Invisible Moms...

I joined a listserv back when I first became pregnant with Cole that consisted of local moms (and soon to be moms) from our Capitol Hill (DC) neighborhood. It offered a phenomenal network of woman who were experiencing the similar life event of motherhood. Individuals post requests for all sorts of information (doctors, daycare, babysitters, playgrounds et al) and most often are instantly (literally 24/7) sent a digest of advice and wisdom in return.

I have kept myself subscribed to the group to continue receiving the fantastic daily summary. It allows me to keep tabs on some of the friends I made in my short time as a mom on the HILL and gives me insights on the myriad questions that I myself have as Cole challenges me as a mom. Along with the varied content, there occasionally is an entry forwarded along that speaks volumes to us moms and needs no further explanation. Below you will find one of those. It makes me think about what my future as Cole's mom will be like. I hope I can play the sometime invisible role of mom as I tend to be one to thrive on words of affirmation. I guess I will just have to remind myself that I am a key cornerstone and continuing collaborator of my own work in progress. In 18 or so years, my input in laying the framework and foundation of my own "cathedral" will be in large part complete. Wish me luck!


Invisible Moms

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?" Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom.

Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, "What time is it?" I'm a satellite guide to answer, "What number is the Disney Channel?" I'm a car to order, "Right around 5:30, please." I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a hair clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this." It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: "To Carol , with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees."

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything. A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, "Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it." And the workman replied, "Because God sees."

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, "I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become."

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.
The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my daughter to tell the friend she's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table." That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want her to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to her friend, to add, "You're gonna love it there."

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

The same four walls...

Well it has been a doozy of a winter here in Minnesota. I can see why everyone warned me about catching cabin fever. It would be very easy to stay warm and cozy indoors and yet go INSANE! Thus, it is consistently on my mom agenda to keep a running calendar of activities for Cole and I to attend or participate in to get us out of the house even on the coldest arctic days. Something interactive, social or otherwise educational or engaging. My wish is to continue to trigger those growing brain cells in Cole's vastly expanding mind and expose him to something new as often as possible. However, these activities only kill two hours or so of a very long fourteen hour day with the little guy. If you add in the preparation time of getting dressed for the subzero weather, you knock off additional minutes but you are still left with a very long sometimes seemingly endless day.

A day in the life of Cole still begins way before sun up (4-5am) and ends around 7pm. Despite our desire to push his time clock closer to ours, a specialist has determined that Cole is nature's anomaly. He is a geniune early bird. I could go on about this revelation but in all honesty, I am so beyond conversing about our chronic sleep deprivation that it doesn't warrant another word.

We cannot escape our home by taking long outdoor walks due to the severe cold a large majority of the time. When we have a warm day (20 degrees) we do bundle up and head out to clear our heads. As for the other 28 days of the month, I struggle as to what to do for some exercise. Cole does not do well at the gym's daycare. They love him there but he has a tendency to begin screaming his head off AFTER I get on a treadmill and get my heart rate at its' peak with sweat streaming from my unconditioned body. At that point, the nursery assistant comes and finds me to wrap up my workout (without a cool down) to go collect my angel. As for the suggestion made at my mommy and me class of looping around the MOA (Mall of America), my idea of an endorphin producing cardio workout is not defined as dodging the thousand other strollers veering off course as mother's multi-task by talking on their cell phones while their wee ones zone out looking at neon retail signs, I think you can gather what my ONE attempt at this "fun" was. No thanks. I did it once and only once hence my personal analysis.

I know I should revel in being at home with Cole and I do 80% of the time. I cannot fathom someone else having shared his days so intimately with him over the past 15 months as I have but the isolation I feel some days at spending an inordinate amount of my waking hours confined to our house doing a lot of what seems like nothing is hard to digest. Simply at times I want to work again. My purpose as a mother is not measured and weighed like my workload as a professional working woman was and there are days I wish for my annoying colleagues and noisy office. I must remind myself when I crave my previous life that what seems like doing nothing with Cole day in and day out during these long winter weeks is actually doing more than I ever have before. I am shaping a life of the future and that is the most important job of all.

Our own personal video wall...

I am always searching for smart ways to archive video files taken of Cole with our camera. Since they are such large files and would jam up most people's email boxes, I choose not to send using that cybermode, so I had been using a website that compressed and stored them allowing me to send you all a quick link instead. However,ninety percent of the websites that have existed until recently have had low maximums on what the individual file size(100MB) could be which doesn't help me when most of my files are over 100 MB. So I kept looking until I found a cool new web service (www.dailymotion.com)that allows me to create a video wall of my personal videos, allows a larger file capacity (150 MB), does not charge me a penny and does all the design work for me. All I have to do is download the avi clips and voila! I am very excited to add to our library.

You should see a bunch of boxes below, I have downloaded two films. Just put your cursor over where you see Cole and it should just play without a click. Some of you may have to click depending on what internet browser you use (IE, Firefox, Safari etc).

A boy and his dog...

I saw this poem in a book I was recently reading and I immediately connected with it. Cole is absolutely fascinated with Tucker and all he does, hugging Tucker around his neck, laying on Tucker like a pillow, crawling over Tucker who lays there so patiently, throwing the ball (all but a few inches) for Tucker, picking up Tucker's toys and handing them gently to him (and Tucker ever so gently accepting them); listening to Cole's giggle as Tucker races around after coming in from the cold rubbing his face on the throw rug to get rid of the slobber icicles. They are such buddies and I look forward to watching their relationship grow. So the lines below provided me with a bit of melancholy as I fast forwarded to years from now.


It's tough on a dog when his boy grows up, when he no longer romps and frolics like a pup
It's tough on a dog when his boy grows older, when they no longer cuddle on the bed when it's cold
It's tough on a dog when a boy gets tall, when he's off with the boys playing soccer and baseball
They no longer paddle through the mud in the bog, hoping to find a stray turtle or frog
They no longer run through the grass up to their knees or roll in the piles of fresh fallen leaves
It's tough on a dog when a boy has work to do, when he forgets how to play like he used too
It's tough on a dog when instead of the woods or the field or the pond his boy becomes a man and that boy is now gone
Jean W. Sawtell