The Perfect Storm

In the weeks leading up to our beach trip, I was increasingly nervous that our annual vacation would be ruined by a hurricane. The summer's weather had been strangely quiet despite predictions of a rough season, so I feared Mother Nature was storing up for a disastrous storm.

As it turned out, the weather was mostly beautiful while we were at the beach. But I was right to be worried -- although it may not have made the news where you are, there was a big coastal tempest by the name of Hurricane Pippi:

Hurricane Pippi brought sunny skies and nice breezes, but also 5 a.m. wake-up calls, nap strikes and perpetual motion accompanied by serious teething. When she wasn't chasing the sea gulls or running into the ocean, she was attempting to remove her swimsuit, rolling in the sand, stealing our friends' snacks, yelling at the top of her lungs and tasting shells.

And as if that weren't enough, there was the Friday evening adventure to urgent care to check her wrist that may or may not have been sprained by her mother (who was holding Pippi's hand and jerked on her arm to keep her from sticking the other hand in a bag of poopy diaper -- you know the move because you've done it a million times before). She was fine by bedtime, but her anguished sobs and complete refusal to use her left hand had us scared for a few hours.

All in all, it was a wonderful vacation with family and friends. But now I need a week to recover from Hurricane Pip. Thank goodness preschool starts on Wednesday!

Definitely Not the Duggars

Four summers ago, we met the T and H families here at the beach. They had come down together from Charlotte, but it was a happy coincidence for us that we were staying next-door to families who each had a one-year-old like us. We bonded over early morning playtime on the beach (why can't these little ones understand the joy of sleeping in on vacation?!) and had so much fun that we made plans to return to the same place same week every year.

Since that first summer, our group has grown from three babies across three families to nine kids and four families (two with three kids each). For my children, it's all the fun of having seven extra cousins without any of the work. For me, it's a joy to have interesting people to talk with and share life with, outside the busy context of our "regular" worlds back home.

One of the topics of conversation this summer has started with the lead-in, "So are you guys done?"

Over the past year, my husband and I seriously considered joining the three-is-the-new-two approach to family planning (I mean really, I have SO many friends with three kids now). In fact, it was a tougher decision than I expected. After growing up in a family of four, I always assumed I would have two kids as well -- but it's such an amazing thing to create a tiny person out of nothing and then watch him or her grow, it's almost addictive. Our children are beautiful, healthy, funny, smart and interesting (if we do say so ourselves), so why wouldn't we want more? Plus, maybe if we had another one, I'd get one who looked even remotely like me (although probably not).

But my response to the question this week has been, "Yep. We're done." Followed immediately by a long-winded explanation of why we made that choice, including a host of reasons like...

• our age (I was already "advanced maternal age" when Pippi was born, which is still several years younger than my husband)
• our cars (which are paid for, but can't hold more than two car seats)
• our energy levels (severely depleted after not sleeping through most nights for the past four years)
• our marriage (which doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves while we try to manage everything else)
• our concerns about a third c-section (which means a longer, more painful postpartum)
• our finances (which are holding on for the moment, but would get thin with more family members requiring food, clothes and college funds)
  

I'm not sure why I can't just answer, "Yes -- our family is complete," and leave it at that. Maybe it's because, ultimately, I'm afraid I can't handle a third -- just not organized enough or patient enough or creative enough to manage any more than the chaos I already have. My tenuous hold on sanity and good parenting might not survive two more little hands pulling me in every direction, accompanying me on every trip to the toilet, making demands on my every waking (and sometimes sleeping) minute. If I'm honest, I think we're done because I'm done.

But then I hold a sweet new baby, sniff that fresh baby head, cuddle those tiny rolls and creases. In that moment, I think maybe just maybe we rushed into the decision to stop, maybe there's another baby in my heart, maybe we really could manage three.

And then that sweet new baby starts to cry or spit up or fuss and I remember how hard and exhausting and lonely those new babies can make me feel. And I'm over it.

Thankfully, our beach friends aren't done yet, so maybe there will be more sweet babies to hold and snuggle and sniff next year -- and then (thank goodness) quietly hand them back to their parents.

Note: If you don't get the title of the post (or if you have suggestions for a 19th "J" name), go here. And if you haven't commented on my post for the contest at Triangle TRACKS yet, Friday is your last chance.

My Body, Myself, My Daughter

When I was about 12 or 13 years old, we were visiting my grandparents on the Chickahominy River one summer. I vividly remember walking out onto the pier in my one-piece swimsuit, when my Nana saw me and declared, "Why, dahlin' -- look at you! You've got hips!"

In retrospect, I am certain that Nana meant it as a compliment. At the time, I was mortified. Horrified. Wanted to melt into a puddle and slide off into the river and sink deep down into the muddy bottom. At that age, I was self-conscious enough about my body and the effects of puberty (or lack of effects, in some areas) that the last thing I needed was to know that someone else was noticing me -- even if that someone was my grandmother who loved me very much.

Now, more than 20 years later, I'm still afraid that people might look at me in a swimsuit and critique what they see. The truth is that probably no one is paying that much attention to me and that I am my own worst critic.

But I'm trying hard to get over that -- after two babies, I'm starting to realize that I actually looked great in my 20s, so I trust that I'll think I looked good in my 30s when my 40-ish self is looking back at photos. That's the thought that motivates me to put on a bikini when I'm at the beach -- that, plus the fact that it makes my husband very happy to see me in one.

But what worries me even more than how I look is how my body-image issues might affect my daughter.

Right now, Pippi is roly-poly round and absolutely gorgeous -- her toddler belly pops out in front of her, she has tan-lines in the pudgy creases in her forearms and thighs, and every ounce of it is beautiful. She's also completely uninhibited (see photo -- she's preferred to be topless at the beach all week, too) and has no thoughts about what her body should and shouldn't be. I want so much to help her stay like that, to always believe that she is beautiful and that her body is exactly how it should be.

But given that I haven't managed to feel that way about myself in three decades -- and given all the forces around her that will shout about the need to be thin or have big breasts or look a certain way -- how do I teach her to hear a different, stronger voice inside her head?

I think it might start with me, my voice, and the voices of other people who love her. Maybe if her father and I and her grandparents and our friends all talk about being healthy and confident, then she'll have some defenses built up to fight against those other voices.

When she was a newborn, my dad would hold her and say to her, "You are SOOOOOOOO beautiful," in this sweet, sing-song voice. She always smiles at him when he says that, like she knows exactly what he means. Hopefully, when her Nanna and Nonna comment on her pre-teen body one day, she'll smile and say, "Thank you -- I think I look so beautiful, too."

Friday's Five: Beach Time

I'm on beach time, where the days and hours blend and melt one into the other. Where you have to check the paper to know what day it is, except that you don't remember the last time you looked at the news. So I'm pretending it's still Friday, even though it's Saturday night now and might be Sunday by the time I get this posted.

We've been at the beach since Wednesday, visiting with my long-time friend, Shannon, and her family. It's our first time here with four children (her two and my two), plus both husbands over the weekend. The definition of crazy fun -- sometimes just crazy and sometimes just fun, but always worthwhile.

Here are five things I love about spending time at the beach with a friend who's known me since my single days and continues to be my friend after all these years:

1. Watching our kids turn themselves into little shake-n-bake babies, coating every inch of their sweet bodies with sand and loving every minute of it (see photo). Then bathing all four of them together in the shower outside the beach house, soaping and re-soaping until their tiny white tushies are all clean.
   


2. Reading a book, an actual, wonderful, honest-to-goodness novel. Shannon finished it on Wednesday and I burned through the 400+ pages by Saturday night. Not only was The Help a great book, I finally made the time to read. Of course, it helps that Shannon and our husbands were there to entertain the kids so that I could read uninterrupted for more than 15 minutes.
   


3. Staying up too late, talking about everything from Michael Jackson to forgotten friends to Punxsutawney Phil to our families to saving turtles to where we want to buried (or not) when we die. We might not have solved the world's problems, but it's way more fun than chatting on Facebook.
   


4. Wearing a bikini on the beach, because it makes my husband happy to see me in one and I don't feel self-conscious around Shannon because she loves me in spite of myself. And she has probably had as many body-image issues as I have over the years (although hers are different ones than mine and she looks fantastic).
   


5. Having a schedule, which sounds counter-intuitive for the beach -- but only if you don't know Shannon. She's a planner, in the most high-maintenance way, and I love it. We always know what we're going to do and when we're going to do it -- when the schedule is filled with nap times, snack times, trips to the pool and the beach, you can sign me up for that plan any day of the week.
   
   

What's best of all is knowing that we'll get to do this again next year and the next year and the year after that. We've been friends too long, know too much, survived too many tales to stop now. And I can't wait to hear her stories next year about her plan to become a figure skater performing at intermission during the Penguin's games despite the fact that she currently doesn't know how to skate. It's going to be brilliant.

Becoming Grandparents

One of the many interesting things about becoming a parent has been watching my parents become grandparents. The transition appears to have been a fun one for them, but it's a joy for me, too.

Last weekend was our first beach trip with Nanna and PopPop since Pippi was born, which made it all the more wonderful to be there with them. I'd forgotten how exhausting it is to be at the beach with a sand-eating, shell-tasting, seaweed-sampling toddler who likes to wake up before sunrise (literally).

Even though it was supposed to be my parents' vacation, they happily took my two little crazies on bike rides around the island and walks on the beach, built sand-roads and sand-hockey arenas (no castles for Junius this year), shared watermelon and cooked meals. They snuggled and wrestled and raced and practiced yoga together. It must have been the most exhausting three days of vacation my parents ever had.

But no matter how much we must have worn them out, they were really enjoying their role as grandparents and beach playmates. When we left on Tuesday so that they could have the last part of the week to themselves, I actually believed my parents when they said they'd miss us.

Still, I think they'll somehow find a way -- between watching peacefully from their deck as the sun rises and sets over the sound -- to get by without us.

Friday's Five: The Beach

In keeping with this week's theme and the fact that we're leaving this afternoon for the beach (hooray!!), here are five beaches that hold fond memories for me, each in a different way.

1. Holden Beach: We went to this N.C. beach for our honeymoon and have gone back nearly every year since. It's where we first dipped our babies' toes in the Atlantic, beach-baptizing them into our family. There's nothing much to do, other than play in the sand, visit with friends and eat shrimp. Simply perfect.
   
   
2. Edisto Island: We have the good fortune to be invited to stay with my parents each year during their vacation on this S.C. island, which is tucked in south of Charleston. Between the shaded bike trails, the fresh watermelon stands, and the gentle water, it's a great place for families. My husband is just waiting for his chance to take the kids to the Serpentarium.
   
   
3. South Beach: My husband and I took our last "just us" vacation at this Miami beach, a few months before I got pregnant with Junius. It's where I discovered the joys of mojitos, latin jazz and art deco at the beach. It's also a topless-optional beach. Since my parents read this blog I won't tell you if I did or didn't, but I will say I was careful to use plenty of sunscreen.
   
   
4. Zakynthos Island: The summer after I completed my post-graduate diploma in Wales, my friend and I went "on holiday" to the Greek Isles. No offense, but it was a much better option than going to Myrtle Beach after graduation -- those Europeans have it figured out. Gorgeous sandy beaches with crystal clear water, plus all the feta cheese and tzatziki sauce you can stand.
   
   
5. Buckroe Beach: Part of my childhood summers were spent in my grandparents' house at this Virginia beach on the Chesapeake Bay. It might not make your list of vacation destinations, but it will always hold a special place in my heart. Whether we were pulling in crab traps off the pier, lounging in the hammock or taking a ride on the rickety old roller coaster, it was time well spent for this little girl, her brother and her cousins.
   

Ready or Not, Here Comes the Swim Suit

Did I mention we're going to the beach this weekend? Can you tell I'm excited? It's going to be a lovely time, even if it means dealing with my body-image issues around swim wear.

That's fodder for a longer post when I have time to write about it, but suffice it to say that (like a lot of women) I'm less than confident about how I look in a swim suit -- especially after two babies. It's not that I think I look terrible, but there are plenty of things I would change.

One thought that helps me feel better is this photo. It was taken this same weekend beach trip four years ago. I was 35 weeks pregnant with Junius and could no longer wear my wedding bands or fit in a booth at a restaurant (no really, we had to wait until a regular table opened up). People up and down the beach were setting 911 on their phones because I was so huge it looked like I might go into labor at any moment. As it turned out, I stayed pregnant another seven weeks. Makes me tired just thinking about it.

Truthfully, being pregnant in a swim suit was strangely liberating. I love the big, round maternity belly -- it made me feel powerful ("I'm constructing an entire human being -- what are YOU doing?"). Plus it was the only time I didn't feel compelled to suck in my belly. In fact, I wore a bikini at the beach when I was (4 months) pregnant with Pippi and felt nearly exotic.

But given that I'm not pregnant this year, I'm dealing with the body I have. And no matter how many nips and tucks I'd like to take before heading out on the beach, at least I know I'm about 50 pounds lighter now than I was in that picture.