Birthday Boys

 

After Noah was born, the blur began.

 

 I had a 12-month-old and a newborn, and all I can remember is fear and anxiety and exhaustion and crying. Someone in my house was always crying. Usually me.

 

I remember telling those closest to me, "I wish they could talk. I just want them to talk to me." To which I was told, "One day you will take those words back."

 

Lord knows I have taken so many parenting words back. But these ones - the ones where I prayed for talking - I don't.

 

I love the talking - the single word-dropping by the little one, the incessant talking by the one in the middle, and the dramatic talking by the first-born.

 

On Nico's birthday this year, he looked at me and said, "Mama, am I five in my heart?"

 

Just a couple of days ago, Noah caught me off guard on the back patio when he asked, "So, how do babies get out of tummies?"

 

Gabby literally sings "Happy Birthday" at the top of her lungs five times a day.

 

And these words, this talking, is seriously my favorite part of being their mom.

 

It is how I know them best. Through words.

 

 If I am honest, it is probably how I know everyone in my life best. Through words.

 

My days are no longer a blur. The fear has subsided and the anxiety comes and goes. I expect it to. The exhaustion? Well, that one remains. But even with one more in the mix, I see much more clearly now and cry much less often.

 

 I give full credit to the power of talk. To hearing their voices. To knowing what they love, what they fear, what they hope for, and how they feel.

 

To listening to all they teach me. About love and life and what really matters.

 

Nico, age 5

 

 1. What is something mom always says to you? No treats.

2. What makes mom happy? Going to the beach.

3. What makes mom sad? That I hit people.

4. How does your mom make you laugh? When we play with toys.

5. What was your mom like as a child? She was a girl.

6. How old is your mom? I don't know.

7. How tall is your mom? 41.

8. What is her favorite thing to do? Play.

9. What does your mom do when you're not around? You do work.

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? She would be famous for going in a car.

11. What is your mom really good at?

At writing.

12. What is your mom not very good at? You can't go in the street.

13. What does your mom do for a job? She goes to work.

14.What is your mom's favorite food? Japanese.

15.What makes you proud of your mom? That I want to go to the Sounders.

16. If your mom were a character, who would she be? Melanie.

17. What do you and your mom do together? We do writing.

18. How are you and your mom the same? When you're in the car, you change colors. Sometimes.

19. How are you and your mom different? We have different colors. I have brown and you have white.

20. How do you know your mom loves you? Because you have your heart beating so fast and we love each other.

21. What does your mom like most about your dad? That you like his hair.

22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? Chuck E. Cheese.

23. How old was your Mom when you were born? Older. I am going to guess it. 12.

 

 

Noah, age 4

 

 

1. What is something mom always says to you? No.

2. What makes mom happy? Playing.

3. What makes mom sad? Not being nice to Gabby.

4. How does your mom make you laugh? Playing funny.

5. What was your mom like as a child? Being nice.

6. How old is your mom? 20.

7. How tall is your mom? This tall! (Holds his hands above his head)

8. What is her favorite thing to do? Draw.

9. What does your mom do when you're not around? Cook dinner.

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? I don't know.

11. What is your mom really good at? Drawing.

12. What is your mom not very good at? Rhyming.

13. What does your mom do for a job? Work at work.

14.What is your mom's favorite food? Chinese. Asparagus!

15.What makes you proud of your mom? Going pee in the toilet.

16. If your mom were a character, who would she be? A puppy sitter.

17. What do you and your mom do together? Play.

18. How are you and your mom the same? We're the same color.

19. How are you and your mom different? I don't know.

20. How do you know your mom loves you? Toys.

21. What does your mom like most about your dad? Getting married with him.

22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? The zoo.

23. How old was your Mom when you were born? 21.

The big 3-7.

I turned the big 3-7 on Friday. We ate pizza and cake. My husband gave me an alarm clock, a beautiful card with all three kids' handprints in it, and a Mountain Dew water jug the size of Hulk Hogan's face. It's huge. And I love it. It is seriously just what I wanted.

Something about turning 37 has made me reflective and introspective. In three years, I turn 40. 40. That's weird. Especially because just five years ago, I really believed my dream of having babies would go unlived. But the babies came. And they came fast and furious, these three. One after the other, really. Not a day goes by that I don't look at them and think they are more incredible then I ever could have imagined.

It's funny, really, because if you would have asked me five years ago what I imagined, I would sound so completely idiotic that the now-version-of-me would have to ask the then-version-of-me if I was on crack.

So, in honor of turning the big 3-7, I have compiled a list entitled "The crap no one tells you about having children." The crap I NEVER, not EVER, could have imagined, not even in my very wildest of dreams. 

This is just the tip of the "What no one ever tells you about" iceberg, people.

Just the tip.

And now I feel like this is getting dirty, so I better get this going....

#1 - You will touch boogers. Piles of boogers. Like every day.

#2 - And pee.

#3 - And poop.

#4 - And vomit. Sometimes, if you're as lucky as my husband, you might get their vomit in your mouth. It's super rewarding. You'll love it.

#5 - You will pull binkies out of toilets.

#6 - And you will never, not ever, go to the bathroom by yourself again. Going pee is a family outing. Every time. Every. Time.

#7 - Sometimes you will pee while holding a colicky baby because said colicky baby's crying has you so terrified that you will not even consider putting the colicky baby down. Even to pee.

#8 - They will create a rotating schedule of "Who gets to wake up mom and dad tonight and at what intervals?" among them. You must not sleep. They hate that. And you will be so tired, you will brush your teeth with Desitin.

#9 - You will find yourself saying "Stop smacking your sister on the head with your Go-Gurt" and "I will give $100 if you eat two bites of chicken" or "You are not supposed to eat toothpaste."

#10 - They will say "Don't say 'shit,' mom. That's a bad word..." and  "My penis's name is Angel. He lives with God." You will be left speechless. Utterly speechless.

#11 - They will develop obsessions. Random obsessions that make you seriously consider investing in counseling. For them, not you. Okay, maybe for all of you. Like insisting on carrying as many containers of floss as possible in a teeny, tiny purse that must be taken with them everywhere they go.

#12 - After reading the same book 186 nights in a row, you will hide said book and tell the children, who will undoubtedly ask for it on the 187th night, that you don't know where it is. Because you are, after all, Mother of the Year, and Mothers of the Year have their limits.

#13 - They will demand that you play "Uptown Funk," Gangnam Style," and "Shake it Off," in that exact order, every morning and every afternoon. EVERY morning and EVERY afternoon.

#14 - You will find food on your walls.

#15 - And on your couches.

#16 - And in your bed.

#17 - And in your bra. 

#18 - You will repeat yourself at least 23 times for each direction you give. This means you will repeat yourself all day long. So when your husband asks you to repeat yourself, you will want to bash your head into a brick wall. Repeatedly.

#19 - They will repeat what you say in the exact way you say it. When your 3-year-old informs you that "Your behavior is unacceptable," you may just automatically put yourself in time out.

#20 - They will climb bookshelves and BBQ grills and walls and bathroom vanities.

#21 - Or, if you're really awesome, they will disappear and not respond as you are yelling for them at the top of your lungs, convinced they have somehow been kidnapped from your home, only to find them standing in the back of your pickup truck, outside. OUTSIDE. Without you.

#22 - One morning, while you quickly run downstairs to get the older ones some milk, you will return only to find your baby playing with a dead bird that your cat drug in during the 55 seconds you left the room. And you will scream so loud that you will literally scare the livin' begeezus out of all of the children, causing long-term permanent psychological damage.

#23 - You will want to kill Dora.

#24 - And Diego.

#25 - They will drink water from the dog bowl. And nibble on cat food from the cat feeder. By the third baby, you won't even care.

#26 - They will cry. And cry and cry and cry. Because you asked them to pee before bed. Or help pick up the 1,000 toys strewn across the living room floor. Or because one brother body slammed the other brother into a wall.

#27 - So you will cry. Sometimes with them. Sometimes after them. Sometimes by yourself.

#28 - Sometimes you will cry because you love them so deeply, and so fiercely, and so completely, that you will feel like you need to burst. So you will.

#29 - And because of this, you won't be able to watch the news, or read the news, or listen to the news. The world, and all of its suffering, will feel like too much to bear.

#30 - Because the moment each child is placed in your arms, everything about the inside YOU changes. Everything. Every thought, every hope, every dream instantly becomes about him. And him. And her.

#31 - You will daydream about a moment alone - just one moment alone. And when you get it, you will want the children back. Like now.

#32 - Because they are your living, breathing dreams come true.

#33 - The best decisions you ever made.

#34 - The most incredible works of art you have ever created.

#35 - And you would do it all again. The miscarriages, the paperwork, the exhaustion, the surprise, the mess, the climbing, the tantrums, the crying, the bed rest, the hospital stay, the fear, the guilt, the love. In a heartbeat. Without a second thought.

#36 - Because they are joy. Joy personified. Joy with the most incredible eyes, the most addictive smiles, and the most precious voices you have ever, ever heard.

#37 - And at the end of each day, when you finally have all three of them in bed - despite knowing they begin their nightly rotation of waking you up every two hours in approximately two hours - you will feel like you have the most incredible life on the entire planet. Because they are yours. And you are theirs. And you're in this together. Forever.





A possibility.

I have always understood that inside of us all there resides a primal need; a need to return to the place where life began. Today, for the first time in my almost 37 years, it seems that perhaps this might be a possibility. A possibility that has topped my bucket list since I was a young child. A possibility that, until today, my mom had said she would not pursue. The news means little to most, but so much to us. So much to me. So much to her. So, so much.

  You see, my mother was born from the ocean, and it is to the ocean that she returns every summer. It is not the same white sand she spent her Sundays sifting through her toes, or the same shore on which she sat with her family, eating her mothers’ arroz con pollo from a clay pot or dreaming of the Coca-Cola and candied orange slices she would get to buy on the way home. It is not the shore her father once floated away from, asleep in an inner tube, unintentionally becoming a permanent part of the Piquero family folklore. Folklore still shared and laughed about today with those who have never seen this exact shore themselves.

But it is a shore connected to her home shore by the sea. And so she goes. Every summer, without fail. She goes, immersing herself in the salty current, dipping in and out between the waves for hours, dreaming of a home she has not seen since was 15. And when I go, I watch her. I watch her to store these visions of my mother – of the child she once was and the woman she now is – into the confines of my memory for safe-keeping.

I yearn for glimpses of the child she once was. A child doted on with stories and food and affection, the language of mothers who come from this shore. A child who loved school, her pet rabbit, and Cary Grant movies with a passion. A child who prided herself in being teacher’s pet, whose own mother was pulled from school after the 6^th grade in order to stay home and learn the job of a woman. A child who was so sheltered and so protected, she became fearful of brushing arms with a man in public so as to avoid pregnancy. A child who vividly remembers standing on the streets of Havana, Cuba on January 1, 1959, cheering and applauding as Fidel Castro strode through town to assume the presidency after ousting Fulgencio Bautista in the Cuban Revolution. She, along with the rest of her country, believed he represented hope and new beginnings.

Two years later, however, at the volatile age of 15, my grandparents put my mother on a plane to the United States of America to save her from a life dictated by Communism. A life that had already closed schools and churches, and was threatening to relocate all youth to Russia for systematic indoctrination. A life that was my grandparents’ worst nightmare, one that required them to say goodbye to their beloved daughter and son, not knowing if or when they would ever see them again. At the airport, my mother and the other children who would be boarding the plane with her, sat in one room while the parents sat in another. The rooms were separated by a glass wall. A glass wall that perpetuated the agony of impending separation – to see each other, but not touch in those last moments felt like too much to bear.

And so began my mother’s journey as a survivor.  For six months she lived in a refugee camp outside of Miami, Florida, often sharing her bed with girls much younger than her. And then, through Catholic Family Services, she was placed in a foster home in Wichita, Kansas. A home on a farm, hundreds of miles away from her mother and father and her brother, who remained in Miami. Hundreds of miles away from her Spanish, her arroz con frijoles negros, her rumba and salsa, and her pet bunny, who literally died from a broken heart after my mother left. Hundreds of miles away from the shore of her Sundays.

But she survived. And she thrived. And every Sunday for five years, through high school and college, she waited for her weekly phone call from her parents to reconnect. Five years of separation. Five years of American culture – of English and bologna sandwiches and bell bottoms and school dances and “The Sound of Music” in the theater five times. Five years until they were reunited again on American soil – the innocent teenaged girl they had said goodbye to now stood before them a 20-year-old woman on the verge of college graduation and marriage to a Cuban boy she had met who attended the all-boy counterpart to her all-girl Catholic college. My mother was not the girl they had placed on the plane, and this would cause some conflict for years to come. Had she changed too much? Had she abandoned her culture? Had she left them behind? There are never simple answers to complicated questions. Sometimes it takes years to answer questions of that kind.

But the truth remains. Fifty-three years ago, my mother boarded a plane at the age of 15, leaving behind her parents, her home, her school and friends, her language, her food, her pet bunny, and her childhood beaches, all for a chance at education and free thought. She never looked back at what could have been and instead always looked forward at what could be. And despite loss that would paralyze most of us, she forged ahead and modeled resiliency, optimism and passion. She regales in the stories of her mother’s affection, her father’s grace, and of their undying hope and selflessness that lives on in her and in us.

There indeed resides in us all a primal need; a need to return to the place where life began.  And she goes, every summer, without fail, to the shores of Florida, 93 miles away from her first home. She goes, immersing herself in the salty current, dipping in and out between the waves for hours, dreaming of a home she has not seen since was 15. I watch her to store these visions of my mother – of the child she once was and the woman she now is – into the confines of my memory for safe-keeping, where they will stay to be passed on to my own children. My children, who live the life my grandparents and my mother sacrificed everything for.

My mother was born from the ocean. An ocean I might now be able to see with own eyes and feel with my own skin. Together, my family has risen and fallen and danced with the tide, surviving and thriving and living each day to its fullest.

Together, we might return to the tides where it all began. Just as I have always known it was meant to be.