Thursday, February 7, 2013

Something "Sparkly"


SparklyGreenEarings4 from Big Mama on Vimeo.

In watching this video for Melanie Shankle's new book, I realized two things:

First, I'm gonna have to add Sparkly Green Earrings to the ever-growing stack of books I'm too tired to read, and secondly, she and I had delivery room experiences that were to-o-tooooo-tally different.

According to the narration in the video, she thought "I'll never forget the way I felt when they placed [my daughter, Caroline] in my arms for the first time."

Focus on Jones in this picture; try to ignore the fact that
my hair looks like I just stepped out of a steam room.

In the same moment with Jones, I was thinking something more along the lines of, "That was SO much harder than I thought it'd be. SO. MUCH. HARDER. No, really, Son.  I hope that, some day, I can forget how hard that was, so that you and I can be buddies, but right now, I'll be honest, I'm a little put off by how hard that was. My sister did that FOUR TIMES?! In the name of Heaven, HOW?!"

They say to visualize something to make childbirth easier. In the critical moment, all I could visualize was a two hundred year old tree trunk passing through a string cheese.

That's not the politically correct thing to say.  It's true, though. The transcendent, euphoric, nobody-but-me-and-my-baby-in-this-bubble-of-love experience I expected didn't come until later, like after the Lortab kicked in and I'd had some lunch.

Mama's little Life-Saver
The experience did eventually come, though. In fact, I have it about six times a day when the baby boy with his daddy's eyes and his mama's cheeks squeals with delight because I've walked into view.

And I, like Melanie, wish I could somehow save each and every squeal. I'd bottle it up and store it away for those days when motherhood is "SO. MUCH. HARDER" than I thought it'd be.

In the meantime, I'll just read this book and remember that, though we our experiences as mothers may be so different, we are all after the same things:

Lortab and lunch.

(Y'all, I'm kidding. We just want Lortab. No, really. What we really want is lunch without the interruption of a baby whose nap ended twenty minutes too early. At least, that's what I want.)


4 comments:

  1. Love this Kristin! :)

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  2. When are YOU going to write a book?!?!? :)

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    Replies
    1. As soon as someone wants to publish it ... in other words, it may be awhile :)

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