I have been breaking my first rule of parenting A LOT this week. I am magically planning how every moment of vacation will be. I am building things up in my head knowing they will not turn out as pictured. I do this more than I probably know about and way more than I will ever admit. In my head is this image:
homeaway.com
Except we have a little blonde hair boy, not a little girl. And damn, don't I look skinny in this picture and my husband is super fit and tan. Wow, this really is a great little family pic of us running in our white clothes with not a stain anywhere. Yea, this isn't us. We get stains. We get dirty. We sure as hell probably won't ever hold hands and run through the surf. We, mainly me, also cuss a lot.
Yea, the images I get in my head rarely ever come true. And it is okay. This week I am stressing myself the fuck out because I want a perfect first family vacation. Here is a little selfie.
Well at least I am having a fabulous hair day while I worry about how magical our vacation is going to be and all the shit I forgot to pack. And worry about the extremely long car ride. And did I pack enough snacks? Did I pack the little man's toothbrush? I only brought 5 sippy cups, I hope that is enough. I gained three pounds before going on vacation, I am going to look like a turquoise beached whale in designer sunglasses. I hope some of my new mom clothes look hot.
I have been going with this kind of thought dialogue for about 3 months now. And I'm fucking exhausted. I need a vacation from preparing to go on vacation.
Rewind. Rewind three months ago. Let go of the negative thoughts. Put on your big girl mom panties and say fuck it. Life is never going to be perfect. I can't plan perfection. Savor the moments in which we are given and quit trying to turn every minute into a Hallmark card Kodak moment. It already is, stains and all. It is already perfect. We are a family going together to one of my most favorite cities. We will feel sand in our toes and things may not look like what I imagined in my head but they will be the memories I am blessed with and they will be AWESOME. Remember to be in the moment and be grateful for the moment.
Besides, the toddler doesn't know what perfection looks like or how things are suppose to be, so in theory it will be perfect to him anyways? Right? Ah shit, he's only 16 months...will he even remember this trip anyways?
Note to self, you need to have a few of these. This is vacation. PLEASE, BEACH HOUSE, HAVE A BLENDER.
Little boys become men. Some may even become fathers. They may raise their own sons or daughters. As I watch a little boy so excited by stop signs, trucks, and planes I am blessed with hope. The hope to instill in him the values of what it is to be a good man. I stopped celebrating Father's Day many years ago. A man may have claimed to be a father but the virtue of having a child does not entitle every man to the claim of 'Daddy.' I began celebrating this holiday again last year because my husband became a father, and a damn good one I might add.
I hope my son will see in both of his parents what it truly means to be a good man. In becoming a good man, I have the highest hope that one day he will become a great husband, and beyond this title may he become the best Dad. So to my baby boy, I am teaching you manners for a reason. I ask you not to hit for reasons bigger than I can express in words. I try so hard to instill love and kindness because these values are seemingly forgotten in this age.
Men open doors for ladies. They open car doors, restaurant doors, or every door they encounter so a lady can walk through. And when a woman is at her wit's end with grief or is unsure of herself, a real men will find the door she needs to walk through. He will open it for her. They do not wish to hold a lady behind them. They will prop open the smallest window of opportunity and push their lady through it. In seeing their lady become the best she can be, real men know they are already doing the best they can. They encourage and inspire with no hope other than success, gender does not matter in this success.
A true man will bring flowers, say 'excuse me,' and realize romance is the most vital component to love. Flowers need water, sun, and earth to grow. Every lady needs the same. Attention, respect, and small gestures will turn a relationship into ivy. Ivy spreads, covers, and is irritatingly hard to kill. Seek this in your relationships. If it is pure, it will never die. It will cover and protect you in the darkest of times.
A man never uses his fists when he is intelligent enough to use his words. Do not hit. Do not bring forth the anger in a woman. To my son, here is a great little secret in the girl kingdom. We were never good at fist fights. We weren't made to fight a physical battle so we have learned to rely on other methods which will cause more pain than if we had punched you in the face. Don't go into a fight to hurt. Don't go to win. There are never any winners in fights. There is only hurt to be found. Be the man which is needed. Be a listener. Be understanding. Above all, be the love that many women have never been shown.
When I speak of kindness, I speak from a place you do not know about. I was not shown true kindness. No father gave me love. He provided a scary place built on fear. The scars he left may last me my entire life. Do not be a scar on a woman's heart. Instead, be the hand to hold even when you are angry. Be the arms that hug when she is crying mad. Be kind. Don't place a word out in the air which you can't reclaim. Anger is darkness and it can destroy a life. Love is the light. It will bring so many great aspects into your life. My love brought me you.
You hug tight a teddy bear. A teddy bear I held tight for many years before you existed. Inside this bear is a heart. A heart I made a wish upon before I stuffed the bear at "Build a Bear." I wished not for the beatings and the manipulations to stop. I wished for love. Love rises above all.
You will fail a woman or a man at some point in your life. If it is real love, if it is true, they will hold your hand. They will hold open your doors. They will be your ivy. They will show you kindness and love when you least expect and deserve it. This is the markings of a true and great man. And may one day a little human look towards you to understand what it is to be great father.
This is dedicated to the men who taught me what a father is. Happy Father's Day and thank you. I never knew a good man till I knew these men, my husband and his father. And finally, my son. All true great men.
Vacation time is almost here. And I am excited, nervous, and filled with the anticipation which I can only liken to Christmas Eve. South Carolina has been my home away from home since I was five years old. Myrtle Beach holds as many memories for me as it does grains of sand scattered through it's landscape. After a few disappointing trips back to Myrtle Beach with my husband (then boyfriend at the time) we no longer visit the beach where condos and timeshares overrun premier locations. On the last trip there we drove for two hours just trying to find a restaurant with less than a hour wait. It ended in an uncomfortable dinner which was neither romantic or had any air of vacation in it. A pissed off hungry woman is not good dinner company.
tattoodonkey.com
So we moved our vacation spot to Charleston, South Carolina. And there is no shortage of good low country fare. And I am so excited to introduce my baby to the beach. To take him to Sullivan's Island and sit at Poe's Tavern. To walk the open air market, where I hope we can share a Kaminsky's Most Excellent Dessert. This is how I know I am truly a pudgy mama. I DREAM ABOUT THIS CAKE.
Kaminskys.com
I have entire dreams where I am trying to get to this dessert joint. Finally it is the time of year where I get to actually eat my cake! And I guess I should share a bit with our newest family member since it is his first beach vacation.
The love of cake is really being overridden by this fact. My little man will finally put his little toes in the sand. He will see waves. He will smell the salt air. The air which has always felt more like a home to me than the mountains ever have. When he was in my belly, I would tell him about the beach over and over again. It is my happy little space. And each year I plot and I save just to get back there. Almost twelve months of the year are spent thinking about this one week, where work is a distant memory and I am so alive and happy in my little rented beach vacation home. And I can't wait to share this little heaven with my baby. To watch him play. To see his face light up at a new destination. To enjoy our first real family vacation down by the sea.
I wasn't expecting to get pregnant with my little boy when I did. We had tried, tried, and tried some more. I finally made the appointment to see the doctor and he prescribed medicine to help the process along. The year of trying was a miserable one, mainly for me. Women are always the first to be aware of the disappointment. When June 29, 2012 came, I did not know within a week's time, my life would change forever.
This day is a special one for me. First, it is my sister's birthday. So to me, it is the day I got to be a big sister. But I also got another lesson on this day, because the days to follow 2012's 29th day of June showed me how important power was. I don't mean your inner power. I mean actual electricity. The local weathermen called it a "Derecho." We live in West Virginia, so you can see what came our way.
After trying for a year to conceive, I had given up hope. Then a storm came, and I had never seen oak trees almost break in half. They bent side ways. These trees line our streets and are over hundreds of years old. They blew sideways on this fateful June day. My husband fussed at me to come in off the porch. I wasn't moving. I had never seen trees go sideways. I had never seen sky scraping monuments which existed in a neighborhood long before inhabitants did, and they bent at the wind's will. They did not hesitate. Instead, they folded as a napkin laying on a lap.
The next day, gas was gone everywhere. Power was still out. It would stay dark for three more days. We slept in our basement. My husband, the unknown embryo, and I cuddled in the darkest room of our home. It was miserable and our basement is small. It is also creepy as all basements should be.
Humble, small, and much cooler than the top three floors our home. I didn't care how creepy it was, we would sleep and hang out in the basement to escape the scorching heat. And I slept here unknowingly pregnant. I like to tell my son the story about when his soul first came to earth. When it first came to inhabit my body. And I tell him about how oak trees bent in half when he came to his Mommy. Because at the end of this week everything changed. Our power was restored and then on Sunday morning, I awoke at 6 a.m. I told myself I had to pee on another stick and face disappointment. I told myself to not get my hopes up because I had only been taking the medicine for a month. I vowed not to say anything when it came back negative. We would try again.
This time when I peed on the stick it was different and I went running through our upstairs hallway. I ran into the bedroom, shook my husband awake, and said "Look!!! LOOK!! I'm pregnant!" Then I called everyone I knew and I didn't care it was 6 a.m. It was a happy moment. We had power, we had food, we had ice and we had a little one on the way.
