Prepositions

As a journalism professor, I spend a good deal of time thinking about and talking about what makes good writing. The definitions vary wildly, of course, but part of what we teach is that good writing is accurate, ethical and correct (among lots of other things).

Today in two of my classes, my students learned (at least I hope they did) the difference between "more than" and "over."

Quick grammar lesson: According to the AP stylebook, "over" refers to a spatial relationship and "more than" is preferable when talking about numbers or amounts. Think: The cow jumped over the moon. More than 50 people applied for the job. See? Easy.

I use the example of "The cow jumped over the moon" with my students because they've all heard the nursery rhyme and find it an easy memory tool. The cow moved from Point A to Point B.

On my drive home after work tonight, I thought about prepositions (I know, I know. Nerd alert!) — over, under, around, through — and I instantly remembered a feature story I wrote years ago. I was working for a regional magazine, and I was assigned a story about a weekend camp for children who'd suffered the loss of a loved one, such as a parent or a sibling. A photographer and I camped with the kids for the weekend, and I wrote the story about how this camp was helping these children heal. It was a heartbreaking weekend — and a heartbreaking story to write.

One afternoon, the kids learned the song "Going on a Bear Hunt." It's a chant, and the leader sings a line and the kids repeat it. During the "hunt," the kids face a tall tree, a wide river, a deep, dark cave and other obstacles. But, as the song says, they can't go over it, they can't go under it, they gotta go through it.

It would be a good song to teach kids about verbs and prepositions, but that wasn't the point. The point, as the leader told them after the song, is that grief is much like a bear hunt: You can't go over it, you can't go under it, you have to go through it and trust you'll come out OK on the other side.

And, in the true spirit of how my brain works, it went from my classes today to prepositions to the bear-hunt song to the camp to grief to my niece before it finally settled on my son, as all of my thoughts seem to do now. I suppose that's another "side effect" of giving birth — all roads lead to your children.

The end of February leading into early March has been, for the past couple of years, a bittersweet time for my family. Two years ago, my infant niece, Mileva, died when she was 17 days old. One year (and a few weeks) later, her sister, Maia, was born. Maia will be turning 1 this weekend. In two months, my son will also turn 1. And in July, Maia will have a new little sister.

I could never pretend to fathom the pain my brother and sister-in-law have endured during the past two years. There has been a good deal of that, all of us in my family coming at it from different angles. Now that I have a child of my own, the thought of ever losing him literally makes me feel sick and panicky for a few minutes.

I don't know what the hardest part for me was — the death of my niece and never getting the opportunity to know her, or watching my little brother and his wife (whom I think of as much of a sister as my own biological sister) in sheer anguish and being absolutely helpless to do anything about it, or seeing my parents unravel and fray with so much sadness.

But regardless of the outcome, even when things looked promising and we all thought she would make it, I knew it was a Big Moment for my family — a game-changing, life-altering, make-or-break moment. For me, when some Big Moments have happened in my life, I didn't realize it until they were actually happening or maybe even after the moment had passed. We've all had Big Moments in our lives—first loves, first heartbreaks, moving away from home, starting our first real job, getting married, having a baby, even moments that seemed to be Small but turned out to be Big.

But this was different. I saw this Big Moment approaching for months. This was a time that I knew would shape us into something new and different, would forever change the fabric of our family and our very outlook on the world around us. And that scared me.

My family has always been close. My parents have been married for almost 38 years. My friends joke that we're like the Cleavers or the Bradys. I know better, but I can see how an outside observer might think so. I knew who we were — I'd always known who we were, and that helped me understand who I was. If we weren't who we always had been, then who would we be?

And like the bear hunt song says, I knew we couldn't go over the grief or under it — we had to face it, go through it, feel it, let it own us for a while, and hope that we'd come out in one piece in some semblance of ourselves on the other side.

I remember having a long talk with my brother in the weeks after Mileva's death. We work at the same university, and he'd often come to my office (it's a real office, with a door that closes and locks) in the middle of the day when he felt like he was going to lose it and didn't want to do so in front of his colleagues or his boss. He'd sit in the chair, and he'd cry and I'd cry, and we'd talk. Well, he'd talk. I hardly ever had anything at all to say except "I'm sorry" over and over and over again. All I could do was wish and pray and hope the pain away for him, even though I knew that's not how it works. You have to go through it.

The thing about hope that I never thought about before: It's inextricably tied with fear. We hope things happen the way we want them to because we fear failure, disappointment, pain, loss. We fear the unknown. But we need hope—really, what would we be without it? And the thing about grief that I never knew is that you survive it, you get through it, but you never get over it.

Balancing Act

Where does the time go? First it was the holiday madness, which actually turned out to be less mad than I expected it to be—though the amount of baby-related paraphernalia at least doubled. (Damn you, generous grandparents!)

Next, it was the end of a glorious four weeks of break and a return to school. The spring semester started in mid-January, and it's all but consumed every bit of my mental and emotional space. Physically, I only need to be on campus three days a week—two to teach and one for office hours—but I spend the other days getting ready for those three days away from home, so it feels like a lot more.

One of my New Year's resolutions was to find and then subsequently add more balance in my life—more specifically, figuring out how to juggle being a mom, professor, writer, wife … and also just me.

[Sidenote: My New Year's resolutions always remind me of a line from my Favorite Movie Ever, "The Wizard of Oz." When Dorothy is in Munchkinland, she says, "My! People come and go so quickly here!" to a chorus a teeny Munchkin giggles.]

So, yes, we can now safely add this to the list of Stuff People Warned Me About Motherhood But I Didn't Actually Understand Until I Was a Mother. Boy, that list is getting long.

Before I go one step further, let me just say that I know I should not be complaining about my situation. I have a really good job, one that pays pretty well and requires me to be in the office only two to three days a week. There are a lot of people who have to go to work every day. There are also people who aren't fortunate enough to even have a job.

In my defense, I do work more than 40 hours a week. My nights and weekends are reserved for grading and prepping my lessons. I'm also required to do "scholarly work," which means I have to write and publish what I write. I just often do these things in my office at home while wearing sweatpants and watching "Law & Order" reruns.

My problem is this: I like teaching, but I like being with my son more. A lot more. Even when he's projectile-vomiting all over himself, his crib and me (which he did a few days ago), I still want to be with him more than anything.

In my mind, that's how it should be. I'm his mom. He's my son. We're supposed to have that sort of bond. He's supposed to be my priority, above all else. But I can't abandon every other part of my life, and I don't want to.

What I do want to do is to figure out a way to make it all copacetic, like in one of those iPhone commercials that promises to sync all of your stuff so it works well together. Newsflash: I have an iPhone. Yes, I can sync the electronic parts of my life, but I need something that syncs my actual life. Is there an app for that? Because that, Mr. Steve Jobs, would be impressive—certainly more impressive than the most poorly named gadget ever. (Seriously, is there not one woman who works at Apple?)

I digress. One thing that I need to do more regularly is write. Right now, writing for me feels delicious and almost naughty because I can do it only during time stolen here and there. More than that, though, it feels like me. And here we are.

Perhaps I have become a bit of a cliché—a working mom who's tired and stressed and can't find time to get everything done. I feel like a "Cathy" cartoon sometimes, a thought bubble over my head with the words "Aack! I'm sweating the small stuff! Someone pass the chocolate!" floating inside.

I don't want to be either of these things. I want to be the mom who resists getting a minivan just because it's a minivan—luxury, comfort and convenience be damned. I want to be the mom who listens to Cursive and The Pixies at top volume while driving in that non-minivan vehicle. I want to be a mom who still wears makeup and pants with non-elastic waists and fixes her hair and shaves her legs occasionally. I want to be a good mom, a good wife, a good teacher, a good writer, a good friend, a good sister, etc.

And I will be those things. I am those things. I just have to figure out how to keep all the parts together and not let them slip away, like one of Benjamin's many errant Cheerios.

I take comfort in knowing that (1) I'm not alone—every other mom I know is in the same boat—and (2) that really the only person who expects me to have everything figured out and working perfectly is me. It's all a work in progress—parenting, marriage, writing, teaching, all of it. And when I finally figure it out, and until I do, you can bet I'll be writing about it.

Back to School

Everyone says how fast time flies when you have a child. "It goes by so fast," they said. It was one of those things I let roll off me pre-baby but that turned out to be so true. It sounded so cliche, so I would typically respond with a "Yeah, that's what I've heard" and at least think about rolling my eyes if it was inappropriate to do so for real.

Other parent-isms I should have taken more seriously?

Parenting is really hard.

and

Say goodbye to sleep.

and

Your relationship with your husband will change dramatically.

and

Your life will never be the same.

You know ... big, mind-blowing, earth-shaking statements like that. I'm not sure why I never took them seriously or let them sink in, but they just didn't.

I've spent my summer basically being a stay-at-home mom. While it's been great hanging out with Benjamin and getting to know him and watch him learn and grow, I have been really antsy to write and get back to work. Which leads to the next parent-ism I ignored: Going back to work will be really hard.

I had my first taste yesterday. Though the semester doesn't technically start until next week, I attended an all-day faculty retreat yesterday. Benjamin spent half the day with my sister-in-law, Michelle, who will be caring for him on the days I teach, and half the day with my mom, AKA Nana. I dropped Benjamin off to Michelle and my niece, Maia, who's two months older than Benjamin. I talked to Michelle about his feeding and eating "schedule" (Ha! That's a laugh!), changed his diaper, gave him some squeezes and kisses, and I left. I felt fine. Really, I did.

But then, as I kept on driving, I found myself peeking into the rearview mirror at his empty carseat, fully expecting to see him sitting in there. I did it over and over again, and I couldn't stop myself, even though I knew he wasn't back there. It sort of felt like when you're sure you've forgotten something and can't figure out what, or when you walk into a room and can't remember why you're there. Except I knew what I was missing. I knew what wasn't there. And as excited as I was to get some semblance of my "regular" life back, it felt very, very wrong.

At the meeting, I showed everyone pictures of Benjamin on my iPhone. Practically every non-work-related sentence I spoke at our breaks and at lunch was about the baby, either directly or peripherally. I had become That Mom Who Talks Incessantly About Her Kid. As the hours ticked by, I started to get really antsy. Conference rooms in hotels, like the one in which we were meeting, aren't typically cozy, but I found myself missing all the baby clutter. Where's the swing? The bouncy seat? The Bumbo? The stray bottles and pacifiers and burp cloths? Most of all, where's the BABY?!

I ended up leaving the meeting a bit earlier than everyone else. When I pulled up to my parents' house, I saw my mom holding Benjamin on her lap and pointing at my car. I read her lips as she said to him, "There's Mommy!" And the smile he gave me when he saw me as I walked up to the porch just about knocked me over with its sweetness.

But when I got home, that sense of rightness I felt that moment on my parents' porch changed back to anxiety. How on earth am I going to keep up with three classes, coordinating the internship program for my department, advising students, advising the yearbook, and attending the dozens of meetings required of a college professor? Oh yeah, and eat, clean, shop for groceries, sleep, and actually have a conversation with my husband or do something fun once in a while? What about my time with my son?

This semester will be a testament to not only my ability to prioritize, organize and manage time, but also to my husband's. I love him to death, but those are not his strongest qualities. He still seems to be reeling from the abrupt change to his married-but-kid-free lifestyle, just as our engagement and subsequent marriage changed his long-standing, free-wheeling, I-can-do-whatever-I-want-whenever-I-want bachelorhood. But he is far more patient and easy-going than I am, which are traits I admire and envy.

Evenings and weekends are no longer languorous affairs, with after-work cocktails, late dinners, past-our-bedtime TV watching, and sleeping in until whenever we feel like it because we still have TWO WHOLE DAYS ahead of us. Those days are gone. Now every night feels like a mad dash to cook, eat, put the baby to bed, clean up or throw in a load of laundry before it gets too late. The next day is the same. As is the day after that. And in one week, I'll need to throw lesson-planning and grading into that mix.

But of course we will do it. We don't have a choice. And in a few months or a few years, we'll look back on this and wonder where the time went.