an open letter to all you blog readers and Facebookers who disagree with me

I know you’re out there.  You dissenters might possibly outnumber my supporters.  Some of you are more vocal than others.  Some of you may lie in bed at night and dream up scathing remarks that you would love to post to me but you don’t because you are afraid I may sneak to your house in the middle of the night and plaster your hockey mom van with Obama stickers.  Some of you post your scathing remarks and walk away probably feeling just as self-righteous as I felt when I posted my own remarks.  You may punish me by removing me from your Google Reader.  Or you might really go all out and de-friend me on Facebook. 

Here’s the deal.  I need an outlet to express myself.  Writing is it.  If you don’t like it, you certainly don’t have to read it.  My blog and Facebook accounts are not listed on any syllabus as required reading. 

Here’s the other deal.  Please don’t take what I write too personally.  I am certainly not so fundamentalist in my left-wing thinking as to quit liking the people who disagree with me.  I like lively discussions.  I like being around people who are different than I am.  If I didn’t…I sure as heck wouldn’t have moved closer to family!    Case in point:  I know my sil reads my blog and my Facebook account.  I know that she probably rolls her eyes at what I write, and sometime she might even flick my picture on my Facebook account for good measure, but she lets her Republican children play with my Democrat ones, and all is good.   

Seriously. 

I mean, I think so anyway.

a little bit of this…a little bit of that…

It’s been way too long since my last confession..errr…blog entry.  I don’t know what’s been up with me.  I’ve sort of felt like a creative wasteland lately.  I’ll start blog entries in my head, but then I won’t finish them.  I’ll think of topics to write about, but then I get distracted by things like a diabetic dog who has to pee NOW or a kindergartner who needs to do her homework NOW or a little boy who needs a snack NOW.  Amazing how that works.  I’m sneaking in this moment while the dogs are snoozing on the dog bed, while Amélie is doing something in the bathroom, and while Jack is–I have no idea what Jack is doing.  I’m going to ignore that instinct telling me to go peek at him and just write anyway.

So here’s what’s been going on with me:

I have a birth coming up.  Soon.  I’m so excited (and nervous, too, of course.  I wouldn’t be Jill if I didn’t inject into every activity I perform or plan a shot of worry or anxiety).  I am as prepared as I can be for something that’s so completely unpredictable.  I have my hospital bag packed, my list of various laboring/birthing positions printed off, and now I just obsessively check my phone every 3 seconds (and then freak out when, at 2:00 in the morning, I realize that my phone’s battery has died and, until I get it plugged in and turned back on, am tortured with images of my client frantically and angrily trying to get ahold of me).  I just feel so excited and honored to be invited to partake in the miracle of birth, and I’m hoping and praying for a wonderful birth experience for my client (and friend). 

We are adjusting quite easily to life here in KC.  In fact, we are acclimating ourselves remarkably well to this fine city.  I haven’t lived in this area for 15 years, and I’m surprised at how my restless soul has settled into this place.  It feels like home.  We have friends…family…art museums…the Plaza.  What more could a girl want? 

I think the other reason I haven’t been saying much on my blog is b/c I’ve been so flippin’ angry lately.  The more I learn about pregnancy, labor, and birth, the more I am frustrated and saddened at how women are often blinded by the glaring lights of the men in white coats who control what was created to be a natural, beautiful event.  Don’t get me wrong, I know that doctors and hospitals come in handy during high-risk pregnancies and labors, but since our country is ranked 40th in maternal and infant deaths, there is something we are doing wrong.  Perhaps that something is that we have made birth a sterile event rather than a miracle. 

Don’t get me started. 

Don’t get me started on politics, either.  I know my audience (all 10 of you) has varying political views, so I’m trying to bite my tongue.   I’ve released a bit of that spitfire onto Facebook, but I’m trying to be sweet and nice here.  (But if you really want to know how I feel, check out the Anne Lamott article I posted on my Facebook account.)    Here’s something funny, though.  This morning I was stewing about the election and trying  to think of this Anne Lamott quote that I just knew would affirm the anger I was feeling.  I found this one:  “I don’t hate anyone right now, not even George W. Bush. This may seem an impossibility, but it is true, and indicates the presence of grace, or dementia, or both.” But that wasn’t it.  My Anne Lamott books are buried in one (or several) of the 40+ boxes of books in my garage, and I just didn’t want to go look this afternoon (I am much too comfortably perched on my couch at the moment).  So I did a little digging on the Internet, and I found the quote I was looking for.  Um, it wasn’t quite what I thought I was looking for…..

“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

Oops.  Touché.  I guess God is trying to tell me something. 

But I must not be listening too hard.  I just stomped out to my garage, determined to find Lamott’s Plan B.  I unearthed Virginia Woolf, Edit Wharton, and Don DeLillo, but not the book I wanted.  The only Lamott book I found was Traveling Mercies, and while that is an excellent book, it does not contain Plan B’s political zingers. 

(I’ve got to get these books out of the garage.  I may need a quote from Lamott or Elliot or DeLillo at any given moment in any given day.) 

Anyway…I really must go.  Let me just leave you with a Bono quote I lifted off of my Sojomail:

It’s extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can’t find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.

Touché.

Miracle

Our Magic 8 Ball

Jack has a new role in our household: he’s our Magic 8 Ball.  It works something like this:  We ask a question (like, for example, “would you like to eat your sister’s socks for lunch?”), and he responds by shaking his cute little blond head, nodding his cute little blond head, or scrunching up his nose and giggling like you just asked a really silly question and he’s laughing but of course won’t even grace that question with an answer.  It’s really quite entertaining.  Mealtimes and car rides go something like this:

Jack, do you love your mommy/daddy/big sister?  (cue head shake, head nod, or giggle)

Jack, do you love Wildcats more than Jayhawks?  (cue head shake, head nod, or giggle)

Jack, do you want to eat chocolate covered frog legs for dinner?  (cue head shake, head nod, or giggle)

Jack, do you think daddy’s hair looks funny?  (cue head shake, head nod, or giggle)

Jack, do you think that you should keep Daddy up all night?  (cue head shake, head nod, or giggle)

Jack, do you think we should skip bathtime and let you run around the neighborhood naked instead?  (cue head shake, head nod, or giggle)

Jack, do you wish you had big ears like Molly?  (cue head shake, head nod, or giggle)

Jack, do you know that mommy sneaks chocolate when you’re not looking?  (cue head shake, head nod, or giggle)

Jack, do you want to go to kindergarten today instead of your sister? (cue head shake, head nod, or giggle)

Jack, do you think Obama should become President? (cue head shake, head nod, or giggle)
OK, I actually haven’t asked him that question. 

You get the idea.  So, if you have any deep questions you’d like answered with a shake, nod, or a giggle, stop by sometime and ask our cute little Magic 8 Ball.

little jack

Jackson will be 16 months old soon, and I haven’t said much about him in awhile, so I want to talk about him a bit.  Jack and I started things out a bit rocky.  I wanted to get pregnant, and I was so excited when I got pregnant…for about 2 months.  Then, drowning in nausea, buried in fatigue, and smothered with fear about how our lives would change, I suddenly changed my mind.  I didn’t want to be pregnant anymore.  I sunk into a masqued depression for the next 7 months.  I smiled.  I talked to my baby.  I ate healthy foods.  I practiced relaxation to help me accomplish a drug-free delivery.  I exercised.  I decorated a nursery.  I folded tiny baby boy clothes.  I named him. 

I also cried.  A lot.  I felt guilty, alone, scared, and angry.  I didn’t understand why I felt the way that I did.  I ached to feel connected to this baby that was growing inside of me.  I longed to feel excited.  I prayed for grace and mercy and love.  But I didn’t feel it. 

Finally one evening, I felt a contraction.  Then another.  And then another.  I warned Matt.  I chatted with my doula.  I took a bath.  I read some Anne Lamott.  I packed my bags.  I paced.  I breathed.  I paced and breathed some more.  I woke Matt up.  We woke Amélie up.  We drove to the hospital.  I breathed.  And breathed.  And breathed. The contractions strengthened and lengthened.  I fought some fear and a lot of pain with determination and with the encouragement and support of my husband and my doula. 

One intense and overwhelming and powerful hour later, at 5:14 in the morning, I delivered my baby boy. 

He wasn’t a pretty newborn, actually.  I called him, affectionately, my little gnome.  And even though he wasn’t pretty, I instantly fell in love with him.  Fiercely.  Madly.  Deeply.  With his natural birth my brain flooded my body with a miraculous cocktail of love hormones that released within me a swelling climax of empowerment, peace, joy, and love.  Love.  Love.  Love. 

There are a few of you who know why Amélie’s middle name is Grace.  She is my gift of grace, and when I wrap my arms around her my heart squeezes tight with so much love it hurts. 

And while Amélie was my gift of grace, Jack was my gift of mercy. 

Each night, when I put my kids to bed (unless, of course, they fight bedtime) I think to myself, “How did I manage to score the most precious two kids on the planet?”  Sappy?  Sure.  But I mean it with all my heart. 

Matt ‘n Jill ‘n Amélie ‘n Jack.  What a great little family.  I love them all.  Fiercely.  Madly.  Deeply.