Not Quite The Christmas I Remembered

It’s hard to get through the Christmas story without talking about sex. We’ve already talked about these things, so the ideas aren’t a surprise.  I don’t believe the words conception and virgin came up in the explanation though.

“What’s a version?” Adalyn asked.
“Mary was a virgin because she had never slept with a man,” I said.  Juliana looked blankly at me.  “She’d never had sex.”  “Oooh,” Juliana said, understanding dawning. “Gross.”

I don’t ever remember sex ever entering into the Christmas story when I was a child.  I guess I never questioned weird words like conception and virginity or the fact that Joseph wanted to divorce Mary because she was ostensibly pregnant with someone else’s baby.  I can’t imagine my mom really wanted to go into that.

Sex in the Christmas story is not the only thing I remember playing out a little differently in the Christmases of my childhood.  I remember the fun of pulling out all the favorite ornaments and fitting as many as possible onto each branch. I always thought our Christmas tree was spectacularly beautiful, including the broken plastic Santa with the paint half worn off. I was quite proud of the broccoli Christmas tree magazine-cut-out turned ornament I made for my sister. I never struggled with the lights or wished our tree could be just a little bit more classy and some of the ornaments would mysteriously disappear.

I loved making Christmas cookies.  We got to cover ourselves in flour mixture, arm ourselves with rolling pins, and cut fun shapes from all the dough that didn’t make it into our mouths.  We even made molded candy and all kinds of fancy cookies.  Cookies were our thing – a dozen different kinds, plates for all the neighbors, the mail-woman, and the grocery store cashier.

My mom always liked cooking and baking, so she probably enjoyed this Christmas tradition.  But perfect children as we were, we likely fought over who got the most dough and who was hogging all the cookie cutters and ratted each other out for using too many sprinkles.  Cute pictures of little kids in little kid size aprons aside, there were surely times my mom got tired of all the “help" and the clean-up.

I always had sweet images of cookie making with my children.  And we do make cookies together during Christmas, at least once.  But my sweet images involved a lot more peace and enjoyment and a lot less bickering and mess.

I pull out the cookie recipe thinking, “Crap, I always forget to set out the butter to soften.  Do I have any eggs?  Come on, don’t fight over the stool.  This mixer has been smelling burnt for a while; I wonder if it will still work this time? Why do they always fight? I bet other kids don’t  fight as much.  It’s probably because I’m not parenting them well enough.”

I’m pretty sure the girls are thinking, “We get to make cookies!!”  And also, “She’s going to try to steal my stool!  What if I miss my turn? I can’t believe how unfair it is that I didn’t get to pour in the sugar. How many pinches of brown sugar can I sneak before mama notices?” I'm pretty sure there were arguments and tears when I was 6 years old too, but I don't remember them. So maybe their cookie making memories will happily erase that as well.

My friend took several of her kids Christmas shopping last weekend.  “I had it all planned out,” she said.  “I remembered special days of Christmas shopping with my mom, so I’ve tried to make it a tradition with my kids too.  But as soon as we got to the mall, the oldest decided she didn’t like anything in the store and huffed, ‘I wish I hadn’t even come!’”  By the end of the trip the gifts were purchased, but my friend was feeling tired and a little disillusioned.  “I don’t remember my shopping trips as a kid being like this!”

“You don’t remember that part,” I told her, “But maybe your mom does!”   While her mom likely looked back on the annual shopping trips with fondness, perhaps at the time she also felt tired and frustrated.  In a moment of clarity, my friend and I realized that our rosy childhood memories were coming from our childish perspectives.  Our kids come to these experiences with the same perspective. Their Christmas shopping trips may be remembered with the same rosy glow.

As the responsible adults, we might not get to have quite as much fun, but that doesn’t mean we should be parenting martyrs.  We're allowed to stop and decorate our own cookie and sneak dough while the kids aren't looking.  We can also find enjoyment in ways we wouldn’t have appreciated as a child – the quiet of Christmas tree lights and candles after the kids are asleep, coffee to drink with Christmas treats, or adults-only Christmas parties (if you are lucky). 

After all the shopping and wrapping, the cleaning and baking, the mediating arguments and struggling with Christmas lights, we get to enjoy our kids’ excitement, which is about as good as reliving childhood. I don’t believe in that whole “enjoy every moment” sentiment, but I do believe in “enjoy the moments that you can.”  So this Christmas, maybe we can make peace with the imperfect, dig our way through the unpleasant, and grasp onto all the moments we can enjoy.

Snapshots of Transition

 ~ Known ~

“I will miss this next year,” I lamented, looking around at a group of mom friends. On a rare mom’s night, we sat talking about beach hotels we have all visited - sometimes at the same time, about the new international school, about our children’s Chinese language progress and willingness to interact with other Chinese kids, about what country we will be in at what time.

“When I am here, our life seems pretty normal, but when I am back in America I realize our lives are really weird! The simplest discussions – about backyards or buying cars or extracurricular activities – leave me feeling isolated.” Everyone nodded in understanding.

Because we do understand each other. We understand the stress of being the one fascinating foreigner at a Kindergarten meeting, trying to practice your language skills while chasing your toddler around and warding off picture takers when they get a little too enthusiastic. We understand the joy of hearing your children speak Chinese and interact with other Chinese kids – when a year ago they didn’t want to even try. We all understand the stress of 24+hour trips and jetlag and endless transitions.

Many of us in this expat community have “grown up together.” We have waded together through having babies that are never dressed in enough layers and toddlers who won’t sleep, preschoolers who don’t always want to go to Chinese kindergarten, and now grade school students with classroom drama. We talk about home school curriculum, 三轮车’s, and the new Burger King that just opened. We are from different states and different countries, but we seem to have more in common than not.

~ Stress-Induced Insanity ~

I wondered if spontaneous combustion really happens, because I could swear my head was going to explode. My heart beat strangely, my head pounded with too much blood, my nerves tingled. Everything sounded too loud and grating.

The girls were finally in bed, but I could still hear the lullaby shrilling from their China-gifted blinking, twirling star machine. It is supposed to be soothing, but it may cause seizures and certainly insanity. Kevin sat next to me, wondering at my blank silence. “Kevin, I need you to go out of here,” I said rather shortly. “I am too stressed to be with people right now.” I knew he didn’t quite understand. He feels stressed too, but it doesn’t seem to lead to stress-induced insanity, aka. extreme over-stimulation.

Fortunately as I have learned more about what it means to be highly sensitive, I can recognize what is happening. I am not going insane. But I might, unless I escape all the stimulation and be alone. So I sent Kevin away before I started yelling at him and told him for the love of all that is holy, turn off that horrible lullaby.

Sitting under a thick blanket on our bed in soft lamplight, with the door closed and ocean noise on, the pressure in my head began to release. It is worse with stress, I know. How do I balance the packing, the daily piles of laundry, handling the kids (better than I have been), the last minute obligations, this encroaching deadline, and my own need for sanity? Everywhere I look is a reminder of what needs to be done. The outside world of our home descends further into chaos, and the barrier between outer and inner world starts to disintegrate. How do I protect an inner peace?

~ Bittersweet ~

Juliana came home from her last day of international school with a personalized scrapbook. Each page holds notes from her teachers and pictures of her at school. In half of the pictures her hands are covered in paint and her face with a silly grin. There she is concentrating on the drums, acting in the Christmas pageant, studying Chinese. Her teachers write – in English and Chinese – about her sunny disposition, her silliness, her enthusiasm.

This was the school’s first semester, their “soft opening,” so all of the 30-some students are known well. The school has been flexible, allowing for part-time home school. They have made allowances for our kids’ strange, foreign ways. They have been understanding when we said, “Actually we need to go live in another country for a year, mid-school-year, so we’ll be back later.”

I think Juliana will enjoy public school in America next year, but there will be confusion. When she tries to add up American money she tries to figure out which one is a kuai. She has now sorted out the American and Chinese flags, but she doesn’t know the Pledge of Allegiance or that most people in America, when asked where they are from, don’t say, “I’m from America,” or “I’m from China.” We are a little weird to Chinese and to Americans, but in this little in-between world of ours, we all make sense.

~ Stress Dreams ~

I have been having a lot of stress dreams. Lately I have varied from my ordinary stress dreams – realizing we are supposed to travel and I forgot to pack, or my recurring “out of control elevator” dream, where the elevator never goes where I want, but shoots up to the 157 floor, or down 47 floors below the ground, or leaves the building altogether and flies across the street.

No, lately I have dreamed about a rapist serial killer and all the woman he molested, about Kevin rearranging all our cabinets in a way that made no sense, about going back to America and nobody having time to hang out with us, about Nadia running into the road and almost being run over by a car, and last night - about Steve Bannon getting into our house and snooping around, trying to extract information from us. So yes, stress nightmares. Thank God I don’t have prophetic dreams. I think I can understand why Adalyn keeps waking up screaming at night.

~ Heartbreak ~

Adalyn keeps waking up screaming at night. Sometimes it is night terrors. Sometimes she is awake but can’t seem to calm down.  Everything seems out of control, especially inside of herself.  She is excited about going back to America, but she is the most sensitive to upheaval. I try to figure out what is going on with her – is she reacting to our stress? Is it her own difficulty coping with transition? Is it something more? 

I took her out one afternoon. We ate ice cream in our coats and played a game and worked a puzzle and did a little activity about stress. I wasn’t sure she would even understand stress, but her insights were surprisingly deep for a four year old. Too deep for a four year old.  She used pictures and colors (my child for sure) to describe the fear and “break-fulness” she feels. I could understand how she felt, and it was heartbreaking. Surely a four year old should not feel this way. Is it the stress of transition? If it is, how will she ever survive this crazy life of ours? Is it something deeper? If so, how do we know what is going on and get her help?

~ Goodbyes ~

The milk tea lady gives me an extra kind smile whenever I see her. The shop workers exclaim excitedly when our girls wander through the store. Every time I drive up, our fruit lady gives the girls fruit and snacks, or asks about them when they aren't along. She gathers up a whole bag of “ugly” fruit and gives it to us for free. The neighbors smile with delight when they see us in a restaurant or at the kindergarten or on the road. “Look, there is 安安 and her sisters!” Everyone knows Juliana. The owners of our favorite restaurants will wonder, “What ever happened to those foreigners? We haven’t seen them in ages.” Because we can’t tell everyone we are leaving. But who should we be sure to tell goodbye?

~ Packing ~

The other day our friend watched the girls, and I had an hour to focus on packing. It is amazing how much can be accomplished without constant interruptions. I laid out all the dishes we didn’t absolutely need to use and wrapped them in layers of bedding. I was a little worried about them breaking, but then I realized these dishes have withstood years of hard use, so they have probably never been so safe in their lives. I felt pretty good after that hour. See all we accomplished? This is totally possible.

A few days and approximately zero packing later, I thought, “Surely I can get something done this morning.” Right after I put some laundry in to wash, and hang up that pile of clean clothes, and help Adalyn draw a Christmas tree and then draw one for Nadia too, and reheat my coffee, and clean up the contents of the previously packed bin which are now scattered on the floor, and oh, now it’s time to pick up Juliana from dance class. But I did pack a tiny ziplock for hair things, so that is progress, right? This is never going to work.

~ Messy ~

I have been reading a book called Looming Transitions, written by a past colleague Amy Young. In one chapter titled “Accept That It’s Going to Be Messy,” Amy says, “a sign of finishing well is the ability to embrace the chaos of life.” I want this ending – which is an ending, even if only for a time - to be neat and orderly. I want my responses to transition to make sense. But the truth is, it’s going to be messy.

We cannot pack up a house without piles of boxes, bags of trash and stacks of give away. Some things will be carefully wrapped up and others left behind; some things will inevitably be lost in the shuffle. I start by trying to divide everything into categories: books, toys, kitchen items. I end by throwing anything and everything into any box that will hold it. I think I have a box all packed and ready only to realize it has been upended, its contents scattered all over the floor by oh-so-helpful children.

We cannot transition without mess. I feel a grief at losing some of the things I value most. We look forward to returning to family and friends, but we leave behind friends who have become like family. Even if we return here, as we certainly plan, it will not be the same. Some people will be gone. China will be different, as it leaps decades – backwards or forwards – in a single bound. I feel relief at starting over, getting rid of some of the baggage we have carried from place to place, when we should have left it behind years ago. I hate the thought of starting over. I wish we could just keep doing the same thing; even if it is not working it is familiar.

"Embracing” the chaos seems a bit out of reach, but I take time away from the craze of packing to process and write. To stop and have coffee with friends. To draw a Christmas tree with my daughter. To make sure I am still breathing.  And then I dive back into the mess of transition.

Sick

Once upon a time I thought that sickness meant being sick. You feel gross, you take medicine, you press through when you have to and get extra sleep when you can, you get better. Then I had children. And my children got sick all the time. And I got sick all the time too. And I realized that sickness effects everything.

Sickness is exhaustion. It is baby waking up every 10 minutes because she is too miserable to sleep. It is baby “sleeping” on top of you, elbow in your face, knees in your side, moving restlessly. It is middle of the night throw-ups: wiping faces, changing pajamas, stripping sheets, settling a pale child back into bed. It is daddy putting on new sheets while mama deals with crying child. It is the washing machine going in the middle of the night. It is lying in bed with children climbing all over you because you are too tired to get up in the morning.

Sickness is nursing and nursing and nursing. It is wishing you had stopped nursing by now. It is being so glad you are still nursing, when your baby or toddler won’t drink anything else and is looking increasingly less pudgy than a few days ago. It is nursing your almost 2 year old in the middle of the night, even though you finally got her night-weaned months ago, because she is so miserable and just needs comfort.

Sickness is an everlasting fever chart. It is peering confusedly at the medicine record, bleary eyed in the middle of the night. It is feeling that telltale hot forehead and knowing it is starting all over again. It is finally throwing out the fever chart and then reluctantly starting a new one the next day. It is owning 6 thermometers because somehow they never seem to work.

Sickness is trying to keep track of who is supposed to have medicine. It is managing to get your children properly medicated but realizing you forgot to take your own medicines, again, even though you really aren’t supposed to miss it.

Sickness is vitamin C and elderberry, probiotics and apple cider vinegar and essential oils and hand cleaner...and wondering if they will do any good against germs coughed directly into your mouth. Sickness is toddler who won’t leave your lap coughing into your food at every meal, and wiping her nose on your shirt, and drinking from everyone else’s water bottles. It is children who remember to cover their mouths...sometimes...and who use tissue to wipe their noses...when you remind them.

Sickness is coming down with your own sickness when already worn down from nights of comforting and days of carrying around a fussy, clingy baby. It is planning your day around possible naptimes. It is not having enough voice to read home school. It is dragging yourself out of bed to make chicken soup. It is children watching too much TV. It is everything you own exploded all over the floor.

Sickness is slowly getting better – itching to clean that mess which is driving you crazy, catching up on home school reading with a scratchy throat, dealing with the dire laundry situation. It is arms so tired, hanging up the clothes. It is dizziness. It is the decision whether to press on or to lie down and rest.

Sickness is trying to listen to your body, when it says you need to rest or you might fall over and die. But sometimes your body says, “What you really need is coffee. Lots of coffee and sugar and carbs.” And sometimes it says, “I hate you. Why are you so mean to me? How would you like some double pneumonia,” and you don’t need that kind of crap right now.

Sickness is wondering why there isn’t more public recognition of the monumental milestone of “learning to throw up in a bowl,” because it may be second only to “sleeping through the night.” It is when everyone has been throwing up enough you start to hear phantom throw-up sounds.

Sickness is toast and crackers and electrolyte popcicles. It is rejecting any food or drink. It is ravenous hunger before you are allowed to eat. It is excitement over the first real food – an egg or that blessed first peanut butter sandwich.

Sickness is asthma flare-ups and extra inhalers and that barky, croupy cough going on and on.

Sickness is lying in bed looking out the window at the waning sun, darkness falling over your room like a weight, like depression. It is the knowledge that you have spent almost all day in bed, and bed feels like a prison. It is summoning energy to get children to bed amidst the evening fever rise, feeling stale and dirty but too weak to shower, looking ahead to another sleepless night.

Sickness is the disappointment of canceled plans. Missing a rare party or your child’s performance or a date with a friend. It is staying home with sick children during the holidays. It is having to tell your child that she won’t be able to go to the party she has been talking about all week. It is your toddler insistently bringing you her shoes wondering why she never gets to go outside anymore.

Sickness is confinement. It is days without stepping outside the confines of the apartment. It is well-children going stir crazy, because you can’t even send them outside to play. It is well-children missing school because you don’t want to take the sick children out in the cold and pollution.

Sickness is anxiety. It is looking helplessly at your listless child who has hardly sat up in two days. It is listening to your baby’s rapid heart rate and labored breathing. It is the dread of having to go back to the local hospital. It is self-prescribing. It is finally going to the hospital...waiting in lines and lines with sick people who touch your child’s face. It is the 30 second check up and antibiotics you hope are actually warranted. It is the fear that it could be something serious. It is searching Google, even though it will try to convince you it is cancer or TB or the plague.

Sickness is kids who act like jerks, even when they aren’t the sick ones. It is being an even bigger jerk than your children, when you are supposed to be thirty years more mature. It is taking a while to even feel bad about being a jerk because the whole world is stupid and deserves your full wrath. It is parents snapping at each other, even though we know we are both just tired, so tired and not feeling well.

It is hoping your kids forget the jerk-mom and remember the one who put a cool washcloth on a hot forehead. It is cups of juice with bendy straws and crackers to nibble. It is making meals you are too sick to eat. It is realizing your baby would sleep if only you stood rocking her for the next 10 hours. It is little heads drooped on big shoulders, little hands wound through hair. It is finally seeing the shine return to their eyes.

If, of course, you aren’t too sick to notice.

This Is The Age

I am the first to admit (and complain) that this age is hard.  So hard, so exhausting, so constant. Some days I long for the girls to be older. When Adalyn stops throwing tantrums...When Nadia stops eating things off the floor...When Juliana stops wanting someone with her when she falls asleep every night...
But tonight at bath-time I remembered:

This is the age of rubber duckies and washcloth puppets.  The girls are excited to don their princess towels that fit over their heads like dresses, and Adalyn worries, "Where is Elsa's face and feet?" ("You are Elsa's face and your feet are her feet.")

This is the age of boardbooks and picture books, some torn and chewed and falling apart because they were everyone's favorites (and apparently tasted good too).  I still read the same story over and over at bedtime when Nadia starts for another book, then decides Quiet LOUD deserves another re-read.   Adalyn loves following a little girl through her bedtime routine in My Goodnight Book, asking why we don't do exactly every step the same way.

This is the age of stories and songs and prayers before bed.  It is daddy's rides to bed and the blanket just so, or all the right stuffed animals cuddled around. It is frantic calls from the bedroom - when you just want to finally be alone - to say, "MAMA, I didn't give you a kiss!!"

This is the age of excitment.  New bandaids call for imaginary cuts. A visit from a friend is a good reason to jump up and down.  A carton of yogurt satisfies every need, at least for the moment.  They exult over pumpkins and stickers and anything new.  They rush to be the bearer of good news, "Juliana we are eating MAC AND CHEESE for lunch!!"

This is the age of peanut butter sandwiches.  Gallons of peanut butter smeared across bread and jelly spread too liberally by a young hand.  It is making lunch special with "double decker sandwiches" or making lunch exactly the same every single day.  It is "girled cheese," which we know means a piece of bread with cheese on top, microwaved just enough to be fully melted but not too bubbly.


This is the age of songs - endless requests to listen to Moana or Capital Kids! or Go Down Moses.  At bedtime it is "Daddy, sing a made up song that's not true about a Yes."  At school time it is Nadia requesting "JEEEEE," bobbing her head and clapping enthusiastically to "Jesus Loves Me."  On the road it is Juliana singing the same line over and over until it is stuck in your head for all eternity.

This is the age of simple problems.  Adalyn called me booty! Nadia is sitting on my drawing! Juliana won't let me play with her!  Why do I have to clean up my toys every night - I do everything around here!  The stool is not pulled out far enough at the sink, the soap is too far away, the counter is too cold to lean against, you are always making me wash my hands and you are RUINING MY LIFE!

This is the age of hugs in the morning and joy when you return home.  It is, "Mama, you are the best mama ever," and "WHY does daddy have to go teach? I just want him to stay here." It is nose kisses and imploring arms and let me poke my finger in your belly button just one more time.  It is love so intense it clings and wraps and holds on because it cannot imagine life without you.

And yes, it is the age of tantrums and sleeplessness and neediness and screaming. It is the age of toddlers crying at your feet while you try to cook dinner.  It is whining and bickering and crying  and did I mention screaming? It is putting a blanket back on, or finding a pacifier, or making trips to the bathroom, or sitting through night terrors, or putting that stupid blanket back on again, every single night.

But we get duckies and boardbooks and so many giggles.  We get bright eyes and smiles at 6:30am.  We get soft cheeks against ours, little hands searching for our own, little bodies smushed against us for protection and comfort.  We are the miracle workers with all the answers, fixing problems with bandaids and crackers and do-overs.

We see glorious, energetic, confident dances around the living room, because they haven't yet learned to be self-conscious.  We experience all the raw emotions they haven't yet learned to hide.  We glimpse the black and white world as they see it, full of right and wrong and good guys and bad guys, before everything gets confusing. We are peppered with anger, such honest over-the-top anger, and showered with love, given freely and abundantly, as if they could never run out.

Even If

When we returned home in August, our thick winter boots were still by the door, a silent reminder of the last year. I am very easily visually stressed, so I work hard to keep things clean and organized – as much as possible when living with a bunch of people who don’t value clean and organized. But this past year, the chaos in our home reflected the upheaval in our lives.

I got sick at the end of April, when the weather was still cool. By the time I was getting out again nearly a month later, the air was warm but my children were still wearing winter clothes. I hadn’t had the energy to find their short sleeve shirts. When the girls and I left China the first of June, I was barely recovered enough to pack. Putting away winter boots – or picking up the random toys still on the kitchen counter – wasn’t a high priority. A plate of sunflower seeds sitting on the counter, a stack of books piled in the corner of the room, a half eaten package of crackers left on the nightstand – forgotten three months earlier - made our house look rapidly deserted.

We were so comparatively healthy this summer that I was a little nervous about coming back. We had been sick every single day of May, our last month in China, but when we returned to the US we stopped getting sick. I think we had two colds the entire summer. Only two colds in 3 months! As opposed to 1 flu, 1 pneumonia, 2 stomach ailments, 1 cold, 3 fever/viruses, and a head gash in the month of May alone. Would we get sick again as soon as we stepped foot into our apartment?

I am happy to report that since we returned almost 4 weeks ago, we have had had just a couple of colds and some stomach troubles – plus of course ridiculous allergies. We are doing pretty well. I unpacked our American treasures, filling our freezer with coffee and tortillas and our cabinet with dried beans and Mac and Cheese. I organized our medicine cabinet to accommodate all the new medicines we acquired over the summer. I sorted through the girls clothes. I washed at least some of our super dirty windows. And yes, I put away the winter boots.

There is nothing like a horribly unproductive year to make normal life feel wildly productive. I cook dinner (at least sometimes)! I have been able to keep up with laundry. I get outside multiple times a week and have gotten in some semi-regular exercise. I have had enough voice to read Juliana’s home school books aloud. All of these are things that were incredibly difficult for much of the last year.

And yet, I still wonder...even though Nadia is FINALLY (mostly) sleeping, I am always so tired. Life still often seems overwhelming. I get so easily behind. I feel so limited in what I can do outside the home what with all the home school and children, or after 8pm what with all the missing brain cells. Is this all normal, just a part of this stage of life? Will I ever not feel tired and overwhelmed?  Will I always have to work so hard to be happy? Will my children ever stop screaming?

I’d like to think we could just leave the last year behind but past experiences cling to us and shape us for better and worse. This summer a friend said, “This year has been pretty traumatic for you.” It seems so dramatic, but that was exactly how I was feeling. It did feel like trauma, not just from all the sickness, but from the anxiety and depression and helplessness surrounding it.

When I feel a hot forehead...when I lie in bed with a welcome-back-to-China stomach ailment...when I have those weird, dark thoughts...when Adalyn is freaking out and Nadia is wailing - the emotions of the last year come rushing back. This feels so familiar. What if it is all starting again? How will we get through that again?

Believe me, I really want to move on and not relive the last year. We are doing what is in our power to say healthy. Buying a better air purifier, eating more vegetables, making sure exercise happens, taking all the vitamins. We’ve got probiotics and elderberry and essential oils. I am hyper-vigilant to the first sign of sickness.

I am trying to stay self-aware and recognize warning signs of depression, anxiety, and burn out. I am trying to make sure those healthy, preventive habits make it into my daily routine. I grab moments of quiet whenever I can, sitting in the sun on the laundry porch. I have cut out most caffeine 😢😢 but still drink plenty of decaf coffee because it brings out the joy in life. I try to get enough sleep, if there ever can be enough.

But I’ve lived in Asia long enough to be somewhat fatalistic. We do what we can, but there is so much we can’t control. We could do all the right things and still get sick all the time because whatever we like to believe, illness – physical or mental – sometimes happens anyway. Our minds and bodies are much too complex to break down to a simple formula.

We might stay healthy or we might get sick. Happiness may come easily or I may still struggle with the weight of depression (I’m gonna say neither my genes nor my temperament are doing me any favors in that regard). The last year or two was kind of terrible. But we made it through. We learned and grew. In the midst of affliction, I deeply experienced the consolation of God. We made it through - not untouched, but not worsened either. We may look a little worse – or at least older - on the outside, but inside we are deeper, truer versions of ourselves.

When I pin my hopes on things being better, I feel anxiety. What if it isn't better? I could say, “It will be better! Be positive!” But my pessimistic self isn’t so easily persuaded. So I lay aside the pep talk and honestly ask, “What if it doesn’t get better? What if we get sick? What if my depression hangs around?”

If that happens, we will make it through. We will learn and grow. We will experience the love and grace of God. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, in happiness and in depression, wherever the country or calling or season of life – He's in this with us to the very end.

I know You're able and I know You can
Save through the fire with Your mighty hand
But even if You don't
My hope is You alone

(Mercy Me: Even If)

Springing from the Ground

In some years past, spring has crept up on me unawares. I looked out the window surprised to find the ground covered in fresh green grass.  This year the transformation seemed to come more slowly, probably because I was watching so intently. From the start of spring, I have looked out the window every day examining the ground five floors below. Dead yellow grass and bare brown earth. One day after a rain, I noticed the first hints of green. The next day the fresh grass had spread a little further, mixing with the dry remnants of the last year. Each day the green spread a little more until one day I discovered the whole ground covered in beautiful vibrant new life.

Spring often comes in slow, stumbling steps. One day the trees are covered with pink and yellow and white blossoms. The sky is blue and spacious. The air is warm and gentle, the world is friendly and accepting, bursting with life. The next day the clouds turn dark without the promise of rain. The wind picks up, cold and menacing. Even the flowers seem muted, disappointed. Perhaps spring was just a dream. Winter will not so easily give up the fight.

Healing also comes slowly when you are paying attention. Is today better than the last? Is anything really changing? Some days the world seems full of hope. Life is not so hard. I feel something like energy. Without great effort, my thoughts naturally turn positive. I find myself noticing the shine in Adalyn’s eyes and the softness of Nadia’s cheeks and the vivacious aura that radiates from Juliana.

Other days the world seems hostile again, irreparably broken, and I am broken in it. My thoughts swirl into darkness.  I find myself noticing the road that is torn and broken, the person in dark glasses watching me with a blank face, or a fluorescent light flickering in an empty window and think, “That is weird. Ominous. Something is not right.” I must remind myself that there is nothing inherently strange about sunglasses or road construction or dying light bulbs. But there is truth in my thoughts - the world is broken and waiting for healing.

The brokenness is real and so is the healing. Even Jesus, who saw the whole picture and knew the end of things, experienced grief and exhaustion because he was human. When his friend Lazarus died, Jesus didn’t just tell the sisters, “Stop crying guys, I’m about to raise him from the dead!” He also entered into their suffering and wept with them. He was grieved by the brokenness he saw in the world. He groaned with the weight of burden placed upon him. He was “a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief.” He understands us in all our humanness.

There was a moment all those years ago, a few days, when it seemed that death and brokenness and despair had the last word. The sky darkened and the earth shook. The people cried out in fear. The earth was torn apart, and his followers hid in despair. But it was not the end.

In fact, it was just the beginning. The day of greatest darkness birthed the dawn of greatest light. Cruel wounds brought healing, death brought life, despair brought hope, condemnation brought grace.

We look around and some days all we see is the brokenness, but we can look into it without despair. And we can also look for evidences of life - in the shimmering evening sky, in the sound of baby giggles, in a counter wiped clean, in the blessing of mercies and coffee new every morning. Each spring the new flowers and grass remind us that death does not win. Brokenness is being restored.  When we open our eyes, we see glimpses all around.

All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

- "Beautiful Things" by Gungor

So Weak and Strong

The first pill was surprisingly hard to take.

It wasn't the first time I had been on an anti-depressant, and I was not opposed to starting again. I could understand the doctor's belief that this was more than just situational. “If you had high blood pressure or heart problems you might need to take medicine. This is no different. Your brain needs some help getting regulated again.” It was explained this way both now and in the past, and it made sense.

Still, starting medication seemed like an admission: This is bad, and I can't fix it myself. I suppose I already knew it was bad. I already went through the “ignore it and maybe it will go away” phase, and it only got worse. Eventually that word, that force I had dodged for so long was again staring me unavoidably in the face. Depression.

I tried to take care of it myself. Reduce stress, get sleep, exercise, eat well, think positive, get out of the house. But sleep has been a joke, and sickness has piled on sickness. My efforts at life change were thwarted by circumstances I could not control. Mama needs a break, but baby is crying with a fever. Mama may be throwing up, but baby needs nursing. The “self-care” I did manage was a brief pause in a downhill plunge.

I used to think depression looked like sadness and crying all the time. And sometimes it does. But actually I rarely cry. I don't feel sad as much as heavy. Hazy. Anxious. Deathly tired. It is like carrying around a giant weight everywhere you go. It is like too many programs open on your computer and nothing is operating as it should. It is like walking through thick smog – you know there is a road ahead but you can't see it. The weight of the future grips so tightly you can't get a full breath.

“You know that point in a book,” I told a friend, “When you see the person heading in a bad direction and you just want to say, 'Stop! Don't go there!' That's how I feel about my life right now. I know I am walking down a bad path and I just can't get off.”

I felt sick at the thought of heading back into the same situation with the same futile hope of fixing myself. The weight of responsibility was too heavy: I have to figure this out. I have to do something to fix this. And I am just so tired. I already have so many people to take care of – I don't want to have to take care of myself too. What if I can't make myself better and we have to go home?

So the medicine represented relief. This is something that will help me even when I can't do all the right things, even if we stay sick all the time, even if we can't get this baby to sleep. I cannot reasonably expect myself to change my brain chemistry. I can let the medicine do that, and that's okay.

And yet the medicine represented my weakness. Oh, I don't mentally believe that, but of course it feels that way. Whatever you tell yourself and others tell you, depression feels like weakness, like a character flaw. We have all heard that if you just think positively enough you can heal yourself. If you just have enough faith. If you just ate the right food or used the right oils or had the right genes you wouldn't have this problem. Even in this modern day we hear whispers of shame, shame. This is your fault.

I took the first pill. And the second and third and a couple of weeks down the line I already feel a difference, a change in my brain. Breath comes a little easier. Moments look a little sharper. I feel hope that I could climb out of this hole and enjoy life again.

I can face those whispers of weakness and say, No, that is a lie. No one chooses their genes, no one controls the makeup of their brain. I am weak, not because I am depressed but because I am human. None of us were meant to be so strong we have no need for others, no need for grace.

I am weak, but I am also strong. I am strong because I cared for my family. I am strong because I cared for myself. I am strong because I got the help I needed. I could not see the path ahead but still I kept walking.

I still cannot picture the months ahead or wrap my mind around the future. My brain becomes overwhelmed and turns away. I accept this gift of fog that allows me to focus instead on today. I look out the window at the bare trees and the cold brown earth. But I remember the springtimes of the past, I remember that one day I will be startled to find leaves in bud. The bare ground will sprout fresh green grass. Breathe in, breathe out, and watch the colors come back.

I write about my depression, even though it is very personal, because maybe you understand what I am talking about and you need to know you are not alone. I write about it because maybe you have never experienced depression, but I am almost certain that someone you know is dealing with it, whether you realize or not.  Maybe this will help you to understand them a little better.

Nadia Charlotte - 1 Year Old!!

I usually say, “I can't believe this child is getting so old! Where did the time go?” For the first few months of Nadia's life I did feel this way, but overall this year has seemed long, and actually it's hard to believe it was only a year ago that I held Nadia for the first time. Surely she has been part of our family for more than a year.

Isn't it amazing how you first look into that tiny baby's scrunchy red face and have no idea yet what they will become? Of course at one year, Nadia has quite a ways to go in her “becoming.” I still have a hard time figuring out her personality, partly because Juliana has always been so strongly extroverted and Adalyn has been so much calmer/quieter in comparison. Nadia is somewhere in the middle. Despite her overwhelming mama preference at the moment, I think she tends toward extroversion. She is easily bored on her own and quite happy in a crowded room full of older kids. She likes smiling and waving at others from the comfort of mama's arms.

It has also been harder to figure Nadia out because she has been sick so much. Twelve times in her first twelve months. Whenever she is sick she is understandably fussy, and by the time she is well I am often sick, which makes her fussy too. So it's hard to figure out how much is her temperament and how much is related to sickness. Either way, I am hoping toddlerhood will be easier and healthier.

When she is happy she is very, very happy, and when she is mad she screams very, very loudly. She can go from content to distraught in two seconds (generally when mama hands her off) and back again (when she gets mama back). She doesn't talk as much as the other girls, but she makes herself known.

All the girls have gone through a glued-to-mama phase around this age, but Nadia wishes she could get her hands on some super glue. She generally does okay with Kevin if I'm not there, but if I am in sight she wants me. She is so excited when I come home. Heck, she is so excited when I come out of the bathroom, if she wasn't already in there with me to begin with. She can be with Kevin six inches away from me and still wail because she is not WITH me. She needs to be able to smush her little body into mine.  When I hold her she clings to me and pats my back.  It is sweet and exhausting.

Undeniably one of my favorite things about Nadia is her chubby, chubby cheeks. And her chubby, chubby thighs. And chin. Pretty much all of her roly-poly self begs for kisses. Many people comment on her bright blue eyes, even westerners. A lot of people we see say she looks like me, but I'm not sure how much of that is because they see us together.

It's funny to think that she was so small when she was born. She dropped down to 5lb 11oz in the week after birth and the doctor was concerned she wasn't gaining enough. Apparently she took his concerns to heart because she shot right up the growth chart afterwards. She is currently 23 pounds or 90^th percentile. She does love to nurse, all day and all night, although lately it resembles more of an acrobatic check-in. She also loves to eat. She eats pretty much what we do now and will try almost anything offered. Her favorite is probably crackers - although after today cake might a close runner up!

Speaking of her sisters, Nadia sure loves to be one of the pack. She likes to sit with them as they play Little People or My Little Ponies, quietly sneaking away their toys to chew on. Mostly she loves her sisters, although sometimes she loses patience when they love her a little too aggressively. When they come home she is always excited to see them, and she gets big smiles when it's time for night-night hugs. “Ni-ni” seems to be her first specific word, that's how much she enjoys the ritual.

For a while Nadia was surprisingly quiet, perhaps because she couldn't get a word in edgewise. Now she is babbling a good deal and will imitate some words, though she only seems to specifically say night-night and mama right now.

And you know about the sleep struggles. I guess it's improved some since the summer. She is not always waking up every 1-2 hours; sometimes she sleeps for several hours at a time. Sometimes she doesn't. Usually she sleeps from 7:30/8pm to 6:30/7am with 3-4 breaks in the middle. She naps twice a day, usually for 45 minutes, sometimes longer. Any progress has been slow and inevitably stopped by her getting sick, so what are you going to do? I'm holding out hope that we can make something stick in the second year.

Nadia can take a few steps on her own but isn't too interested in walking further right now. She has perfected the wave and lights delighting passersby by waving frantically at them. She claps and bangs and yells with the best of them. She just had her first try at a baby swing, which is a big hit. She has learned to climb up the little slide at our house and loves sliding down.

We'll see what the second year holds. Hopefully a lot less sickness, a lot more sleep, and all the same chubby smiles!

A Weary Year

2016 almost perfectly encompassed a year of babyhood. I started the year pregnant and exhausted, just two weeks out from giving birth. I wasn't expecting Nadia to come early; from the beginning I felt like I couldn't catch up, she was growing so quickly. I wanted to appreciate these last baby moments, to not wish away my time with a toddler and kindergartener. I chose “moment” as my word for the year because I didn't want to rush through; I wanted to stop and notice the little moments.

I knew this year would be challenging, but somehow I hoped I would make this three child transition with grace and ease. I pictured myself calmly juggling their needs, taking it all in stride. I had already done two kids, surely one more shouldn't be that much more difficult.

Except that it was. I wasn't the mother that made life look easy, more the one that makes me people think, “Parenting sounds kinda miserable.” I've always been a fan of painting an honest picture, and I appreciate others who have been honest with me. Like all the ones who said three kids was stressful. I probably should have taken them seriously.

My journal this past year reads something like this, on repeat: “This is really hard. I am so tired. I am overwhelmed. Why can't I enjoy this? I am just so tired.”

After nearly a full year of “why is this so hard?” I finally recognized the other piece of the puzzle: postpartum depression. It seems obvious looking back. It's not my first experience with depression; you'd think I would recognize its familiar patterns. I guess it was a relief to realize it's not just that I'm really bad at this, that there was something more going on.

“Moment” seems like an ironic word choice for the year because looking back I don't remember a lot of moments. The year seems draped in a fog. Mostly I remember the feelings: weary, stressed, overwhelmed, irritated, discouraged.

I remember a lot of screaming – a crying baby, a tantruming toddler, a kindergartener always on full volume. I remember feeling like my head would explode. I remember losing my temper and feeling like a bad parent.  I remember the effort of just trying to get everyone through the day.  I remember lying in bed exhausted, knowing I would be awakened again in a couple of hours, night after night all year long.

That's not what I want to remember from this first year of my last baby. But as Nadia approaches her first birthday, I feel less sad at the passing of time and more relieved. Maybe she will be healthier. Maybe she will be more content. Maybe she will sleep. I don't want to wish away the time, but I'm also glad this year is over.

I know the screaming is not the full story. If I think hard, I can remember chubby baby cheeks and baby giggles. I remember Nadia crying and crying until she got me back. Then she cuddled her head against my shoulder, quietly breathing me in. She didn't care if I was being a success; she just wanted me.

I remember Juliana's pride at reading her first story. Even with all the interruptions and distractions, without a lot of fabulously inspired activities, she is learning. I think of her unflagging enthusiasm for life, which my lack of energy has never managed to destroy.

While I do remember a lot of screaming from our three year old, I also remember her sweet smile and bright, mischievous eyes. I remember the funny thing she said. I think of her crawling around on the floor and lavishing Nadia with somewhat aggressive love.

I remember Kevin taking the girls outside to play, putting in a load of laundry, or trying again to get the baby to sleep. It's not always easy being married to someone who is exhausted and depressed and easily irritated, but he has tried to be helpful and patient.

With time the fog will lift and I will look back on this year with more benevolence. I'd like to write this in retrospect, looking back on the good things I learned through difficulty, summing it up with a pretty picture. But right now I'm still in the middle of it. Most of life takes place in the messy space before tidy conclusions.

I know depression still has a bit of a stigma, and that's why I choose to be open about it. I have appreciated others who have been honest about their own struggles. There is always the risk of people discounting your story or giving advice to “just pray more.” We don't want to look as weak as we feel. We so much want to have it all together, but we all need to know it is okay to struggle. We all need to be reminded that we are not alone.

Waiting for the Light

This is the season of darkness. We eat breakfast and dinner with a backdrop of blackness. Every day is just a little shorter, as the night attempts to overcome the daylight. Some days when the sun does rise, it seems to make amends as it clears the frozen air with orange and yellow light. Other days the sun stays hidden behind a heavy layer of haze and smog and dull clouds. Our lungs are choked with coal dust. If the sun appears, it looks like the weak faded sun of an old, old world.

As a child at Christmastime, I was only aware of the excitement– the decorations, the cookies, the presents waiting under the tree. But as adults, we bear the weight of awareness. We see the brokenness and pain and conflict of individuals and families and nations that do not pause for the “most wonderful time of the year.” Some years we feel less like calling, “Merry Christmas!” and more like crying, “Come, Lord Jesus, come.”

And so we enter the season of Advent. A season of expectant waiting, one in which we join with the groaning of a creation longing to be restored. Each week the wreath on our table is lit by one more candle. Hope, peace, joy, love. Each week we say a new prayer, something simple and childish and so fitting.

Jesus, you are light even in the darkest places...

Jesus you are peace even when there is hatred...

Jesus, you are joy even in the saddest times...

I didn't know much about Advent as a child, beyond waiting eagerly for my turn to open the little door on the advent calendar. I didn't even realize that Advent was a season, the start of the church calendar. Our solar calendar year starts in a flurry of resolutions and new beginnings, recovering our schedules and diets and budgets after a season of celebration. This year we will get it right! How appropriate that the church calendar year starts in quiet reflection, in waiting. This is something bigger than ourselves.

This year we haven't done many Christmas activities. We put up our decorations and strung all the lights, but we haven't even made a single Christmas cookie. Generally I enjoy baking, but this year cookie making means children fighting over turns and a baby crying at my feet, and that sounds more stressful than fun.

We made a faux gingerbread house (from a cardboard box). The girls enjoyed meticulously covering it with wafers and candy, while Nadia scavenged for candy wrappers on the floor. We planned a student Christmas party which was postponed due to sickness. I have searched Taobao for Christmas presents. We read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

But this year doesn't find us particularly jolly. Last week both Kevin and our teammate lost grandparents, and they mourn far from family and home. Our family has been dealing with colds and throwing up and not sleeping. I feel the weighed down by a hard, tiring year.  Too many hormones, too much screaming, not enough sleep. Nearly every one of the girls' friends here have been sick this past week.  We have friends who have lost family, who are in the hospital, who are worried about children or spouses or parents.

There is no place for weariness or grief in our idea of holly, jolly Christmas. But this is what advent is all about. We don't have to make joy; we just wait for it. We accept this dark night. We hold tenuously to hope, we breathe in peace, we watch for joy, like the dawning of the morning.

Each week we light another candle – three this week, the week of joy. Each week the night comes a little earlier, but our dinner table is a little brighter. In the kitchen window, star lights shine clearly against the darkness.

Emmanuel, God is with us. With us in the grief, the sickness, the darkness. This is Christmas:

Light rising in the darkness,

Hope springing from weary despair –

A world resigned is surprised by joy.

A thrill of hope

The weary world rejoices

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

All It Contains

My life seems smaller these days, and in some ways it is. There are days when I don't leave the confines of this apartment. I rarely venture outside this two mile radius, because who has time for that (but then life in China was meant to be lived locally). “I don't teach” - I say this often and it's not actually true, but it's true that I have no real job that involves dressing up and having a title and getting a paycheck.

We have students over so much less often than in our pre-children days. I rarely go out after bedtime. I read a lot, holding a baby in the dark, but it has taken me over 9 months to get through the last season of Gilmore Girls.

I have shared my body, through pregnancy or nursing, for 6.5 of the past 7 years. I sleep in two hour segments, if I'm lucky. I never finish anything before having to start it over again. I must remind myself some days I am in fact, a separate entity, a person in my own right.

But actually my life is not smaller; it has just shifted. My days are arguably fuller than ever before. I wash and chop and cook and puree and freeze vegetables. I feed them to baby and then clean up her and her tray and the table and floor and sometimes myself. I nurse. I cook dinner for the sake of my family and bake brownies for the sake of myself.

I don't have a salaried position, but I teach how to read the consonant blends and how to solve word problems. I plan simple lessons that will keep the attention of small, restless bodies.

I do a dozen loads of laundry a week. I puzzle over grease stains and spinach spit up and coal dust and ink. I memorize the view from my laundry porch as I plan how to fit all the clothes that need to dry, and I curse silently over 20 mismatched, inside-out socks. I rotate clothes already outgrown since last month and prepare for a new season of jackets and gloves. I search the internet for a bigger size of winter boots and pants without holes in the knee.

I calm a million tantrums and hand out ice for a million hurts, real and imagined. I wipe and dress and brush and redress. I find toys and put away toys and get down toys and secretly throw away toys. I clean and I clean and I clean and wonder how it can still be so messy.

I talk to students in between doling out bites of food and answering insistent questions. I invite students to take part in the noisy chaos of our home. They marvel at the way we play with our children and wonder at this strange idea of a mother who doesn't go to work. I send the kids off so I can talk with students about deeper things, some brief focused time in between nap time and nursing and making dinner.

My brain seems to work slower these days - something about sleep deprivation and missing brain cells. And yet it is constantly planning for the day, heading off the next conflict, scanning the floor for choking hazards, calculating the days since the last bath, problem solving the latest discipline issue, and imagining all the possible ways my children could die (fall down stairs, run in front of car, choke on candy, fall on head...).

I stop to read a picture book. I kiss those chubby cheeks, still so soft from sleep. I watch another Frozen dance performance. I admire a bristle-block building. I make up a knock-knock joke. I examine a tooth that is just a bit looser than this morning. I answer questions about life and death and war and butterflies and My Little Ponies. I watch and wait for the giggles, the shining eyes, the silly faces, the outreached arms.

My life is smaller, compared to the outside world, compared to the scope of what it used to encompass. But my life is deeper, in this small space that is filled to bursting. It bursts through the 8 or 10 or 12 working hours and spills onto all 24. It floods the weekends and holidays. It fills my body and my mind and my heart. This house encompasses whole worlds.

This is my pasture, and I struggle to rest within its boundaries. This is my sphere of influence, and I bend beneath the holy weight of all that means, the depth of impact I will have on these lives so closely tied to my own. I join in the ancient rhythm of feeding and clothing and caring for those who cannot care for themselves.

One day, gradually, the space of my life will expand again, no longer measured by hours between nursing, by nap times and loads of laundry. Perhaps I will put on professional clothes and stand at the front of a class. Maybe I will spend full days away from my children, or they will spend full days away from me. Perhaps I will send them off to college, or I will send myself off to get another masters degree. The world is still open, full of possibilities.

But for now I will look inward. This is a season, and in this season I will live small. But I will live deeply.