Every Little Wonder

Well, it’s January 4th and I’m finally ready to resurface. Our trip to visit my family in Arizona the week before Christmas led the the somewhat shocking and disorienting discovery that they don’t have internet access. Seriously, there wasn’t even a Starbucks within 20 miles to seek refuge in. Oh, desert. You slay me.

I haven’t seen this half of my family since the baby was a few days old (what? wasn’t that just yesterday?). I loved getting to see my siblings. I miss them like crazy and they’re getting all tall and big like real people. It makes me feel so old. My dad was happy to see his grandson but he was more happy to watch a lot of really awful daytime tv for endless hours with the volume turned up to 11 (more like thirty-something on their tv but…you get the point), so that was that. A little disappointing and depressing, but I didn’t except much more to be honest. Between the stupid tv and the lack of internet and the middle-of-nowhereness, it was the most uneventful trip I’ve ever had. Lots of sitting around, wondering if we would get a chance to do anything besides chase the baby through a very large, very not-babyproofed house with things like stairs and razor blades and old dishes lying everywhere.

The baby handled the flights like a champ. He was a screaming mess in the airport, which scared everyone but also led to us getting the one empty seat on the way there. And then as soon as the engine started, he passed out for over an hour, and then woke up to eat snacks and watch Yo Gabba Gabba on the iphone and then act all cute and charming with the neighbors. Of course, right as the ‘fasten seatbealts’ light came on toward the end, he pooped. Like, major stinky poop. I’m sure the surrounding passengers didn’t love that part.

After we got home, we went to Cris’s family for a late Christmas celebration, then we had our own mini-Christmas the next evening, and then we spent this last weekend at mom’s for the fourth and final Christmas.

And now the holidays are over and I have a To Do list that’s a mile long, about 9,000,000,000 unread items in Reader, and all the things I was planning to have in place by the first are just starting to get worked on. But I’ve also got a Starbucks drink in hand, so let’s do this ish.

[I told myself I was going to participate in reverb 10 this month, so here I am with my first post on the 14th, naturally.]
What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?

When I was younger, I used to fantasize about skipping the country, traveling from town to town, wandering the world all nomad-style and never settling down. A few months in a yurt in Mongolio, a year in a London flat, teaching English in Japan for a semester. Yes, yes, YES.

And then I had Ezra and all those plans just faded away. Not because I was giving up. Not because it would be too hard or too expensive or too complicated or too difficult with a baby. But because I realized that without my family (and Cris’s family), I would have completely lost my mind. Several times over by now. Without such a large, loving, generous circle of support, this year would have completely killed me, I think.

Not having to worry about daycare because Cris’s amazing mom is watching Ezra. Having my parents happily (ecstatically!) take him so we can scoot off to LA for a few days. My mom coming up on weekends to watch the baby so I can focus on cleaning (or cleaning herself so I can focus on sitting on the couch and whining, more likely). Getting to spend a day alone or getting a date night with Cris or getting to veg out at someone else’s house while they chase the baby around for bit or getting just one solid night of sleep while someone else takes care of him overnight. These things are pretty much the bedrock to my sanity at this point in my life.

I know people raise children in cities where they know no one all the time, but I don’t know how they do it. And, OMG, single moms? They deserve awards and medals and cookies and all-expenses-paid week-long trips to a spa resort with manicures and massages and facials. I cannot even imagine how they survive. Just a call from Cris that he’s going to be home late one night is usually enough to send me into a tailspin of panic and despair.

Gratitude is where I fail, of course. I’ve always loved my family, sure. But with Ezra’s birth, I finally realized I needed them. Not in a vague “Yes, I know you’ll always be there for me” way, but in a “OMG Please help me RIGHT NOW” kind of way. But there’s always this part of me that feels so uncomfortable and guilty and maybe a little ashamed when I need help from others, so my attempts at expressing appreciation get all awkward and apologetic.

I need to work on that I know. But sometimes it just seems to big. I know how really, really, ridiculously lucky and blessed we are, but how do you even say thank you for that? Thank you, to so many people, for loving and supporting us. Thank you for loving Ezra almost as much as I do. Thank you for letting me know to the very bottom of my heart, that whatever happens to us—even if one of the insane, horrible tragedies that my stupid brain is always thinking up actually comes to pass—we have such a wide safety net of support and love that would be okay.

I don’t know. Is there a Hallmark card for this?

My mom wouldn’t let us go through Easter without putting Ezra in a suit. Specifically, the cutest suit ever. I wish we had more pictures, but come picture-time, Ezra was a total sleepy grump and only lasted a couple seconds before not-so-gracefully bowing out.

But, man, the polka dotted tie! It just KILLS me!