January 6, 2022

2022

me closing out 2021... now boasting expert status on at-home haircuts and dressing up with nowhere to go... ready for whatever 2022 has in store ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

I don’t use this blog space anymore, yet I also choose not to wipe it out. It’s a strange thing to look back on these years of early motherhood, which were blissful years for me in so many ways… while also now having the clarity and safety to recognize that I was living in so much fear and in such violence. I was trying so hard to fix it all and make this ‘perfect family’… treading water in brutal violence that stretched from before babies, through each pregnancy, with babies in my arms… and later with our kids watching. A decade and a half covered in bruises that were so commonplace I was accustomed to casually editing them out of photos without even letting myself process what they meant, for me or our kids. I look back at all those unedited pictures… so many over the years… a young mom… holding her baby… is it still a beautiful birthday celebration if you see all those bruises? Do the good memories hold up when that beauty is inextricably tangled in knots with violence and fear? It was beautiful. I made a beautiful and happy life, all of that was real and true. It is also real and true that there was much more to our story that was very dangerous and scary and deceptive and unhappy.

I have so much guilt about staying in violence for so long and much to say about how I wound up stuck in that place... and the role of stay-at-home parents in general. We are devalued, even  by the laws, which plays deeply into keeping many women and children in abusive homes… including the ones you may least suspect. I started this blog contemplating the transition to being an at-home mom over a decade ago. I would not change any of my life’s choices, but tethering my security to a violent and deceptive man and working tirelessly to build a career that was not my own left me and our children very trapped… a lesson I now humbly realize many women learned generations before me. I am in awe of mothers who work outside the home… I am amazed and impressed by the sacrifices made and the examples they are setting for their children. I am also extremely proud of my decade plus of work as an at-home parent and the examples I have set. It’s a hard and complex job that deserves compensation and security from the partner whose professional career benefits, and I hope to work in some capacity to advocate for those laws to change, and the laws around women and children who are the victims of domestic abuse to change as well.

These kids and I are incredibly lucky to have an amazing family and support system that has helped us in so many ways. My heart breaks for women and children who are walking these steps without that same support, many of whom I’ve met in real life and online. I have much more to share about my own story and will find the right place to do it…

There are many fears that remain. The future is always uncertain and the system is poor, but I feel very hopeful about the years ahead and have learned so much from the years behind me. Knowing that I have been completely and totally honest and have nothing to hide and will never allow myself or these kids to live in violence again is a freedom greater than any money or security. I am so proud of these kids, and proud of myself… I have done my best by them, even when it was hard. I have sought advice from trusted friends and family as well as their teachers and counselors and therapists every step of the way. They are each thriving and I couldn’t be more grateful. I am happy to be a survivor of domestic violence and no longer a victim, and excited for the next chapter.

What a privilege it has been to share another year of safety with these three amazing people. I take such joy in being their mother… we have so much fun together, and I think that is what they’ll remember most about 2021.

Sending each of you love and strength for a healthy and happy new year.

XOX



January 16, 2021

2021

 

the last daylight of 2020

In many ways, this historic year wasn't all that different for me. I was home taking care of my three kids. We leaned on a very small and trusted group of close friends and family (could not have done it alone!). My life was in limbo, which was stressful and scary... as it has been for a while now... but suddenly most of the world was in limbo too. There were added challenges- juggling remote schooling and missing family and friends and babysitters and just missing going out to eat or going to a movie. Overall, this year was another reminder to practice gratitude; we are healthy, we are together, and 2020 was another full year of safety for us- which is all we really need. Sending love to all who have weathered this year with more and less challenges. Happy to quietly welcome the new and to take it day by day.


January 2, 2020

2020

New Hampshire, April 1 2019

2019 was a challenging year, but also a really great one. We started off in a dark, stuck place... and I really pin the turning point to this April 1st 'getaway' in the woods... Just me and my munchkins, music, campfire, safe and cozy... and we all came back stronger and clearer.

There is so much that I want to write, so much to say... but for now what I will say is this: I read back the last post that I wrote, 8 months ago... and while it is all absolutely true, the 'so much left out' was very specifically leaving out the abuse we were enduring, the abuse we had been enduring for a very long time. I wrote that post when I had not yet secured my own safety, or my children's safety. In fact I wrote it days before I would go to the police and do exactly that, and when I read back my words, I can see myself gathering the courage, finding the strength.

While I stand behind most of what I wrote, the one part that makes me cringe is where I lay out a determination to 'make' someone else a parent. I no longer believe it is possible to make anyone else an improved version of themselves, no matter how fierce the effort. I no longer believe that if I do everything just right, if I say the right thing or I wear the right dress or I just find the right words or I get the right help that I can somehow will another person to be decent or safe or honest or stable. And I certainly don't believe that's possible when you are dealing with an abusive man, which is a very specific and dangerous challenge. All I can do is leave space for that transformation, leave hope... but it is neither my responsibility, nor within my power to make those changes in another person. 

I wish I could say that I have total confidence that 2020 will only bring more of the safety and joy that has allowed these kids and I to flourish for the last eight months, but the reality is that the laws are not adequate, and I just don't know. What I do know is that I will now set my determination towards ensuring our safety, towards staying honest, staying strong, staying open, and staying together. 


* I felt pulled to make this clarification because I know how many women are struggling in the silent torture of domestic abuse, and while I can't say as much as I'd like to... I do feel it's vital to say something, to have the conversation, and to stop treating domestic violence as though it's 'dirty laundry' and something shameful. 

April 23, 2019

Best Laid Plans

at my mama's barn / July 18, 2018

For those of you who have asked, directly, indirectly... for those of you who have quietly noticed but not asked... and for those of you who just like my cute kids and fun house and have no idea what I’m talking about... I have finally decided to write a little something about the million dollar question. 

Um. What happened to your husband?

The most basic explanation... is that one year ago, two weeks before Lo would finally get a clean bill of health... my husband just disappeared. Not literally, but effectively. Suddenly. He stopped calling and texting during his long work days. He stopped picking up when the kids and I would text and call him. He stopped racing home to tuck the kids in for bed time. He would come home for me... late at night... without explanation... with apologies and promises... but he wouldn’t talk to me. Hang out with me. Do normal family stuff with all of us. Do normal dad stuff with the kids. Do normal couple stuff with me. Not really. He was never here, and when he was here... he wasn’t. Seemingly overnight, 15 years of friendship and love and family and partnership and trust just... slipped away.

The year was filled with hundreds of chapters and shifts and changes and ups and downs and moments of deep closeness and more moments of mystifying distance... to say my heart was broken doesn’t begin to describe it- I was in total shock, complete agony, upside down. 

At first... I was beside myself. In a fog. Food tasted like wax. Surviving on chocolate chips and IPA’s and ten hour marathon phone calls with my mom in my ear buds just keeping me sane and helping me hold it together for our three little kids, who were also grieving the sudden loss of their dad. I was still nursing Lo and my milk dried up... after 8 years of consecutive breastfeeding and pregnancy... that whole chapter closed, and I barely noticed. I lost the baby weight that I’d been struggling with for years, and I barely noticed. My hair fell out, and I barely noticed.

I sifted back through all the things I could have done better, the intense stress we’d been under for a year and a half when Lo was diagnosed with a serious and life threatening lung condition midway through that pregnancy. The differences in how we handled that stress... the resentments and misunderstandings that became part of our routine... and then her major surgery to remove a lobe of her lung that would follow. And her inexplicably poor recovery... that health scare remains the single biggest trauma of my life. It was totally out of my hands. There was nothing I could do but hold my breath and pray and stay informed....

This marriage, friendship, partnership, family trauma was different though. This, I could tackle. I’m a problem solver, and so I rolled up my sleeves and I tried. I tried like hell. I tried to fix anything I’d done ‘wrong’. I tried to be open and vulnerable and honest. I tried to get him to go to counseling. I tried to get him to show up for the kids... if not for me... but it was always the other way around...

Eventually, I got stronger. My mama told me to focus on myself. Something I had struggled with since becoming a mother. In truth, something I had struggled with my whole life. Now, I had no choice... I was nearly disappearing. My whole identity and family was just upside down and suddenly I found myself with no partner to help me with three kids, no real friends close by whom I felt comfortable asking for help, no babysitter (literally had never had one), and no family nearby. I was drowning. So I searched and found a babysitter and set up a routine for one day and one night a week. And my husband hated that I gained that independence. And the kids hated it too, and I felt like a monster... they were already going through so much. But I just had to, for survival.

I found myself in a kayak on the Charles river on a sunny summer day. I found myself alone in a matinee on a random Tuesday. I found myself rock climbing and being really good at it. I found myself reconnecting with old friends and having conversations with strangers and making new friends. I found myself out and laughing and happy on a Friday night. I found myself to be a smart, funny, pretty, kind, nurturing person, that was more than a mother or a wife... and deserved more than I’d ever allowed myself to demand. I found myself.

I ate big meals and grew big muscles. I stopped sleeping in full makeup and flirty nightgowns, I stopped wrapping up a plate of leftovers... I stopped letting him slip into bed late at night. Eventually, I shut down my side of the communication, just as he had done so many months before. So suddenly.

I focused on myself, but also on the kids. We became a team in a way that I believe is only possible when you’re working through a big crisis together. We ate all our meals out, because the cooking and cleaning, on top of the endless laundry and general juggling, was just too much. Because I was having my first ever rift with the domestic. Because being the only adult at every meal with three kids feels insanely isolating. Because we liked the company... liked being ‘regulars’ at all our favorite restaurants and coffee shops and diners. One woman and three wild kids... people were so kind. People are so kind. It’s an adventure. And the kids feel that, and they also know that they are safe, and it might be a wild world... but as long as we have each other, we will always pull it off.

As a single mother. Suddenly. I discovered I was stronger and more independent than I had ever known... taking three little kids camping for a week. Pitching two tents and lugging food and gear up and down a hillside a dozen times a day, doing most of it with a crazy toddler tucked under one arm. Alone. Me and my kids. Having my fair share of ‘holy shit... I’m scared... why did I do this?’ moments... but mostly just having so much fun. And that’s really how the year was. Scary. Exciting. Worse and better, uglier and more beautiful than any year prior.

I discovered my kids are stronger and more brilliant and just plain amazing than I ever knew. They saw and heard things that I never would have imagined in my worst nightmares... a crazy irony for the girl that literally dreamed of this perfect and stable family for her tribe of kids since she was one herself. And while we all want nothing but the best for our children... they grew and learned and thrived in ways that I just don’t think would have come to pass without this chapter. We are all better and stronger and more interesting people for having walked this path... I wonder, would I change it if I could?... And I just don’t know. I love the shit out of myself, and my three kids, just the way we are. I’m so proud of us. Maybe this had to be?

In the end, as we got stronger...it became more clear just how lost he really was. His false confidence waned. He got weaker. Which I don’t relish... I have so much love for him, love for the endless memories and passion and friendship we shared, love for the family that we built together, gratitude that even in all of this... he did steadily keep those lights on (a security, at least so far, that I don’t take for granted). I have endless empathy for the man that I thought I knew as well as my own self, but have come to understand as a very undeveloped human being. As his control faded, he wanted more of us... but we all wanted less of him and the chaos and constant ups and downs. By the time he realized that he really wanted us all back, and how beautiful the life truly was that he’d lost... it was just lost. He didn’t fit. Not in the same way. Everything had changed.

So now... my focus is on finding a healthy path back to coparenting. On counseling. On building a bridge to mutual respect and stability and trust for our kids.... and I suspect he is just now facing the heartbreak that has begun to scab over for the rest of us. Just now trying to turn back the year and somehow bring back a life that I no longer believe is possible. I honestly don’t know. There is so much love... but also so much damage. We’ll see what the future holds. One thing is certain, we will always be a family in some way as we parent these amazing kids together. I’m determined to come to a better, clearer, and more stable place on that this year. I’m determined for them to have a real father.... and I know we can make that happen.

There you have it. So much left out, but deliberately not as vague as I had considered. Because... the kids really always do know it all anyway, for better and for worse. Because, I believe remaining vague and side stepping the basic facts of what we were going through kept me and these kids in a very unhealthy place longer than was necessary. And because this community has been important to me. The support, the inspiration, the outlet... there’s so much debate about social media and kids and why we do it and if we should do it... but I love you guys. You’ve all helped me in more ways than I can explain.

I treasure my wonderful real life friends- who have given me so much support, my phenomenal family, and of course... my mom. She literally saved my life. The hundreds of hours of talks and tears and tough love. I am so lucky...

But I also do cherish this strange world where you can spill your guts in a way that you just can’t always do with a pal over coffee. Distant, but intimate. Say what you will... I love the blogging, instagramming, mama-ing world. And I thank you guys... for posting pictures of your kids that I’ve watched grow, your house renovations and hair cuts and your art and job opportunities and recipes for laundry detergent. I thank you for the honesty in the tough times, and for making it all look so good and distracting me in the tougher times... I thank you for following along with me here and caring. So thank you.

*as a follow up, please read the post after this one, particularly if you are the victim of domestic abuse

March 7, 2018

Christmas Time

December 24, 2017

I know I just haven't posted enough pictures of my kids loafing around in pajamas... so you're in for a treat ;) The truth is that when I look back on all our photos, both on Instagram and for this space, I do lament that it appears that we spend the vast majority of our time alone and at home. That is a very small snapshot of our life, which is filled with outings and school and friends and extended family... BUT, it happens to be a pretty accurate depiction of the first half of our winter this year. 

We were in a weird limbo with Lola's health, (a limbo that we haven't entirely exited and I'm hesitant to write about until we are on solid ground, but things are looking better now than they did in December), we all traded coughs and colds for the entire Christmas break, we didn't visit family or do much of anything... for weeks. It was actually kind of a beautiful and peaceful time, and while we've been back to a more normal routine for over a month, I think I will always fondly remember this winter as a housebound one. 


Christmas time with young kids is nothing short of magic. Yes of course there are the stresses and the debates over how much 'stuff' we should be giving them and are we instilling the proper values, not to mention the crisis over where we're going to put all that stuff anyway. We did try to get into the holiday spirit and not center everything around gifts; drying oranges, making gingerbread houses, lots and lots of art projects. Maybe it's because I'm writing about Christmas in March, but most of what I remember is that this year we did go overboard in the gift department, we even got some plastic stuff that I would never have signed off on in the past, and the kids went absolutely bonkers and were all thrilled beyond belief. It was really just so much fun to watch. 


I remember that we all came down the stairs together to see if Santa had visited, and when they saw the loot under the tree in that predawn light, they just gasped and shrieked. Smith thoughtfully worked through each of his packages with care, taking most of the day to actually get through them all, Roo tore into everything with her name on it as fast as she could and then wondered why she was the only one with nothing left to open, and Lo was just absolutely thrilled and fascinated by the entire spectacle. 

We watched movies, listened to music and audio books, ate lots of clementines and cookies, played with new toys, made many fires, played board games, cooked many meals, and never got out of our pajamas... for weeks. James actually was out of his pajamas before 9am every morning and always the first to volunteer for errands. He also ventured into work most days... the rest of us are built for a good house-arrest, but he goes stir crazy after about a day and a half. We had to bribe him to be lazy with us by offering jurisdiction over the movie selection and a good supply of beer :) 


As I write this we are getting hit with another snow storm, and I'll confess that at this point I'm eager for spring and ready to move on from hot cocoa, wool socks, and fires. Still, those slow winter months were absolutely restorative for us, a much needed pause in a stressful year. Fingers crossed for a snow day tomorrow and a little more chill time at home to wrap up this season.

March 5, 2018

SEVEN

November 25, 2017

True it is March and we are all eagerly searching for signs of spring, but I documented three events that I have yet to share, and each of them are days I don't want to forget; Smith's birthday, Christmas, and Lo's birthday... so buckle up because I am determined to beat those spring flowers and push all three of them out this week.

Now that he is in first grade and the school birthday parties have become so commonplace, we thought Smith might just break down and want to have an actual party. Nope! He stayed true to form and we ended up having my favorite celebration for him yet, just a simple day out as a family, filled with all his favorite things: the traditional balloons, pop's pancakes, listening to the Beatles, cracking open geodes in the yard with his sister, checking out the Museum of Natural History, walking through Harvard square and collecting fall treasures, poking around the toy store and book store, dinner out, and cupcakes before bed. Your basic best-day-ever.



This has been such a big year for our family for a million reasons, but Smith has had a big year in his own right. I say some version of this every birthday and maybe it will keep being true as he grows and matures; he is still shy and cautious, but he also has a new found confidence and can tackle so many things independently that I never imagined he would. He asked to go to camp last summer, he asked to take guitar lessons this fall... for a kid who never wanted anything to do with classes or activities away from his family, it's fun to see him follow his interests and take some more risks. 

He's a complex, sensitive, soulful child... he struggled when we prepared for his baby's sister's surgery and throughout her recovery, I could see that constant worry weigh on him. He's such a dedicated brother and must hug and kiss each of his sisters before he heads into school each morning.


At seven, Smith loves nature and science and math, The Beatles and Vampire Weekend, Sourdough bread, Pokemon cards, riding his scooter (never a bike!) and skiing, climbing every door jamb, styling his hair in the mirror, wearing pajamas all day, Piggie and Elephant books, and Foxy (his beloved stuffed fox).

He can't stand wasting food (we promise to start composting buddy!), says he'll never want a room of his own, and is still afraid to be the first to go upstairs at night or downstairs in the morning. 


He collects things wherever he goes, his coat pockets are filled with other people's old candy wrappers, nails, ribbons, acorns, money... I'll ask him why he's holding onto a bent old juice box straw and he'll insist it's a treasure. Most mornings he resists going to school ('it's boring!'), but most afternoons he reports school was 'good' and always wants to stay at the playground with friends for a while before heading home. He can read fairly well, but is easily frustrated and resists practicing. He much prefers working on math problems, or better yet listening to music or watching a movie or going outside.


He is truly just a sweet and kind boy. It's amazing how much of his personality and temperament have been with him right from the start. He is good to his core, and we all feel so lucky to share our days with him. 

We love you buggy and are so proud of you and all you've become in these seven years.