Some people have panic attacks; I have New York nostalgia attacks. One hit me yesterday in the Fresh Market parking lot, that bastion of suburban shopping and green groceries, where we go to assuage our guilt over plastic consumption and inadequate recycling, where we seek to be environmentally conscious but also well-parked after driving around in our SUVs for fifteen minutes until we find the closest spot. Or maybe you just go to get good meat. I don’t know.

Anyway, I had just picked The Kid up from “school” (he aced his Trig exam but is having trouble conjugating French verbs; pray for him) and he was sucking his toes in the backseat as I gritted my teeth in the front. In my most measured, faux-friendly voice, I carried on a one-sided dialogue with the citizens around me: the woman parked in the spot beside mine, entering numbers into her circa-1978 checkbook, blocking my path to removing TK from the car (“Ever hear of a debit card?”); the man in his truck with the turn signal on, waiting for her to leave so he can get the front parking space in the ten-seater row (“It would be a shame for you to have to walk that extra thirty feet!”); the mom who’s rolling deep with her squadron of children, blocking the entrance to the store (I don’t like any kids but mine and a few others–and yes, I am a pediatric dentist, which is not a conflict of interest so much as it is an explanation). By the time we made it safely back into the car and a woman in a Tundra sat blissfully ignorant behind me, just gazing around the lot for the next close empty spot, I was boiling over. “This is why Mommy doesn’t like people,” I told TK, who responded by batting at his carrier toys and grinning, and I fantasized about my route home a few years ago: Grand Central, Park Avenue, brownstones, legs and feet.

Despite the flood of humanity pouring onto its streets every day, New York is an easy place to be alone–you’re just surrounded by other people while you’re doing it. But those other people have about as much desire as I did to interact, which is to say none, and that’s the way I approach much of life: solo. It’s easier that way, since I have an idea of how things should go and would rather not watch other people mess them up–and the city is just fine with enabling that short-sighted pride. Being single, as much as I often resented it, was easy for an introvert like me. Then God gently laughed at my plans and moved me to Atlanta with a husband and son. Now, solo doesn’t cut it. We’re an ensemble, and I must learn to coexist in a more raw and real way than can fit onto a bumper sticker. It’s less dinners out and drinks later, more “I want you to WANT to do the dishes!” And the diapers.

Life is easier to control, or delude myself into thinking I control it, when I’m the only one manning the wheel. Now I’ve got one person who depends on me for life and another who depends on me for dinner, and I often delude myself into thinking I’m doing everything by myself. “I’ll just do the everything,” The Husband and I often joke back and forth to each other, as I secretly mean it and count how many bottles I’ve cleaned and diapers I’ve changed. Because love isn’t love if you aren’t keeping track, right?

And I think about how all this awareness of my broken spots, how it would all just be an endless parade of flaws were it not for grace–it would be a hopeless list of the ways I fail every day, except that there’s redemption. Grace always finds me and saves me from the solitude I both crave and fear; even writing has become a group effort lately. And at home? They say that familiarity breeds contempt, but I know that monotony can breed ingratitude–and I struggle against that thanklessness every day, in the midst of a life I dreamed of having. Then, like clockwork, the roses arrive–every Valentine’s Day and birthday. TH’s car lands in the garage every night. TK grins wildly when we approach his crib every morning. And I realize that the reason the flowers are more beautiful each year is because there is a beauty that surpasses monotony; it is a hard-fought, scarred beauty that arises from daily commitment and constant forgiveness. And I can do those too–in a way I never could solo.

A few days ago, during a week of glorious achievements and legendary finishes, I received a quiet portion of an early inheritance. The twenty-four-year-old Bible was passed over to me at lunch. I carried the book home with me and opened it up this weekend, glancing over the handwritten commentary on pages, the post-it notes inside the cover. “This, my Bible, is for Stephanie,” one of them read, dated September 2004.

How much do we think about what we will leave behind?

I watched an interview with Kerri Strug, whose injury-blighted performance on the vault in 1996 led the US Women’s team to all-around gold. The same performance that won the gold left her with a sprain and some tendon damage and ended her competitive gymnastics career. I hear stories like this, narrated by The Husband’s arch enemy Bob Costas during these Games, and I wonder what makes some people protect themselves at all costs while others choose to give until it hurts.

Then I look at my son and I think I’m learning the answer.

Will we leave behind stories, or arguments? Custody battles over stuff, or relationships intact? And while we’re here, how do we become the kind of people we want to be known as after we’re gone?

These are not choices made just on the floor of a gym or behind the closed door of an attorney’s office; they are the summation of a million choices made over thousands of days; there will be mistakes, to be sure, and plenty of them; but in the end, the choices lead either to the ultimate no or the ultimate yes: will I live for myself? Or will I live for–and leave behind–more?

The Bible’s leather is cracked and wearing; the pages are warped with turning. There are notes that don’t make sense in light of some of the things I’ve seen. But if it’s the last piece of the pie that I receive, that will be enough. Hasn’t that whole “money buying happiness” theorem been disproven? Don’t people matter more than things? If bitterness and enmity are my choice for a legacy, then I can achieve them immediately and easily. But I want my life to tell a story, and I don’t want it to be a cautionary tale. I want my son to know what matters, and so I choose the more even when it hurts, even when it feels like less. Because it never is.

I’m an admitted Anglophile; by contrast, and as many of my Asian friends know, I am not such a fan of Far Eastern culture. Hello Kitty creeps me out, and don’t even get me started on anime. That skit on SNL knows what I’m talking about. So the point is, I showed up (at my TV) for the opening ceremonies of this year’s Olympic games with a bit of a bias. Also, I have this thing where I don’t enjoy shameless human rights violations. Add it all up, and I was preordained to enjoy London’s take on the event over that of Beijing.

And here’s the deal: I was right. At least, as far as I’m concerned, and that’s authority enough for me, because when I compare the two ceremonies, their differences unsurprisingly leave me rooting for the free country. Sure, the Chinese spectacle was a sight to behold; but it was Communism in visual form, thousands of images on repeat, each the same as the one before it, matching individuals in perpetuity. Conformity expressed as virtue. Last night, though, in London? Creativity was the honored guest: originality on display. Individuals were singled out, not dressed in matching costumes and given their marks so that the unit moved as a synchronized whole. Literature, film, poetry (shut up, Shakespeare wrote poetry too and I needed another example) played out on stage; authors were honored by way of their images come to life (J.M. Barrie) or their vocal participation (J.K. Rowling). The event was patriotic, to be sure–but it honored a nation that promotes the excellence of individual differences rather than machine-like group efficiency.  So…cheerio, bitches.

Maybe I take that contrast so personally because I struggle against conformity myself and can’t stand to see it touted as a strength when I know the lies it tells. At this point in my life, I’ve been around long enough to know how the push to conformity feeds insecurity: I went to high school, after all. But there are some who would be content with those teenage years going on forever–gossiping at lockers and comparing labels translated into judgments based on stay-at-home vs. career, or which type of stroller your kid drives. I have no desire to be a soldier in the Mommy Wars, but that doesn’t mean my ire remains flat at all times, or I don’t feel the seeds of competition springing up in my soul when pride always shows up with water.

There are still certain terms and lingo that I freely judge for their cringe-worthiness, though. The weirdos at American Girl sent me a brochure recently, and I turned it face-down in the trash because who needs a Chucky look-alike staring back at her? And before The Kid came along, I would gag a little anytime I heard a mother riff about how in love she was with her child. That kind of language, I would think, is reserved for one person–and he’s not wearing diapers. Yet.

I’m still not in love with the phrase (see what I did there?), but parenting has tempered my inner critic much like New York tempered my politics (which is to say, a little). I believe in a “best” way of doing things rather than a “right” way, which may seem like semantics but, to me, simply leaves room for individuality and grace (unless your kid tears up my house and you just sit there smiling apologetically, in which case–what’s wrong with you?). Then there’s the tiny matter of my own heart and its current state of enamoredness with an eighteen-pound-and-growing, half-me ball of (mostly) joy. The early ambivalent days have given way to smiles and laughter. (And two days naps and twelve-hour nights. He’s especially cute when he sleeps.) And though you may never hear me use that dreaded in-love terminology, I get it. I get why people go to that creepy doll store and why they overuse the word sweet in Facebook posts and while I may not condone either; while I may never make separate “kid” dinners or play Wiggles music in the car or let my children interrupt my conversations, I get that we all do this differently and that we all love those little monsters.  And that there’s room for love looking a million different ways. Grace creates that space for all of us to fit together, looking nothing alike.

My body is distributed over multiple time zones, my head is in a fog, and my heart is split several ways, mainly across midtown where The Husband is working and The Kid’s daycare nearby, where I am leaving him for a grand total of two hours today (as much as I can stand after a solid week together) while I write and grocery shop. We returned home from California last night, and I did my usual “don’t sleep at all” dance in response to a change in schedule, and so I feel the weariness settling in and promising to stay awhile. This post-vacation personality drop targets its victims mercilessly, as TH found out on the plane yesterday afternoon when he informed me that TK’s bouncy ball had gone missing. I reacted, he later recounted, as though he had told me we had just lost a world war, and that he would now gauge all other reactions in comparison to “Ball-Gate.” I laughed, took a melatonin, and defied its effects all night long.

I feel disingenuous referring to a cross-country trip as “vacation,” particularly when there was no beach time logged, no flags in the sand alerting servers to bring drinks. This journey took a monumental amount of planning, and I attempted to do that in pencil but couldn’t find one, so now I’m scrubbing all the pen marks away and finding the reality that took their place.

First of all: TK is a better traveler, indeed a better human being, than I am–that much is obvious already. He clearly takes after his father in this regard, and I am thankful. His complaints throughout the trip were limited to the one takeoff/landing flight segment that he stayed awake for (the final descent), with a few naptime whines thrown in. Mine were peppered throughout the trip because that’s how I roll, especially after multiple days spent tiptoeing around a dark hotel room while TK slept nearby. I tried to practice my gratitude as I reveled in the sound of his breathing, but then I would remember that TH was playing laser tag and I just got bitter all over again. Our former vacation days, spent letting the sun dry the salt water from our skin as we slept on adjoining towels, have been supplanted by the one whose name means as much. There were moments when this fact gave me a rueful jolt, like when I considered buying a trashy magazine for the flight and remembered that all I’d be reading for the next four hours would be TK’s sleep cues. Then there were the moments when I couldn’t get enough of the togetherness, especially when we awoke on Friday morning to news of the Aurora theater massacre and I sat on the bed, in the dark, minutes later, soaking in TH’s and TK’s breathing, feeling overwhelmed by the gratitude for which I’d been searching the day before.

Darkness is one thing; evil is another. Confronting it nowadays is much like the plot of Jaws 4: it’s personal. I have more to protect than ever, and the thought of my trio facing danger, of anyone’s family coming toe-to-toe with pure evil, leaves me shuddering in sadness and anger. It’s big enough, when I let it be, to toss aside the gratitude and replace it with fear, that ever-willing stand-in, and so I have to breathe…and remember Who’s in charge here. Certainly not me, and certainly not sons of bitches like the coward who hid behind tactical gear and painted hair and took over a dark theater.

Chaos may reign for brief periods, but it doesn’t win. Neither do its cousins fear and evil. TH and I separated briefly from TK for three of the nights of our trip to go and celebrate the weddings of family and friends, and as toasts were given and vows made, I remembered our own wedding day two years ago. I remembered that, book titles and the debates they engender aside, love does ultimately win: despite temporary evil, despite jet lag, despite mood swings. I remember that, as Fantine sang, “to love another person is to see the face of God.” And I stop complaining for a minute, open my weary eyes, and just look around at Him everywhere.

I don’t believe in karma, but that doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of it.

So I’m not a stranger to contradictions. Or 180-degree life turns. For just as I had surrendered myself, at the ripe old age of thirty, to a single and childless life, in walked The Husband. Then, a few years later, out popped The Kid. And now, on the eve of our first family flight, I am remembering all those trips I took while single and childless, the guttural sighs I must have emitted upon seeing young families struggle with their infants and gear; I’m recalling the frustration I felt while trying to hear The Office over my in-flight headphones while a baby screamed. And I’m wondering what’s in store for a person who has made plenty of unfair judgment calls and uninformed assessments. Karma…or grace?

See, I like justice. And I subscribe to a belief system that upholds justice…just not at my, or your, expense. A turn of events that could be considered pretty unjust, if you’re a perfect person carrying a cross on your back. And then there’s that annoying component of my faith, the part that actually makes it faith, the whole “invisible God” thing. There are times when that really gets to me–when it would be so helpful if he’d just give me a glimpse every now and then, just to affirm what I already believe. What I usually believe. What I sometimes even act like I believe.

I’m the person who, before sitting back down in her chair, checks to make sure it’s still there. People move that shit sometimes, okay? Back off. So I’m, overall, a little skeptical. A little doubtful. So I keep receipts and write down confirmation numbers. I’m more comfortable in black and white than gray. What’s inconvenient is that grace has been moving me toward the gray for awhile now. Away from just justice, and into mercy. Into forgiveness. Into redemption. It gives me all these, then comes the moment when it asks for all of them from me in return. In my earlier life, I excelled at spelling bees: right and wrong answers. Now, I write: an uncomfortable amount of wiggle room. There is more waiting where I am now. Things take longer when you’re allowing change to be a process. More becomes revealed when you’re looking for what lies deeper.

I had a thought the other day, an unnerving and wonderful and most definitely not black and white one, and it was this: Faith and doubt are not mutually exclusive. Doubt is actually a huge part of faith.

“God, is that you?” I asked, wondering if I was speaking on his behalf again without permission, but upon further examination I beheld the elegant truth: doubt is what can drive us deeper into faith. And God is big enough to handle our doubt without getting his feelings hurt. Graciously, he even answers out doubt. Because doubt? Like guilt, it’s really just another outfit fear puts on to disguise itself. I know this because I’m not just a chair-checker–I’m also one who constantly waits for the bottom to fall out from underneath me. Given the chance, I’d live entirely on fear, and I and everyone around me would be the worse for it. What if it’s not true? I ask of everything–everyone–I put my faith in. And yet, grace keeps stepping out on the ledge with me. Every time.

It’s grace that exposes that fear, that tells me that my anxiety surrounding this flight is not just about the inconvenience or difficulty of it, or even just about TK’s discomfort. It’s also (fear part here) about my need for approval, my urge to please others, that perpetually haunting part of my personality that requires outside affirmation.

Well, screw that. If there’s ever a time to stop worrying about what other people think, it’s on a cross-country flight with a seven-month-old, am I right? I’ll skip karma, with its accompanying false sense of control, and place all my chips on grace because it kicks karma’s ass–and tells much better stories. Justice already happened; it’s redemption’s turn now. So I will adjust my seat forward, secure my seatbelt, and wait for grace and the in-flight bar to show up.

The journey back from pregnancy and childbirth has been a tortuous one–and that’s coming from someone who never EVER complains. I feel as if I’ve slowly emerged from a cave over the last few months, with the first three of The Kid’s life not counting due to backwards-steps–a cyclical-seeming form of regression that rendered me hopeless a lot of the time. But now? Our journey is complete. We have arrived.

Okay, not really. There are still those cyclical-seeming forms of regression, like TK’s recent teething experience. The only thing he opted to chew on, besides his own fingers, were my mammaries–and after a couple of nursing seshes of that, it was weaning time. Then there are the general mistakes that The Husband and I (mostly I) make because this is our first time at this job and no one provided a company handbook, dammit. No HR orientation or anything. So when TK’s daycare teacher called me several times last week to describe some impressive oral formula explosions, I got agitated. For a few reasons. To quote one of my favorite mothers, and the only person I know who is more sarcastic than I am, “Don’t they know that’s why you have him in daycare? Because you don’t have time for that?” (Calm down, pearl-clutchers: it was a joke. Mostly.) There’s nothing more upsetting than feeling unavailable for my child because I’m dodging some other kid’s/patient’s puke. But the real kicker is what underlies all those other reasons, what forms the true foundation of my agitation: my hatred of being/appearing incompetent. And when it comes to my kid, I often am.

BUT. There are pediatricians for that, and we took him to one, and we jointly discovered that the issue was likely a touch of reflux, a sensitive gag reflex (“Thanks, Mom,” said TK), and an overwhelming volume of maternally-poured formula per bottle. To wit: he had gained a pound and a half in three weeks. Which all boils down to me loving him too much, if you want to devise a convenient truth out of the matter. (I do.)

So now his teeth have broken through, he’s not hurling, and my boobs are wonderfully shrinking. TH doesn’t even mind that–as he says, “What good are big ones if they’re off limits?” I can wear normal bras again and I don’t have to apply deodorant to the crevasse that was my cleavage. And yesterday, we went to church and even stayed after it was over to talk to people rather than running out and blaming TK. This after we took communion as a family (okay, TK didn’t–so he has some doctrinal issues, so what?). And then we went to The Sis and Bro-in-Law’s and watched Federer clean up at Wimbledon after too long of not doing so. I guess you could say that 2012 is the Year of Comebacks.

Of course, there is the issue of my sleep, which I’m coming to accept will never be what it was pre-TK. But I’m also learning to be okay with that, because in those pre-dawn moments, with the monitor glowing beside me, I’ll hear a noise from the other room. My spine will stiffen reflexively until I translate his sounds into the coos they are. It’s almost like our wakefulness is connected, our sleep and our gags and our double helices all reflective of each other, and I look at the clock, not dreading the exit from bed but counting the minutes until we turn on the light and see that grin. Some things weren’t meant to stay the same.

I grew up around a lot of estrogen: The Mom, The Sis, and I were left tending the home fires much of the time while The Dad traveled around for bacon to bring back. So when the ultrasound tech informed The Husband and me, about a year ago, that The Kid was of the male persuasion, I was excited to the point of tears. For one thing, it meant that he was likely to become a sort of mini-TH, and the world needs more people like that. For another, it meant less of the drama that Louis CK describes: hurricane instead of genocide.

Now that TK is here, I’m already appreciating the speed with which I can choose clothing at Target, even as The Sis struggles with The Niece’s newfound aversion to white socks. I listen to his form of talking that is now just sounds strung together at elevated decibels,  passionate and often enraged discourses on the state of his toes that encourage me to think he will have no problem forging his way in this world.

But I’m The Mom, so I also baby him.

Every car ride involves a sneaky tug of war between me and TH over the radio’s volume dial, even after he arranged all the sound to come through the front speakers. “Maybe just a little too loud…” I’ll whisper, creeping my fingers over to the the aptly-named controller. TH laughs as TK continues his diatribe on national health insurance from his car seat, and I consider for the millionth time how grateful I am that he has both of us: one with whom he can skin his knee, and the other to whom he can run for Band-Aids.

For now, he maintains an infatuation with me in which I unapologetically revel: his head follows the sound of my voice, he laughs uproariously at even my lamest jokes, and I get to be his spot of rest. Yesterday before church, he was just spent from fruit inhalation and bottle slurping and a speech to the U.N. about teething, and when I entered the room with my now-customary “How’re my boys?” inquiry, the rubbing of eyes and yawns and a hand-off by TH were my answer. So I carried TK into the sunroom and we leaned back on the couch to read the copy of The Velveteen Rabbit gifted by his aunt RC. I hovered over the part where the Skin Horse talks to the Rabbit about being real.

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand…Once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

We finished the book and I leaned back on a pillow, hiking TK up onto my shoulder, where he fell asleep. His hand rested on my arm and his breathing became the rhythm of the moment, the way that his talking and sometimes his crying are. But for now it was the soft intake and release, the life resting upon me and the sound of TH’s footsteps walking in to find us and stay, the three of us being Real together.

The Husband and I left The Kid at home last weekend in a last-ditch attempt to save our marriage by taking a trip to Asheville. Ha, no actually the trip was due to our being almost timed out of a nonrefundable hotel stay we had planned for SM’s wedding in November, back when I was unceremoniously thrown on bed rest. TK kept us in Atlanta for that autumnal voyage, but I would be damned if he’d get his say again this summer! Therefore, in preparation for our trip (and because I was tired of being used as a chew toy), I weaned TK (actually am still weaning myself, as I sit here typing with cabbage leaves in my bra–don’t ask) and typed out a multi-page instruction list for The Mom and Dad to read and religiously abide by. Bibles were held, oaths were taken–it was a big deal. Then Saturday morning arrived. The Husband futilely attempted to teach The Mom how to operate our streaming Netflix account with the wii remote as I watched, shaking my head. Then we kissed TK goodbye and were off.

As we arrived at our first stop–the Dunkin’ Donuts five minutes from our house–the sweet strains of Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry” filled the car and I choked a little on the snot ball forming in my throat. A few extra munchkins helped push that ball down (that’s what she said), and TH saved the day by blasting some Louis CK for our drive. A few hours and wrong turns later (I had warned TH about making me navigator; it’s not like I come from hardy technical stock–see above), green mountains appeared in our windshield, and I found myself venturing from the “sad” bag of my now-permanent Mixed Feelings Luggage Set to the “excited” one. We finally arrived in downtown Asheville and I emerged from the car, wiping fingernail clippings from my lap because I’m classy and Mama’s gotta multitask. Then we hit a Mexican spot and I had two–count ’em, TWO!–hard drinks over lunch. Asheville Lemonade doesn’t drink itself–just saying.

The rest of that day and evening were my reminder about the thin line between “drinking is fun!” and “alcohol is actually a poison.” The next morning, the Lord’s Day, I awoke with a hangover for the first time in over a year. This called for room service (as parents, we now awake in time for breakfast on vacation) drenched in copious amounts of coffee. Then it was off to the Biltmore Estate for the Required Educational Component of our trip. Plus, they have a vineyard there. Just saying.

I drank less that night, which definitely made matters less fun (TH and I are considering seeing other people) but also allowed me to feel human the next morning. And as we reversed our outbound trip from two days prior…okay, I tried a new Google-suggested route and we got a little lost in Deliverance land, so sue me…I felt that cord that had stretched from my heart to TK’s on Saturday begin to pick up a little slack. Relief settled in, quickly replaced by anxiety over the realization that nothing will ever be easy again. Not on the emotional side of things at least, which is where I usually (and often, unwisely) pitch my tent. From now on, whenever the three of us aren’t together, I feel incomplete. And as the world would have it, that absence occurs often. I remembered my confident proclamations, pre-TK, of all the adult vacations we’d take without him. (There’s actually a pretty sizable Pre-TK Confident Proclamations File, in case your were wondering. I know–huge shock.) And just to be clear, I’m not taking that particular proclamation back. All joking aside about our marital bliss (chill, we’re seeing Dr. Phil, it’s gonna be okay), TH and I need these getaways. Life is a story, and sometimes we need to be retold the part about why we’re good together–his memory is short, and mine is selective based on mood. So we won’t sacrifice the QT. However, that heart-connecting cord still stretches every time. And I know it never stops, but as U-Hauls and trips north and my own story have taught me, the cord doesn’t break–it only grows stronger. And gives us everything in the world to come home to.

I finally gave in. The Husband has been after me for awhile to hire a cleaning service so that the burden of housekeeping might be lifted from my shoulders. Now, before you think this is going to be one of those “Aww, TH is so wonderful and kind” posts–or just that, anyway–consider this: when I told him, in my control-freak voice, that I was perfectly capable of doing the job myself, he replied, “Yeah, but your attitude about it…” and trailed off, knowing that if he wanted dinner that night, he should quit while he was ahead. To be fair, there was an incident involving a collision of my vacuum with his bedside lamp, but that was purely accidental; however, the profanity-laced monologue accompanying said incident was not.

It’s not that I don’t want someone else to do the cleaning; it’s more that I want to be a martyr about it. Also, there’s the possibility that a new hire won’t abide by my naval-officer-esque standards. Then there’s the separate issue of my introversion (read: jerkiness) that exhibits frustration over the fact that I already have enough people in my life I have to pretend to like; why add another? But on Saturday, with TH out of town and The Mom visiting (read: enabling my sanity), the prospective housekeeper (is that PC? or the equivalent of calling a flight attendant a stewardess? Can someone grab my copy of The Help?) dropped by, looked around, and gave me her rates. Then we shook on it and the deal was done.

When TH gingerly approached the topic of leaving town for a close friend’s bachelor party a few weeks ago, I gingerly reminded him that he’s not allowed to step outside the perimeter on weekends. Then I gingerly remembered that I may want to cut out of town myself one of these days, and I relented. But not without my signature resentment. “The Kid, your daddy is going to leave us for awhile, but he’ll probably be back soon,” I would announce regularly in the days leading up to TH’s trip. “Try to remember what his face looks like.” Such half-jokes were naturally met with laughter from TH (read: groans). Life demands so much more from me lately than it did when I was living for myself in a New York City walk-up, and though the rewards are greater now, I often forget them and even temporarily forego them in favor of a shitty attitude. And though my cuteness knows no bounds as I sing a Beyonce tune while threatening TH with expulsion (to the left, to the left, everything you own in a box to the left), I realize my resentment is yet another sign of my deep brokenness and the work grace has left to do with me. (Oh, hey, grace–thanks for showing up again! By the way, do you clean houses, too, or just people?)

But the weekend turned out to be full of joy and redemption as grace overruled me constantly. The Mom got to watch me being a mother, and I got to watch her being a grandmother. I personally think her job is easier, but since she and The Dad raised two such stellar individuals, I guess they’ve earned some time off. The Kid wore his helmet with an air of ease that he did not genetically receive from me–he looks boyish and older in it, like he’s about to hop on a Harley–and topped that off by turning six months and sleeping twelve hours. BAM. And last night, as he leaned against his Boppy and peacefully sucked his thumb and watched The Parent Trap while I made dinner, I whispered a prayer of thanks for a dirty house and heavily full life–and wondered how I ever had the right to use the word love before he, TH, and grace came along.

I’m going to start off by saying that thing you’re not supposed to say: I find some of Alexander Payne’s films to be BO-RING. About Schmidt–Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates in a hot tub? Are you kidding me? Gross. And this weekend, The Husband and I Red Boxed (new verb) The Descendants. Well. I’m not going to say it was terrible (I’ll let TH say that), but what we don’t have time for anymore are long, drawn-out looks meant to convey meaning, GEORGE. The Kid is waiting to be fed and I’m trying not to fall asleep so why don’t you just tell me what you’re trying to say and stop being all artsy about it?

And then, last night, the opposite of slow-moving: I turned the channel to the MTV Movie Awards, an annual event that, a dozen or so years ago, I actually looked forward to and planned viewing parties around, and now I feel like my eyeballs are being raped after two minutes of Russell Brand’s c-ck jokes and wild stage prancing. (Are we sure he’s not still on drugs?) “At what age group is this directed?” I asked TH, clutching my pearls, and he replied, “Young people are going to watch this and think they never have to get a job–all they have to do is make jokes and be pessimistic and they’ll become famous.”

Because TK is growing up so fast–in a week he’ll be six months old and he’s already sitting up in his high chair, dammit, and we’re out of that dark three-month tunnel of despair and into the glorious light of smiles and laughter and recognition and tomorrow he’ll be sneaking beer and trying to watch MTV even though I’ve banned it and somewhere, Russell Brand will be auditioning for a reality show and I will wonder where all the time went. SIX MONTHS. That’s old enough to wear sunscreen and start solids and get weaned (my body, my choice). And my trees-for-the-forest mentality already transforms his glee upon seeing my face into a teenage sullenness and harsh words pinged back and forth (“Why?!” “Because I SAID SO!”) and now we’re to the part that I’m wishing will not fly by: not an alien, not yet a teen. But I don’t want to be one of those mothers, either, who rues the passage of each second in that creepy “Oh I remember when you were just a baby” way that makes kids feel guilty for inadvertently obeying the laws of biology. I want to celebrate every moment, weigh it down with gratitude and move thankfully on to the next like I’m opening a gift, since that’s what they are anyway.

Yesterday TH filled the inflatable pool with water and I pulled TK’s new swim outfit onto his writhing frame and we placed him into the water, slowly, one toe at a time. And I realized that this was one of those moments–one that demands to be captured on video and in pictures as a First. Baby’s first swim. So I filmed and clicked as TK splashed and cried, and we labeled that first pool venture Not a Success. A few hours later, after our Sunday Afternoon Family Walk (with guest stars Yuengling and Pinot Grigio), the water was warmer and we tried again. Sans swim gear and swim diaper, because sometimes that’s how we roll–all wrong–and this time TK loved it. Almost as if to say, “Dudes. Just give it time. And stop loading me down with all those accoutrements.” (In my head, he sounds like Keanu Reeves in Point Break when he says this.) He splashed around and smiled and squinted up at us and I thought, “This. This is what Monday mornings and mood swings and my own brokenness cannot take away. This is what grace gives.” In my head, I sound wise and British when I say this. Like Judi Dench–not Russell Brand.