Beanie Baby. (The plan was to give the girls the opportunity to decorate their bags with stamps and stickers, but they were too excited to slow down once they got to that part of the party!)

Saturday morning gave us just enough time to prepare the final stages of the party. (If the "Pet Adoption Center" looks familiar, you might be having a flashback to Lily's Birthday 3.0, when Jeff built the stand to be Lily's pizza parlor.)

And, of course, what would a pet adoption be without a vet to check out our new friends? Our neighbor's twelve-year-old daughter was absolutely amazing as our resident vet (who also helped us wrangle the preschoolers for two hours!).

The girls had a wonderful time: everyone loved their individual pets (I'm so glad I asked for favorites ahead of time so there was no fighting over who got each animal!) and had tons of fun playing with them and giving regular check-ups. As for me, it felt like I'd channeled just a tiny bit of the incredible treasure hunt birthday parties my mom created for me and my brother each year. If I gave Lily even a tenth of the joy I experienced on those Saturdays once a year, I'd be pretty pleased!

Once the preschoolers were tired out and ready for cake, it was time for the rest of our guests to arrive--about 40 in total comprised of our neighbors, friends, and "chosen family."

But this blog isn't complete without one more note: the one that inspired the post's title. Even before adopting The Kitten (a rescue who had been tossed by the side of the road in Mississippi at just a few weeks of age), Lily made a declaration: she wanted no presents for her birthday, only "food and treats for doggies and kitties who don't have any." Well, it turns out that, when you tell a lot of animal lovers that information, hearts are touched and supplies abound. 

So much was donated that we'll be splitting it between three different shelters: the Humane Society, Wolf Trap Animal Rescue (where The Kitten came from), and a local shelter one of her godmothers will be bringing her to in order to have a special visit and meet the dogs and cats her supplies will help.

All in all, a very successful start to Lily's fourth year! 

Post-script: The Kitten probably deserves her own post, but suffice for now to say that she's bringing a lot of joy to all of our hearts--even her big brother's!

Rosie Posie Cottontail

Dear Rosie,

Christmas won't be quite whole without you. Though gone are the days of you drinking all the "spice water" out of the tree and enthusiastically chasing a laser pointer around the living room, you remain very much at the center of our Christmas celebrations. Whether perched in front of the tree or meowing pitifully until we get your pillow set out in front of the fireplace, you have always been our Christmas cat.

Of course, you didn't start out that way--as a Christmas cat, I mean. You started out as a tiny fluffball of a runt, the littlest one in the litter by far, the one who insisted on kneading me firmly in the armpit before attempting repeatedly to suckle on my arm. Perhaps taken from your mama a bit before you were ready, you seemed to imprint on me from the first night in our home with Guillie, and that has never changed. Not a night in the last 17.5 years has gone by in our home that hasn't found you tucked cozily in the crook of my arm, body under the covers and head sharing my pillow.

You've had to adjust quite a bit in the year and a half since your sister went up to heaven, and I'm so sorry for that. It's clear how much you miss her (not to mention how much you wish she was still here to deflect Lily's energetic adoration of you). You've learned to make do, to snuggle with Ozzy when necessary and to endure Lily's affection, but it hasn't been easy.

We joke that you are our cranky old lady, the one who tells us when she should be fed, who yowls until we form a lap, who constantly demands our attention and affection. But, Rosie Posie Cottontail, the truth is that your fur has soaked in more of my tears, your ears have endured more of my rants, and your comforting warmth has soothed more of my heartache than anyone could possibly imagine. If animals can be children--and I believe they can--then you are the child who first prepared me to be a parent. And for that I owe you the world.

Lily asked if she could take this picture of you and me tonight. I'm covered in a blanket because Lily thought it might bring me extra comfort, and there's a crackling fire warming you just outside the camera's frame. Tonight has been a teary one, sweet kitten, and I expect the next 48 hours won't be much better. Because now is the moment when I have to not be selfish, when I have to confront the pain I know you're in and allow you to leave, allow you to go greet Guillie (who will be waiting right next to God, Lily reminds me) and to be joy-filled again. I just wish it didn't hurt so much to take away your pain.

We will all miss you, sweet kitten-cat. Know that our hearts will never change.

With love,

Your person mama

Life (revised version)

For over 15 years, I've been reading, reflecting on, and returning the writing of high school students. There are assignments I enjoy more than others, but there are none so challenging to grade as the revision: the moment when I'm faced with the revised version of the student's work and am left with the task of discerning what has been changed and what still remains the same.

As I read a set of revisions from my freshmen a couple of weeks ago, I found myself unintentionally separating the papers into two categories: the cover-up job versus the total overhaul. Allow me to explain.

The cover-up job is the one that seeks to fix all the cosmetic issues. The commas have been adjusted; the run-ons have been remedied; the typos have been banished; the citations are now in proper MLA format. On the surface, the cover-up job is glossier and more polished than the original, but the foundation hasn't undergone any real change.

The total overhaul, on the other hand, is often virtually unrecognizable from the original draft. The thesis has shifted focus; the evidence has changed; the previous analysis has been scrubbed and replaced with new ideas. However, all the substantive changes have also resulted in some new problems: new fragments have arisen; the title of the text still isn't in italics; the apostrophes are haphazardly placed. On the surface, the total overhaul is still a bit scratched and bruised, but the foundation is sured up and ready to take on critical eyes.

I understand why my students sometimes prefer the cover-up job: it's quicker and easier to complete, and it might even gain them the extra point or two that nudges the assignment grade from a B to a B+. But my notes on those essays are always the same: "I appreciate the small changes you made, but a real revision takes courage and time. It requires your willingness to erase all the hard work you put in originally in order to create something better. It asks you to challenge yourself to think new ideas and find new ways to put them on the page. Next time, I encourage you to consider completing a total overhaul. I'll be happy to support you as you do so."

As I read those revisions two weeks ago and wrote a variation of that note on many drafts, I found myself contemplating how I've responded to the revisions life has thrown at me. Have I been willing to do the work of a total overhaul, or have I been content with a quick cover-up job? Have I complained about the time spent on a revision only to find there are now new errors to deal with, or have I been willing to take a deep breath, put my head down, and continue the process for as long as it takes?

I'm not sure what the answers are to those questions--though I am sure I've met each of life's revisions with a slightly different attitude. What I do know is that, if this is the first post you ever read on this blog, and if you saw the picture of the top of my wonderful family, you might be tempted to think that you were looking at my original draft, no changes recommended, no revisions or edits required.

But then I hope you'd go back and read the years written here. The years of heartache and pain, of joy and hope, of love and sorrow. Then you might see what I see in that picture: an incredible revision of the life story I thought I was writing. The one that ends up still a bit cracked and bruised on the outside, but the one that is constantly striving towards a firmer foundation. The one that bears the weight of too many revisions to count but that somehow is the gift I get to live every day.

And, most importantly, the one that reminds me of this: when you get to the end of one revision, it's just the start of the next.

Go, Mommy, Go!

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge is 4.35 miles long and rises to 186 feet above the bay. For many people, simply driving across its span causes heart palpitations, panic attacks, and worse. For others, its narrow width is intolerable only in light of the traffic congestion it causes on summer weekends. For me, it became the challenge to beat as I ran my first 10K. But before we step onto the bridge, let's review this journey.

You may remember this post from December 2015 when I'd picked up running again for the first time just four months earlier. My time for that first Run with Santa 5K was nothing stellar (33:56), but I was proud of what I'd accomplished. When I ran the same course again in March 2016 after several more months of training, I was pleased with my new personal record (28:19) but immediately set my sights on the next goal: break 28 minutes.

March 2016: Lucky Leprechaun 5K

This new goal required considerable more preparation as I knew I'd likely need to do more to train than just run three miles three days a week. After chatting with a good friend, Steph, who is a phenomenal runner herself, and after reading several articles on my own, I put myself into a regimen of interval training in the months leading up to my second Run with Santa 5K in December 2016. I even asked that (incredibly patient and gracious and encouraging) friend to join me in trying to break my personal record, and she happily agreed to pace me as I attempted to finish with the 9-minute miles required to reach my goal.

 December 2016: Run with Santa 5K

This time, not only did Jeff and Lily make it to the finish line to see us cross, but they got to witness the massive grin on my face as Steph checked her watch to report my time: 27:34. I'd trained hard, I'd proven to myself and my daughter that I could do whatever I set my mind to, and then I set my mind on my new goal of breaking 27:30 in the Run with Santa 5K, 2017 edition.

And that's when Steph stepped in with a new challenge: what about a 10K?

I've never been a distance runner--in fact, at that point, I'd never even attempted running more than 3.5 miles. I mulled over the challenge for several months: could I complete more than 6 miles? Even if I could, would I need to walk most of it? And how in the world was I supposed to do my job and be a mom and fit in a long run each week?

Not knowing the answer to any of those questions, I began to tentatively read about the Cross the Bay 10K--the one Steph recommended for my first race of a longer distance. Though the 1.7 miles uphill at the start was intimidating and the idea of participating in a race that has 20,000 entrants was overwhelming, I couldn't stand the idea that I'd back down from a challenge. And so, on March 21, 2017, I registered for the race.

Training started over the spring and summer as I tested my legs at distances up to 4.5 miles, but it wasn't until school began in September that I started to train in earnest. Five days a week, my alarm went off at 5am, and I pulled on my running gear and hoisted my workout, school, and lunch bags on my shoulder and made the pre-dawn drive to campus. Mondays were for 3-mile runs on the hilly road that leads into school, Tuesdays and Thursdays were 1-mile sprints on the treadmill followed by time on the elliptical, Wednesdays were grueling interval workouts on the track, and either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday was a distance run on the rolling hills surrounding our home. With each week that progressed, I found myself amazed that my body could take me 5, then 5.5, then finally 6 miles. Perhaps more shocking, though, was that I found I looked forward to the runs--not to the exhaustion or the early morning darkness or the seemingly endless uphills--but to the sense of accomplishment that waited at my own personal finish line each week.

"Early mornings, hard runs, long distances, discipline, race day"

In spite of all the preparation, standing in the bleachers of Navy Stadium last Saturday, holding my bib number for the next morning, I still found myself wondering quite what I'd gotten into. I'd set a ambitious goal for my first 10K: break an hour--and I just didn't know if I could do it, or if I would finish the race at all.

Nerves were at a fever pitch by the time I arrived at the start line Sunday morning at 7:45am. Unlike so many of the runners around me, I had no fancy gadgets or gear to measure my pace or chirp in my ear about distance completed. With just a simple stopwatch on my iPhone and a playlist ready to start, I stepped across the line and began my journey to "Beat the Bridge."

And beat it I did. Not exactly in the time I'd hoped (1 hour, 10 seconds was my official time), but without walking a single step and by running my hardest as I crossed the finish line.

November 2017: Across the Bay 10K

Jeff loves the photo above--he notes my feet aren't even touching the ground because I'm pushing so hard to fly across that finish. I love the photo above for a different reason: I know what I heard in this moment, and it makes me smile every time I see it.

"Go, Mommy, Go!"

Lily must have yelled it as loud as her little lungs could muster because I could somehow hear her over the other spectators, over the clanging cowbells, over the pounding chorus of "Eye of the Tiger" playing in my ear. If I'm flying in the picture, it's because that little voice was sending me some wings.

So, I did it. I didn't do it perfectly or exactly as I'd imagined, but I beat that bridge and ran my first 10K. Steph (who also ran the race but finished a ways ahead of me) is already sending me links to upcoming 10Ks, 8-milers, and half-marathons. For now, though, my sights are again set on my third Run with Santa 5K in 3 short weeks, so it's back to challenging interval training and keeping up my distance with weekly longer runs. 

I'll let you know how it goes.