Sister Pidgin

A sister is worth more than a thousand friends.

Here's how a conversation with my sister might go:

A:"Ol"

C: "Ol"

A: "Red"

C: "Vel"

A: "Vet"

C: "Cup"

A: "Cake"

C: "Yeah"

Then we get in the car and go get cupcakes - one red velvet and two other flavors. Then we split them and both get to eat one and a half cupcakes but with the guilt level of only sampling a few bites. It's a beautiful thing. (And in case you were wondering, "ol" is our abbreviated form of hola. Neither of us speak Spanish.)

This summer I read a book about Polynesia. The author spent a lot of time talking about the pidgin English used by the inhabitants of various islands and that's when I realized that my little sister and I have developed our own pidgin language. It started out as something called "abbrevialicious" and has slowly morphed into a strange combination of shortened words in multiple languages (i.e. "ol,"), shortened words repeated twice ("show show"=shower, "wa wa"=water, "cray cray"=crazy), normal words repeated twice ("chip chip", "nurse nurse"), and words with various endings added ("-licious", "-icus," etc.). We use this strange mishmash to communicate the basic needs and activities of the day - and adding a baby into the mix has only made the language more cray cray.

For our real conversations, we can - and do - use words longer than two syllables. But whether funny or serious, Court and I, we get each other. My sister is steadfastly loyal. Gain her love and you have someone on your side for life. Yes, she's known for being feisty, for calling it exactly how she sees it, for maybe being a little bit stubborn. Her bombshell looks (blond hair, blue eyes, legs out to there) have caused more than their share of intimidation and jealous. But Court is Court. She knows who she is, she knows who she loves, and she knows what's worth protecting at all costs.

As time has narrowed the six year gap between us, Court's gone from being the little sister I adored to the best friend I can't live without. As sil sil as our conversations may sometimes be, it's good to know there's always someone who knows exactly what you're saying.

Teething and Other Tales of Terror

A wise woman will recognize the blessing in the dirty work.

Max is getting teeth right now. A lot of them. He also has a cold and is refusing to eat food, which means I'm nursing my one year old like I did when he was one month old - except now, as I mentioned, he has lots of teeth, which he likes to practice using. Besides the biting, the other side effect of increased nursing is more nighttime wake-ups. Why is it so much harder to wake up once a night now than it was every couple hours with an infant? Can I please get an injection for whatever hormone made me deliriously giddy for the first six weeks of motherhood?

This morning Max was melting down. That term really is accurate for him. He throws his body up and back, arches, and then goes completely limp. The few times I haven't been there to catch him, he lands on the floor in a melted puddle, typically taking the impact with his head. More often, I'm holding him and his head impacts some part of my face (nose, jaw, cheek) instead of the floor. That was the case this morning. It was 6 am and after 5 hours of interrupted sleep, I'm sitting on the floor in a shirt that was doubling as a snot rag with yesterday's mascara smeared under my eyes, holding a toddler who is thrashing like a crazy man in a straight jacket and bobbing my head to avoid a skull to the nose.

In the midst of this pleasant tableau, I had a thought. What if I wasn't here right now? What if I wasn't the one holding Max while he had a tantrum about how tired he was, how much his gums hurts, and how frustrating it is to have salty goo run out of your nose all day? And I realized that I was grateful to be the one doing the hard, dirty work that mothering is day-in and day-out.

I'll have to remind myself of that next time the little vampire strikes.

Watching, Catching, Playing

I happened to read in Proverbs today. I love Proverbs. They are simple and wise. Even after multiple millennia the message is as resonate today as it was to ancient Israel: seek wisdom over wealth, choose righteousness over pleasure, trust God over man.

It started me thinking – what if I wrote a Proverb every day? A little gem of wisdom to capture what I'm thinking or learning that day. 

Here it goes...

Happy is the woman who has a mother who has walked her path before.

Motherhood is hard for me, harder than I thought. Max is a miracle, a dream, my joy. But each day sometimes feels like a mind-numbing repeat of the day before. I don’t know what to do with myself but then I realize I can’t really do anything. My job right now is to watch, catch, and play. Watch, catch, play. Watch, catch, play. It’s weird combination of boredom and busyness, inactivity and exhaustion. Having my mom, who has traveled this very road three times reassure me that I’m doing a good job, that there really is nothing I’m supposed to be doing besides watching, catching, playing is a balm to my guilt-ridden, self-doubting, bored-out-of-my-skull soul.