Boy Is More Than Those

Whenever I go shopping with B, inevitably he ends up making some sort of mess in the clothing departments. I’m assured by many other moms that this is normal, but I still get a little red in the face when I see, and hear, my son pulling down clothes off shelves or grabbing at the shirts on hangers as we pass by. It’s mortifying..and admittedly hilarious, but mostly mortifying.

The other day, Auntie Koko (my sister, who has the coolest aunt nickname) accompanied me and B to the store to do some shopping for an upcoming trip; I was operating off the notion “there’s power in numbers.” We got about halfway through our shopping trip before Auntie had to run to the dressing room to try on a few things. So, B and I made our way to the kid section, hoping to find some toys or fellow toddlers to distract him for a few minutes.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t toys or toddlers that kept him entertained, but the hangers, shelves, and racks that held all the (previously) perfectly folded and hung clothes. About ten minutes into my Tasmanian devil’s spat through the kids department, a woman came down the same aisle as us. Thankfully, B is much more social than he is tactile, so he donned a big smile and said, “hi!”

She smiled, said some simple small talk, and once B was no longer the center of the conversation, he was back off to the sale racks.

“He’s quite active!”

“Yeah, ever since he learned to walk he’s just been going and going.”

“Yep, that’s boys for you. I grew up with three brothers. They were always into something. That’s why my husband and I were so thankful we had girls--you know what they say, snails and puppy dog tails, noises with dirt. It’s all true! But he’s so cute--that must make it easier.”

I don’t know about any of you still with me here, but this woman’s comment rubbed me the wrong way. Honestly, I know where the offense comes from. Once Chris and I found out we were having a boy, I immediately went in search of cute boy things to decorate his nursery with on Pinterest. And what I found was not only scarce but often unoriginal and inaccurate.

Two of the most popular pins for the search “Boys Nursery Decoration” are the following quotes:

“Frogs, snails, and puppy dog tails, that’s what little boys are made of.”

“Boy: noun; a noise with dirt on it.”

Not to mention the ever growing in popularity “Dirt, bugs, messes, and hugs, that’s what little boys are made of.”

Now that I’m a mom and have seen first hand what exactly my little boy is made of, the sayings just make me laugh. How inaccurate! How misleading! But, I still remember what it felt like to be that new mom, scared to death at the thought of raising a boy because of all the stereotypes surrounding them.

Is my boy on occasion messy, loud, and enamored with things that are a little gross? Absolutely! But I challenge you to find any toddler, of either gender, that isn't.

So, I’ve decided to write my own little poem; one that I feel is a little more accurate. To all the mommies, current and to-be, of boys, I hope you find it as truthful as I do. And to the woman I met down the kids clothing aisle, thank you for the inspiration--and I’m thankful you didn’t have boys, too.

My Boy is More Than Those:

A little noise with dirt on it,

Pebble filled pockets and worn out knees,

As a mom to a little boy,

I’ve heard most all of these.

But what you don’t see might surprise you,

If you take a second look,

In this house, my boy is more than chaos,

Just watch him read his books.

He waddles behind daddy like a duck,

Is famous for his cuddles.

He loves to smell the flower’s at the park,

And whisper during blanket fort huddles.

He giggles at kitties,

And pats puppy’s heads.

He counts the chimes on the grandfather clock,

He snuggles all morning in our bed.

My boy is happy and healthy and pure,

My boy is smart and sweet and kind,

My boy is silly and playful and determined,

My boy is more than the stereotype in your mind.

So you can keep your silly rhymes,

That make my boy sound dirty and gross,

While he may be messy and hole-y at times,

He is so much more than those.  

(Not So) Baby Boy

     Nearly every day for the past year, I have been writing letters to B, describing his childhood and my journey through motherhood day by day. Hopefully one day he (or his wife) will appreciate it, but until then, it has been a great way for me to document his life and remember all of the sweet, and often messy, details. 

     This past weekend, B turned one! I hardly could believe it. I tried time and again to write a witty, clever post about my first year in motherhood. Maybe shell out some advice, share an anecdote or two. You know, the stuff that circulates around Facebook and Mommy-blogs like wildfire. But every time I started, I just couldn't power through it. I was a hot mess, the writing was a hot mess. It was just...a mess. So, instead, I thought I would just share the letter I wrote to B the night after his party; a love letter to my (not so) baby boy:

Dear Bradley,

When you were born and I sat down to write, thinking of ways to describe your plump, kissable cheeks and wrinkly baby toes, I repeated the same question in my head over and over--how do I describe a miracle?

Now, as I sit here trying to recap the past 366 days of butterfly kisses, diaper poop-splosions, and tickle fights, I find myself asking a different question--how do I describe a love like this? A love so overwhelming it makes my heart run hot and milky at the sound of you saying my name. A love that can make a pessimistic, impatient, hot-headed woman like your mother turn on a dime, to see the world through new, healed eyes. A love that seemingly grows out of nowhere and requires nothing but your mere existence to thrive.

Those first few months were hard, don’t get me wrong! Many nights your daddy and I looked at each other, unsure of how we were going to make it through this newborn phase. But cluster feedings, sponge baths, and all-nighters soon faded; we were sad and relieved all at the same time. Soon you were smiling, sitting, playing, crawling, walking...on one of the advice cards from your baby shower, someone wrote “the days are long, but the years are short.” How true that is, son. I woke up today and just couldn’t rationalize that I had a one year old. Time escaped me, even though I was there nearly every moment of your life to watch and help you grow. But I think that’s what this type of love does--enough is just never enough. I will always want more years, days, hours, minutes with you, at every stage of your life. (Well, maybe not your teenage years...we’ll see.)

This love--this deep, unyielding, fierce love--its powerful. I pray one day you come to know it with kids of your own someday, but until then, I pray you find this love in the arms of Jesus. A love that is so overwhelming it turns your heart milky at the sound of his name. A love that will turn you away from your sins and flaws, that allows you to see the world through restored eyes. A love that takes you by surprise and only requires His sacrifice and existence to thrive. A love that sends you to your knees in prayer, because enough of Him will never be enough.

As your parents, know that daddy and I love you so much, and we are honored to be the ones who raise you and love you every day. But know this, too. There’s a heavenly father who loves your more deeply, more resiliently, and more fierce than either of us ever could--and trust me, that is a HUGE love.

We love because He first loved us.

     Happy Birthday, sweet son!

XOXO,

Mommy

Birth Story—No Pain, No Baby!

It was 12:30 in the afternoon on July 29th.

Dear God! What is this pain?!

A contraction, missy. You’re having a contraction.

Sweet mother of all that is holy, that hurts!

Unfortunately, those “painful” contractions would get worse...and more frequent...and more debilitating...just, more everything. At this point, I’d been having Braxton Hicks contractions for weeks; sadly, when you’re prego, sitting around in your third trimester, praying to God you spontaneously go into labor, reading mommy-blogs describing the excruciating thrall of labor pain, nothing truly prepares you for the real thing.

Before I progress any further in my story, I probably should point out that I was a huge, week late, very angry pregnant lady, begging for reprieve for my swollen feet, aching pelvis, and stretched-to-the-max tummy. I had already scheduled an induction, should baby B protest coming to the outside world any longer, and I was sleeping with ten pillows just to keep my enormous belly somewhat comfortable. I was SO done being pregnant, and I was desperate to hold my son.

Oddly enough, at 4:30 a.m. the next day my contractions were five minutes apart, and we were off to the hospital.

Early labor...in all its huge, sweaty glory. 

Once we got there, it was a seamless transition into triage. I peed in another cup, stepped on another scale (*cringe*), and waited in another small room to be examined. A nurse came in, hooked my belly up to a heart monitor and contraction measuring machine, and asked us to wait for the doctor. Not unusual for my pregnancy over the last few weeks, the doctor said that my blood pressure was a little high and that she wanted to run tests to make sure I hadn’t developed pre-eclampsia (something I had been tested for just the previous week at my OBGyn’s office).

As I sat with my husband in the small triage room, we talked, joked, and took pictures in between contractions. Everything seemed normal—well, if you call insurmountable pain “normal”—just like I had seen and read about over the past nine months. That was until I had, what I affectionately refer to as, the mammoth contraction. This contraction was the longest, most pain-inflicting beast I had encountered up until this point. It made my stomach tighten to the point where I not only looked like I was going to pop but felt like it, too. As I squeezed my husband’s hand to the point of fracture, I heard some distressed fluttering of the nurses out in the hall.

That poor mom, I thought. Here I am complaining about my small contractions when there is someone else in real distress out there.

Then the fluttering came closer to my door. Then the fluttering was in my room. Then time started moving very fast.

Three nurses swarmed my bedside. One was strapping an oxygen mask to my face, telling me to take deep breaths over and over. One was hooking IV’s up to the back of my hand, quickly connecting several bags of fluids to various tubes. One was desperately moving the heart rate monitor on my belly back and forth, obviously searching for something.

“What’s going on?” I said—panicked.

“Your baby didn’t like that last contraction" one of the nurses hurriedly said.

“Is he ok?”

“We’re going to do everything we can to keep your baby safe.”

As comforting as she was meaning to sound, there was absolutely nothing that would have calmed my aching heart at that point. My baby was in distress. There was no calm.

The next several minutes of history sort of blur together in my mind. At one point, a doctor came in and told me she was going to break my water. The nurse kept calling OR 3 to book my emergency C-section. My husband was in and out of the room, calling my parents, trying to relay what little information they were giving us. As I sat there, surrounded by wires, tubes, ultrasound machines, and nurses, I prayed. Harder and more passionately than I have ever prayed before. And as strange as it sounds, amidst the crazy train that was my triage room, I felt peace. And baby B’s heart rate slowly began to creep up.

Later, we would find out that baby B’s heart rate had dropped below safe levels for six minutes, which was described to us as "very scary" and often ending in emergency C-sections. The nurses had just finished checking my blood work, which was negative for pre-eclampsia, and were about to discharge me to labor at home when baby B’s heart rate dipped.

After his heart rate was in the “safe zone” for ten minutes, they canceled the emergency C-section and admitted me to labor and delivery. We all joked that baby B knew we were going to get sent home, and he just was insistent on being born that day—stubborn like mom right from the beginning.

Anxious daddy, ready to meet his little man! 

From that point on, it was pretty smooth sailing. My whole family got comfy in our room, I got some popsicles to munch on (seeing as I hadn’t eaten since dinner the previous day...and for a huge prego, that was just far, far too long), and we all played “Head’s-Up”—a very entertaining way to take the edge off of contractions pre-epidural.

Even though the nurses had assured me that we were “out of the woods” with baby B’s heart rate, I remained a paranoid mom for my entire labor. I enlisted every family member in the room to watch the monitor next to my bed, ensuring baby B was ok and my contractions weren’t putting him in distress. I didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning of the mommy worry I would carry around with me forever; it was the constricting fear that came with removing baby B from my belly. The pain that would come from watching my heart walk around outside my body.

At 4 centimeters they started pitocin, worried that baby B’s heart rate would take another dip if we didn’t speed up my labor. Out of fear of the pain getting any worse, I opted for an epidural, which was not nearly as painful as I had played it up in my mind to be.  

At 6 centimeters I took a nap, but only after making every member of my family swear that their eyes would be glued to baby B’s monitor. I hadn’t gotten any sleep that night, as I spent most of the previous day and night timing my contractions.

At 9 centimeters, I was up, talking, and happily eating another popsicle. The nurse said it would probably be another two hours before I was anywhere near ready to start pushing, and even then it might be awhile before I would see my baby. So, we all settled in for the long haul. That was at 4 p.m.

About ten minutes later, I felt this urge to push. I don’t know how to describe it other than this knowledge that my body was ready. I couldn’t feel anything from the waist down, so it wasn’t a physical urge, just something I “felt.” I called the nurse, who insisted that I wasn’t ready yet, but came to check all the same.

She promptly popped into the room, gloved up, insisted that I would still be another few hours, and checked…

“Oh my gosh! His head is right here. Ok, give me one good push, hun.”

Just like I had seen in all the movies, I beared down and gave it everything I had.

In the next few minutes they put my feet in the very comfortable, discreet stirrups (ha!), called and clothed the doctor for delivery, and prepped me for skin-to-skin. Twelve minutes and a whopping four pushes later, Bradley Eric was born, 7 lbs 10 oz, 20 ¼ inches of pure perfection.

Just like nothing really prepares you for labor, nothing really prepares you for holding your baby for the first time. For someone that prides herself on having quite the way with words, there were and are no words to describe it. I mean, how do you describe a miracle?

Raising A Legacy

     The moment the ultrasound technician told me I was having a boy I freaked out. Not because I don’t like boys, but because I’ve simply never been around them. It was scary and unknown; so much pressure came with that one word—boy. For Chris and I, raising a boy meant and means so much more than simply raising a child. It means raising someone’s best friend, someone’s boss or leader, someone’s husband, and someone’s daddy. It meant that I needed to raise a man; a God-fearing man with integrity and tenderness.

     A few days after letting the boyish news sink in, Chris and I sat down to talk about it. Personally, I think so many parents “write off” having a boy as “easy” in comparison to raising girls a little prematurely. Sure, there’s less drama and shopping involved, but, in my opinion, raising boys is just as difficult as raising girls—if only for the fact that you are raising a leader of some kind to go out into the world and guide others. Talk about a huge responsibility!

     The more we talked, the more we realized that we both were sort of starting from scratch when it came to raising a son. I grew up in a household over-run by women; my poor dad is just now getting to watch football on Sundays and is excused from Black Friday shopping, and Chris wasn’t raised in the church. So, when we came to the conclusion that we wanted to raise a God-fearing man with integrity and tenderness, both of us were left putting together a puzzle that didn’t come with the nifty picture at the front of the box.

     So, we set out to find the picture at the front of the box—we looked for someone in our lives who we could look to when raising our son, and someone that he could look to when he was learning to be a man. We wanted this person to be a part of our son’s life—a constant model of the life we wanted for him, the life we continue to pray for him to lead. And what better way to remind him of this person than to name him after him.

     About three months before Bradley was born, Chris and I decided to name our son Bradley Eric, after my dad. When we sat down and talked about who we knew that embodied Jesus’ hands and heart, along with all the other qualities we wanted our little man to behold, it wasn’t difficult to name him.

     For us, naming Bradley after my dad was so much more than simply continuing a heritage, it was continuing a legacy. If you know my dad, you understand why it wasn’t a hard decision; but for those who don’t, let me tell you why.

     When I was little, I remember being in awe of my daddy—he was the strongest, most powerful guy in my world, with the most loving of hearts. He had a hard job being the protector and provider for three women, but he led us with tenderness. As we pray for Bradley, we pray for his future wife and family; we pray that Bradley has the same tenderness as he acts as the covering for his family that my dad did when covering ours.

     Throughout his life, my dad has held several positions of power; he’s led church congregations, shook hands with political “bigwigs,” and lunched with financial tycoons. However, he has somehow managed to always navigate his positions of power with integrity, never cutting corners or taking the “easy way out.” He’s always been willing to walk through fire in order to do the right thing, instilling in me the ideal that integrity and ethics will always trump ease and convenience. Until the day I die, I will hear him saying “be a leader, not a follower. Do what’s right, not what’s easy.” As we pray for Bradley, we pray for all of the lives that he will touch; we pray that Bradley has the same sense of integrity and ethics as he leads others that my dad had when he led.

     Finally, if not most importantly, my dad loves Jesus. It’s no surprise, and it is certainly not hidden, just how passionately and fervently he seeks Christ’s heart and will for his life. Every aspect of his life is enveloped around Jesus, and for as successful as he has been in life, he never forgets where that success truly comes from. He knows he isn’t perfect; he knows the overwhelming blessing of grace. As we pray for Bradley, most importantly we pray that he knows Jesus; we pray that Bradley has the same love, passion, and desire for Christ that my dad has each and every day of his life.

     The moment I watched Chris place Bradley Eric in Papa Eric’s arms, I watched a tethering. Almost as if an invisible strand had been tied between the two of them. I know it sounds crazy, but watching them, it’s almost as if Bradley knows he was named after his Papa, that he was named after one of the most tender, integrity-filled, followers of a sovereign God we know. It’s as if he knows his Papa’s legacy is the legacy we pray for in him every day. Watching the two of them melts our hearts and gives Chris and I hope—even though we don’t have the box to Bradley’s puzzle, we have a merciful God to call upon, each other to lean on, and a legacy to draw from. And it is because of those blessings that Chris and I know we can raise our little man.