out of Kadesh

I have come to the sad conclusion that I never have any idea where the hell I am in life. I get lost in my own neighborhood. I get lost on my way to places I’ve been a thousand times. I get lost when I know exactly where I’m going. I get lost on the way from the refrigerator to the kitchen table.

Every time I get in the car I have to sit there for a minute so I can remember which way to go, and most of the time I have to call Lance and have the following conversation.

“How do I get to Amy’s again?”
“It’s off 12th.”
“Oh, right. Thanks.”
“Sure!”
“So, real quick… how do I get to 12th again?”
“Uh…. you take Broadway and turn left on 12th.”
“Oh, duh. Of course. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“And I take a…. a left to get onto Broadway?”
“No…. you take a right. Remember?”
“Yeah! Oh yeah, I just got turned around in my head, how silly.”
“Haha, that’s ok.”
“Thanks. Ok, bye then.”
“K. Bye.”
“Wait! Wait… are you still there?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Just making sure… how do I actually GET to Broadway? I mean I KNOW how, I just want the uh… um… the fastest way, in your opinion. Yeah, that’s it, the fastest way, since I could take many routes and I just want the… one that would be um… fast.”
“Do you want me to just walk you through it?”
“Oh, if you want, sure.”
“Ok. First, get out of the driveway.”
“Ok! I’m on it.”
“Reverse, not forward.”
“Oh! Right, ok, thanks.”

It’s not really my fault, Reader. There are four, FOUR interstates that loop in and through and around Nashville, and these all go in two different directions. (Did you know this!?) For the life of me, I can’t get the East/West/North/South thing figured out. I always panic at the last minute and make a bad decision, and slowly as I’m driving into the Scary Unknown I start to realize…. I think I went the wrong way…. I don’t really recognize my surroundings…. What does that exit sign say?…. Why am I on an interstate I’ve never heard of?…. This can’t be right OH MY GOD I’M IN ARKANSAS.

And 100 times out of 100, I just want to stay in Nashville. I do NOT want to go to A) Memphis, B) Clarksville, C) Louisville, D) Huntsville, or E) Knoxville. Those helpful cities they list on interstate signs mean NOTHING to me. It’s useless information. Can’t they just say “Megan’s House,” “Target,” “Where Megan is meeting her friend today,” “The grocery store”? THEN we’d be getting somewhere.

Today, we were driving to Huntsville, and I took over driving at a rest stop. These are the worst for us who get confused by the whole E/W/S/N business. I’m of course in the wrong lane, and Lance is all, “Take a left.” And I’m all, “Wait, are you sure? What?” And he’s like, “Yeah, to get on 65 South.” And I’m all, “WE’RE GOING SOUTH!?”

YES. Hello, Dummy, the state of Tennessee is ABOVE the state of Alabama. My brain just doesn’t work that way somehow. I subconsciously picture how Huntsville is at the top of Alabama, and so my subconscious is all: Ok, it’s at the top of something, so I obviously go north, and done. WHICH MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER.

See why I want to stay within walking distance of my house at all times? It’s a good thing I’m married to Google Maps. And it’s a good thing he’s patient.

Hands down, best comment I have received so far was from this guy at work tonight.

Him: “You cut your HAIR!? No! Nooo! Why did you cut it??”

Me: “Um… well… I guess it was just, you know… time for a change.”

Him: “What did your husband say!?”

Me: “He liked it…”

Him: “Is this the first time you’ve had short hair?”

Me: “No, but this is the shortest it’s ever been.”

Him: “It’s really different.”

Me: “Yes.”

Him: “Well.

……………

It’ll grow out.”

It might be time to get out of the pool, Bubbs…

Dear Noah,

I’m going to try very hard to remember all the things you did before two weeks ago, since this newsletter is more like the 18-and-a-half-month edition. See, Bubbs, you are so busy all day long and you haven’t been going to bed until like 10:00 at night and during your nap time I’m like this: UUHHHHH ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…. so I haven’t been able to write as much as I want to about you and how much you’re growing and changing every second of every day.

This month you had a check-up and you got your last shot until Kindergarten! Isn’t that exciting? The doc told us that you look great, which is what he always says after looking at your eyes, ears, teeth, listening to your heart, and asking you to give him a high five. Which you never do. But I don’t blame you, man. The doc also marveled, as always, at your calm demeanor and your humungous head size. He keeps expecting you to panic and start crying really hard whenever he comes in the room, but you don’t seem bothered by his presence at all; you just stare as he gets all up in your bubble.

One thing I have been thinking about this month is how little you say. Last month you couldn’t stop making new sounds, and I felt sure you’d be talking up a storm any day, but you decided you had enough of that, I guess, and now you don’t say much at all, and certainly nothing English. Your favorite word is “Bah,” which is what you say about everything. Bah can mean ball, book, bite, or boo (when you hurt yourself), which all makes sense, but it can also mean food, table, clothing, toys, “Please label this for me,” “I don’t really care for these shoes,” or “I don’t think that the republicans have presented any serious candidates for next year’s presidential election.”

It’s not that you don’t know what we’re saying; you understand more than I know, which continues to surprise and frighten me every day. The other day I said, “Go give Daddy a kiss,” just being silly, and five minutes later your Daddy came into the kitchen and told me that you had just come up to him in his office with your lips puckered, and when he leaned down you gave him a big kiss on the mouth. I couldn’t believe it! It’s one of the most amazing things of my life watching you process the things we say or ask of you, and you’re so very like your Daddy in that way. You take your time, not losing patience when we read a book together and I ask you to locate the duck. It might take you a full minute, but you sit quietly, eyes roving the page, until you find that duck. Daddy thinks we ought to get you a Where’s Waldo book.

One thing that you have started doing this month is loving books. Your Daddy and I wanted you to be a little bookworm like us, but we did not even realize how much you would love books at such a young age. One of our proudest moments happened as we walked to the coffee shop the other day. You handed me a book you’d brought along (no security blankets or stuffed animals for you, no sir, just a nice crisp copy of Things that Fly) and sat down right in the middle of the road so we could read it! You’ve always liked bringing us books from your shelf and maybe sitting in our laps for 10 seconds or so before hopping down to bring us another book, but now you and I might spend all morning lazily flipping page after page of Curious George or On the Farm or The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Your very favorite book in all the world is My First Truck Board Book. If a more boring book exists I don’t know it, because it is nothing but a whole bunch of pictures of large vehicles and their proper names (i.e. “giant excavator,” “large tow truck,” “backhoe,” etc.), but you L.O.V.E. this book. You bring it to me every morning right after breakfast and you run to the couch, pat the seat beside you, and when I crack it open you point and I label, and that’s how we spend our morning together and it takes approximately seven cups of coffee for me to get through it the 800 times you want to read it.

I prefer books with animals, just so you know.

Well, here we are in the middle of summer, Bubbs. Mommy really, REALLY doesn’t like this horrible, bug-infested, sweat-inducing, hot, humid, GOD-AWFUL season, preferring instead the quiet gray peace of a winter’s day. But you, my firstborn, cannot get enough of the summer. You want to be outside all the time, and you show me your displeasure at not being outside by going to the front door and banging on it while you glare at me and whine. Yikes. The redder your cheeks and the sweatier your hair, as you run around in the blazing hot sun, the happier you seem to be. You love all things water with passion you reserve only for the following occasions: bath time, pool time, turning on the kitchen faucet time, watering the garden time, peeing on the floor and splashing in it time. Give you a hose or a sprinkler and you are set for an entire afternoon, and Mommy watches from the shade, neurotically squeezing more sunscreen into my hands so I can lather it on you at five-minute intervals and watching, hawk-like, for the unfortunate mosquito who thinks he will suck blood from your chubby legs.

Last weekend we went to visit your Grandmommy and Granddaddy in Huntsville, and we all went to the Botanical Gardens where they had some splash areas for children. You had so much fun in the wading pond, even when a bigger boy came along and snatched a rock you had found right from your hand. I watched to see what you would do, and I would have totally been with you if you had been angry, but you just stared at him for a moment before looking at me and, with fists clenched in excitement, you gave me a grin worthy of the cheshire cat. “Look, Mom! A friend!” your grin seemed to say. It broke my heart a little, and I vowed to get you involved in some kind of play group right then.

My heart also swelled with pride among all those other children and parents, because you are so sweet and patient, and YOU weren’t running around stealing other kids’ rocks. I’m so glad you’re mine.

Love,

Mommy

The short version: I’ve been trying to wean Noah. It’s not going well.

The long version: Holy shit. My kid is more addicted to my titties than an old man with emphysema is to his cigarettes. Weaning Noah from breastfeeding is like taking one step forward and two steps backwards, EVERY SINGLE DAY. Which technically means I’m nursing him more now than I was when I started weaning, and that’s kind of what it feels like some days.

In all seriousness, I’m trying to do this as gently as possible so that no emotional damage and/or breast infection ensues. But there are times when I’m nursing him for the fourth time in the span of one bedtime routine, because he refuses to even let me put him into bed without waking up and crying AS SOON AS HE COMES UNLATCHED, when I think to myself, Dear God, I’ll be breastfeeding this little leech when he’s 25.

I AM JUST SO OVER IT. I have to step back and try to gain some perspective. Worst case scenario: I’ll breastfeed him longer than I intended to and he’ll continue to receive nutrients and antibodies and I’ll continue to bond with my son and burn calories.

Either that, or I’ll end up in a padded cell.

One of my favorite bloggers, Matthew Paul Turner over at Jesus Needs New PR, wrote a post recently and I was sincerely moved by this nugget:

“…how is it possible to seek truth when you’re convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that you already know it by heart? How can truth affect us, change us, make us into creatures that more resemble Christ if our truths aren’t in some ways fluid and capable of seeping into life’s cracks when we need them to?”

I read it to Lance, who raised his eyes and nodded, and said, “Whoa. Truth.”

And I was all, “Yes, exactly.”

And he was all, “I didn’t even mean to do that.”

Over the past year, some of the “truths” I thought I knew about my faith have been ripped away from me like they were sheets on a legal pad, crumpled into a ball and tossed into the trash, only to be picked up again, unfolded, and duct-taped back onto the pad, then ripped away again and torn into shreds, then picked up and taped back together, and on and on it goes.

A good friend of mine thinks ambiguity in faith is healthy; she says she feels like a place of questioning is a good place to be. I had a hard time with that at first, because of Noah. How do I teach my son the difference between right and wrong (or what I used to think was Right and Wrong) when I think everything is a gray area now? But my wise and laid-back husband has, through a series of difficult conversations, made me feel like that level of questioning might be healthier than if we were to attack our innocent child with a list of dos and don’ts, blacks and whites, rights and wrongs.

Maybe when he asks hard questions, it’s perfectly fine to stop pretending like we get it and be honest with ourselves and him and say, “I don’t know, but here’s what I think and why.” There are values on which we base our beliefs, and as long as we can say, “We believe what we do because we know that the Christ-like thing to do in EVERY situation is whatever is loving to other people,” I think we’re going to be ok.

And after reading that profound thought about the nature of truth, I know that’s the good and fair thing to do.