When Your Children Hurt

The one thing in life that is always constant is change.
Sometimes that change is good, and sometimes that change is not.
Now, my girls and I are going through what I expect to be the biggest change of their lives and it is not a good change.

The change hurts me. Each day is a struggle, but I will make it. I will put one foot in front of the other and I will keep walking. I will walk until I can run again and I will be ok one day. I know I will be ok, but I also know that my pain is immense right now.

Their pain, though, is in calculable to me. It hurts more because I see them hurting, and I know there is nothing I can do.

I watch The Big One cry and I see the scars forming on her heart, and as her mother, my heart breaks even more than it already is. I wish I could grab her, and pull her to me, and make it all go away. I would rock her until all the pain was gone, and kiss her until it all felt better. But I can't. This kind of pain doesn't go away like that. No matter what I do, I can't keep her from hurting again and again. I can't keep the change that she had nothing to do with from knocking her down.

The Little One is younger, and fares much better because of her age. She doesn't understand the change going on. She doesn't quite get it, and can roll with the punches more. She is the lucky on, in all of this, to be so young, and not understand it. She is the one that I can hold until she feels better, and then watch her happily go play with someone else. She will adapt faster and better, and will come out of this with much less scaring than her big sister, but she will still scar from this change.

Change can be hard. Watching your children hurt is the hardest thing of all. I am angry that my children have to hurt, and I would do anything, and have tried everything, to keep them from hurting like this, but sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we just can't protect them from everything. Sometimes, we as parents are even the cause of it.

I know that children will adapt, and I am sure mine will too, but in the mean time, we have a difficult path ahead of us, full of so much more heart ache and heart break. I can only hope that I can be the best parent that I can for them both, and do everything I can to make this as easy for them as possible. In time, I hope this makes us all stronger, and better, having learned much from the hardest of situations.

Most importantly, I just hope that soon, very soon, The Big One will feel better inside.

So am I old, or not?

My oldest is quite into the fact that the little one is starting to potty train. In her mind, this is the step where she becomes a big girl, and they will start to be more alike, do the same things, and so on. I think the older one believes that once the little one is out of diapers, they will suddenly have the same interests, as though an age gap has disappeared.

When we were discussing potty training, on the way to buy pull ups for the first time, the older one got confused about their ages.
"So, when Ava turns five, I will be 6?"

"No, babe. When Ava turns 5, you will be 8."

"Eight?? I will be eight years old?" The idea of being 8 seemed absolutely unbelievable to my 5 year old. She acted like I had just said 100.

"Then, not long after that you will turn 9."

"Nine?? I will turn nine years old. Wow. That is a lot of years."

Harumph. Nine is not a lot of years.

"No. Nine isn't a lot at all. You won't be old. Nine isn't old, even 29, like momma isn't old, huh?"

For those of you who are not in the know, yes, I have my daughter convinced that I just turned 29, again.

"No, mom. Twenty-nine isn't old."

Have I told you all how much I love that child??

Of course, then the little one has to join in.

"Momma old."

"What? Momma isn't old. Ava, 29 isn't old. Momma isn't old, right Lilly?"

"No, mom, you aren't old."

And in comes the wee one, yet again, to tear me down.

"Yes, momma old."

The conversation went on. The big one and I agree that I'm not old, but the little one is adamant that I am. Not sure if she remembers who buys the Dora gummy snacks around here, or not, but she needs to recognize. Ok. Sorry. I couldn't resist that one.

None the less, having your baby tell you that are old isn't very nice. It can really hurt. She will likely be my last baby, unless we are granted some kind of miracle, too. So, she really has the power to make me feel both old and young at the same time. I'm sure over the course of our lives, this will be far from the last time she makes me feel old. I just wish it didn't start at the age of 1.

I have a what??!!??

Let me tell you, husbands, boyfriends, men of the world in general, what you do not, repeat, NOT say to your wife of many years.
The womyn who has given birth to your children.
The womyn who has waited back home, patiently, faithfully, for many, many months, just her and your child, while you were off in another part of the world.
The womyn who has been by your side through thick and thin.

You do NOT walk up to this womyn, put your arms around her in a hug, then look at her face and say "I think your starting to get a unibrow".

When she immediately rebukes you, you then do not proceed to try to explain yourself, and show her the particular hairs you mean. Furthermore, when her temper flairs beyond belief, you don't laugh. Not if you value your life, you don't.

Someone, anyone, should have told this to my husband. I don't know what on this earth (or from far below it more likely) possessed him to say such a thing, but he did.

I told him he may as well go ahead and tell me I look like I have gained weight. Why stop there? Tell me which clothes I wear make me look the fattest, then proceed to trace the wrinkle lines in my face. I mean, why not tear me down???

Why???

"Why would you say such a thing?", I ask him.

"It wasn't mean."

"Now that is just dumb." I don't use that word lightly. In fact, that is probably one of the few, if not the only, times in our years together that I have used that word in direct reference to my husband or his actions. However, I call them like I see them. To think that telling your wife she has a unibrow isn't mean or hurtful, is dumb. It is. You just don't do that. He doesn't tell me how to groom. Why would he start now, there??

In fact, I don't think he even knows what a unibrow really is. What I have, are a couple of hairs that have to be smoothed into place from time to time, especially after I just rolled up out form underneath the dining room table where I was cleaning both the back legs that I can't reach any other way, and the underside of the table lip. Yeah. They might have been a little out of place, but I can't pluck those few long hairs I have, because fact is that with out them, I barely have any eyebrows naturally at all!!!! What you see in pictures is drawn on. My mom is the same way. The older we get, the less we have by way of eyebrow, too. So, unibrow, it was and is not.

Cold shoulder, now that you have. Harumph!!