The Missing Piece

It is 4:30am in the morning, and our 2 1/2 year old, Maxi has been sleeping on a mattress on the floor of our bedroom while Maggie learns to sleep through the night. I immediately wake up, even the slightest whimper of one of my children is picked up by the mother antennae. Max wakes up coughing and crying. He climbs over to the edge of our bed.

He whimpers "Ma-Ma, Maxi hurts, Maxi wakes up."

"I know baby, you're sick, do you want to sleep with us?"

"Yes," he whimpers, and I scoop him up in a hug and pull him over my body in-between Paul and I.

This is unusual because Max has not slept in our bed since he started sleeping through the night. Even when he is ill, and I climb into his bed to comfort him, he'll respond with "Mommy, GO!" So, I savor this rare moment, his little body curled up against mine.

I hold on tight because I realize in the still of the morning, that times like these are fleeting. It will not be long before I will no longer be the center of his universe. Marni Jackson says it best in Double Lives, "[H]aving children transforms you. It keeps on transforming you. And the hardest thing to prepare for is this constant change."

My first born opened up my heart; I never knew that I was capable of loving someone so completely. Admittedly, I was worried about the second child, how could I possibly love someone as much as I loved Max? However, with Maggie I learned that there was even more room in my heart, and this astounded me. With my children I have found a completeness that I never realized I was missing.

Life before children dulls in comparison. Watching them grow and develop has colored my world. I marvel as my baby's brow furrows in concentration when she is mastering the art of picking up Cheerios with her thumb and forefinger . My heart swells the first time my son starts referring to himself as "I" instead of "Maxi," and when he climbs up next to me, slides his arm around my neck and whispers into my ear"I love you Mama," my heart just about bursts.

My children have taught me to appreciate the small things again. The smallest things give them joy like how Maggie's face lights up simply because I walk into the room. Or how Max thrills at the sight of a snowball. Their laughter and their smiles are contagious. I can't help, but be happy when they are, which is why discipline can be so difficult sometimes.

Nothing is impossible for them, and they are not scared of failure. At one time getting from one side of the room to the other once seemed impossible, but now Maggie can do it at lightning speed. Their determined spirits have rekindled mine. My children have taught me to live again. They've inspired me to pursue my dream of writing, and to stop worrying about failure.

I have not lost my self, I have simply transformed.

Phone Conversation Between Paul and I Over the Christmas Holidays

ME: Maggie has been saying "Da-Da" all day.
PAUL: Her first word!
ME: No, it doesn't count unless she connects the meaning to it.

about a week later...

ME: I changed my mind, "Da-Da" was her first word.
PAUL: Why?
ME: Because she started saying "Ma-Ma" today.

Getting Out of the House with Two Small Children

There are certain laws that seem to govern getting out of our house with two small children. The first being that it always takes at least an hour long to get out of our house than I think it’s going to take. If I am smart, I do as much of the preparation to get out of the house the night before, i.e. give baths, pick out clothes, pack diaper bag, fix drinks and snacks etc. This works well for planned trips, but doesn’t work so well for the more spontaneous trips like a walk to the park or running to the store because I ran out of saline solution three days ago, and forgot to pick it up the last two times I was out.

The second law is that once I have everything ready to go, and I am about to leave the house I realize that I forgot something, and I run back to get it, probably putting down whatever was in my hand, like my umbrella or pacifier on my way to retrieve it.

The third law is that by the time I have retrieved that umbrella or pacifier or whatever it is that I put down when I went back to get whatever it was that I forgot, one of the children have messed their diaper, so I have to take both children back inside again. This has become even more complicated in the winter, when I have to strip off winter coat, boots, snow pants, mittens, hat and scarf to change the offending diaper. By the time I’ve changed the diaper and gotten winter gear back on, the other child has messed their diaper, and I have to go through the whole process of undressing and redressing again. Finally both children are ready to go and a bit fussy because they are so warm inside with all their gear on, and I am sweating buckets, because I didn’t bother to take off my winter gear during all the rushing around and changing of diapers. Sometimes I try to take short-cuts and leave mittens on, or only pull down the pants and snow-pants instead of completely removing them, but this is a mistake because inevitably I will end up with poop on one of these irreplaceable items, making the rest of my trip and therefore my day unpleasantly smelly.

The fourth law is that whatever the meteorologist posted on wetter.com about the weather, I can almost guarantee that when I get outside exactly the opposite is happening. So, once outside I am stripping the children and changing them into something more comfortable, or getting their coats, hats and gloves on. Being an experienced car-less mother who depends on stroller transportation, I keep all forms of gear for every curve ball Mother Nature can throw at me tucked into my stroller and diaper bag for just such an occasion.

The fifth law is really more of an addition to the fourth law, saying that whatever the weather looks like outside of my window or out on my balcony, by the time I get all the children and their gear down the elevator, down the front stairs and outside, the weather has changed.

The sixth law is that I will reach the bus stop just in time to see my bus whiz by. I probably saw this coming, but there was really nothing I could do about it because I was too far away to run with the heavily laden stroller and two small children strapped in. Luckily the bus comes every ten minutes, and if I am really lucky I will sit in the bus stop with some chain smoking old lady who feels it her duty to tell me 101 reasons why I shouldn’t have my children out in this weather. Being a non-German speaker, I smile pleasantly nodding my head, and say in heavily accented German, “Tut me leid. Mein Deutsch ist nicht sehr gut.“ At which point I usually receive a “Humph,” and a disdainful look meaning ‘When you live in Germany, you should speak German.’ If I am having an especially lucky day, the stranger recognizes my English accent and switches to English, and then I’m forced into yet another lengthy conversation about why it is so important for me, especially as a mother, to learn the language, as if I didn’t already know that. Please tell me when a mother of two children two and under has the time to learn more of the language than just what is needed to get by.

The seventh law is that because I missed my bus, I will miss my next transfer as well, spend at least thirty minutes of uncalculated time waiting on transportation, and finally arrive at my destination an hour later than planned, only to realize that the drinks and snacks I packed the night before are still sitting inside the fridge back at home.

Learning

Parenting has a steep learning curve. That is what a father of three told me a couple weeks ago at a dinner party. In the twenty-nine months I’ve been a parent, I would say these words of wisdom ring true. I am learning how to be parents; I am not perfect. While I have ideas of the kind of parent I want to be, it is my children that are teaching me how to be a mom. Already I have had to grow, adapt and change.

Max is about to start his pre-kindergarten playgroup in one month, and it absolutely kills me to have to send him away at two-and-a-half years. I never thought I would be sending my baby to school when he was still just a baby. Much less sending him to a school where he did not speak the language and the teachers did not speak his language.

This has been a very humbling experience for me. As much as we have tried to prepare him, we can barely scratch the surface with simple vocabulary like Schmetterling (butterfly) and Auto. I had hoped that maybe by osmosis he was picking up some of the language when I took him out to playgrounds and shopping where he is surrounded by German, but it has become pretty obvious that he has not picked much up. When a mother at the pool asked for her child’s toy back, Max just stared at her completely baffled. When an older boy approached Max and said “Hallo Kliene (Hello little-one,)” Max said “Hi boy!” and the child looked back at Max baffled. Or when my friend spoke to him exclusively in German she said that she got the distinct impression that Max didn’t like her so much anymore. I suspect that this will be much like the interactions between Max and his classmates and teachers at the playgroup.

I can only imagine how confused Max will be, and how hard it will be for me to send him back into that confusion day after day. At the same time I know that this is the best time for Max to overcome the language barrier. As hard as it is on me to send Max to school next month, I keep reminding myself that this is what is best for him in the long run. And I hope that I am right.