For the Sake of the Kids

I didn't expect it to happen. I have low expectations these days when it comes to anything having to do with my First Wife. I took the kids to Little Minyan for Kol Nidre. Bought them some new clothes and shoes. Warned Eva. Since this is usually her stomping grounds. Our daughter asked her once, Is is ok if Mama takes us to services at Little Minyan sometimes too? As if it's something I need permission for. Like I said, I went with low expectations. This was one of those times I had to put on Katie Perry's Firework for the car ride, just to give me a breath of self-confidence. 
Everyone recognizes my kids so I was forced to introduce myself: The Other Mom. Jessica, the sort of rabbi, who was once my friend but defriended me and was the "spiritual leader" of my First Wife's second wedding, gave me a half-hearted wave. Then services began. Luckily my son was tired because he stayed beside me the whole time and I really needed that. We discovered little pieces of paper (for notes?) in the pew in front of us and he spent the entire time doing origami. I showed him how to make a frog.  Eva and Amy appeared about five minutes after everything started. They sat behind me where Georgia and Scarlett had already established themselves, having checked with me that they could escape if they got bored. When Stella saw them, she left me to go curl up in her Ema's lap. I have to admit: I am petty. I decided right before services (and even made a point to TELL God) that even though I know I am supposed to pray for the ability to forgive Amy, forget it, I'm never forgiving her. Especially if she never acknowledges she did anything wrong to me. And Eva refuses to forgive me. And now I can't forgive her for not forgiving me and yes, it's an endless circle of rat poison. (Anne Lamott says Not Forgiving someone is like eating the rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.) That was my state of mind pre-Kol Nidre. Nope. No Way. Hardened Heart. Not Gonna Do It.  

In case you don't know, pretty much the whole point of this holiday is atonement and forgiveness. Jews don't go to confession year round; we starve ourselves and stand up in services for fifty hours in a row, praying for forgiveness and the ability to forgive others. I practiced the previous ten years but I knew this year was only a physical show. For the sake of the kids.  
There was this super long piano and cello solo. Beautiful and all. But c'mon. Really? And we had to stand for the whole thing. I was like, WHAT is the point of making us stand for twenty minutes? As soon as I asked the question, I quickly answered myself - I know, I know: To make us focus. And perhaps to make us sorry. Really Really Sorry. But sheesh. I finally gave Zeke permission to sit. With his origami frogs. I didn't realize it at the time, only made the connection later, but it was on the last note, the very last strung out cello note, the denouement, the final settling of the song that my heart softened the teensiest bit. A crack where the light came in. I thought, Well at least that last note made standing the whole time sort of worth it. Ok, we got to finally sit down for a minute. But then they had a kid open the Ark and stand with The Torah for the eternity of reading the community Kol Nidre. Back to more standing.

For most of this reading, I worried about the kid, standing there forever with the weight of The Torah. It was a back and forth, call and response thing. Sometimes readers happened in the congregation, quite spontaneously, but the last reading was done together. It built us up to forgiving "vows we could not keep." That's when I started to pay attention. Vows. We. Could. Not. Keep. And then the last paragraph, I suddenly became aware: We are standing only a few feet away from each other, reading aloud a prayer for forgiveness and for the ability to forgive. And I know Eva. Better than even The New Wife. We stood next to each other reciting these prayers for 12 years. I know she is reading out loud too. And together we are reading out loud in a sacred space with a Minyan of Jews. And perhaps even beginning a new set of vows. Of course I started to cry. Because I always fucking cry. When we sat down, I put my arm around my son and smiled through the tears at the plague of frogs littering the church pew. A friend tells me: Forgiveness isn't easy. Hearing people say things out loud in front of a congregation that they need forgiveness when I believe that YES..YOU NEED TO ASK FORGIVENESS FOR THIS YOU PRICK..is powerful. And the person saying it knows that I know that I need to forgive and be forgiven. And then, I start, a little, to forgive. Some things can never truly be forgiven, but like with all mitzvot, the more I practice the "easier" it becomes. A deep sigh. I realize forgiveness is more like acceptance. Never warm and fuzzy. It all started with my acceptance of my obligation (to take my kids to this service) and moved to ACCEPTANCE and then God nudges us in the right direction: Stop swallowing the rat poison.

We left not too long after. Stella complaining that she needed to go to bed. And I was a little less angry than when I arrived.

Ring the bell that still can ring.

There's a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in......

I Love Being Not Right

So one of my big life lessons is all about how I know absolutely nothing.

A perfect example:  When I was 17, I wanted to kill myself because I was in the process of realizing I am gay.  Flash forward five years and I am dancing in the streets of San Francisco with my hands in the air, singing along with Crystal Waters (Live) at the end of the day of a giant gay pride march, thinking to myself:  THANK GOD I am gay because straight people never get to do this except maybe at weddings.

(side note to self:  maybe this is really why gay people want in on the whole wedding thing, more places to dance with our hands in the air.)

Anyways.  Now when I find myself super-depressed (like even this afternoon when I was crying at the end of The Iron Lady which is a movie not at all about England but more about having a great big true love in life who shares everything and realizing I totally fucked that up for myself and dammit I really hate Catherine and Heathcliff right now, and yes I'm probably going to bleed tomorrow morning), I remind myself how in the blink of an eye I went from suicidal depression with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY my life was going to be so miserable and I was going straight to hell to a life where I celebrate myself and totally sing the body electric on most nights (and now days).

In this past week, I am confronted AGAIN with another way I was so wrong.

And it makes my heart sing.

Eva has this brother, my kids' uncle, who never really said much of anything to me throughout the beginnings of our marriage, mostly because I came along right about the time he developed complete teenage disdain for anything having to do with his family.  One time, we were at some great big function where he was sitting sullenly next to me on the couch in a room full of relatives when suddenly he was inspired to start telling me about his art and his whole rant eventually led to him insisting to Eva and me about what it's going to be like when his art is hanging in MOMA.  Yes, this idiot late teenager who grunted when his mother helped him set up an art show at the local JCC seemed to be having a manic breakdown right in front of me with what I interpreted as full blown delusions of grandeur.  Afterwards, Eva and I talked at length about our concern for his mental health.

I am very pleased to report ten years later - I was so wrong.  He's not in MOMA yet.  But it's surely not a dream I believe crazy.

Because there's THIS <<<<<click and make sure you scroll down and watch the video if you want your mind blown.  And after that video, find the other ones HERE.

It continues to be my life lesson:  I know nothing.  We never know what's coming.  Don't piss on someone else's dream, even if it's only in your mind.  We never know what people are going to do.  We think we know.  We think we can look at patterns of behavior and predict outcomes.  And it is SO HARD to believe that people can change.  But they do it all the time.  Sometimes they change back.  And forth.  And keep moving forth.  Which is sort of what Jake's art is doing - everything is in a state of constant change, how the story starts, you never know how it's going to end, the picture in flux.  We know nothing.


One of the promises of my recovery:  I will be amazed before I am half way through....and I am.

Achievement Test

My mother took every opportunity to tell my sister and me how we were really stupid.  “Dumb as a pissant” or “Lose your head if it wasn’t attached” and especially “never amount to anything.”  I remember in Third Grade we had to take an “Achievement” test and the teachers and the principal telling us over and over how these tests do not matter, we should just try our best but they will not affect our report card or go anywhere on our permanent record.  At some point during the test, my teacher announced we could go outside when we were finished.  So I ABBA CA DABBAed the rest of the scantron and headed for the playground.  It was about four years later when I found out they lied to us as they were dividing up every elementary kid to matriculate into junior high.  I really wish someone had told me: If you kick ass on that Third Grade “Achievement” test, you get to be called “gifted” or at least “advanced.”  Later, I found out how my fill-in-the-blanks fast track to recess returned my test back with an IQ of 72 and my parents were called into school where the principal said I belonged in the Special Ed class and my mom as all: Well, that explains everything.  The weird part of this story is how my mom was actually a teacher’s aid in the Special Ed room.  She worked with these kids everyday and somehow it made sense to her when some authority figure told her I belonged there.  My teacher spoke up: Janine is most certainly not Mentally Retarded (as we called it in those days), I have a pretty good idea of what happened here and it has more to do with Dodge Ball than intelligence.

By Junior High, we were divided into curriculum tracks labeled “Advanced, Average, and Below Average.”  The Below Average students eventually made their way to the Vo-Tech program by high school.  I had all “Average” classes except I am pretty sure I fell into “Below Average” math.  I was a trouble maker.  I started hanging out with “The Freaks.”  School was one big entertainment session:  How to cut class, how to convince the nurse I was sick, how to use a cheat sheet, how to copy off my neighbor’s work, how to steal hall passes, how to make out with boys on the condemned third floor.  One day at the beginning of 8th grade, Mrs. Corona, my English teacher, approached my mother in the Faculty Lounge.  (Now my mom was a teacher’s aid in remedial reading, following my sister and me from school to school.)  My mother waved her away, telling her: No, I only talk about Janine during conferences.  This was not the first time a teacher tried to ruin her cigarette break.  Mrs. Maffie once marched up to her and slammed my cheat sheet of all the Roman gods and goddesses onto her table, for example.  But Mrs. Corona persisted:  I think Janine belongs in Advanced English.  My mother burst out laughing: Oh no, surely you’re not talking about my daughter.  This experienced teacher saw something my mother refused to see.  Perhaps I was not dumb, perhaps I was bored, perhaps I needed something a little more challenging.  She asked my mother if we could try an experiment and have me sit in on her advanced class.  My mother was not proud or even excited for me.  When she told me about what Mrs. Corona said, she insisted it was all a big mistake and not to get my hopes up or anything.  I sat in that class for one week and then marched into the guidance counselor’s office by myself and demanded a schedule change from top to bottom.  

By the time I was 23, I had dropped out of three different colleges and now found myself trying one more time at a community college north of San Francisco.  Starting all over again, I landed in another freshman English course taught by an over-enthusiastic young man named Mr. Haskell.  (In my mind, I called him “Eddie.”) He was so thrilled to be teaching English at a community college.  He loved school.  He loved my writing.  He went on and on about my great writing.  I rolled my eyes.  I think at that point, I considered myself a History major or maybe I would just default into Nursing.  Or something.  But he kept telling me:  You. Are. A. Good. Writer.  I figured it was his  job to say all this.  Or something.  We were doing a close study of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.  We were supposed to read the play and write all about the meanings and symbolism.  We had to watch the Elizabeth Taylor movie and write all about the ways Hollywood changed the story and why.  We watched the Jessica Lange version and at the end of the semester, we met in the city to watch a staged version.  Up until the night of the performance, school was always a total drag for me, some hoop you jumped through to move to the next stage of life.  I did the least to get by.  Standing in line, “Eddie” was waxing poetic about what an awesome opportunity to get to see this live performance in the great city of San Francisco and for just a moment, I tilted my head and he moved into a different prism in my mind.  I remember thinking: Oh my god, you actually like this shit.  And this young man, who worshipped at the Altar of Tennessee, also put a lot of effort into insisting I am a Good Writer. I decided to believe him.

Stolen Cell Phone, Part 3

The next morning I placed my cell phone in the middle of the dining room table where it was sure to be seen.

 My kids are pretty good about getting up in the morning and taking care of themselves.  I set up all of Zeke's clothes in the downstairs bathroom, pull him out of the bunk bed with his head covered in "Froggy," and carry him in total darkness.  He hates the light first thing in the morning.  After he's gone, the girls can turn on all the lights.  I want them completely dressed, including shoes, before they sit down to breakfast. And I MAKE breakfast.  Everyday.  Like real food.  Not some pop-tart either.  My kids are mostly vegetarian and I like to send them off with a belly full of protein because I know the rest of the day is nothing but carbs, carbs, carbs.  Once they are settled, I announce:

"You people owe me $50 dollars."

I like to say whacked out crazy things to my kids just to see how they're going to respond.  For some reason, this doesn't get much of a response, so I say it again.

"That's right.  You heard me.  You people owe me $50 dollars."

This time they are looking at me like I am out of my mind.  So I explain.

"Last night.  While you were all acting crazy right before bedtime and I had to spend an extra hour settling you down, someone stole my cell phone right out of the car."

This is why I left my cell phone where they can see it.  Right away, they want to hear the story.  This is what we do at my house.  Mama, tell us the story of how you got fired from that one job.  Mama, tell us the story of how you just filled in the blanks when you were tested in third grade and they tried to put you in the special ed class. (This is a popular story lately, as they are all about to embark on Iowa Exams.) Mama, tell us the story of your first boyfriend, you first girlfriend.  Mama, tell us the story of how you met Ema.  Mama, tell us the story of how you sold all of your belongings in a yard sale.  Tell the story of my birth.  Tell the story of how you ran away from home.

So I told them.  About how I discovered it missing.  How I posted on FB.  How everybody sent text messages to my phone.  They wanted me to read the messages.  This greatly impressed them.  How the thief called me.  How I drove away while they were sleeping and retrieved it.   But then we came back to the issue at hand; I told them I never would have had my cell phone stolen if they had all been behaving ergo they owe me $50.

This brought a howl of protest.  They wanted to know why I would pay such a high reward.  Their personalities show up in their defense.  The Oldest uses critical thinking skills to argue that I am the one who forgot the cell phone out in the car in the first place, so I should pay.  Practical Scarlett says I should never pay a reward to a thief.  Georgia, ever wanting to please each person, lobbies to pay only half.  And Zeke just shrugs, I don't have that kind of money.

"Of course I'm not going to make you pay me.  It's done.  Get your back packs and help me load the car."

For some reason, Scarlett and I ended up on the second floor together again.  I have a giant clear plastic box sitting on the floor below my linen closet.  It is full of everything that should be organized into a medicine cabinet and extra stuff that can probably take up a shelf of the closet too.  Band aids.  Kids' medicine. Make up.  Cotton balls.  Nail polish.  The list goes on.  I'm sitting at the top of the steps, in the same place from the night before when the madness peaked.  Scarlett comes around the same corner.  I stop her and say:

"Look at this box.  Do you know what all this stuff is and why it's still sitting here?"

She shakes her head, "Why don't you just put it away?"

"It's still sitting here because I don't care.  I don't mind it being there.  I step over it.  It's been there since we moved in and someday eventually I'll get around to putting it all away but for now it doesn't bother me.  Look around at the rest of this house.  Now, I want you to imagine Ema living with someone who doesn't care how long a box of junk sits in the middle of the hallway.  And I want you to imagine me living with someone who is always making a big deal about everything being all organized and put away.  I'm not saying this is the only reason we're not together anymore, but I want you to take a look at my house and take a look at her house and understand there were ways I was trying to be when I was with her that were not right for me and all of those problems were there way way way before Amy came along.  Come here."

She came over to me and sat on my lap at the top of the steps.  She leaned on me and sucked her finger.  She's eight years old and she still sucks her finger at my house.  I cannot get her to stop.  She does not suck her finger at Eva's house and I don't know if that means I'm a terrible mother or if it means she knows I don't judge her.  Whatever it is, she won't stop sucking for me.

I wonder:  If we were still together and all living under the same roof, would the finger sucking have stopped altogether a long time ago?  How has the divorce affected our daughter's palette?  In my head, I go on and on with every consequence and scenario.  I spent a lot of time with her parents.  If we were still together, would the kids be spending more time with their grandparents?  How do the kids feel about promises?  Is there ever any way they will ever believe anyone's promise?  I know I wouldn't.

"I want you to know I heard what you said last night and even though I had to send you to bed, I'm thinking about how to explain things to you.  I am the way I am and I am not better than Ema and she is not better than me.  But we're different and our differences made it difficult to stay together.  I'm the one who asked for a divorce first.  We tried for a little bit to work it out.  THEN Amy came along.  I know it seems like we told you about the divorce and Amy was there at the same time,  but stuff happened way before and we weren't telling any five year olds about it. I appreciate how Amy stuck around through what must have been a really hard time for Ema, and I appreciate how she helps us take care of you.  But I want you to know I am sorry that we didn't try harder. We owed it to you to try harder.  I really wish you didn't have to live in different houses but I will try to work as hard as I can to make things easier for you, OK?"

Nearly everyday my kids find a way to remind me how much divorce sucks.  Don't do it, people.  I mean it. Penelope Trunk explains how I view divorce today HERE.  It was really hard work to stay together, but I am here to report that the work grows exponentially once the parents are apart.  I grapple all the time with the long term sadness and trying to figure out if they're going to have a lingering inability to connect to other people.

I don't yet know how this story ends yet.  There isn't some uplifting spiritual message at the end of every blog.  I'm still in the thick of things so I can't yet see how all of my mistakes and regrets are somehow "meant to be" great learning experiences.  Tell it to the kids who live in two houses so therefore have no real home.

Stolen Cell Phone, Part 2

I searched the car.  I remembered it being in The Cell Phone Spot.  I remembered feeling for it in my coat pocket and realizing it wasn't there.  So it must still be in The Cell Phone Spot.  Maybe I dropped it.  Did I have it?  Did I maybe leave it at the restaurant?  Banging my head, trying to remember.  But I really wanted to remember that is was NOT in The Cell Phone Spot because if that's where it was, then it was definitely lost.  Stolen.

I went back inside to the one place where I find all my answers these days.  Facebook.  And I posted:  "Hey everybody this is my cell phone # Can you please take a moment to send a text to the thief who stole it out of my car in the last hour.  Be nice about it.  Offer a $50 reward.  I just want to get it back."

Right away the comments telling me what to do.  Go to iTunes and get the "lost cell phone" app and download. I remembered that I have a spare cell phone, a flip phone that I keep in the house for emergencies.  I am not at all technologically savvy and if I have to think about it too much, I'll curl up in a ball and just turn on the TV.  Deep breath.  One step at a time.  iTunes.  Search.  There it is.  Download.  Open it up.  Huh.  Did you know if you leave the "location services" on, your cell will show up on a little map?  You probably know this.  Everybody probably knows this.  I did not know this.  In fact, I could now see the location of all our devices.  Cool.  Oh look, there's my cell on Cleveland and Weber.  Although not too far from my house, not exactly the corner I want to go searching for anything.  What am I gonna do, look around on the ground?  Knock on doors?  Go up to hookers, Excuse me do you have my phone, I know you have my phone?

I call the police and sit on hold for about twenty minutes.  I'm still chatting with the Facebookers.  Who are all telling me to most certainly NOT go to any location.  And then the police transfer me to some recorded system where I can leave a report about my stolen merchandise. I'm doing this while commenting on a long FB thread where my friends are all reporting how they sent a text and filing them in on my plans, and I'm surfing around the whole "lost cell phone" app. I figure out how I can locate my phone and send it a message, offering a reward and the number of my spare cell phone.  And then I can lock it.  But once I lock it, I can't call it or text it.  I have to wait for it to text me.  I finally decide, What the heck?  I lock it and I put in my other number.

About five minutes later, my "emergency" cell phone starts to ring.  I'm like Who could be calling me?  Who even has that number?  I never imagined in a million billion years that the thief would actually call me but suddenly I find myself in conversation with him.  "Um, yeah, hey I just bought this cell phone on the street."  Sure you did.  "I mean, I paid $75 and I thought it was totally legit."  Right.  Because when you're buying a cell phone on the street for $75 at midnight the day after Christmas, it's always totally legit.  "And it suddenly locked up on me and I had no idea it was stolen."

I did not want him to hang up, so  I acted completely empathetic and understanding.  One drug addict lying to another.  I told him that I was sorry, I simply did not have the $75 to replace him being scammed by "someone" selling it to him but I would give him $50 for it.  (I don't know why the extra $25 pissed me off.)  I said something about only having that much cash at my house and I have kids here so I can't leave to get more.  And he said, I know.  (ok, remember that for later in the story.  I mentioned I had kids and he said.....I know.)  Then he told me how he was worried since he was in possession of stolen property even though "I swear I had no idea," and I might show up with the police.  I knew I had a narrow window to get this phone back.  I told him, Well, first of all you're going to change your story.  If we meet and the police are anywhere near us, you can also say that you "found" it and you immediately called me to help out.  Second, I'm going to let you know I did alert the police and they put me on hold for 30 minutes, so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to get them involved in a sting operation in the next 5 minutes.  Let's meet at the gas station on Cleveland and Weber, you give me the cell, I'll give you the cash, ready set go.

I thought about leaving my children alone upstairs, sleeping.  I thought about all the people on FB ranting about Don't You Go Meet Him By Yourself.

But here's the thing.  I knew the boy who stole my cell phone.  Because I was him.  I heard his voice and I knew.  I stole from my own mother.  I stole from roommates.  I stole from employers.  I am a drug addict and a thief and a liar and I knew this boy's lies like the back of my hand.  I knew he wanted that $50 and he was willing to risk getting arrested for it.  I knew deep deep deep down, way in the back of his lost soul  he felt bad about what he did and the tiniest part of him wanted to make it right and I was giving him the chance to make it right AND get $50.

The gas station on Cleveland and Weber is actually pretty busy after midnight.  And brightly lit.  I felt sort of safe.  There were too many neighborhood people coming and going.  Even though the air was freezing, people were hanging outside.  I parked and stood waiting.  For awhile I wondered if maybe he wasn't going to show up when suddenly there was a scrawny white boy wearing a hoodie under a flannel jacket and smoking a cigarette a few feet away from me.  He could have been my son.  A twenty something grown up version of Zeke unshaven with meth burn marks.  He was very old and extremely young at the same time.  I shuffled over and shrugged, You got my phone?  He startled and then handed it over.  I palmed him the cash.  Went back to the car.  Tried not to make eye contact.  I didn't want him worried that I could identify him for the police.  But I watched him dart across the street and down the alley.  I could've followed him.  I could've run him over with my car.  What I wanted to do was pull up and tell him, You don't have to live like this, can I pick you up tomorrow morning and maybe take you to a meeting?

When I got home, I checked my text messages.  Here are some:

Please return this cell phone.  Single mom of 4 needs it.  Thanks.

Hey, can u do us all a favor & return this phone 2 where u got it.  The owners a single parent & truly can't afford 2 replace it.  Plz do the right thing.

Fifty dollar reward for the return of this cell phone to rightful owner, now questions asked.  do the right thing.

Hey! Plz return this phone. Plz.  She has 4 kids.  Great mom.  Happy New Year!

Hey, you know that phone is traceable via GPS.  Even when they're turned off.  Return it plz.

Please return this phone to the rightful owner.  She is awesome and needs her phone back.

During the holiday week, how about you do this one right thing.  One good thing.  Return this phone.



It went on and on like this.  A hundred text messages.  Telling him how great I am.  How hard I work to take care of my kids.  How much I needed my phone back.  Not a single person threatened him or called him names.  Reading them all, I felt so much love.

Then I opened up Safari and saw he left open a bunch of pages.  I thought, Oh this is gonna be good.  Braced myself for porn.  But it turns out he was looking up classes on the Columbus State website.  Checking on his status.  Trying to find his bill.  The young addict thinking about college at the end of December.   I imagined him surfing and how when you're on an iPhone, the texts pop up in the bar above your web page.  I know he called me once the phone was locked up, but I like to think my friends wore him down.

A lot of people have a lot of revenge fantasies when I tell them about my stolen cell phone.  They want to catch him.  They want to go after him.  They are bothered that I gave him money.  Which we all know is just going for drugs.  But I have done so many unforgiveable things in my life, I actually think of him and feel true gratitude.  For giving me the chance to feel stolen from.  For giving me my phone back. For reminding me who I am and from where I came.  For showing me how much sooooo many people love me.  For giving me the chance to forgive in the moment.  For giving me this story.


god walked down my street one quiet snowy night while I was inside yelling at my kids, stole my cell phone, and showed me how much love and forgiveness this world has.

Stolen Cell Phone, Part 1

I parked my car on the street that night because there was too much snow and ice in my driveway.  When I got inside, I tossed my keys into the key spot and felt for my cell but realized I must have left it in the little notch in my driver's side door.  The cell phone spot.  But the shenigans with my four kids started and I decided to get it after I put them to bed.

"It's time for Bedtime Business," I announced.  Right away the meltdown.  We had just ended a three hour drive from Pittsburgh where we spent three days at my sister's house for Christmas celebrations, several hours of Minecraft with cousin Tyler, no protein, lots of sugar, a snow storm, and No Ema.  Their Other Mom.  Who I divorced four years ago just as we were about to cross the finish line of raising triplets (who are not really triplets) heading into kindergarten.  We do a kind of Shared Parenting which involves the kids seeing both of us every day (their choice) and her doing Jewish High Holidays and me doing Christmas With Cousin Tyler.

Scarlett always gets right down to business.  Even though she's only 8, I'm pretty sure she could maintain her own apartment and find gainful employment.  I told Georgia ten times PLEASE get your pajamas on.  Zeke was figuring out how to hang from the inside of the stairwell.  Stella, the oldest who survived the onslaught of three babies ruining her perfect existence with Mama and Ema, decided to force me down on the floor at the top of the stairs, sat on my lap, and started wailing, "I MISS EMA!!!!!!" And more sobbing.

I'm holding her.  I'm consoling her.  "I know, honey, it's been four days since you last saw Ema" while "GEORGIA, why are you still wearing your clothes?" and "I get it, it's really hard to live without us I really wish you didn't have to" and "ZEKE, please get down from there you are not a cat" to "I miss her too" trying to make her laugh "Just imagine what it's like for me, you haven't talked to her for three days, I haven't really gotten to talk to her for three years" and Stella starts to giggle when Scarlett comes flying around the corner with "I bet we wouldn't have to live in different houses and you and Ema would still be together if Amy hadn't come along."

ok.  You know that moment in the movie when all the stuff is flying around in a hurricane or hail of bullets and action and everything feels like it comes to a complete stop but still goes in slow motion?  That.

Up until then I handled everything flying at me (except maybe the cell phone left out in the car) and just as we neared my breaking point, the exact moment when I needed to be my most grown up self, the mature and controlled one of the bunch came up with surest way to make me lose it.  They all stopped.  They all knew.  They all waited to see how I was going to react.

I held up my finger and said, "Scarlett, .....(and in my head a thousand voices roared forth with I TOLD YOU SO to Eva because I did tell her not to replace me so quickly and when Amy started spending the night a few weeks after we informed them of divorce, I TOLD YOU SO, and how hard is it for me to disabuse them of the notion that It's All Amy's Fault because oh my lord I don't want them to ever know how awful I behaved at the end of our marriage how I had another girlfriend too I just didn't bring her around but I can't hide the truth I can't lie even though sometimes I believe exactly what she just said I believe if only people had waited until we were really done and even though everything probably would have turned out divorce and broken we'll never know because we were both under duress and anyone who moves in on a marriage under duress is a selfish asshole in my book especially when I look into the eyes of our children and it's frustrating to accept that what happened is exactly what's supposed to happen but if only).....Scarlett, there is a lot more to this story you don't know, honey, and some day Ema and I will be able to explain everything to you but right now we have to get ready for bed."

From there everything went into a rush to bed.  I had the one eye brow permanently raised.  They knew not to mess around anymore.  Shove to bed.  No story.  Kiss.  Slam the door.  Repeat three times.  And then I stopped in the hallway.  Counted to ten.  Took a deep breath.  This is how you deal with having 4 children.  You have to get yourself alone, count to ten, take deep breaths.  And then.  Open the doors again, sit down in the hallway so they can all hear, and announce, "The Hobbit, Chapter Ten."

You may be exhausted.  You may be on your very last nerve.  It may be all their fault that things are such a mess.  But you are not allowed to stop parenting.

After another hour of story time, I finally closed each door.  I wanted to text Eva we made it home safely from Pittsburgh but when I got to the car, my cell was gone.  Stolen.

First Born

It all started on Monday I’m not sure what time.  I remember later calculating the entire labor took about 55 hours, so if I do the math backwards from Wednesday 3pm, we can figure it out.  Eva told me her contractions were a little stronger than her “fake” contractions from the week before.  Plus, I think we were at about week 42 and the doctor was planning on taking out the baby in a few days no matter what.  She announced, This is it. 

I promptly collapsed on the living room floor and had a panic attack. No joke. I knew this whole birthing thing was not supposed to be about me, but there I was, feeling like an elephant was sitting on my chest.  I've only had about three panic attacks in my life:  that one time my girlfriend (not Eva) and another person were discussing what I should go to school for (I was 26) and just a month earlier when Eva said,  Just think, when I’m done with school next week, I’ll be here every day, all day and we’ll get to be together all the time.  I think it always has to do with people expecting me to take responsibility or something.  The horror.

We were seeing a midwife in Yellow Springs.  Eva had worked with all the midwives in Columbus and did not want anyone she knew professionally at her birth.  For another part of our preparations, we had a giant water tub put together in the extra room that would eventually be Stella’s room.  Eva spent the day trying to get some sleep between contractions, which were still very far apart.  The midwife arrived close to 11pm, checked on Eva, set up in the other spare bedroom and then for some reason went to bed.  Maybe she figured this was going to be a long haul. She figured right.  But still.

I don’t remember much about the night.  It was long.  There was pain.  I stayed awake with her.  We were pissed at the useless midwife.  The useless midwife seemed to know this about us and so started to avoid us, becoming even more useless.  I read aloud to Eva while she sat in the birthing tub.

A few weeks earlier, once I got used to the fact she was home all day, I started checking out all the Atlantic Monthly’s from the library and reading her long articles while she knitted on the front porch.  It was the Most Favorite Time in my Life.  We whispered nasty judgments about the useless midwife.  (Eva and I were always good when we had a common enemy.)  By morning, she could not handle the pain so she called her doctor and told him that she was coming to the hospital for a shot of some pain killer. 

Up until this point in her pregnancy, we had prevented all forms of intervention.  Not even an ultra sound.  Nothing.  Completely natural.  That was our plan.  (Now I understand the saying, People make plans, God laughs.)  What’s so funny about Eva jumping in the minivan with the second child Scarlett pregnancy and demanding the hospital immediately was that it happened after this fifty five hour journey.  At this point, however, we were still True Believers in natural childbirth. 

The doctor was on board with our plan.  Get a little pain killer.  Check out the heart rates. And go home.  For those of you who birthed in a hospital, you know it’s virtually impossible to escape once you go in.  But somehow we did it.  By afternoon, we were back home.  I think we even were able to take a little one hour nap or something.  But then the pain started up.  Lots of pain.  With no progress.  I don’t remember anything about what the midwife was doing, probably because she was not doing anything.  But around 7pm, Eva realized things were not moving along.  We sent the midwife home, and we headed for the hospital. 

I’m going to fast forward now:  We checked in.  She struggled the night.  I realized I had not had any sleep since Sunday night and I was about to die but I really couldn’t say anything about my predicament because there she was - also without any sleep but pushing through contractions so who was I to complain, really.  But when her friend Jamie showed up at the hospital with support for Eva and Starbucks for me, I wanted to kiss her feet.  The epidural finally happened in the early morning of the next day.  The Pitocin kicked on.  A little after 3pm, I saw the crowning head of our baby and I wept. 

Now when I say I really did not know what love was until I met Stella, what I actually mean is that I did not know what love was until I met Stella.  Srsly.  Oh, I loved my family.  And I had plenty of Great True Love stories in my past, starting in second grade.  And, of course, I loved Eva.  In the best way I could.  But nothing like the tidal wave that was about to descend on me.  We had been reading all that Dr. Sears crap.  And before we turn this into a debate about Attachment Parenting, let me explain that we started out as True Believers and ended up thinking it was all bunk.  But we tried.  I tried.  To hold that baby All. The. Time.  And one day, maybe around six weeks, I could not tell if it was working for her (it wasn’t, eventually we had to put her down so she could get some sleep) but I could tell that is was working ON me.  See, I’m adopted.  And for awhile in my late teens, they made me see a therapist about how I did not seem “attached” to my adoptive family and they wanted to blame it all on that adoption thing. (it could have been, I don’t know, maybe also that I was queer but that’s a whole nother story.)  And then I had a string of serial monogamy. Followed by heart-smashing break ups. (that’s the serial part)  So I realized – as I was working to make sure Stella attach to me, her non biological mother, I had done something to myself, no, SHE had done something to me that had never been done before:  she made me attach.  And now I get it.  Or at least I think I do.  Someone breathing with you, someone puking down your back, someone screaming at you to hold them, someone pooping on you, and you keep going for them, you don't stop for any reason, nothing pushes you away, not the poop, not the sleeplessness, not the demands, you keep holding on.  

That’s Love.

We got through that first year together . We later survived the onslaught of three babies together.  We did endless library story times together.  We explored CJDS for the first time together.  We went to Israel together.  We discovered Harry Potter together.  We made it through the first few years of divorce together.  We love movies and Buckeyes and baseball and theater together.  I cannot wait to find out what we’re going to do together next.