Tight Huggins

Some days, I worry that I haven't hugged my children enough. Or listened to them enough. Or maybe even looked at them enough. I'm just managing the chaos, keeping things moving. In the midst of the organizing, herding and directing, I forget to enjoy. To stop. To notice all that is around me now.

At 2:00 a.m., when quiet and peace settle, I realize how the day passed me by, how I spent so many hours swimming my hardest that I forgot that if you float on your back, the water carries you. I worry that they'll remember a mom who barked orders, not a mom who gave hugs.

The day started with menopause. Invented, hysterical menopause, but still.

I had an appointment scheduled to see my midwife and Matt wanted to take Ess and Gee and Cue swimming. That combination of goals befuddled the entire morning and let me spare you the packing and the potty breaks and the reorganizing and the moving of car seats and the doling out of kids and redoling and checking and switching of keys.

I made the appointment because I haven't gotten my period back after weaning Nate. It's now been eight weeks. And yes, that's probably fine and no, I'm not pregnant, and I know, it can take time, but in case you haven't noticed I have a raging, undiagnosed case of OCD and also I like things to happen when I expect them to happen. I like schedules. I like predictability. My period returned within a week of weaning both Gee and Cue and so why the untenable variation, body?

Unacceptable. Clearly sudden onset menopause. Or horrific raging infection from surgery nine months ago. Or cancer. I know that isn't funny, I was not laughing.

My routines vary for no man, nor child, nor uterus.

My irritation with the situation had grown exponentially over the past few weeks and had not been eased by the slightly sarcastic reception my "problem" received from Matt. To name one. Or the nurse at my midwife's practice.

Both of whom wanted to know if I was pregnant and when I said, um, magic pee stick says, "NO!" they were all, well, phew, wait, what's the problem again?

Schedules. Expectations. Menopause. Cancer. Stick with me here.

Matt took Ess and Gee and Cue swimming, which involved a lot of car switching and running about looking for things and then he left and I was late and I still hadn't fed the baby or changed out of my flannel pajamas. By the time I pulled myself together and got Nate and I loaded and flew down the hill and parked the car and realized that I was at an appointment to have my uterus examined with a baby and no stroller, it was far too late to do anything about the situation. Which is how I ended up flying into the office with Nate on my hip and way too many small, losable things in my hand. Wallet. Bottle. Keys. Cell phone. Really?

Sara was delightful and very non-judgmental about my crisis of period. She didn't even mention the nine-month-old in my lap or the fact that most people would probably just be glad not to be dealing with it yet. It's not menopause, she told me. Which was a relief, because I'm not ready. It's not cancer either. It's most likely your weight and we'll also check your thyroid.

So, yay! Here's your lab sheet for the blood test. So, not yay! Then, I got to have my blood drawn with Nate sitting on my lap, while trying to keep him from slobbering into and generally ruining my keys, wallet, or cell phone. Blood lady gave me a strained smile and said, "my, you have your hands full today don't you."

Well shit. I know, okay, I know. I'm not blaming this clusternugget of disorganization on my husband or anything but it is ALL HIS FAULT because he rushed me and he had all these stupid swimming needs. Like swim suits. And swim diapers. And I forgot to switch the stroller to my car. I CAN NOT THINK OF EVERYTHING. MY UTERUS HAS BEEN IRRITATING ME WITH ITS STUBBORN REFUSAL TO BLEED FOR WEEKS.

Which is Alanis Morisette ironic, right? Considering that nine months ago it made a concerted effort at bleeding me completely out of blood.

Do you have any idea how annoying Google is when you type in "sudden onset menopause?" Google is all, that doesn't exist. And you are all, I'm living it asshole, don't tell me how to feel. God. Is anyone else hot? That's before I even Googled "no periods" and "cancer." Let me just save you the trouble of ever Googling something like that. Every single thing that your body does is a symptom of something horrific and Google has pictures. The end.

All of this is neurosis under the bridge because it appears that the rational, non-OCD, anti-bizarre-hypochondriac explanation is that I need to gain five pounds because Nate sucked every once of fat my body ever made right out of me. I know. Poor me. Also, duh. One of the reasons I weaned him was that I could not stop losing weight no matter how much I ate.

I juggled my baby and my various bits of drooled on modern technology to the car. The rest of the day blurred into naps and snacks and then Matt again took all of the big kids on the city bus downtown. They love the city bus with all of the obsessive compulsive fixatedness that their insane mother could instill in them. I was supposed to pick them up downtown at 4:30 so that we could go to a restaurant for dinner.

We just like to torture ourselves, okay?

I made the brilliant decision to take the dog with me for the drive downtown. He hadn't been out in a while and he looked lonely. At the first stoplight, he stole a dirty tissue off of the console cup holder. At the second stop light, I tried to take it from him and he nipped my hand. My hand proceeded to bleed profusely where he caught it with his razor sharp little baby teeth.

Are you following this? Now I am bleeding profusely and NOT EVEN from the right place.

We ditched the dog at home and went to the restaurant. The kids were delightful, really, but it's incomprehensible how many wants/needs four kids can have in an hour at a restaurant. Every time we take them out to eat, Matt and I look at each other across the table as he feeds two and I feed two and six people talk at once and the baby throws my keys on the floor and we try not to choke ourselves to death stuffing bites in our mouths in between feeding kids and keeping things from spilling or dropping or banging and "little voices, use our little voices, please."

At home, we hustled them upstairs and I took a minute to appreciate that the kitchen and dining room were still clean. Oh yeah. That's why I love restaurants. After powering through bedtime and songs and books and kisses, I sank gratefully into a couch corner to Google thyroid - don't do that - and went to bed.

Which brings me back to 2:00 a.m., layng awake, wondering if I even hugged my kids all day? I did that mom thing we all do, tip toeing into their sleep-stale room, stealing kisses, smoothing blankets, taking a moment to appreciate their little faces, their curved bodies, their perfection. Promising, silently, that tomorrow, I'll focus, we'll move less and cuddle more.

Tomorrow will start with "tight huggins."

And it did.