Blueberries, Bread, and Butter
The Greatest Gift
*I wrote this at the beginning of summer and have been working on a piece called Vagina Full of Rainbows, but it’s not ready yet. Summer with 2 little kids has been busy, stressful, and chaotic (and sometimes fun!) and my vagina has not felt full of rainbows lately, but I’m working on the “how-to guide” for all of us, so stay tuned. For now here’s a story for you from the depths of Mom Land. Please read and then share a story with me too!
My bleeding time started this morning (aka: menstruation, period, moon time...). I have 2 little boys and it feels really important that they know all about this time and how it feels to be in a woman’s body, with a cycle that lets me know when to create and when to rest. It’s pretty amazing and can be totally exhausting.
This morning I woke up feeling like shit, after solo parenting for the last 4 days while my husband was on a trip to Alaska. I got up at 6am with our 2-year-old and laid down on the couch because I wasn’t ready to be up yet, but he was. When I went to the bathroom I discovered I was bleeding. My cycle is all over the place as my hormones find their new way after weening and I wasn’t expecting my bleeding time until next week, but here it is.
A few hours later I biked my 2-year-old to daycare and when I got home I went back to the couch to lie down while my older son played with dinosaurs. Then he asked me, “Are you sleeping?” I said, “I’m resting. It’s my bleeding time and I don’t feel very good. I’m really tired because my body is working hard to let go of the life blood it made in case I got pregnant, but I’m not pregnant. My body is telling me that I need to rest and eat more food.”
He thought about this for a moment and then got up to get a handful of blueberries which he brought to my mouth and fed me one at a time. Then he went to the fridge, got a stool so he could reach the bread, and pulled out one piece. He grabbed a glob of butter with his hand, and smeered it on thickly, like a quarter inch of butter. Then he fed me, while I stayed lying in fetal position on the couch. It’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.
The next day, I took him to the pool and he called me a bad mom for not buying him dip n’ dots. Summer time with little kids is such a mixed bag.
How are you doing? Tell me your stories. What made you laugh or cry this week or this summer? Sending love to you and yours, we’ve almost made it through summer break!!!