In the course of our catching up, Mary mentioned a race she’d heard about at the end of her event that morning: a 5K the week before her thirtieth birthday. Might I like to do the run with her and a bunch of other friends to celebrate? Um, yes, please!

So now it’s official: I am a runner. I signed up for my first 5K! I’m not sure which I’m more excited about, trying to finish in under thirty-five minutes (or even thirty, if I can do that!) or having the t-shirt to wear afterward.

Another friend, Sarah, will run it with me. She’s a runner, too (I’m surrounded by them; maybe this change of heart shouldn’t have been such a surprise), and the first person I went to to hold myself accountable for getting into this sport. She instantly agreed to run a 5K with me when I was ready. Part of what kept me going those first few times out was crafting witty text messages to send her after I finished. Her encouragement—in running and in life—is invaluable to me.

It turns out running is not just about being physically fit. It’s a way to connect with friends, to encourage them and have them encourage me. In a world where we spend more time on electronic devices, communicating across great distances, but not always with the folks right in front of us, I’m grateful for this means of building relationships with women who mean so much to me.

The race is on!

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Every year of my motherhood, I have somehow taken on a new hobby. First, it was writing regularly on this blog. With that—because I got into reading other blogs—I branched out in what I was cooking and baking. That continued into writing a novel that largely hinges on a young woman’s love of cooking.

The next year, I learned to knit. In the wake of losing Ethan, I knit up a storm. Maybe next year I’ll take up math and figure out how many miles of yarn I used. Not today, though. Let’s leave it at a whole heck of a lot.

Now I’ve somehow gotten myself into running. I don’t understand it. Neither does anyone else who’s known me for more than five years. For most of my life, I really, really didn’t like running. I didn’t feel capable of doing it for any length of time, or with any success.

But if motherhood has taught me anything, it’s that there’s nothing I can’t do. And if I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it all the way. If I write, I’m going to write a novel. If I knit, it’s going to be a sweater (or three). If I run, it’s going to be . . . I don’t know yet. But I know I can’t get enough of it.

Somehow, I’m running every other day, and even trying to beat my 5K time from one week to the next. I’m enjoying the challenge. Dare I say, I kind of feel like an adult.

There have been a couple of times in life when I’ve made a sudden life change of some sort and just had it stick. In high school, after years of drinking only apple if I was going to have juice, I decided I wanted orange. I could barely remember what it tasted like, but I’ve had it almost every day since. (And have had apple maybe twice since.)

It’s not a big deal, and it feels silly to write about it, but all this is to say that sometimes, it feels good to grow up a little bit. To make a change, stick to it, and see that you’re a more complex, more grounded, more whole person because of it.

Motherhood forces me to take steps like this in leaps and bounds. Sometimes, I’m not all that excited about what needs to get done. But, like running, it feels good once the task is accomplished. I know I don’t do any of the things I’ve taken up perfectly: I burn dinner sometimes; I rip out my knitting and start over; most people could walk faster than I “run.” But the point is, I do it. I’m not going to be number one in anything. And the better days—of parenting and of life—are the ones when I could care less.

Today I am grateful for my motherhood—for the person it’s making me become, for God’s grace leading me through the race.

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You are two and a half years old, and when people ask me to describe you, all I can say is that you are a hoot. You can make sentences like, “I like to drink water!” some of the most exciting ever spoken.

You wanted to play Hide and Seek this weekend, and went into the kitchen, calling out “Hide and seek! Hide and seek!” It was very funny when I correctly guessed where you were.

The other day, I told you we were going to make cake—this easily convinced you it was time to leave the playground—and you responded, “Ooh, I love cake.” When we were closer to home, you told me, “Mommy, you make a cake for me and I will make a cake for you.” You are as sweet as you are funny.

I spend a lot of time quoting you these days, because I want to hold on to everything you say. It’s not that I don’t love watching you grow. Last week, you put on shorts to go enjoy the warm weather, and all of sudden, you were dressed like a little boy—not a baby, a little boy.

When I went to take a picture of you, you insisted that Henry be in it, too. I love that you wouldn’t take a photo without him. I hope you keep this attitude for many years to come.

You love Henry very much, and not always as gently as I’d like. Henry doesn’t seem to mind, for the most part, and I am trying to make sure you have positive interactions. You have the energy of a two-year-old, though, and your yelling does startle our little guy from getting fed sometimes!

Your daddy and I love, love, love spending time with you. Sometimes disciplining you drives me up the wall, but I remind myself what Jim Stenson says—“Pay now or pay later.” I am being firm with you now so that you will have the strength of character to deal with what life throws your way later. The little things add up, for better or worse.

You are a strong boy, and smart. You can spell your first and last name, but not the middle one yet, despite that being the shortest! You’ll get there. Recently I watched you work lacing cards with dexterity I hadn’t noticed before. You learn more every day, and I am so impressed with the good-natured, friendly, happy person you are. You are sweet, kind, and so, so important. Don’t ever forget that.

You still say no to just about everything, but then do what it is that needs to get done. You push your boundaries, and I understand that is part of growing up. Still, I lose my patience when this process takes too long, and I am sorry for that. When I feel like my brain is functioning, I am trying to be a strong, steady example for you.

I hope that I am doing all I can to help you be the person God needs you to be. From the moment I knew I was pregnant with you, I knew that my job was to help you be something for God, to somehow serve God. So far, you are doing that with your smile and love. Someday, I imagine it will be with much more. Whatever it is, it will be all the more fruitful if that pure joy doesn’t fade.

I’ll end with a new quote from you that just warmed my heart (pun intended). We made strawberry ice cream, and I asked if you liked it. Your sincere response was, “Mmm, it’s very warm.” For all you’ve got figure out, temperature is not your strong suit.

You are discovering this world, step by step. I pray we can lead you into it with grace, courage, and strength, so that you can be all that you are meant to be.

I love you, my sweet boy, today and always.

Love,
Mom

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You are four and a half months old and coming out of your baby shell. You smile and giggle and melt the hearts of anyone who looks at you. You really like when I stand you up on my lap. This, in your experience, is one of the best things ever. Most of the comments we get about you are that your cheeks are scrumptious. A lot of people are also saying that you look a lot like Jacob.

You are very close to rolling over, from your back to your tummy. You get most of the way there, but can’t seem to lift your head up enough from that angle. Soon, I’m sure. You are just about ten pounds lighter (less heavy?) than Jacob, which means that two weeks ago, when he was “widin’” on you, you didn’t argue for a second.

You are in a wonderful stage, perhaps my favorite baby stage. You are sturdy enough to hold yourself up some, but not enough to wiggle away. You fit perfectly into the ErgoBaby, my preferred baby carrier, and I love that I snuggle with you all during Mass and whenever else I take you places in it. I love picking you up when you’re sleeping, or just after you’ve woken up and you’re still a little drowsy. You fit in my arms so perfectly. You are hands down adorable, and so, so handsome. There is something special about you, and I love watching it unfold, day by day.

Though there is that something in your eyes that looks like home to me, there is so much I still have to learn about you. Without being able to put words to it, I know that you are a special little boy and very important both in your own right and as a member of our family. Your daddy, big brother, and I love you so much. You make all our days brighter and not one of us can get enough of you.

I am trying to be sure that I speak and behave as best I can around you and Jacob, to be a good example for you. I remind Jacob that you will learn from him, especially. He is certainly someone to look up to.

You are a bundle of joy, love, and hope for me, and I am so grateful for that, for you. I hope you always know how special you are to me, today and always.

With love,
Mom

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The bonus was that before he left, John gave me a Mother’s Day gift. We don’t always do gifts. More often we celebrate with a meal or an outing, so this was a surprise. It probably shouldn’t have been, because I’ve been raving about the ice cream maker attachment for our stand mixer for weeks. I can’t eat dairy for Henry’s sake, and a summer without ice cream is not summer, to me. We’ve been buying “ice cream” made with coconut milk, but that stuff is expensive, especially considering how good it is and how quickly we go through it with all of us—not just Jacob—eating it. I’d been trying to justify getting the attachment for John’s birthday next month (mine is just before Labor Day), but John had a much better idea.

We’ve had it less than a week, and I’ve already made three batches of ice cream. Jacob will watch the thing go for a full twenty minutes, updating me on its progress (“It’s going awound!”). One recipe was a bust, but the other two—oh my goodness! The woman behind the blog, SpeedbumpKitchen, is a genius. Her kids have dairy, egg, and nut allergies (sound familiar?), plus she’s a pediatrician. I took her basic vanilla recipe and added in cookies to make cookies and cream, and separately, pureed strawberries to make, well, strawberry.

Thanks to her recipes and her cone recommendations, last night Jacob had his first ever ice cream cone.

Every time we find something else Jacob can eat like a “normal” kid can, we are so grateful. Living in a city, in a time with easy Internet access and so many people sharing their recipes and goods online, we are so fortunate to be able to find things like dairy-free ice cream within reach. And the stuff is darn good, too!

I grateful that Jacob could eat the ice cream cone, but I was probably more grateful for the effect it had on him. After a day of pushing the boundaries, contradicting me at almost every turn, he ate this thing without a peep, spilling maybe one drop of the whole thing. And then he fell asleep super easily. That might have been the greatest gift of all!

Scratch that. Knowing there’s most of a quart and eleven waffle cones still in the kitchen is even better!

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Needless to say, the day has become special to me in a different way since I joined the ranks of motherhood. It’s a day I get to look around at my family and see how God has worked through John, Jacob, Ethan, and Henry to continue to mold me into the woman He needs me to be. I love this day for that reason. It’s such an important time of reflection for me, almost like a mini-retreat.

And yet, there is something about the day that I just can’t get past: it’s Mother’s Day, not Mothers’ Day. Day of one mother, rather than many. Why is this? Why not Mothers’ Day? Doesn’t that make more sense?

Can someone explain this to me, please? It would make this year’s celebration a lot less stressful.

If there is no explanation, and the general public will not be moved, John has offered another solution:

Mother Appreciation Day

or better,

Respect Your Mother Day

Who needs apostrophes anyway?

It’s still about a week early, and it may not look good on a greeting card, but . . . Happy Respect Your Mother Day!

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If you need a bigger smile, consider this quote from Jacob earlier this week: “Mommy, I ridin’ Henwy!” You’ll understand why I don’t have photos of this situation.

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Once we move to New Jersey, I will be the primary driver. The (perhaps not entirely articulated, but mutually understood) plan for our last few months in New York was that when we needed to drive in or to Brooklyn, John would be behind the wheel. I’ve never driven in the city and I had zero desire to do so. In fact, driving in the city—minivan or otherwise—was on my list of things I thought I would never do. Would you like to know what else was on that list?

- Study abroad.

- Live in Manhattan.

- Finish a novel.

- Run for fun.

Fun list, huh?

Now, Frankie is a great car. Anyone I know who has an Odyssey loves it, and I’m totally on the bandwagon. But you know what I don’t love? Parking Frankie.

We are not among the few fortunate folks in this city who have a dedicated parking spot to go along with an apartment lease. We are also not willing to pay for garage parking unless absolutely necessary. This means that John and I now have newly developed brain wrinkles—lots of them—devoted to parking strategies.

Turns out, it doesn’t really make sense for him to move the car in the evenings after work. Everyone else is home, too, which means most spots are taken. It also means that he loses an evening at home with the boys and me.

The better solution—though I fought it at first—is for me to move Frankie during the day with the kiddos. Jacob will do just about anything to go in the “big tar” and I can time it so Henry naps while we go. But even with a stockpile of fruit snacks (for Jacob and for me) and Jacob happily singing in the backseat about looking for a new spot, parking can be a frustrating task.

The problem isn’t just finding a spot, it’s finding the right spot: one that’s big enough and one whose street sweeping schedule is as far off in the future as possible. Every week, I move the car once or twice, and each time it takes between forty-five minutes and two hours. The first time I did it, I seriously considered driving out to New Jersey, since I knew I could park outside my parents’ house or John’s parents’ house. Sounds ridiculous, but you try driving around your neighborhood for that long with two kids in the car. If you’ve never thanked the Good Lord for your driveway, now is the time.

There’s always a silver lining, though, right? Now I know I can drive in the city. I can park in the city. And I can stay happily married through it all.

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This weekend, I had the chance to visit my grandmother—my beautiful, ninety-six-year-old grandmother. Time and again she reminded John and me how blessed we are to have children, how important it is that we have our boys. We are still young, but more and more I worry about our generation and our “prolonged adolescence.” How many of our contemporaries will be grandparents, never mind great-grandparents? How many of them are seriously considering that as they look for happiness in what they do? How many of us (myself included) are really looking for peace in who we are—in growing ourselves in love, in virtue, and most importantly, in the way we serve others? Or am I wrong, and enough of us are finding true joy without looking to grow our own families or otherwise give our time and love away?

On Sunday, I listened to a homily about how all we do in our faith lives must be done out love, not obligation. The reason Jesus’s new commandment—“Love one another as I have loved you”—was such a big deal was because before, living a faithful life meant following the rules. Now it meant freely choosing to think about others, to pray for others, to take care of others, and to give oneself to others. We are not to expect a fuzzy feeling for ourselves or others in return. In fact, we are not to expect anything in return. That’s what love is.

I hope that if I live to ninety-six, I will be as surrounded by family and friends as my grandma is. She doesn’t have any big professional accomplishments to show for herself, though those are not all bad. What she does have is people who spend time with her and care for her out of love, not obligation. She has stories to tell and a laugh that shows how young she still is inside. She has faith, she has hope, and she has a whole lot of love.

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I haven’t been posting as much lately, because there hasn’t been as much time for reflecting in the good kind of busyness in which we’re entrenched. Last week, though, kind of forced me into it.

I went to Boston College, which is right along the marathon route at Heartbreak Hill. John proposed during the Boston Marathon. A lot of people I love very much still live there.

After Monday, I texted a friend, “It’s hard to believe from so far away.”

She wrote back, “It’s hard to believe from six miles away.”

On Thursday, another friend who lives in Cambridge came to visit. Thank goodness she did, or she would have been stuck in her apartment alone all day Friday. We spent the day in disbelief. How had two men shut down a whole city?

My friend and I went to church together in the morning, and I thought about how, if we were in Boston, we wouldn’t have been able to do that. In the afternoon, I saw our mail carrier deliver our mail. In Boston, that wasn’t happening (as far as I know).

We went out for a run later—who am I?!—and honestly, I was kind of scared to go outside, to run around a big park in a major city. We didn’t know the bombers’ motives. What if there were more?

I told myself I was overreacting. New York City had not posted any orders to stay inside; who was I to impose them on us? The bombers had taken enough away from enough people already—their lives, their freedom, their feelings of safety. I didn’t want to give in to the fear growing in me.

So out we went, instantly struck by people being outside here in Brooklyn.  We’d seen photos of Inman Square and other usually densely populated places in Boston. Brooklyn held a stark contrast.

We got to the park and started our run, my friend, a more confident runner, pushing the stroller carrying Henry and Jacob. Every time I go out, I push myself a little farther. This time without the stroller, I pushed myself a whole lot farther—all the way around the park. With Alex by my side—“I’ll keep going as long as you keep going”—I inadvertently achieved one of my goals for the year. I ran a 5K . . . and then some.

It wasn’t at an official race. I only have three witnesses, including the kids, but I conquered something that day. And it felt like it stretched a good deal farther than the three miles around Prospect Park.

Love and Fear

 

There are only two feelings. Love and fear.
There are only two languages. Love and fear.
There are only two activities. Love and fear.
There are only two motives, two procedures, two frameworks,
two results. Love and fear.
Love and fear.

 

—from “A Common Prayer” by Leunig

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