Standing in the doorway

Nine.  The number nine never held any significance for me, but as it turns out, it's a sneaky little number that I should have been watching for.  I was walking along, down a long corridor, holding the hand of my little boy, blissfully unaware that something was lurking in the distance.  Then, all of a sudden, the corridor ended and there was a doorway thrust before us, the number nine looming ominously large across the half-open door.  Something didn't feel right about this doorway, so I clutched his hand a little tighter and turned to go back.   We turned, but before we could take even one step, our feet stopped short even as a whoosh of air rose in our throats and we tried to pull back from falling over a ledge.   The corridor was gone.  The hallway we walked now invisible.  The doorway was our only option.

As I looked at my little boy standing in the big doorway, he began to change.  As though a fog were lifted from my eyes, I began to see him as he was.  He was no longer the baby that I sang to, no longer the toddler who made silly faces and used a towel as his "magician's cape."  He wasn't the little boy trying to figure out who Scooby Doo's villain would be or eating an apple despite a mouth full of missing teeth.   He wasn't looking at me with wide eyes and animated expressions telling a story and he was no longer the boy mispronouncing words with a cuteness worthy of writing down every phrase in his keepsake book.   He was big.  He was  a big kid...and just then I heard the faint strains of "Happy Birthday" coming from beyond the doorway.

My little boy was turning nine and all of a sudden, I knew.  I knew that once he walked through that doorway there would be no coming back.  Suddenly I wanted to grab him and wrap him in my arms and never let him go.  I knew that beyond that doorway he would continue to grow, only this time he would be big, then bigger and bigger.  He would soon be a teenager and then a man.   When he stepped through that doorway, other voices would grow louder and mine more faint.  He would think fewer and fewer silly things were funny.   His joyful and willing acceptance would be tempered by the balance of independence.  His choices would bear more weight and his decisions wouldn't necessarily include me.

It was just a doorway and yet, I knew.  Letting him walk through that doorway was letting him go.  I didn't see it coming and yet now, my heart beat out of my chest as surely as it would if someone had tried to grab him from my arms as an infant.   Nine.  It was halfway to eighteen.  My little boy was halfway gone.   And my heart was breaking in half.

Yes, I know, it was only halfway.  I tried to tell myself there was still a lot of time left.   But I knew the truth.  The time that lay ahead would not be the same as the path we'd already walked.  The days of him sitting on my lap were gone.  The silly stories and squeals of delight were but a faint echo in my mind.   The times I would be able to teach him new things, see the excitement in his eyes were becoming few.  And the hugs, oh the hugs.  How would I ever ever live without the sweet, all-consuming joy of those hugs?

So, I did what any mom in my position would do.  I stood in that doorway and held him tight and refused to go in until time itself reached through and pulled us forward.  And then, as he walked on excitedly and without hesitation, I sat.  I sat on his bed, looked around his room and cried.

I saw the dresser that just "yesterday" I was telling him was still a bit big for him, so he shouldn't try to reach the top just yet.  I saw the little plastic drawers that once held Happy Meal toys and view master reels.  I saw the myriad of posters that had marked his transition from one age and interest to the next.  I saw his closet where the shirts that used to hang from the top were small, yet now, overlapped the toys stacked below.   And then I laid eyes on something else.  There, on the wall, amidst the pictures of Sci-fi movies, super heroes and Lego creations was one of the original decorations I'd hung up for him in his baby nursery.   My sweet boy, through all the changes, through all the maturing and learning and growing up, still found it comforting to have something Mama made at the start of his journey, reminding him that he was on safe footing as he pressed on.

That one image made my heart swell and at the same time, shatter into a million pieces.  How much longer would that decoration hang there? How long til it no longer brought him comfort, but embarrassment or awkwardness?   Somehow the number nine suddenly felt like a thief.  Oh, it wasn't one that came in and grabbed things.  It sneaked them out slowly, one by one, so that I wouldn't notice.  But now, I knew the thief was in the house and I was powerless to stop it.   So, I cried.  And cried.  And cried some more.

Halfway to eighteen.  Halfway gone.  The days ahead may be joyful, but they would never be the same.  My little boy was gone already.   Where tiny arms once reached up for me, a  big kid stood in his place.   And though he looked a bit familiar, as I studied him I realized he was turning into someone I didn't know.   And it scared me.

Where had my little boy gone?  How could the years be over so soon?   When you get pregnant, you think you have eighteen years to raise them, but nobody tells you about nine.  Nine is the doorway.  The cute, cuddly, little years are behind and all that awaits is the unknown.   Nine comes fast, a thief, a ninja, a black shadow.  There was no noise, no warning.  Even my motherly instincts and intuition failed me.   Nine is a bully and suddenly, I remembered what it was like to feel very small.

Nine.  It was going to take some getting used to. The road ahead would be filled with fear, digging in my heels and trying to slow down time even as pain ripped through me.  Bedtime snuggles would be replaced with battle scars.   I would daily fight for balance between giving him strong, solid wings and wanting to build a bigger nest to keep him just a bit longer.

And yet now, even as I write this, the nest has grown smaller, my  fortitude weaker.   Another birthday is on the horizon and an even bigger enemy shadows over me. Though my own life may go on for many more years, I feel like my time here is short.  It's a strange, scary bridge that I'm crossing, but there is a drop off below so all I can do is put one foot in front of the other and hope, just hope that there is something worth reaching on the other side.

Publishing an e-book: You'd never guess, but it's a lot like having children

Somewhere between breaking up arguments, cleaning up messes, soothing the eighteenth  minor "boo boo" in a row and wondering why there is never food in this house despite having just gone to the grocery store, I got a zany idea.  I thought, hey, I should write a book! It would be so much fun. 

The idea that I could do something more than cook and clean ... well, okay, heat up hot dogs and clear a path...but still, I could do this!  But what could I write about?  And then it came to me - games.  Every person who has known me for longer than two minutes eventually calls me in a panic the week before, or sometimes the night before their kids' birthday party, Valentine's Day class party, Halloween party or other you-fill-in-the-blank event involving kids.  They have suddenly emerged from their party-planning shopathon to realize that though they have purchased a cake, planned out all kinds of themed decorations and invited 16 little rug rats to the big event, they have no idea how they are going to keep them all from climbing the walls or killing the goldfish.

Enter me, the gal with the freakish talent for spouting off activities as though motherhood hasn't robbed me of all my brain cells, even as I sit wondering where I lay the ice cube tray that is mysteriously missing from the freezer and a vague recollection of wanting to freshen up my drink floats somewhere between thirst and the memory of someone screaming my name for the fifteenth time.

It's true.  I don't know where this freakish ability came from or why it didn't vanish with every other bit of important knowledge I'm certain I possessed before I had kids, but nonetheless, it's true. I can come up with games at the drop of a hat, even when thirsty.  So, though the ice cube tray would most likely be found when I sunk my foot into a puddle at some point in the future, I could get started right away on a book about games.  This was it, I thought.  Games are fun!  Better yet - it's summer.  Let's make it a book about travel games for kids.  Writing a book about travel games would be fun!

Okay, let me just tell you something that I learned the hard way.  Writing a book about travel games was fun.  Publishing a book about travel games, however, was about as much fun as the twentieth hour of labor.

In fact, I thought afterwards, the only difference between childbirth and getting a mere eight hours of sleep over an entire weekend while trying to learn how to publish said "fun" book, was that after twenty-four exhausting hours of labor and childbirth, there was no four year old bounding into my bed, chattering on about nonsense in a voice loud enough to wake up the sun.

Yep, that was my weekend.   After rattling off a book full of games in rapid succession, even under the ever watchful eye of Big Kid, who insisted on looking over my shoulder and asking me if I was done yet every other hour, I set about the business of publishing my book for Kindle.

I had no idea that by the end of the weekend I would be ready to beg everyone I know to let me entertain their 16 rug rats if someone could just promise me that I'd never again have to learn how to sync some new-fangled gadget with some other new-fangled gadget, read 162 pages of instructions on 30 different websites representing 20 different opinions on what was the "easiest" way to accomplish just one of the fifty new tasks I would have to learn or that I'd never again have to peer at lines upon lines of computer programming language gobbelty-gook and tweak one space, character or page break at a time.

And then there was the repetition.  The uploading and syncing and checking only to see one part of the text had decided to separate itself from the others and do a wonky dance that would clearly label it as bizarre and me as someone who should have stuck with heating up hot dogs.  Back I'd go, coaxing that text into submission, only to upload, sync, read and scream when I'd see that a different line of text had chosen to be rebellious.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that publishing this book was exactly like having children.  Just when you think you've got everything under control, somebody else loses it, and it's never first thing in the morning.  It will always, without question happen when you are exhausted.

But you know what's worse than finding crazy-eyed, rebellious text while you're trying to publish your first book?  It's coming out of the fog that has been your learning curve overload for days upon days and just at the moment when you realize you haven't devoured this much new information since you read the What to Expect When You're Expecting book, you remember that you forgot to include something in your now published book!   So, after 36 straight hours in front of the computer, with the rope from the tire swing now strapped around me to hold me upright in my chair and my brain now mixing up letters, numbers and strange hieroglyphic symbols that I'm sure came from some long lost episode of a Sci-Fi show tucked away in my head, I had to now wait 48 hours to be able to unpublish the book that was now locked in online publishing limbo.

As I literally almost collapsed while brushing my teeth at 4:00 in the morning, I thought back over my weekend.  I vaguely remembered chatting with a friend online at the onset of this marathon when I couldn't even get my newly acquired Kindle to turn on.  That seemed like weeks ago.  I wanted to chat with her again, tell her all that I'd been through and the massive amount of information that had assaulted my brain that weekend, but as I tried to compose a quick email to her, I honestly couldn't even retrace my steps.  I felt like I'd run through a war zone of foreign programming language and devices that were each shouting their own instructions at me.  I had been involved in covert missions to download so many programs that I no longer even cared if they were trustworthy if they'd just help me find the way out of this battlefield and, I'd survived a minefield of people's opposing advice and sometimes nasty, surprise attacks.  I was exhausted and pretty sure I was bleeding.

So, I did what any mom in my slippers would do.  After realizing that I wasn't sure when was the last time I'd actually seen one of my children outside of a computer-generated image, I tiptoed into their rooms to plant a kiss on their patient, endearing little cheeks and then I fell into bed.

When Little Kid bounded into my room two hours earlier than her norm in what technically couldn't even be called the "next" morning, I was sure that I was being punished for some distant bad deed dating back to my own childhood.  I was so tired.  Why, why, WHY of all days did this child have to wake up two hours early?  Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning I had figured out down to the last possible minute how late I could sleep and still get my hair brushed, the kids to the babysitter and myself to work.  I knew I would already be in seriously hurting condition, dragging myself through my work day and oh God help me - my husband's day to work late - with nothing but Pepsi to propel me forward.  But when Little Kid's internal clock decided to wake her up before God himself could get his first cup of coffee, all I could do was crawl to the bathroom, lean against the towel rack and paint pupils on the outside of my eyelids to feign some kind of appearance of interest in this day.

All of this and I still had no book to show for any of it.  Thinking back to the twenty-four hours of labor before Big Kid was born, this book publishing was once again starting to seem a lot like motherhood.   A lot of hours, a lot of pain and nothing to show for it - at least not yet.

But, here I am, a few days and many hours of sleep later and I can say that though this experience nearly finished me off, I did learn quite a bit from it.   I learned that God made sleep for a reason, that even the best laid plans can be unraveled by a four year old and that I should always, always buy an extra 2 liter of Pepsi.   Aside from that though, I truly did learn that despite my daily fear that I have become nothing more than a walking manual on how to change diapers, potty train, chop food into miniscule pieces, use tiny fingernail clippers, wrestle squirming things into the bath tub, repair stuffed animals and pry apart Legos, I actually do still possess the ability to learn new things that don't involve cute little animals or silly lyrics.

It was quite liberating and as I look around at the dishes in the sink, the scuffs on the floor and the toys scattered about, I'm realizing I'd really like to savor that feeling for as long as I can.

So, with that being said, I'm begging you, read the book.    Read it because you want to help this weary mom feel like there is hope beyond the chaos, read it because it will remind you that you, too, can step outside your house-shaped box and accomplish new goals, and read it because it will absolutely save your sanity the next time you are trapped in a car with your children for anything longer than a trip to the grocery store.

My book is called Are We Thrilled Yet?  Fun Travel Games for A Memorable Road Trip With Your Kids.  If you've already got a Kindle, an iPad or comparable device, you can download it and take it with you on the road.    If not, you can use Kindle for PC.

And if you've made it to the end of this long-winded blog post, I'll even let you in on a little secret....for the first day, June 13th, 2012, it's free!  Shhh... don't tell anyone.... okay, actually tell everyone!   And be sure to drop me a tweet or an email and let me know which game you and your kids enjoyed the most.

Safely home

Have you ever found yourself so far off course that you didn't know how to get back?   Did you take a turn somewhere and then another and another until you were so turned around you couldn't figure out where you'd come from?  Or maybe it wasn't you at all.  Maybe the wind or the flood waters came rushing in so fast that all you could do was hang on and hope you survived, even if you found yourself 80 miles north of where you started out.

That's what happened to this blog.  It got lost.   Well, actually, it was there waiting for me all along, but I was 80 miles north and I couldn't find any landmarks to help me get home.  I think, for me, it was a combination of things.   I took one step in the wrong direction and before I knew it there was a storm blowing in like nothing I'd ever seen before.   The darkness that hovered over me was so disorienting that I never thought I'd see the sunlight again.

I wanted to get back to this blog.   I wanted to write.  Oh, how I desperately longed to write.  But as I found out, there are just some things in life you can't write about - not because you don't want to, but because you just can't find the words.   Sometimes the darkness is so consuming, the pain is so raw, that all you can do is hang on.  You take one breath and then another.  You wipe away the tears.  You try to breathe some more.   Amidst this alternately screaming into your pillow, screaming at God and your lungs screaming for air, you just hang on.

But even after the darkness begins to clear, there is debris.  There is rubble that you must climb and claw your way over or through to get back home again.   You can't go around it, and so, it's a slow, painstaking process just to clear a short path.  When you've got 80 miles to travel, sometimes it feels like you will never get home.

And yet, here I am.  I'm home.  At least, I think this is home.  It's not quite the way I remember it before the storm hit.  But it's the closest thing I can find, so I'm staying put.  It's been a long journey back and I'm weary.   I may never find the me that got swept away, but I'm trying to recreate myself the best I can.   I'm trying not to look back.  I'm trying to be grateful that I survived.  

Maybe someday I'll write about this past year and why it took me so far from home, but for now, I just want to settle into my blog, put my feet up and enjoy the company of my old friends.   I hope you still recognize me.  I'm sure I have some battle scars and like all writers end up doing, I'm sure my experience will seep out and fill the spaces between the lines of this blog.  I can only hope that as I keep looking for remnants of my old self, keep reclosing the wounds, keep calling out to God, you'll walk beside me and you'll remind me that I'm alive.   And maybe, just maybe, if you ever find yourself alone in the dark, you'll reach out and find my hand.   I'll help you navigate the storm.  I'll help you breathe.  And I'll walk beside you until you, too, are safely home.