“Open up the tunnel!  Here comes the Choo Choo train!”  I wheedled as I wielded the loaded baby spoon.  “Here comes the Choo Choo train!”   

Second Son wasn’t buying it.  Nope.  He closed his lips tightly in determined defiance. He would not give in.  He hated food.  All food.  No matter how we begged and pleaded, prodded and cajoled, he seldom ate anything besides plain toast with milk.  Getting him to eat was a job of epic proportions.  We once (and only once) forced him to try the fish everyone else was enjoying.  He puked on the table.  On his sister’s plate.  We once made him taste black bean tacos, with the same result.  After that, we stopped trying.  The kid ate a lot of plain toast. 

He is now in elementary school, and at breakfast this week, true to form, he declined poached eggs.  “Mom,” he confided, seriously.  “I have never really eaten an egg, except for scrambled.”  

“What?  No fried eggs?  No poached?  No Easter eggs?”  How did this information get by me?  I understand we have a lot of gross gluten free food around here, but really… “No eggs?”  

“Nope.  But look what I can do.”

He smiled, and turned to his little sister, who was balking at her breakfast.

“Credit card time!” He hollered.  “Open up the card reader!  Here comes the credit card!”  He pushed the loaded fork towards her mouth, and like an obedient bank machine, she dropped her jaw and ate the food.  

His eyes gleamed with satisfaction, and they finished their food. 

Good grief.  I’m feeling old.

Dear Newbie, 

Today you became a mother.

I know you have waited a very long time to become a Mom.  No matter how many months or years you have longed for this, no matter how many tears have been shed, no matter if this is a natural birth, a c-section, an adoption, or foster care, today, everything changes. 

You have become a Mother.

I know that you are nervous.  Even scared.

You should be.

Advice is usually given by those with no experience, but I’ve been around the parenting block a time or two…or seven.   I shouldn’t say anything.  I have made enough mistakes that I have learned to keep my mouth shut.  But today, I just can’t be quiet.  I have something to say to you, New Mom.  It’s important.  

You don’t have much time. 

From the very first moment you look into the face of that little helpless child, you and I, and all mothers throughout the time continuum, are on the same path.  We are mothers.

I am getting a little choked up here, because I know what is in store for you.

Becoming Mom is going to hurt you.  
It’s going to turn your heart inside out and tenderize it.
Today, when you become Mom, you will never be the same.

You’ll look into her eyes, and instantly, every fiber of your being is going to go haywire.  All synapses will fire at once, flooding your brain in chemical Mama Love, and you will feel the primeval maternal instinct that swells from the depths of your soul, erupting into a force that wants to nurture and caress that baby, while at the same time, you’d fight a rabid saber tooth tiger just to defend her.

I don’t know if you have ever felt this way before, but today you will.

In your world yesterday, you may have been an attorney, a pharmacist, a highly skilled professional, a construction worker, a student.  It doesn’t matter.

Today, you will talk baby talk.
You will.
And she will open her eyes, and look up at you, and she will smile.
So you’ll do it some more.  

Today, you will begin to clean up messes that you never knew could exist.  You will be aghast.  You will be drooled on, cried on, sneezed on, puked on, leaked on, 
perhaps simultaneously.  She will look up at you, crying, needing you so much.  You’ll bathe her, and she will smile.   Or she might scream because she is afraid of water.

But when it is over, she will smell just right, and she will curl up in a towel and breathe softly on your neck.  She’ll hold on to you and her small hands will be warm and sweet as she clings to you.  
She will feel safe with you.

You’re her mom.

As she grows, she will begin to crawl, and she will start to discover the world.
And she will break your stuff.

All of it.

And you won’t even mind, because those tiny little hands 
reaching up to find a place to grab onto in this world
Are also reaching for your hand.  Wanting your help and your guidance 
And your love. 
Your love is going to mean more to this little person than to anyone else in the world.

You’re the one.

Love her with all you’ve got.
Tell her every day, show her every day.
Love her whether she is graceful or awkward, special needs or typical, healthy or frail. None of that matters as much as the very important fact that love heals everything.  If you are broken, her love will heal you.  If she is broken, your love will heal her.  She is just what you need, and you are just what she needs.  

You are perfect for each other.

Put down the phone, and play blocks.
Close the laptop, and have a tea party.  Eat cookies together.
Cancel the meeting, and instead, sit on the couch with a blanket wrapped around you like a tent, and read Go Dog Go for the 373rd time.

Look her right in the eyes and tell her she is worth it.

She is.

Let her style your hair till it’s tangled up in knots and barrettes, and she tells you that you’re the Most Beautiful Mommy in the World.  
You will be.
Sing her to sleep at night.  Try to be patient.
Be her model for compassion and kindness and forgiveness.  

Forgive her.  

Forgive yourself.  Because you will both make mistakes.

You will not get paid anything for this.  You will get no raise, no promotion, no street cred.  You will spend your money on her.  All of it.  She will need diapers and formula and snacks and braces and school uniforms and sports physicals and auto insurance and oh dear, college tuition.  

You will be the one she needs when she scrapes her knee, drops her sucker, loses her laptop, gets her heart broken,  and crashes her car.  You will also be the one she wants when she needs a hug, loses her first tooth, wants to serve tea, makes a friend, learns to read, starts to drive, graduates.

If you do your job right, then someday, 

She will leave you.  

She will walk away, or drive away, or be carried away.  

No matter when that happens, it will be too soon.  When that day comes, your heart will stretch and break again, erupting and overflowing with Mama Love and 

You will cry.

If you get the precious gift of being her mother for just one month, or just one year, or five years…or even eighteen years…don’t let it pass you by.  

Those tears that I shed for you today, New Mom…They were tears of joy.

Congratulations, My Dear.  

Today, your life is going to change.
And that is a beautiful thing.

It’s April.  Spring has arrived, at last!  I picture a scene of pastoral promise:  The ground is being tilled…furrows dug, seeds sown.  Gentle rains fall, quenching the thirst of bright green sprouts… I may as well imagine a rainbow up there somewhere.  

Reality check…  

This is Minnesota.   It’s 35 degrees and windy.  

Our gardens are inside where it’s warm.

My friends and neighbors plant their seeds inside, in trays of tidy, parallel lines in April.  They light them up with hanging fluorescent “grow” lights.  They water them each morning, so by May, the little sprouts will poke their noses out of the soil.  In June they will be transplanted into real, outside gardens, to grow during our two good months of summer.  By August, everything is so hot and dry that the plants get baked into the parched and crusted earth, just before the Autumn freeze.  That’s right about when Winter shows up for another 9 month stay.  

If you blink, you’ll miss the whole growing season.

This year, I outsmarted the whole system.  The kids and I planted our garden in January.

Okay, maybe it had nothing to do with smart.  We just were bored with a bad case of cabin fever, so we got out the seeds and dirt and had ourselves some fun.  Watching seeds sprout up and grow was much more exciting than watching snowflakes fall and accumulate into mountains.  And we didn’t have to shovel it.  So anyway, now it is April, and our garden has grown.  

And guess what? 
 Just like nearly everything else in Minnesota, it grew up to be Norwegian.  

Tall, thin and pale.  


If the little kids’ feather pollination works, we should have spaghetti squash and tomatoes and corn on the cob by Mother’s Day.  Maybe we’ll get to carve pumpkins on the Fourth of July, before snow comes again.  

In the meantime, Happy Spring!

So, it happened again yesterday.  

I’m quite used to it now.
Ever since my child was born with Down Syndrome, I became Conspicuous.

We are no longer passed by on the street, unnoticed.  We stand out.  We are smiled at, hugged, patted on the arm, greeted warmly as if we are long lost friends, and welcomed.  We have also been frowned at, turned away from, and even cried to.  

People notice us.

Once, when Stella was only about three months old, she slept in her carseat next to me while we ate at a restaurant.  One of the employees began to wipe down tables near us, looking inquisitively in our direction.  She cleaned closer and closer, until at last, she walked right over to me, staring at my baby.

“What a beautiful baby you have there,” she began.

“Thank you.  She’s pretty new.”

“She is adorable.” The lady cooed at Stella, then her misty eyes began to drip.

“Is she very hard?” she asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Is she very difficult?  To take care of, I mean?”

“She’s quite easy going, actually.  She likes to be cuddled. She has been to doctors quite a lot, but she is pretty calm there, too.  She’s a content baby.”

The stranger then started to cry.  She explained to me how 50 years ago, when she was a very young mother, she had given birth to a child with Down Syndrome, also.  The people in her life and the doctor convinced her that the child would be too much work for her.  “Too many needs,” they said.  “They told me she was a big problem and that she would never function in the world and she would be a burden on me the rest of my life.  But you know what?”  The woman continued, “Not a day has gone by that my heart doesn’t break over her.  I wonder what she is doing, and what she would look like.  I wonder if she was ever happy.  She will be fifty years old this month.  They never even let me hold her before they took her away…”

I held this woman’s work-worn, wrinkled hand while she cried in the restaurant.  Then I placed Stella’s tiny hand in hers.  She held on, and my daughter’s hand became the link that somehow connected her to her own long-lost, beloved daughter.

When her tears had run dry, we hugged and parted ways.

“I wanted her.”  She said. “I always wanted her.  And I love her to this day.”

My own heart ached with this woman’s fifty years of hidden pain and regret.  I wish I could have said something to her, to support her way back when she was a young mother, afraid.  I wish I could have put her baby’s hand in hers, and helped her give and receive the Love that her child brought.  The Love that they both needed to be happy.  My heart aches with compassion for her and all Mothers like her, those who hold on to pain and heartbreak instead of small hands.

I am a very Conspicuous Mother, noticed and confided in where ever I go, holding my child’s hand.  And I promise you that Mothers love their children forever, no matter what.

I am so grateful to have this small hand to hold.  

Look what I found.  

Safely hidden away from the world of hawks and eagles, tucked into a little thicket, a Cardinal is nesting.  She seems to be alone here, sitting on her eggs.  But she’s not.  

Cardinals mate for life.  And he’s here, all right.  He watches over her every minute.  He’s higher up in the tall trees, singing to her much of the day.  His clear songs ring out to keep her company, as well as to distract any predators from finding his beloved.  He is bright and showy and loud, she is plain and muted and quieter, and they are utterly devoted to each other.  Did you know that male Cardinals will feed their mates, beak to beak, while the eggs are being incubated by the female?  After the little ones hatch, Dad takes a turn on the nest.  They work together.

They give me great hope.  

We are not alone.  Though often hidden, there are self-sacrificing, hard working, devoted ones, doing what is best for their families day after day, year after year.  They don’t make the news.  But these tiny guys are busy living their entire lives, about 15 years, in the same place, with the same mate.  

They are tenacious.  

Devoted.

Inspiring.

And they are everywhere…

Happy Easter from the real Easter Bunny!   Her name is Philomena.

She worked very hard last night, delivering all those baskets.  As your kids search around for candy and eggs,  Phil would like you to know that it is always possible to find joy, no matter what your circumstances.  You just have to know where to search: 

Look Up!  Philomena says to Cheer Up, Keep your Hopes Up, Look Up, Rise Up, the Sun is Coming Up... The answer to what you are looking for is Up.  
Always Up. 

Happy Easter!

For you.  Because He loves you.