meditations of a blueberry

From as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to have kids. I even wrote a letter to my future daughter when I was 16. I still have it, sealed away in a decorated envelope full of teenage doodles and angst on the outside. I'm dying to know what I wrote inside.  I don't know what I pictured having kids would be like. Likely some picture perfect vision with sounds of laughter and little feet running around while I read them books, tried to avoid stepping on Lego, and drove them to basketball games. I suppose I got some of it right. I'd like to say that I wasn't wearing rose coloured glasses, but that would be lying. Truthfully, I don't think I ever really thought about what it would actually be like to have kids. And if I did, those visions definitely did not include very young kids. I just always knew that I wanted to have kids. But I didn't know what it actually meant to have kids, to be a mom. I didn't know how intense, and yet h...

As I lay in my bed tonight, the soft breathing of a baby on the cusp of toddlerhood surrounds me. She's insisting on snuggles on my chest. Her sweet, chubby, little hand is gripping tightly to my necklace as her body stretches out along my own. The little curl by her ear is visible in the glow of my screen and the tips of her eyelashes flutter close to the top of her cheeks. One year ago, I was simultaneously cherishing the last moments of pregnancy and wishing she would make her appearance soon. And now, I find myself wondering what time has done with my baby. It wasn't very long ago that I roared a squishy, 11 lb 6 oz baby girl into this world in my kitchen. Surrounded by love, strength, and support, I surrendered and learned how powerful I truly was. I learned what the true power of WOMAN was.  Surrounded by other strong women, I dug deep inside myself and found a power that I didn't believe I had. Bringing a baby into the world, no matter how one does it, is always...

My body is not perfect. My skin is not tight and smooth. I have lumps and bumps in all the wrong places. My muscles do not make themselves known by sight alone.  My belly wiggles and jiggles when I move. I have rolls on my back and rolls on my belly. Thanks to my diastasis, my belly pouches out, likely making strangers wonder if I am currently pregnant. Even my breasts are not immune and due to aging and pregnancy, they are larger and no longer as perky as they once were. Stretch marks stretch across my belly like some sort of weird road map to nowhere, some of them still angry and red, some turned silvery. My hair has strands of silver and white peppered throughout it. No, my body is not "perfect." There are "rules" to having a perfect body, even a postpartum body, and mine does not follow them. It must be tight. It must have curves in all the right places and none in any of the "wrong" places. It must not show any signs of aging or any signs that a ...

As I sit here in the morning sun, I'm overtaken by how quickly life truly moves. It feels like it was just yesterday that we celebrated seeing seeing E on the ultrasound screen, and yet that was 7 years ago this week. 7 years later and I'm sitting holding my fourth baby, and first daughter, tightly as she naps in my arms. This morning, we walked my first child to the bus for grade 1, and he will walk home from the bus alone this afternoon. That same child stayed up late last night to finish reading the Harry Potter book we had been reading together, and he cried at the ending. Last week I registered my second child for kindergarten. That second child and my third child are currently building Lego together, getting along for the time being. And I sit in the morning light, rocking a sweet sleeping baby girl, listening to those 2 middle boys talking and laughing, in amazement at what my body has created and nourished. Miss A turns 1 in 5 weeks. It's hard to believe that last...

I tell my kids all the time that they can't control what others do and say, only how they react to it. When someone says mean words or treats me poorly (whether meaning to or not), I get to choose how to react. I get to choose whether I let those words seep into my soul, affecting my entire day, week, month or whether those words bounce off of me. I get to choose whether those words become part of my story or not. When someone hurts me, either physically, emotionally, or mentally, I get to choose. It's up to me how I react. Do I let it colour my day, my life, infecting myself and, consequently, how I treat others? Or do I tell myself that, yes, it hurt, but I am bigger and will not let it hurt me more by passing it on to someone else? It is hard. So hard. Someone said to me once that this lets the other person get away with whatever they have done. That it doesn't "punish" them for their wrongdoing. But that's so far from the truth. Just because I refus...

I am so bad at this friend thing. When I make a friend, a real friend, it's for life. I will fight for them. I will give everything I am able to give to them. I will do whatever I can for them, whenever I can. I will be there to listen at 3 in the morning when they are hurt and I will cheer with them when they are happy. I will rejoice for them when things are going their way and I will mourn with them when they don't. But I'm so bad at the friend thing. I'm socially awkward, flitting around the outskirts, never feeling like I was truly fitting in. Always have been, even in high school. It takes a long time for me to connect with people, and I'm always wondering if I am being judged for all my flaws. If people are just being kind to me, or if they actually like me. I have some wonderful friends who I know love me, but they already know all my flaws. They know that I will sometimes cancel on things that I have agreed to attend (especially something in the evening,...

The sun has set on the first day of 2017. A new year lays before our feet, an old year behind us. That old year holds plenty of pain and despair for many people. So much destruction, sickness, and hurt in so many lives, both near and far. It was hard to not think 2016 was out to get the world. But not all was bad with 2016. At least, not in our home. Our year held wonder and joy with the birth of our Miss A, the last little life that will grow in and be nourished by my body. I've watched as she grows, a bittersweet smile on my face. Her firsts are my last firsts. Her first breath in my arms was my last first breath. The last time I will wait with baited breath, overjoyed for those sweet cries. The last time I will ever latch a brand new baby onto my breast, bracing myself for the deep, scrambling latch of a hungry newborn. The last time I will feel a newborn bob around looking desperately for my nipple..Her first smiles were my last first smiles. Her first belly laughs were m...