Jen writes

May 15, 2012

Morning

It’s morning. I know by the light coming around the window shade in soft waves, somehow getting beyond my eyelids, squeezed shut. It’s morning. I know by the weight shifting beside me, Sweetie sitting up, reaching for his T-shirt discarded in the night. It’s morning. I know by the sounds of the birds. I wish I knew exactly what kind of birds. It’s morning. I know because my mind is more awake than I wish it would be. Full of all there is to do. It’s morning. And soon I must get up from my bed and start the day. [...]

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Jen writes

April 6, 2012

Friday morning equation

I sit in a quiet house while Sweetie and our 3-year-old daughter return bottles to the redemption center. A few dollars earned in deposits (+) time alone for mama to be still (=) immeasurable gains in our family’s happiness.

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Jen writes

March 18, 2012

(Be)longing [still]

For the past several days I’ve been trying to write a blog post. I kept getting stuck, so I took a few minutes to peruse the Momalom archives. Along the way I found that I’d already written what I’ve been trying to write. This post was originally published in December 2009. Was I lying when I wrote about not apologizing for my dreams? Because I haven’t been doing much to further those dreams lately. I have been composing only in my head. At night. Long after everyone else in the house is asleep. Or I have been jotting down notes [...]

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Jen writes

October 28, 2011

11:00 a.m. to 11:09 a.m.

Twenty minutes. Twenty things to do. Nineteen of them for other people. One for me. One thing: Write. Not time enough for grand ideas Not time enough for starting anew Not time to revise what’s there Not time to add to it. And so I sit. Nimble fingers, ideas whispering from a tired mind. I tap out a few words. Reminding myself that 20 (nine?) minutes isn’t enough to do 20 things Reminding myself that sitting, thinking, writing even for the briefest, still moment is a sound decision. For me.

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Jen writes

September 23, 2011

Friday morning all to myself

Right now: Three kids in school Me alone in a quiet library To write: Blog post warm up Then words, sentences, paragraphs. Novel progress Question: Should I be pacing myself? Truth: Writing makes my heart beat Faster and faster with every word Answer: Let the words fall quickly Let the words set the pace

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Jen writes

April 8, 2011

Right.

I crave quiet. For the thoughts in my head to receive attention from my heart. I crave quiet. From my family so that I can be a better mother. Patient calm wise thoughtful slower happier quieter. I crave quiet in my house. So I can live without voices raised to the messes, clutter everywhere. I crave quiet in the hopes that I will feel more sane more able and more quiet myself. And then, I stop. I say (sometimes out loud, sometimes to myself) It’s a craving impossible to fulfill. Right?

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Sometimes I sit down to write and the words come faster than I can type them. I begin with an idea and it grows and grows and turns into something else altogether. And at the end of the keyboard dance I am left feeling as if I’ve just taken a deep, cleansing breath. Sometimes I sit down to write and my fingers become stumps, not nimble enough to reach the keys. I can’t find an idea or even a thought, so I sit quietly. Waiting waiting. And frustrated that my limited time is slipping away, taken over by a foggy [...]

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Jen writes

November 15, 2010

Learning in the quiet

I curled up on my son’s bed beside him in the dark at the end of this long Monday. In the quiet in the dark I listened to his breathing, tried hard not to comment on his squirming. And then out of the silence he began to talk. The things he revealed to me were not responses to questions I asked. I wouldn’t have known to ask about these things: facts worries ideas questions of his own that fill his mind. We snuggled together under his warm blankets and I tried to say as little as possible as I answered [...]

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Jen writes

October 10, 2010

Bare

A few nights ago* I awoke to the shrill sound of my baby yelling “Mama!” Screaming. For me. Her dad went up. She quieted. He came back down after a bit. She started again to scream. For me. I have been on bedtime duty more nights than not due to Sweetie’s work schedule, and he was trying to give me the night off. But E got out of her bed, and we heard the soft yet solid sound of her feet pitter patter across the floor above our heads. We heard the slight rattle of the gate at her bedroom [...]

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Jen writes

August 24, 2010

Three in a bed

We sleep together A toddler between us And I am happy Her toes at my knees Your toes touching mine And I realize I am good at this now This parenting at night Better than I was when we were in so deep for so long The years of nights stretching out from the long days No guaranteed hours of quiet The resisting being needed The resentment of being needed And now together this rare night of a child between us I lay half asleep rubbing her back listening to you breathe and sigh And I think again I know [...]

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Read More in Jen Writes, motherhood, relationship, sleep, three kids, youngest child

“In case we disappear for a few days. Ya know?” Sarah wrote this in an e-mail to me, in response to my continued amazement at the liquid intake of my son. She and I each have a child who consumes copious amounts of liquid. Juice cups are filled and refilled throughout the day. Thermoses are constantly on hand. And while I sincerely hope there is no correlation between their intake of apple juice and water now to the amount of alcohol they ingest in their teen years, it really is remarkable to witness. It’s also extremely irritating. No matter what, [...]

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Jen writes

August 2, 2010

A Successful Vacation

Today is Monday. Last Monday I was at the “big” library, scouring the shelves for new audiobooks for my big boy. Choosing my “baby’s” first book to be taken out. Advising my 4-year-old on which Madeleine video to select. It was a warm and sunny summer day. Perfect for a trip downtown. A smoothie. A day of whim. For 10 days I enjoyed such whim. I got out of bed—one day early, one day late, the rest at the usual time—and faced each day with no grand plans. It was a vacation in the true sense of the word. Except [...]

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Jen writes

July 28, 2010

Babydoll on the clothesline

The girls are still asleep The boys, awake I sit at my desk and glance out the window at our green backyard Bubbles of sunlight slipping through the leaves of the lush maple trees floating and settling on the too-long green grass There’s a babydoll on the clothesline because yesterday she got dirty in the sandbox and then my not-yet-2-year-old took her into the bathroom and washed her in the sink How can one child be such a do-er And one of her older siblings be so distraught over doing? I sit and I look outside and I ponder questions [...]

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Aplomb. It is one of my favorite words. I remember the exact moment I first encountered it. And was desperate to know its meaning. I was standing on the banks of the Connecticut River. Crew practice had yet to begin, and I had just come from the college post office. I was reading a letter. A letter from a friend at a college hours away. A boy friend. (But not a boyfriend.) A friend of the unrequited angsty, teenage crush variety. We had spent a few years in high school trying to figure out the nature of our relationship, I [...]

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Jen writes

April 9, 2010

This Is My Life? Peace and Quiet

E is napping. (Almost four hours so far!) B is at a friend’s house apres school. S is helping me clean, REALLY clean. It is quiet. And peaceful. And productive around here. Is this really my life? I am savoring it. I know there may be only minutes–or just seconds, even–left.

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Jen writes

April 6, 2010

Familiarity

I wish I could have written what Amanda wrote over the weekend. Her post on looking in the mirror reflects so much of what I’ve been feeling lately. I am so grateful to have found Amanda’s blog, with her gorgeously written posts about a life that is so familiar to me I feel as if I am looking in a mirror just taking in her words. And, after getting lost in her writing, I find myself asking If so many of us are feeling the same way Then why is it so often that we feel alone?

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Jen writes

March 9, 2010

Last Saturday

A family breakfast of crepes and scrambled eggs. Grapefruit and coffee. A walk to the library to return books and take out videos. Lunch together. A houseful of blankets washed and hung to dry on the clothesline, drooping from a winter of ice and snow. A bike ride for B, S and Sweetie; a long nap for E; and reading on the porch for me. Catching up with neighbors after months of a housebound season. PJs before dinner, which has been cooking all day in the Crock-Pot, filling the house with the aromas of Indian spices. *** I came to [...]

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Sarah writes

January 18, 2010

Perspective

Max is two. Officially. But almost-nearly-not-quite three. He has a bump on his tummy next to his navel. It comes and goes, protruding a barely noticeable amount one day and becoming an alarming size the next. We don’t know what it is. The doctor doesn’t know what it is. And in common terms, it’s freaking me out! _______________________ My car broke down last week. I was driving along and then I wasn’t. And then I was stuck at home, or was I? The kids went off to school and dayhome and I was left to a house full of laundry [...]

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Jen writes

January 7, 2010

A Writer’s Life?

How much of my life should I reveal here? Where do I draw the line regarding what personal details or thoughts or doubts to include? Does leaving myself vulnerable make me naive? Negligent? Irresponsible? To myself? To others whose lives are inseparable from my own? But. How can I be authentic without sometimes being vulnerable? These are some of the questions that arise again and again. And the answers are no closer to the surface. I know that I will not post photos. Or use names. I will not reveal any identifying details about where I live. Perhaps you could [...]

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Jen writes

December 31, 2009

Blue Moon

Happy New Year. Happy New Decade. Happy 2010. There are a few more hours of 2009 in my place in the world, and I am anxious to ring in the New Year. The kids are in bed, and I just peeked outside at the full moon. The second this month. How perfect. How rare. A blue moon on New Year’s Eve. To me this means second chances. Renewal. It means there are good things in store in the coming year. Things that rarely have happened before in my life. Better things. Even mystical things. Tonight, I am crossing the threshold [...]

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Sarah writes

September 24, 2009

I am tired of talking

I am always talking. Words are always coming out of my mouth. I would say that about 5% of the time I am actually saying the things I want to be saying. The other 95% of the time I am either saying the things that need to be said or saying things that will fill the air. I say things at work to fill the air. To bring laughter. Shock and laughter. It feels good to hear this laughter when everything else about my job is really just NOT funny. I say things to friends to fill the air. To [...]

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