Dread and Hope: Mind of a Mother
I find myself restless this morning. Though I have had very little sleep trying to accommodate my three week old baby and getting my three year old son to bed late last night; a fairly brutal combination as far as sleep goes but glorious in all other aspects of life. It’s not just that I have gotten on cycle of nursing, burping, changing, burping some more, almost falling asleep before the baby starts fussing again and then doing it all over again. I really wish I could just pass out when the time allows. But now I am about an hour or two away from my toddler waking up, my infant is suddenly wide awake and I figure I will be awake for the next six to eight hours whether I would like to or not.
And I still feel restless.
It’s all this life flowing around me. Random, fleeting thoughts of our lives with two children, what kind of brothers my boys are going to be, how will the infants personality shape up, am I giving enough to the infant, am I giving enough to the toddler, are they eating okay? Then I think of major life things like what kind of boys they will be in five years, ten years. What kind of men will they be? I brought these babies into the world but the thought of them growing into boys, adolescents, young men and then becoming their own man eventually; it all seems rather intimidating, magnificent, daunting and thrilling at the same time. How I treat them, raise them, discipline them, school them, love them, adore them is all going to help shape who they become. The fact that they each will have a brother to grow up with also will shape their personalities and social development. Every single thing we do in their lives has the potential to determine what kind of men they will become.
I hope I am up to this task. I feel like I will do okay but just the thought of how much I play a part in that role is enough to trigger dozens upon dozens of thoughts, hopes, wishes, dreams, fears and goals. Elias isn’t in preschool yet, how will that affect him if we put it off till next fall? What if I go back to work sooner this time around, how will that make the infant feel or develop differently? Which city do we want to settle down in and buy land and make a long term/permanent home? If we pick city “A” will there be enough developmental programs and opportunities? If we pick city “B” will the boys get to see their family enough? Do we want them to have the social development of a lot of cousins over great programs? HOW WILL THIS AFFECT THEM!?
I need to get out of my head.
My “Thoughts of an Insomniac” writings are a jumble of thoughts, hopes and fears that don’t always have a real direction. The hope is that there is someone out there that can relate or be comforted by the fact that the deep questions we ask ourselves in the privacy of our own head are valid and maybe even shared. Many of my thoughts revolve around my babies (now ages 2 and 5), but there is no telling what absurd focus my mind takes. There is a beauty to the random, undeveloped and outrageous process the mind takes when everything else is still. Plans, hopes, dreams, tomorrow, a decade ago, a decade from now, the dogs, getting fit, dinners, family trips, sex, intimacy, hiking, bears, intruders, gun training… as stated before, it is a jumble of thoughts. We don’t all have it figured out. This is why I am an insomniac.
Miranda’s children are now a newly 2 year old son and a 5 year old son. Her family of four plus two dogs live in a small Southeast Alaska town. She has a mixed heritage of Tlingit Indian, Yup’ik Eskimo and a small portion of white (Irish and whatever else her maternal grandfather was). Her “semi-husband,” (not married, but how much more committed can you get than having two children together?) is from an even more rural town than Miranda but doesn’t have any Native American heritage.
The family has plans and dreams of selling everything from their house to their unnecessary belongings and hitting the road for adventure. Traveling the Alaskan National Parks first, then off to the lower 48 and Canada. As they prepare their house and get things in order, they have a bucket list of adventures, hikes and sights they haven’t done yet in their home town of Juneau, Alaska. They will be documenting these adventures, as they have in the past, in the form of videos. The new videos will have more of a “vlog” feel, and are narrated by their 5 year old son Elias (Eli). Their videos, though still very few, can be found here.