Why Marbles Rolling and an FAQ invite

We're almost four years and over 600 posts into the history of this blog. I know my readership has changed over time and I was thinking it would be fun to invite you to ask any questions that are on your mind, related to anything at all! I haven't done this in a long time but it's an opportunity to increase dialogue and to write on some topics that I don't typically cover here.

To start things off, one question that I am asked a lot is how and why I chose Marbles Rolling as my blog title. I've addressed the question a few times over the years but as my writing evolves and as our family grows up, I gain new perspective on how the title is meaningful.

Marbles Rolling has always represented momentum to me. We chose the blog title when I was 35 weeks pregnant with Roscoe, when Andy and I were still "single", before kids, just me and him. Our momentum as a couple had been building over our 11 year history and before we knew it there we were, lounging in bed together brainstorming names for a blog and anticipating the birth of our first baby. It was thrilling to be in that place. We had no idea what life with Roscoe would look like.

Now, almost four years later, Marbles Rolling has become integral to my experience as a mother, and the theme of momentum is still relevant. I wouldn't say that our life is thrilling in the traditional sense of the word but I do feel an equivalent rush as a mother, a sense of delight, pleasure, pride, love, and surprise for these little people that we are raising. Like when I am witness to their intense curiosity or when they construct these really heartfelt sentences full of wisdom and innocence. I am moved every day by who they are and the ways that they contribute to our family. Our relationship is ever evolving and that is exciting for me.

As I mentioned in a post when Roscoe was a few months old, I feel an equivalent sense of bursting-at-the-seams happiness and contentment when the world opens up for the kids as they grow and then we realize that our world has opened up too. The anticipation we feel looking forward to our overnight dates, or reclaiming favorite pastimes as the kids become more independent, or dreaming about what our future of adventure will look like with a range of school-aged kids, the feeling is the same and it is all good.

Life with two toddlers translates to days full with energy and impulse, inherent struggle, inevitable release. Eventually peace. Then there are these incredible moments when we all come together in synchronicity. It can be exhausting and exhilarating, depending on the moment. The pendulum swings in both directions and the momentum we've created as a family unit carries us through the hours and days.

The first version of Marbles Rolling included a family of marbles that represented me and Andy and the four kids we imagined in our future family. When I hired Stephanie to update the brand, and because she can't take credit for the original version, a new one had to be created so we decided to go with just one momma marble and four baby marbles. There may only be one more kid in our future, or perhaps there will be two, it's an ongoing (and heated!) discussion. Not knowing what will be, I decided to hang on to that fourth little marble in my header for a while longer.

I look forward to answering your questions! Post 'em in the comment section!

Vanilla Milk for the Kiddos

Every week I spend some hours sitting at the Starbucks down the street to catch up on my email, read articles, and prep lesson plans for class. I often take care of online errands for the family, researching preschools or making doctor appointments. At some point I buy a drink as an offer of patronage, usually a short chai latte with whole milk, extra foam. Sometimes I add a shot of espresso if I need to perk up. It's a pricey little ritual.

The other day when I was digging out the popcorn popper from the highest shelf behind the fridge, I came across my milk steamer and remembered that I could make a frothy little chai for myself at home.

Not to be left out, the boys wanted their own "coffee." So we revived our recipe for vanilla milk. It has become their comfort food, a calming treat that they look forward to in the early mornings or just before bedtime. The kids have made a happy routine of drinking it from their mini mugs.

The recipe is too simple:

Vanilla Milk

1 cup whole milk
2 tsp. brown sugar
1/8 tsp. vanilla extract

The steamer is great for this but a microwave or pot on the stove works just fine, you only need to gently warm the milk. If you are using a microwave, one minute turns a cup of cold milk lukewarm, which is perfect for this age. Let the kids spoon in the sugar and vanilla and stir it up, then you can pour it into their cups.

Marbles Rolling, only better. (A new look!)

I returned from BlogHer '12 unsure where my writing would take me, or what it would mean for Marbles Rolling. After several attempts to unsuccessfully move this blog to other platforms I decided to stick with blogger and hired Stephanie from Stephanie G Designs to refresh the space. It was my pleasure to work with her and I love that the brand remains but that the aesthetic has been updated to make the content more accessible.

Our Stories highlights some of the big themes that I've written about over the years, and is a great place to start if you are new here. I've revised the About Us section to provide a little more of our history and to bring you up to the present, including why writing here is so important to me. I rejoined GoodReads and added a Library page to share some of my favorite books in cooking, parenting, and personal growth. If you are on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, or Facebook, let's connect!

I appreciate and really value the community that continues to grow around my writing and our shared experiences as mothers and women. Thank you for visiting and for contributing to the dialogue through your comments. If you have a blog please share it, I'd love to check it out!

Cheers!

Finding Home

We engage in frequent pushing and pulling at the ideas of buying an existing home in the city to gut and renovate, and buying land outside of it on which to design and build something custom. We’re six months out from the expiration of our current lease, which doesn't matter much because we are required to wait three years from the date of our short sale before we’ll qualify for another mortgage. We’re still just a year and a half out.

While our little Cape Cod rental is sufficient, we have been chronically unmotivated to invest in our living space. At some point, especially if we decide to stay here for another year we’re going to have to shake ourselves out of renter mentality and embrace what we have to work with: decrepit bathrooms, lack of storage space, outdated kitchen, and all.

On the other hand, there is a sense of relief at the idea of staying put for another year or two, even if that means staying in this house, because we really love our neighborhood and know that the logistics required to move a household can feel like a herculean effort.

Regardless of whether we decide to stay or move in the short-term, we can and often do fill up hours when we have them, daydreaming about what will come next, after the waiting is over. What can we create with the resources we have, what will the process look like, and how will it be to manage either option while also keeping pace with our growing family and careers. (The topic of more babies has become a push and pull discussion all its own, but I’ll save that for another day.)

Over the last year I think we've identified almost every reasonable permutation of house type and location, tracing the trajectory of each option along a logical path from what our needs are now with two toddlers, to what our needs will be later as our family gets bigger and grows older. We've even projected what our needs may look like when the kids are gone. Our next house will be the home in which our family grows up. Ahh, I cannot wait.

A month ago we came very close to putting down an offer on a couple acre lot in one of our favorite areas, made possible only by the fact that we could have paid for it in cash. It wouldn't have been perfect, but it would have been pretty cool. The problem was the creek running through the property, which indicated some substantial zoning and flood plain restrictions. We were excited to think creatively about ways to design a home that would accommodate the land, but after a few weeks of research and inquiry we decided to move on.

Through our discussion it has been interesting to see that we keep finding our way back to two things: nature and a desire to design the spaces we live in. After fighting our own logic and imagination about what it means to live in the city or to live in the country, I think we are finally open to listening to what resonates within us. Recently we've come back around to an idea we had early in our process, when we still lived in northern Virginia, which would take us far outside the city limits but inspires us with the possibility of buying up a large parcel of land (5-10 acres) and then nestling a home somewhere in the middle of all that nature.

Whether the homesteading lifestyle is considered a fad, or a backlash to the feminist movement, or an incredible opportunity to reduce our carbon footprint, return to a family centered way of living, and improve our self-sufficiency, I am drawn to the idea of making our home and the land around it a primary focus of our collective time and energy.

I want to pursue the romantic entertainments of homemaking like foraging, harvesting, canning, pickling, and fermenting. I imagine a fragrant and overflowing garden of flowers and a large year ‘round garden with fruit bushes and vegetable patches; beekeeping for the flowers, and honey, too; and backyard hens to raise and gather eggs from; maybe even a cow. I long for a more intimate connection to our food chain, to the earth, and to each other. I want to feel called to the land we live on. I want the kids to grow up knowing nature like it was a part of them, to claim the uninhabited wilderness as their own, and to have a relationship with something bigger than themselves.

I'll leave you with this poem by Wendall Barry. It's been on my mind since I first read it yesterday:

The Peace of Wild Things

When Despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, 

I go and lie down where the wood drake 

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. 

I come into the peace of wild things 

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water. 

And I feel above me the day-blind stars 

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Tethered

I was in Wisconsin this past weekend participating in a writing retreat centered on telling our stories as mothers. One of my goals of the last two years has been to make sense of Merritt’s preterm birth, and the NICU stay that followed.

_____________________________

Last week, in response to a post about Merritt’s second birthday, in which I expanded on some of the feelings I still carried for Merritt’s birth and early days, a reader commented:

“I have been following your posts for quite some time now. I guess I don't quite understand why the premature birth and NICU stay are so traumatic for you still. The important thing is that he's healthy, I'm sure you agree . . . but I also feel like you think that statement is trivializing your feelings. Many, many (did I say many?) women don't experience the birth that they dreamed of, for different reasons. I feel like in the long run, it doesn't matter. My relationship with my oldest child isn't changed by the fact that I broke down and got an epidural. Your relationship with Merritt is not changed by the fact that he was in the NICU for a short time.”

I replied directly to her comment and have thought quite a bit about what she said, and what she didn’t say, which has since made me wonder if the bigger question isn't:  Don't we as mothers/women deserve space to feel our experiences for what they are and are we free to be impacted by them in whatever ways that we are affected (whether those feelings are positive or negative); or do we treat birth and the events that may precede or follow as different in our culture in that we use shame to manipulate women into believing that our Truth has no place at the table in the face of a thriving (or even living) child?

The grief I feel for Merritt’s birth affects me when I think about it, and I don’t think about it that often. I think about it most when something in the present recalls me back to his beginning as a measure of his growth or development. Just as Roscoe was born under ideal circumstances, when his birthday comes around I am drawn to recall the memories that I have of his beginning. Both are equally important chapters of our story.

As part of one of my writing exercises at the retreat, I revisited the reflection post I wrote soon after Merritt’s first birthday and tried to identify the under-developed theme, finally settling on the word “tethered.”

Tethered:
1. A rope or chain, or the like, by which an animal is fastened to a fixed object so as to limit its range of movement.
2. The utmost length to which one can go in action; the utmost extent or limit of ability or resources.

I know only one way to mother, and I wanted to mother Merritt in that way despite his prematurity. He was not a baby too sick to be mothered, who needed to rely more on technology for his survival. No. He was a small and hearty baby born early, who deserved to be cared for in all the ways that I was willing and able to meet his need. I was disempowered by the NICU's protocols and routines, an environment in which it was normal and common to assume that I would relinquish his care to staff nurses who did not, from my perspective, understand my needs as his mother, nor our family’s philosophy and parenting priorities.

Trying to be my momma-self in a discordant environment was incredibly unpleasant. My attempts to foster attachment were met with doubt, uncertainty, dismissal, and rejection. I felt alone and vulnerable. It was exhausting to be on guard, vigilant, never taking a mental break, and rarely stepping away from his isolette for fear of Merritt losing his voice. I now know that not all mothers face these issues in the NICU, but we did.

It was a painful struggle to toe that line between accepting the circumstances, working within the spoken and unspoken boundaries, and being true to myself as his mother to advocate for Merritt's right to receive the safest and healthiest birth and newborn care based on the best evidence. In the NICU these issues largely revolved around when I could pick him up and for how long, pain management, and breastfeeding. I suffered from palpable anxiety and stress in those weeks we lived in the NICU. It was traumatic for me as his mother to go through something like that when my frame of reference for what it is to be a mother came from a perspective of having had an easy and ideal birth and postpartum with my first baby. Knowing what could be made it more difficult to accept the inherent limitations of the NICU, a microcosm of separation and detachment. 

I also hold a space for Merritt, and a sense of unfairness that my ability to protect and comfort him within the scope of my role was limited by the outdated routines of the hospital in which he was kept. When choosing between following the rules and betraying my child, I picked my battles carefully, and made decisions in spite of what I believed to be right, in order to conserve my limited resources. 

*

I arrive at the nurse’s station disheveled and in a hurry, excited to see Merritt. It’s 7:20 in the morning, ten minutes before his first feed of the day. I spent the night at home, slept four or five hours and now I’ve returned with another full day ahead.

“Hi.” I smile wearily. “I’m here to see my baby in the NICU. Meritt?” I’m loaded down with a back pack and tote bag. I am very aware of my own appearance in contrast to the nurse's shiny hair, pulled back in a low ponytail, her full face of makeup, and rested eyes. I think they feel sorry for me, trekking back and forth.

“What’s the last name?” she asks, picking up the phone to dial the extension.

“Sears.” I reply.

“Oh sure,” she smiles, seeming to remember me, “Let me just call back and see if it’s a good time.” She pauses, waiting for someone to pick up, “Mrs. Sears is here to see her baby, can Merritt have a visitor?” She looks up at me with raised brows, expectant. Her mouth turned up at the corners.

Of course he can have a visitor, I think. The formality of this is so stupid.

“Oh.” Her voice falls. I study her face, annoyed that we have to go through this ritual every day, now trying to guess as to what the nurse on the other line is still talking about.

“Ok,” her brow furrows, forging a line between them, “how long will it be?” She pulls the phone from her ear and places it to her chest as if to protect the nurses from my response. Her mouth scrunches up to warn me, “They’re getting ready to replace Merritt’s line so it will be about a half hour.” She moves her mouth to reveal only her bottom teeth and sucks in a breath of air. She knows.

I lock eyes with her, my face is stern, “Oh." I swallow hard. "Well...yeah, I want to be there while they place the line. I want to be back there, will you ask them if I can?” Panic rises in my body, I begin to feel hot.

She nods her head then brings the phone back to her ear, “Mom says she wants to be present, is that possible?”

I interrupt, “I want to talk to the charge nurse,” my lips press together in a frown.

I’m gripped with helpless fear. I think back to two days before when I cradled Merritt skin-to-skin after a feeding, only a curtain separating our space from the baby’s next door. Three different nurses tried unsuccessfully to place a line in Merritt’s neighbor. One after the other. That baby’s mother wasn’t around. That baby had no advocate. One after the other, amidst the unbroken and desperate wails of the baby, I could hear the air escaping their lips as they missed. First one, then the next, then the next. It went on for more than 30 minutes before they decided to give that tiny little baby a break.

That will not be Merritt.

The nurse hands me the phone.

“What’s going on?” I demand.

“Jacqueline, this is Helen, how are you?”

“Fine. What’s going on?”

"Merritt’s line needs to be replaced.” She begins. “Remember how we told you last night that we weren’t sure if the line that we put in yesterday was going to hold up?”

“Yeah,” I remember.

“Well, we weren’t sure then, but it definitely needs to be replaced. So we’ll get that line in and then you can come right back,” she states.

“I’m here, I’m standing right here outside the nursery, why can’t I come back? I want to be there to provide him comfort.” I’m grasping for a way to convince her.

“Well,” she concedes, “let me find out who’s going to do it and see what she says. Sometimes the nurses don’t like to have parents present during procedures.”

I ask who’s been assigned to Merritt, and learn it is Beth, known for getting lines in the first time. My heart settles slightly. I wait.

Her voice returns, “I talked to the nurse and she would rather not have you back here. I’m sorry.”

What the fuck. I knew I couldn't trust that woman.

I say it again, “Well, I want to be there.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, “can you come back in about a half hour? It will take less than 30 minutes.”

I know that I've reached the end of the line. My tone changes realizing that I don’t have say in what happens next. “Well, I’m staying right here at the nurses station.” My words are cold and hard, delivered through my teeth. “I’m waiting here.” I hope my physical presence will compel them to be efficient.

I give her my phone number and ask her to call me as soon as it’s over, then hand the phone back to the desk nurse who smiles meekly and says, “I’m sorry,” without consequence.

I want to kick the wall and fly into a rage, but I don’t. These people are the ones who give me access to my baby, I can only push back so much. 

*

Although getting along was a necessary coping mechanism, I am remorseful for passively giving up Merritt’s right to have me with him. Part of the emotional challenge has been to reconcile these moments in our history, because it will always be what it was, even though I know so much more now.

When I first read Anonymous’s comment, I didn't recognize her words as judgement, unintentional or otherwise, but I see it now. To associate a mother’s dissatisfaction with any aspect of her mothering experience and reflect it directly onto her connection or satisfaction with the relationship that she’s building with her child is an unkindness to all involved. I have to believe that because we can’t know the nuance of emotion that other mothers feel in their own lives, more compassion and empathy is needed mother-to-mother. Are we not collectively our own worst critic? To feel judged causes unnecessary suffering too, as it tethers our ability as mothers to be present in our experience, and limits our capacity to accept our Truth and to bypass the shame, so that we can work through it to become the best versions of ourselves as mothers and women.

The knowing begins now

**I wrote this post last month but couldn't publish it until today. There will be more to come in future posts on this topic. 

The last few days have been exhausting. A long-held family secret spanning decades was largely unraveled between Saturday night and this evening [Wednesday]. A genealogical mystery has been unlocked and we are free! As the information continues to trickle in I feel peace inside and look forward to sharing it all as soon as it makes sense to do that here.

The boys and I had an uneventful day at home today. The weather was unusual for January, warm and breezy. We lazed around the house in the morning before nap and then set off for a doughnut run when they woke up in the afternoon. I like to drive to a little place about 30 minutes away because they have the best doughnuts and also because it offers a road trip just long enough to hit pause; an opportunity for everyone to rest and read en route, and space for me to think. The drive home is predictably quiet save the sounds of delight and sugary lip smacking. Sometimes the trip makes a long afternoon go by a little faster. From there we drove to a park by the farmer's market where we waited to pick up our meat and eggs for the month.

My mind has been occupied rather fully by the latest developments in my family's history. In context, I can't help but look at these beautiful babies of mine, awestruck with a sense of pain and love. Pain not for them but for children who suffer. Don't we all start out this perfect and worthy? These little boys deserve everything the world has to offer to them. Every child does. As parents we have power to create reality for our children, a consciousness that can be as frightening as it is empowering.

Rain drizzled steadily as we played. The wind kicked up carrying their pitched voices through the park, away from my ears. I followed their movements up the ladder and over the other side, then gazed higher still until the overexposed glare of white sun diffused through hazy cloud cover and pulsed into the back of my eyes, forcing me to blink. Being fully present in a moment like that can be calming and marvelous. Other times feeling so deeply only magnifies my vulnerability, underscoring how insignificant I am in this big infinite world. I like to be so inspired and humbled. 

While I cannot control the ways in which the personal decisions of others have impacted my family's collective understanding of who we are and where we come from, I can take comfort knowing that I create and hold a safe and nurturing space for my own kids from which they will venture and eventually jump off into wild and limitless futures.

Merritt is two years old today

Every year I look forward to these three months between February and May. To say that the boys are just a year apart in age offers a simple explanation for how crazy our days can feel.  Ooh, they're two and three. 

Last year we celebrated Merritt's first birthday with a colorful celebration of hearts and lions. This year, we opted again for a small party with even less fanfare. A simple home cooked meal, a few surprises for the kids, and a short guest list of his two primary caretakers and their partners.

On the menu: chicken adobo (a filipino dish that I grew up on as a kid), coconut rice, a green salad with garlic dressing, and roasted root vegetables. For dessert we shared a mountain of doughnuts served with miniature glass bottles filled with milk, and paper straws.

It snowed most of the day, so by dinnertime the long and blue shadows of winter cast over our meal as we sat down at the table. The kids wanted nothing to do with the food so they played while we indulged in the warmth of good company and candlelight.

While it is Merritt's second birthday, today also marks the anniversary of my second birth. Last year I was melancholic as February came around. This year felt a little less so. I'm not sure what that means as far as progress and healing are concerned, but it appears at first as an improvement. In truth, our beginning still pains me. I try to avoid acknowledging the still tender disappointment when it creeps into an otherwise happy moment. I wish I could pinpoint exactly the thing that is so painful about the birth, or the NICU, but I haven't yet been able. I'm afraid it is all the little things that add up. It makes me heartsick knowing that we can't influence the past. The more time that separates then from now, the less clarity I have. The deeper involved I become in my work supporting women through their own family beginnings, the better I understand how complicated this could be, how unhealed I am, that I may always carry with me a sense of loss and grief. Being made aware of that last little piece was a bummer all on its own.

Though I experience this day with all the bitter sweetness that it brings, Merritt shined his light brightly and enjoyed a very deserving birthday party on Saturday and a worthy encore today with ice cream, a park trip, and many, many, renditions of happy birthday. He is the kind and gentle little brother of our family and we love him so much.

Recycled crayons, a Valentine's craft

I've been craving color as the winter drab rolls right on into February. Motivated by the recycled crayon projects I've run across online, I thought the boys would enjoy the process of peeling, breaking, melting, and coloring with their own penguin shaped crayons. With Valentine's Day just a week away the timing was right for us to make a few batches to wrap up with notes of love for their friends.

Our crayon collection was down to the nubbins so we went out and bought a box of new ones. 

The next order of business was to peel all the crayons. I picked at them for a while but Roscoe discovered that teeth work really well. After some trial and error we found that soaking the crayons in a cup of water was the nearly effortless solution, most of the wrappers pulled off triumphantly in one piece.

Next we sorted all the naked crayons into color groups and (the best part) broke them into little pieces.

We used a silicone ice cube tray in the shape of penguins. The boys filled each bird with a small handful of pieces. Then we placed the mold onto a baking sheet and into a 250 degree oven for about 11 minutes.

We kept a close eye on them and when all the little bits were melted we carefully removed the tray and then let them cool for a good ten minutes before transferring them to the fridge for the last five. I recommend waiting until they're cool before popping them out of the mold--I tried to remove the first set when they were still slightly warm and some of them cracked. It also would have been nice to have two molds in order to efficiently alternate baking with cooling.

Now we just need to wrap them up and send them on their way to good friends in time for the big day.