Jim asked me the other day about the title of my blog, 'Unchangeable Choices'. It comes from the simultaneously breathtaking and suffocating realization that once you have kids, you can't un-have them. You spend your life making choices and you can undo almost every one you make - you can sell your house and move, you can get a divorce, have a tattoo removed, switch your hair color or brand of shampoo. You can, and often do, sell your car, change jobs, switch party affiliations, country clubs or tennis racquets. But you can't "unchange" the choice of having kids. Even if you send them to grandma for the weekend, they're waiting for you when you return. Even if you leave them at the Safe Baby Drop Off at the fire station (which I threatened both my kids with when they wouldn't sleep at night), they're still out there somewhere.
I came to this realization a few weeks after Ryan was born, when my life was turned upside down. I liken the first six weeks with a new born to boot camp with this 8lb creature playing the role of the boot camp drill master. She breaks you down by waking at odd hours all night. She strips you of your identity, not by shaving your head, but by requiring all of your energy goes towards taking care of her - no showers, no exercise, no phone calls (at least none that don't end up with you crying about sleep deprivation or wondering if it's okay to have two margaritas even though you're breast feeding). She molds you into a creature she will eventually call mom. You spend the next six weeks rebuilding yourself into something with which you both can live.
I remember around this time wanting to not have kids for just a weekend. I wanted more than a weekend alone though, I wanted a weekend of freedom where they didn't exist, even in my head. I just wanted to exhale and remember the feeling of only having myself to take care of. Where I could read the paper without wondering when someone would wake up, plan to go out for dinner about two minutes before I left the house, sleep without wondering when I would have to be up or how many times and take a shower when I felt like it rather than when my baby was otherwise occupied. Just a weekend. But you can't do it.
I'm glad it's an unchangeable choice, however, because if it weren't I may have missed out on my girls removing all the Christmas cards from the Christmas card holder and replacing them with their home made, construction paper ones. Or on Sammie asking me over and over how Hector, our Elf on the Shelf, flies to see Santa every night. "But how?" she asks. "With magic." I say. "Oh.........but how?". Or on Ryan singing Frosty the Snowman ("with his eyes made out of gold") at bedtime.
Both kids have been sick for the past two days and Jim's out of town. I was joking with some friends that I'm running out of wine and chicken soup except it's not a joke. I drugged the girls with Tylenol and took them to the mall to see Santa and do some shopping today. I needed out of the house and away from balls of used tissue. The whole drive there Ryan was practicing how to say "I love you" in sign language. You have to put your middle finger and fourth finger down while keeping the other three straight up. It's not easy when you have the dexterity of a 4 year old. When we got home and it was nap time, Sammie kept waving her fingers at me in a strange, almost pained sort of way. I didn't know what she was doing but finally she bent her fingers with her thumb sticking out, kind of like a arthritic hitchhiker would, and said "Mommy, I love you."
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