Have you ever felt instantly at home with a person? How about with a person you’ve never actually met?
At home. That’s the way I have felt with Corinne of Trains, Tutus, and Tea Time since the moment I found her blog in November. With her characteristically lovely writing and beautiful photographs, she posted about her family’s visit to Walden Pond in a former home of mine: Concord, Massachusetts.
Since then, Corinne has become one of my most treasured blogging friends and her home has become a favorite place of mine to stop in for a chat and a cup of tea. I am so pleased to offer you a piece from her today.
Thanks, Corinne, for being my neighbor.
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Love and Sugar Cookies
by Corinne of Trains, Tutus, and Tea Time
We’re baking sugar cookies for Christmas. Glistening with butter and sugar I roll them out with Paige’s moral support. Carefully we chose the cookie cutters – trees, snowflakes, snowmen, little boys and mittens. We cut them out, gently place them on the cookie sheets, and bake. Roll, cut, bake. Repeat.
The little girl helping on the counter starts playing with the salt grinder. Thought to have been plastic, turns out it’s glass. And it drops, then shatters, all over the kitchen floor. Hundreds of glistening slivers mixed with crystals of sea salt.
Fynn comes running to see what the commotion is about, knowing by now to stay in dining room if he hears glass shattering in the kitchen. He knows his mama, and he knows she’s clumsy, though he’s not surprised to see his sister’s wide apologetic eyes.
I react, whisking out the hand held vacuum and in no time it’s put away and in one hand is a sheet full of oven fresh cookies, and in the other is a cookie cutter ready for more action. Swift, efficient, the perfect example of what to do with the unexpected. It’s what motherhood is all about.
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Three years ago I didn’t know if I could react. I was just starting out on this journey. Almost exactly three years ago I had my first day alone with my baby boy. He had come two and a half weeks early, and there was a day or two unaccounted for by visitors between Lucas going back to work and my mother coming into town. I don’t remember how many days, I’m thinking one or two – funny how that fact seems so fuzzy but the rest is so vivid. I remember sitting on the steps in our kitchen, not being able to say anything to Lucas as he prepared for his first day back to work. If I even looked remotely close to his eyes I knew the tears would have started. He kissed my head as he left, told me I’d do great,and locked the door behind him. I sat on those steps, held my head in my hands, and sobbed. Tears streaming down. I felt like I couldn’t do it alone. How could he just leave me there with such a little baby, when I had no idea what to do with a baby. Nursing was hard, we weren’t sleeping, showering alone was out of the question. How had this happened?
I wiped the tears with the back of my hand as I scaled the stairs upon hearing the baby’s cries.
Those first few days, weeks, even months were not easy. It takes time, help, and belief in yourself. And a lot of tears, from both mother and child. I remember days where Fynn would lay on my legs for hours, and I’d stare at Oprah as he slept or made little baby noises, or sucked non-stop on his human pacifier. The days were long, though I look back and laugh because instead of his hour commute, Lucas walked five minutes down the road. He was home by 4:30, and could stop by on his lunch break. We were lucky. I’m thankful for his schedule back then, and when Paige was born I was terrified at how far he would be from us at work, and how long it would take him to get home, and when he would get home.
But the second time is different. The fog of the early days still exists, but you know how to react. You trust yourself a little more and have the first one as living proof that yes, in fact, you can be a mother. The days go by faster, there’s still self doubt, but you don’t have the luxury of time to revel in it. If one child doesn’t need you for a second, the other does. You react. Play, clean, feed baby, feed toddler, sleep, repeat. You use stolen minutes for yourself, and don’t know how you thought you were so busy when it was just one.
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We finish cutting out the last batch of cookies, carefully placing each cutter to maximize what little dough is left. To get as much out of it as we can. Like motherhood. Making do where we can, juggling the cookie cutters while reacting to the unexpected. Keeping the rolling pin moving while balancing a babe on the hip. We do. We react. It doesn’t always come naturally, but with time and love we learn.
Love. React. Love.
Always, there’s love. Even in the piecemeal schedule that is our daily life. Without it, motherhood and sugar cookies would be nothing.
Please leave a comment for Corinne and then visit her at Trains, Tutus, and Tea Time.
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Hey! Did you hear? We’re starting a book club here at Motherese. I hope you’ll join Katy Keim of BookSnob and me as we host a discussion of Christine Carter’s Raising Happiness, starting the week of April 12. Check out the details here.
Pick up a copy of the book online, at an independent bookseller, or at your local library. Then get reading and be ready to chime in!
{ 39 comments… read them below or add one }
Like you, I get a very warm feeling when I visit Corinne’s blog. Thanks for featuring her here!
Corinne, I could relate on so many levels to this post. I remember the absolute desolation I felt the first day my husband went back to work after my oldest was born. I can still taste that feeling now as I write this. It’s a sad memory, I wish I didn’t have it all intertwined with everything else because it should have been a happier time. Nobody warns us of that do they?
I can also relate to those long days when a husband has to commute. We lived more than an hour from my husband’s workplace that first year. My God the days were long and neverending. I had a taste of what it must be like to be a single parent. I didn’t like it.
Thanks for this post. I really enjoyed it, and loved knowing that others felt/feel exactly the same.
That’s the thing I’ve enjoyed about blogging the most, knowing that there are others out there who have been there, done that, and lived to tell :)
I think we need those painful memories though, to remind us that even happy times aren’t always perfect, but they’re real.
Corinne! I LOVE this post– it;s one of my favorites of yours! So happy to read it again today.
I’m with you: I adore this post and am so grateful to Corinne for letting me share it again here.
Thanks for visiting Motherese, harrytimes!
Thanks for following me around this week Sarah ;)
How fun to see you here Corinne! Love this post. It’s so true. I was a pediatric nurse, so when my son was born I had all the physical care stuff down, no problem. Wash him, feed him, bathe him, okay. Then, that first morning I was alone and all that stuff was done, I looked at him and thought, “now what do I do with him all day?” Total Panic.
So glad to know that even pediatric nurses feel the same! :)
No matter how many parenting classes a person attends the real training for motherhood doesn’t start until the first child arrives. Amazing how quickly we learn. It’s either sink or swim.
Corinne, I love the image of you vacuuming up shards of glass while balancing a cookie sheet and never breaking a sweat. That’s grace under pressure.
Sink or swim is absolutely right! I think motherhood brings out the best and worst in us, as does anything stress related – even those little bundles of good stress!
Oh, boy, does this ring true for me, too. I don’t even want to think about how many tissues I went through in those first weepy days home by myself. And, later, when my son was born and there were two to care for, it was easier somehow, more of a logistical challenge than an emotional one. (I still can’t clean up glass without it being a major production, though … Need to work on that!) =>
Such an interesting point, Stacia: I wonder how many moms find it easier to care for a newborn the second time around, even when there’s an extra kid around needing love and attention.
Big Boy was 20 months old when Tiny Baby was born. Caring for Tiny Baby was much easier in that I knew what I was doing, but there were times when trying to meet the physical demands of two under two flummoxed me. Of course, I still want to have more kids so clearly the experience wasn’t hard enough to make me not want to do it again. You’ll have to let us know, Stacia, how the experience of dealing with a third newborn goes! :)
That’s exactly it, instead of the emotional things, I found myself focused on more of the “how am I going to DO this” whether it was get out of the house with two, or now deal with two under four who are both climbing maniacs at the park!
What a fun visit the two of you are having! I also love this post. We all went through the panic those first few days of whether we’d be able to figure it all out. And we all do. One way or another… we just figure it out. And yes, the second is SO much easier. I remember in the hospital with Luke being so relieved that I didn’t worry about snapping one of his arms off as I put him in his teeny tiny onesie. And not sweating every time he cried.
Oh my goodness Becca, I so worried about that with Fynn!! How in the world was I supposed to dress him in anything without a limb getting fractured? ;)
Thanks for introducing us to yet another great blogger. I will be visiting her often, as I can definitely identify with her slow but sure steps into motherhood. I can also relate to the initial stages of nursing, and how difficult that was, but somehow, after a month of struggling, I found my groove. But we all do eventually don’t we? Thankfully.
I hope you will visit Corinne, JT. I think you will love her blog. And just wait till you see her photographs!
Thankfully, we do find our grooves. It takes longer for some, but eventually it comes :)
(thanks for stopping by my “home” JT!)
It is amazing, isn’t it, how your “instincts” develop over time. The things that once seemed so overwhelming now come so naturally. Thanks for this lovely post, Corinne.
Thanks for reading, Gale :)
Oh boy, do I relate to this! When my son was born ten years ago, I was beyond overwhelmed and anxious. My mom noticed it, although I didn’t say a thing to her as she was going through some health issues. But being the fantastic mother she is, she moved in with us for two months, getting up for the baby, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and just holding me. Thanks for sharing, Corinne.
My mom was with us for a few weeks around when both babies came, and it was such a blessing. I can’t imagine going through that (especially the first time) without a little help.
Thank goodness for mothers who are there to help us learn how to be mothers ourselves!
Thanks for visiting Motherese, Angie!
As with other readers, I agree wholeheartedly. As you know, Corinne and Kristen, my two are quite close together. Yet, the adjustment to a newborn was much easier the second time around. The confidence was already there.
I am grateful that I had the confidence with my little guy. It was hard because we had just moved, I was still working, and my husband was in the midst of crazy mid-terms. After meticulous planning, my little guy came sooner that I anticipated. But, I knew what to do the second time around.
Beautiful post, Corinne.
The second time definitely has it’s ups and downs, but the confidence from the first helps SO much. Thank goodness for first borns ;)
What a sweet post, Corinne — so glad Kristen has introduced me to you here!
Kristen, you are expanding my reading list exponentially. Book club AND new blogs I can’t resist? April is going to be busy. Well, that’s if copy of the first book makes it to me in time. I found out last night that there are 16 holds on it at the library …
Thank you :) So looking forward to the book club too! (and same thing here, Kristen has introduced me to a whole new world of bloggers… my reader is overwhelmed!)
I do my best to fill everyone’s days with words! :)
I hope you’re able to find a copy of Raising Happiness soon, Contemporary Troubadour, but, if not, you’ll have to join us anyway!
I can relate in a different way. I remember what it was like to leave the house to go to work. I’d agonize over it, wonder what else I could do to help and be frustrated I couldn’t do more.
As dad I couldn’t breastfeed and though there were lots of little things that I could do, it was sometimes hard. Mom and child had a bond that I was part of, but not totally part of.
It is a magical thing, those first days.
I remember talking with my husband about that, Jack. How it’s tough on the dads, without the breastfeeding bond. We co-slept, so that made him more a part of the process. But it’s been so much fun watching his role as Dad change over the years!
It has been awesome watching the kids grow. Certainly was much easier the second time around.
Loved this the first time I read it, love it now. :)
A great read. As a father of 3, I can’t relate to the author’s experience. I am still waiting for the fog to lift more at the present.
Corrine, I remember my first days (and months) with Ethan exactly as you describe yours with Fynn. And your description takes me back there so vividly. My sense of who I am now as a mother is a universe away from what it was in those first days. Thank goodness!
Beautiful post.
Thanks so much for visiting Motherese, Sarah, and for taking the time to leave a comment.
I also loved the ways in which Corinne took me back to those surreal early days of motherhood and, like you, I am glad to now be a much more experienced hand!
Corinne, nice to see you on Kristen’s site today!
What this brings up for me, beyond those early days at home with a newborn, is that broken object thing, when the salt grinder broke. I think it’s really important to handle breaks and spills (which happen so often) fast, like nothing happened, because kids, surprisingly, think each one is the end of the world. It’s really one of the greatest feats of magic I can perform, making broken objects and spilled milk disappear.
Oh, yes — and there’s love. The key ingredient.
Loved this post. It took me back to some of those desperate days. Gave me some perspective.
Wow, this is beautiful. I love the metaphor of cookies, fitting the cookie cutters carefully to make the most of the remaining dough. This piece is hopeful and reassuring, inspiring and full of love.
When you are not going throught it, it is so easy to forget. Maybe I want to forget a good bit of those first few weeks with each child. Funny how the tears just come again , just thinking about it. I think motherhood has been such an amazing journey for so many of us and I think you really captured those emotions so well in this blog.
Nice to see Corinne’s blog featured here! And I remember those early motherhood days so well, especially that panicky FIRST day alone with an actual human being I was in charge of keeping happy and healthy. This post is a beautiful reminder.