Our swing, pack & play, high chair, play yard gate & baby clothes sit in a consignment shop in Hingham as I type. They've been sitting there over a week now, and I keep thinking about them. The little yellow cordoroys Gia wore The little sleep sack with helicopters on it Sean wore. I have to stop these thoughts. I've already been back once, to retrieve their Halloween costumes that I thought I could part with. But no. The little spider costume and penguin costume Sean & Gia wore for their first Halloweens had to come back. I lied to the shop owner and said my son was upset I had let them go. But it was me. I had put everything in the back of my car in haste and hauled it off as I made my first effort to accept that Eric & I are done having children. Yes, there is room in my basement for these things. I suppose I could've kept them for another couple years until it was really over but I tell myself if we did have another baby these things could be replaced. Part of me cannot imagine not having a third baby. I want another chance at giving life. I found out what I was having with Sean & Gia and would love to experience the surprise just once. But the reality is I'm so frazzled with the two I have I can't imagine being pushed over the edge of a cliff of a third baby. Already there is not enough of me to go around. There is no time to play piano, to write. To do anything for myself. Perhaps this is the source of my sadness. Yet, for a full time mom I still don't devote as much quality time to the children as I should. I like to think of myself as patient, but I am not. My blood boils quickly. So what happens when there is a third? Do I get completely erased? Does sanity get eradicated?
Things happen every day that I long to grasp on to, but I feel them slipping away from me even as they happen. When did life get so sad or rather when did I start experiencing it as such? When I find myself cringing at Sean calling Mama for the hundreth time in a minute, I can fast forward to a day when his voice is changed, or he's moved away, and my hallway will ring empty of the precious sounds. There are things that have stuck around, like Sean calling Fig Newtons "ma toons." I love when he asks me for three ma toons, in a bowl. Too often when Sean asks "Mama will you play with me?" I have some reason not to, or I answer that I can "in a few minutes." But I recognize there will come a time when he won't want to play with me, that this time is disappearing as it passes, that I should drop everything I'm doing and grasp at the chance.
And then there is one year old Gia. I cut her bangs once over the summer but am back to growing them out again. Everytime I put a barrette in her hair or put clothes on her she says "pretty." She has the sweetest lilt of a voice. She says "I nuh no" for "I don't know." She calls the cats "Dottie" (one of the names of our cats). She says "look at me Mama" even when she's not doing anything. She says "buh buh" for any drink whether it's in a sippy cup or a glass. She is my sweet, sweet girl.
Sean also says & does things that kill me. I suppose since he's still 3 he truly can't be held accountable for what he says & does but he tells me to go away all the time and sometimes he even says that he doesn't love me. He terrorizes Gia one minute and is loving the next. Gia actually repeats his "go away Mama" which double kills me. I worry so much for him, right now he does this slurping sound with his drool which I pray goes away. He also started to stick his tongue out and down all the way his chin for seemingly no reason. WTF is that all about? I pray these habits leave him, for his sake.
Eric is having surgery on his face at the end of the month to remove a cancerous spot on his temple. There's actually another one on the other side we've noticed but he hasn't had it biopsied yet. Eric will be 40 next June. I pray they get it all. That's all I can say about it.
This year and Sean is going to be a knight and Gia a princess. These are fitting costumes. This is how I see them.
xo
