Tag Archives: parenthood

A little Christmas reality

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I’ve been a mom now for over a year, so needless to say, I’ve learned plenty of lessons. Like, every day is a lesson on how much sleep you actually need to live. I’m still alive (I think) so apparently you don’t need much.

Last week was one of those weeks at the ranch that I think all parents look back on with fondness and then relief that it’s over.

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It started on Sunday when, after the church Christmas program, 2015’s Baby Jesus #4 turned 2016 Angel #6, leaned in for a snuggle and puked the puke of the mighty all over her mother, down my shirt and into the deepest unclean-able crevasses of the easy chair, and it just sort of went on from there….

and into a week that started with a sick baby and ended with a trip to the big town sixty miles away on the coldest day of the year (like -50 windchill) to pick up Husband’s broken brand new pickup from the shop only to find what we all already new…diesel pickups don’t start in sub-zero temperatures when unplugged and outside.

And in between (after rescheduling for the third time due to that damn month-long blizzard thing we’ve been dealing with) I finally got a chance to get Edie to her one-year photos and one-year shots only to discover upon arrival (and the arrival of her general foul mood) that the poor child was in the process of cutting all four molars and both of her eye teeth at once, just in time to smile for the camera.

Which she managed to do in true Edie fashion, in between fits of sorrow.

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Little did she know that the torture I was putting her through in the name of memories and photo books and embarrassing her at her high school graduation wasn’t going to compare to the torture coming to her next in the form of four big needles.

And that’s when I learned my biggest lessons since the birthday glitter catastrophe of November 24th:

#1: Don’t schedule shots and photos on the same day, even if it will save you a trip. Save your sanity instead.

#2: Planning a child’s photo session is a good way to invite disease or disfunction to your family.

But we made it through like we always do and everything is fine in the whole big picture. Last night I got home late from singing at a Christmas concert just in time to fall asleep and wake up again to rock my poor crying baby with a runny nose and a mouth full of teeth back to sleep in months between 3 and 4 am, which sets me up nice and exhausted for the week of Christmas.

But at least we finally got our tree. The week before the deep freeze, sub-zero temperatures, snow drifts up to my armpits and general good naturedness of an ongoing North Dakota blizzard finally had me persuaded to give up on the whole cutting-our-own-Christmas-Tree tradition and just get one in town for crying out loud. And so that’s what this week’s column is about.

It’s about the expectations. And then it’s about the reality.

And the truth is, the reality, in all its mess and mayhem, just can’t compete with the fantasy because, well, it’s real. It’s our life. And I wouldn’t trade it.

Puke and all…

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Coming Home: Christmas in my mind different than reality
by Jessie Veeder
12-18-16
Forum Communications

When I was dreaming of having a baby of our own for all those years, I ran through how it might look in our house at Christmas: cozy and warm tucked in the trees, hot cider on the stove, a fire crackling in the fireplace, our baby crawling playfully around the fresh-cut cedar we found together on the ranch under a blue sky and after a little impromptu snowball fight.

I held onto that dream through all those childless holidays, come hell or 75-below zero windchills. Even when daylight and landscape were against us, we rallied, we bundled up and took the time to find a tree and make a memory.

But that was back when we took our time for granted.

That was before we had a one-year-old, a house to finish, cows to feed, a broken pickup in a snow bank and a series of days spent getting stuck and unstuck, stuck and unstuck in 50-mile-per-hour winds and miles and miles of snow banks in our way.

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Yeah, this December all it took was one look out the window, the sub-zero temperature gauge and the calendar boxes quickly counting down to the big day and suddenly I became a little more flexible on that whole Christmas Tree Tradition thing. Not that I couldn’t count on my husband to try plowing through the snow banks to make it happen if that’s what I wanted.

But what I wanted was not to freeze my nose off having to pull him out.

And also, I wanted a Christmas tree before New Year’s.

So we went to town.

You heard me.

We had to get some things anyway, like light bulbs and doors for the rooms in the basement, so we might as well pick up one of the last sorry trees they had left in the back, all wrapped up tight and snug and out of the whipping winds.

And the baby loves to go shopping.

You should see her in a store, smiling and waving at everyone, babbling like she’s in a parade. So maybe we made the right choice, swapping a sled for shopping cart…

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Anyway, we picked out our rugs and our Lysol and our spindly, $35 Christmas tree and while I strapped Edie in her car seat, my husband strapped that sorry-looking tree to the roof of my SUV.

And it was a sight somehow reminiscent of both the Griswolds and Charley Brown’s Christmas as we drove an hour home, through the badlands and into a dark, 30-below zero, regular North Dakota blizzard, the heat blaring as we sipped the fancy grocery store coffee we grabbed on the way out of town.

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When I was rocking Edie by our tree last year, her tiny wrinkly body pressed against my chest, peaceful and innocent, I imagined what the next year’s Christmas would look like — a different kind of chaos, ornaments hung on the tree just above her reach, her squeals of delight at the pretty lights, an evening spent watching Christmas movies while we wrangled her up and decorated the tree together as a family.

Well, that’s sort of what happened … just replace the whole “squeals of delight” thing with my sick baby projectile vomiting down the inside of my shirt, all over her favorite blankie and in the deepest cracks of the easy chair.

Change “ornaments hung on the tree” to “the house strewn from wall to wall with partially unpacked boxes of frozen decorations and a tree losing about a thousand needles by the minute.”

Then finish it off by swapping “together as a family” with “my husband in the barnyard pulling Dad and his pickup out of another snow bank while my glass of wine and I found the least breakable ornaments to put on the tree at 10 p.m.”

No, it wasn’t the magical Christmas tree tradition I imagined, but it was real, and you know what? I’ll take it. For so many reasons, I’ll take it.

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A rainbow baby in a pumpkin patch

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This morning I’m sitting at my table, hair unwashed and disheveled from a weekend spent on the ranch, wearing sweatpants and the stretched out cami I slept in. The baby is still in her jammies and I can see her out of the corner of my eye, throwing one Cheerio  at a time on the floor and watching it drop.

In one month she’ll be a year. And we’ve hit so many milestones in these short months, I can’t imagine what measuring her life in years is going to bring. She blows kisses and claps her hands. She turns her waterworks and emotions on and off like a champion baby manipulator. She’s standing (for two or three seconds anyway) on her own. Give her a few more weeks and she’ll probably be walking, rendering me completely helpless to get anything done around here. We started daycare once a week, and, because among her adorable tricks, she also bites people, I’m a little nervous about her social skills.

She can reach the top of my table, so nothing is safe.

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She’d rather play with my Tupperware collection than her toys. She shakes her little body to the sound of music and since suffering recently through her first little cold, has discovered that the worst thing in her entire world is her mother wiping her nose.

These are the little things that make up the big picture of parenthood we used to dream and plan about. It’s nothing and everything like I imagined it when we were trying to get here for all those years, a journey that I have not swept under the rug in the name of compassion and understanding for the families who haven’t had their chance at these little milestones…

Coming Home: A simple photo is a moment mom waited for
by Jessie Veeder
10-16-16
Fargo forum
http://www.inforum.com

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There are things I always envisioned doing once I had a child of my own in tow. One of them was sitting my baby on a hay bale at a pumpkin patch and taking a photo.

I wasn’t naïve enough to think that the real-life scenario looked like the pages of the Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I knew it was likely more in line with mini-meltdowns and arguments about not wearing shorts in October and bribes to smile for the camera, but I didn’t care. I was happy to pay my mommy dues if it meant I got to be a member.

Last week I finally got to sit my baby on a hay bale and take that photo. A group of moms in town got together to create our own community pumpkin patch in the park, and I made plans to go, despite the snow covering the ground that morning and the chill in the air that afternoon.

I picked up my little sister and we drove down to the park. I forgot Edie’s mittens and her stroller and cash for admission, so one of the moms supplied the mittens and, after my little sister paid, the two of us took turns shifting the bundled up, rosy-cheeked baby from hip to hip as we walked around in the chill, visiting with friends and watching the neighborhood kids jump in bounce houses, paint pumpkins and run wild like kids do.

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Jessie Veeder’s daughter, Edie, smiles for a photo at the pumpkin patch. Jessie Veeder / Special to The Forum

And then I set my own baby down on the ground next to a formation of square hay bales, cornstalks and gourds, and we clapped and squealed and coaxed her to smile that smile I’ve been waiting so long to capture.

She didn’t let me down.

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And while that pumpkin patch photo wasn’t a huge milestone for my rosy-cheeked daughter, watching her bobble around in her knit beanie and new winter jacket, trying to take a bite out of the little pumpkins propped beside her, it was a huge milestone for me, who finally gets to be her obnoxious, obsessive, photo-taking mother in the pumpkin patch after so many uncertain Octobers.

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I’m thinking of this now because this month has been designated as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. And I admit in the past, after nine years, six miscarriages and the loss of any hope of carrying a pregnancy to full term, I wasn’t much for being reminded of those heartbreaking moments in my life. I didn’t want a day to feel obligated to shout it from the rooftops.

No. You were more likely to hear me telling my story in the everyday quiet exchanges between strangers, the ones where I found myself answering the question, “Do you have any children?”

It’s that question that sits like a rock at the bottom of many hearts. It’s that question that gives us a reason to dedicate some time to remember, to understand and to find compassion.

And while I can answer it more easily now, while I can say, “Yes, I have a baby daughter,” and then I can whip out my phone and show you the photo of her, while I’m now part of the pumpkin-patch club, I won’t ever forget the other club in which I also belong.

And for the sake of the families who have suffered such loss, the ones counting the years and wondering what she might have been for Halloween, the ones who felt him kick but never heard him cry, the ones quietly hoping for their chance to forget the mittens and the money and the stroller at the pumpkin patch, I don’t ever want to forget.

So I won’t shout it from the rooftops, that’s not my way, but I will send up a quiet prayer that some way, somewhere, I hope they get their picture.

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“How to make a phone call”-a step by step guide for mothers

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Oh, the things I took for granted before I became a mom hell bent on working from home. I could make a list now that includes showering, going to the bathroom, finishing a meal, uninterrupted sleep and an undisturbed laundry pile, but really I want to talk about phone calls.

Yes. Phone calls.

I knew this was a thing. A child could be sleeping a sleep of a sweet fluffy angel from heaven, or completely enthralled in the drama of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, or distracted by the love and adoration received by her father who just arrived home from work, but as soon as you make the commitment and pick up the phone to place that important call, the one you’ve been waiting to complete for probably a week because, if you’re like me you procrastinate stuff like that, and shit hits the fan.

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It’s like dialing the number sets off alarm bells of panic in young children, like they fear the little white box is going to take control of all their mother’s attention until the end of time so they must act to make sure they’re not abandoned. I think it’s some sort of born-in instinct.

Anyway, the phone hasn’t always been my best friend, but now it’s become a sort of nemesis of mine, especially when I finally have to give in and make those annoying calls to  a credit card company or “customer service line,” the kind that sends you through forty-seven options, where you can press “1” for English, “6” for French, enter your card number, speak clearly your reason for calling, and then again because the robot didn’t understand you, and then try to magically recall and type in the mysterious access code you were never given so you can state your hair color, shoe size, reason for living, bank account number, your father’s mother’s grandmother’s maiden name and your thoughts on Donald Trump all the while frantically pressing “0” for the operator hoping that the message will get through the vortex of space and time you’ve been living in since dialing the damn number 45 minutes ago and you might get a shot at talking to an actual human being who will promptly put you on hold thirteen times before they tell you that your name’s not on the account and your husband needs to call to make the changes.

 

 

The Lord’s on my side if Edie’s first word is “momma” or “puppy” and not
“*%&$*(#@&!”

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Because I don’t have time for this shit. I have a window of five minutes at a time where the baby might have found something other than a magazine or a crusted piece of spaghetti on the floor from last night’s supper to chew on to keep her busy and then it’s over. Surely some of the managers of these customer service centers have children of their own?!

Or maybe I just have more annoying problems than most. Because after my failed half-hour credit card phone call I decided to tackle my UPS situation. See I ordered my husband a custom pocket knife for our anniversary two months ago (hey, that’s as close to on-time as I can get) and I wanted to make sure that they didn’t deliver it to my mom and dad’s place.

Because that’s what UPS has been doing with our other packages. They set it, with the best intentions, on a bench in their garage where it enjoys a safe existence for approximately 5 seconds before dad’s pup Waylon shreds into it, spreading shards of cardboard, plastic and the entire contents of the package across the front lawn and driveway, sending my poor parents on a scavenger hunt for our belongings.

It’s not a pretty sight, especially if I order diapers.

Seriously. Sometimes I feel so alone in my redneck situations.

So long story (sorta) short, I made the dreaded phone call, if only to save me from having to dig through Waylon’s future poop pile for the expensive pocket knife.

It didn’t go well.

It started out with the baby safely in her high chair enjoying strawberry pieces and, by the time I got through the above process, dialing zero while declaring my religion, counting backwards from 100 by fives and offering cash to the robot lady if I could just please, for the love of George Clooney, talk to an actual person, the baby was on my hip trying her damnedest to get that phone in her hands so that maybe she could give them piece of her baby mind, or, more likely, take a bite out of it.

By the time I got to the first operator I found out that she didn’t care about the dog problem. She just wanted a tracking number.

But I didn’t have a tracking number. What I had was a baby who had just pooped her pants.

I was put on hold.

I changed the diaper.

I was put on hold again.

I made a bottle.

I was put on hold again only to be told to call the company and give them the right address.

They had the right address. It took me thirty minutes to get her to misunderstand me.

I hung up.

I called for a tracking number.

I called UPS again. I put the baby down to crawl around and picked up a broom to try to multi-task.

UPS call. House Cleaning. Keeping the baby alive. That’s what my life has come to.

But I nearly failed at it all. While I swept dirt and half-alive boxelder bugs in little piles I tried to explain the dog situation to the UPS lady, pleaded with her to just tell me how to get the message to my local UPS driver, who, according to her, doesn’t have a phone, or a boss, turned around to find the baby playing in the dirt piles and hung up with no delivery solution just in time to watch my baby put a boxelder bug in her mouth and chomp down.

I screeched.

She crawled toward me, her hands slower than her knees, and banged her head on the floor.

She cried.

I picked her up.

I cried.

And that is why I hate the phone.

 

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A motherhood tip.

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Here’s my baby, right after she smacked her head on the floor, despite my best efforts to save her from such bumps… 

The purpose of my life has become keeping this child of mine from eating the boxelder bugs that keep coming into the house.

My floors have never been clean, but I swear, they’ve never been cleaner than now.

Still not clean though, thanks to the new game the child plays called something like “when I’m sick of eating I will mash it all up with my tiny hands and then fling it on the floor.”

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The purpose of my life has become cleaning squashed avocados out of the crevices of her high chair. And off her little pants. And then, if I see it while I’m sweeping up dead boxelder bugs, I might also get to scraping that squished avocado off the floor.

Not that it’s a matter of life or death, those avocados or those squished boxelder bugs, (they probably have some sort of nutritional value, those bugs) but they’re just added tasks on top of the main purpose of my life, which is keeping this child alive.

Seriously. Nobody tells you when you take your sweet bundle of joy home with you, the little miracle that can’t roll over on her own, or hold her head up or her eyes open very long, that in a few months they will try every day, as hard as they can, to get themselves seriously hurt, and in turn, try to kill you. You know, because of all the heart attacks.

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Here she is, trying to strangle herself with my bra

I had one the other day. A heart attack. Or something like it. It was sort of cold outside, but we needed some air. So I bundled the child up in her hat and snowsuit, strapped her in her stroller and put a blanket over her. She was pleased. She loves walks. There’s nowhere else in the world she’d rather be than outside, but damn, the wind was cold up top on the road. Too cold for her mother, so too cold for the baby.

So I wheeled her back down to the house and thought, well, while we’re all bundled up she can sit in her stroller and I can pick the rest of my tomatoes. Because I’m still holding out hope that a twenty-fifth hour will show up in a day, or better yet, an eight day in the week, and I’ll find some time to make salsa this year.

So I grabbed my garden basket and headed out back, situated Edie where she was out of the wind and could watch her momma work and looked up every few minutes to yell at Gus for licking my baby’s face.

Not that the baby minded at all. In fact, she was thrilled with it. She grabbed his ears, squealed and leaned in for more, again proving that babies get a real kick out of risky, germy, behavior.

Anyway, my garden is on a little slant of a hill, something I’ve never thought twice about until I looked up again to watch my baby, and the stroller she was in, on the tail end of a sideways tip to the grass.

And I’m not positive how it happened, I mean, I didn’t witness it, but I blame it on the dog.

I threw down the tomatoes and ran to her, certain that one of her limbs was missing, or, at the very least, broken. Positive she had a concussion or at least scarred enough for life that she’ll have flashbacks whenever she sees a dog.

Or a stroller.

Or a tomato.

Oh Lord, I’ve given her an aversion to tomatoes.

I looked at her pink cherub face as it morphed into the beginning stages of her cry– wrinkled up nose, eyes squeezed tight, mouth wide open, silent gasp to get a good breath of air and then a wail.

I unbuckled her from the sideways stroller and picked her up before her next breath, looked her over for blood or mud or a missing foot or something and waited for the next wail to release from her lungs.

But it didn’t happen.

She was up in my arms, caught sight of the dog and smiled.

She was fine.

But I wasn’t sure I was.

Seriously. I need a back up heart.

Peace, Love and Tomato Trauma,

Jessie and the Daredevil

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Parenthood: Adjusting the sails

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Baby Edie turned 10 months old when we were on the road last week.
She celebrated by hanging out with gramma at a beerfest fundraiser for cops in downtown Bismarck and then at a fundraiser for the area cancer center after that, clapping and singing and climbing all over the seats in the front row while I sang.
And after that was done we hit up one more party for a family friend and headed back to the hotel room to make the trip across the state for another show.
I tell you, the right kid was sent to me. She’s resilient, she doesn’t need much sleep, likes a crowd, likes to stay up late, likes to visit and likes a good party…all skills needed to survive being the daughter of a musician who tends to travel a bit.
While we were making plans all those years to start a family, I always wondered how I might really do this job with a kid in the mix.
Now I know.
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You bring gramma along. And you forget the schedule. You go with the flow and hope for the best and spend all the money you make at the job on adorable baby outfits.
And then you come home and sleep train all over again, snuggle on the couch, play on the floor and makes plans for the next trip or party or job.
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I’m looking out the window at the wind blowing leaves off the trees and I’m thinking about where I was a year ago. In this house, with my big round belly, worrying about the crib getting set up on time, worrying that she might come early, wondering if it’s a boy or a girl, pretty certain it was a boy and watching this baby kick and squirm and roll in my body, perhaps just as anxious to enter the world as I was to welcome her.
I was totally oblivious as to just how many things would change and, maybe more surprising now, how many things would stay the same.
I can’t believe she’s almost one.

I can barely remember what we did before her, other than totally take time for granted.
As I’ve said since she was born, it goes so slow and so fast, all at the same time.

Coming Home: Teething baby changes life on the road for musician mom
by Jessie Veeder
10-2-16
Forum Communications
http://www.inforum.com

I woke up this morning in Minnesota, holding on to a baby who is only 10 months old but appears to be getting her one-year molars already.

And Edie smiled through the entire checkup, our doc looking in her ears, her eyes, her mouth and, holy smokes, she wasn’t expecting it, this child is getting four more teeth.

So that explained it.

And I was relieved, like any parent would be, that it wasn’t an ear infection or something icky like that. Because No. 1: Poor baby. And No. 2: We had a big weekend ahead of us. Five days on the road and in hotel rooms for meetings and music, and I was taking her along.

But first I had to hit a deadline. Because I’ve recently taken on a fun project as the editor of a free little monthly parenting publication, so lately I’ve been spending time taking notes, brainstorming and putting together ideas for stories and tips that might be useful to parents raising babies between the sidewalks and scoria roads of Western North Dakota. And while I’m not in any position to give tips myself, as a new mom, I’m in every position to seek them out.

And this week I could have used some tips myself on how to conduct a phone interview and take notes with one hand, while trying to keep the teething baby in my other from biting a hole through my shirt.

Or maybe a column from a mom who mothers all day, works all night and still finds the time to binge-watch “Downton Abbey” and is alive and happy about it all.

Or how to convince a baby to sleep through the night in a strange hotel room.

But what I really needed was a step-by-step list of how to pack for five days for a baby and myself in autumn in North Dakota when the forecast warns cool temps and rain but the actual weather finds you sweating in a cardigan in 80-degree hurricane winds.

What should I wear? Really.

Sometimes, I swear, in this whole mom-singer gig, that’s the hardest part.

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But here I am this morning, at the end of a trip that gave me the chance to visit my grandparents in Minnesota. They’re sitting in the kitchen having breakfast with my parents, who came along, my mom to watch the baby and my dad to sing along and carry all our stuff.

The two of them still helping their daughter out, still parenting after all these years.

Watching my mom try to keep her granddaughter from eating the grass under the tent where I’m singing “You Are My Sunshine” with my dad is a little slice of sweetness that cuts through the rough, sleepless nights.

Tonight I play music in a small-town Lutheran church, and tomorrow we head back west. But before I got started, I sent a photo to my husband back home of Edie sleeping in my arms while I scheduled the day out in my head, worrying about how to fit it all in.

He texted back.

“You’re so lucky.”

He wished he were here.

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And so did Edie, I think, who thought the sound guy at our last gig looked enough like daddy to reach her arms out and snuggle into his shoulder.

I’m not sure what her dad thinks of that story, but I think it made the sound guy feel pretty warm and fuzzy.

Oh, this parenting thing has so many angles, doesn’t it? So many different ways to live it and get through it and love it. That’s what I’m finding as I get a chance to bring this baby along in my work, to write and share stories that I hope can be useful, or at least entertaining, to the moms and dads who are in the same sort of boat, on the same prairie, trying, as I type, to diagnose a fever or figure out how to fit a princess dress over a snowsuit for Halloween.

And I’m pretty pleased to be navigating these waves and adjusting these sails with them.

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The chance to be ungrateful…

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It was truly a “take your daughter to work day” today as I hauled Edie to town and used her as a model for a little photoshoot I did for this new publication I’m working on for Western North Dakota called “Prairie Parent.”

When work means taking photos of cute kids in cute clothes with your friends and their kids and your baby on a beautiful fall day, it really can’t get any better.

Even if poor little Edie is coming down with something…and I think so am I.

And we have a big weekend of music coming up which means another trip across the state and a little prayer up to stay healthy. And a lot of packing. And a lot of catching up to do on work and laundry between now and Thursday.

Somedays I’m a little overwhelmed, but today I focused on the positives. I thought I was handling it thanks to my mom and the sunshine.

I don’t always think I’m handling it. Sometimes it’s harder to keep it all level and balanced. Sometimes it all comes boiling out my mouth because I can’t stop and think because I’m tired of thinking and I need to say things out loud so that it might all come together in some semblance of perspective.

And that’s what I got last week…

Lucky to have the chance to be ungrateful
by Jessie Veeder
9-19-16
Forum Communications
http://www.inforum.com

Last weekend on the way to meet my husband’s family to celebrate his grandmother’s 87th birthday, I had one of those moments where I broke everything down that wasn’t working in my life. Something my husband said set me off and I took it as an opportunity to let the steam out of the frustration kettle that had been boiling for a couple weeks.

Then I worried about making enough money to make it worth it and moved that into my frustration about unfinished projects.

And by the way, the house is never clean and how am I going to keep cockleburs out of the baby’s mouth if they keep coming in on the bottoms of our jeans?

Seriously? Is there anyone else in the world who has to worry about their baby eating cockleburs in the house?!

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And it just went on from there while the baby slept in the car seat behind me and my patient, but probably pretty annoyed, husband tried to offer solutions I wasn’t in the mood to hear like men tend to do with women during meltdowns like these.

Please tell me other women have meltdowns like these.

I threw those words at the windshield and we rolled down Highway 85 on a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning, the leaves turning gold on the trees, sparkling against a blue sky. By the time we got to where we were going the radio was a bit louder and conversation had turned to the new funny laugh that Edie was trying out lately and what we needed to pick up while we were in the big town.

We spent the day watching Edie get passed around from cousin to aunt to gramma to uncle. We strolled through the zoo and heard her use her new scruffy laugh while watching the otters swim. We swatted away hornets and took some family pictures and ate three different types of cake, gave hugs and drove home toward the setting sun, not a trace of residue on the windows from my morning words.

Earlier that week I stood over our kitchen counter. It was scattered with Tupperware containers, unopened mail, sunglasses and probably a spare tool or two. I had a knife in one hand and a fork in the other and as I sliced into the big juicy steak we pulled from a freezer packed with meat we just picked up from the butcher, I was overcome with this unexpected wave of complete gratefulness, so much so that I had to stop and say it out loud.

“We are so lucky that this is our meal. On a regular Tuesday night,” I said to my husband sitting in front of his plate full of vegetables from the garden and his steak grilled to perfection. “There are people in this world who’ve never tasted a fresh garden tomato.”

He agreed.

Lucky.

Thing is, I didn’t think about that Tuesday night steak on my Saturday morning rant. It was long dissolved into my uncertainties of the week, crumpled into wondering if we were doing anything right.

And I’m sitting here this morning sort of worried about how quickly the taste left my mouth.

Just over a year ago I was holding my breath for a baby to come in and throw my schedule into chaos, just like she’s doing, just like I was complaining about on Saturday morning.

And now here she is, staring up at me from the living room rug while she’s pooping her pants. And I am grateful.

I’m lucky to be grateful. But maybe sometimes, and I’ve never thought of this before, we’re even more lucky to have the chance to be ungrateful.

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Raising children in this world

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Coming Home: Teaching our children in the midst of a harsh world
by Jessie Veeder
6-19-16
InForum
http://www.inforum.com

It’s hard to think of anything else these days but what’s in the news. It’s tragedy and politics all wrapped into a messy ball of emotions and fierce beliefs as we try to predict and manipulate our future. It can be as paralyzing as it is polarizing.

And if I had questions — about money or friendship or God or the things that scared me — my parents had an answer to help make me feel safe again.

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During baby Edie’s second week in this world, she sat sleeping in my arms as news of the San Bernardino mass shooting flashed on our television screen. Outside our house, it was cold and quiet. Not a bird to sit on the fence railing, the wind likely blowing the tips of the gray trees back and forth and I was alone with this tiny, fresh and oblivious human watching the window to the world flash terrifying images of helplessness, heartbreak and fear into my home.

My first instinct was to cry with outrage. How selfish to bring a baby into such a violent world. And then thoughts and plans on how I could possibly protect her from evil and heartbreak, worry and fear, started swirling and bouncing around in my freshly postpartum brain, without conclusion.

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And time passed. Conversation about the wonder of her fresh face and tiny hands turned to sleep schedules and teething remedies. Conversations about the state of our country turned to oil and cattle prices and the impending election and we settled into a life on the ranch with a baby as the fear of those first few weeks settled into the cracks in the floor of this house.

But last week I woke up to a reminder. Forty-nine killed, another 53 wounded in the name of hate.

I cried again. Dozens of mothers lost their babies that day. I couldn’t shake my grief.

I put Edie in her sunhat and strolled her out to the dirt patch that’s working on becoming our garden, and I dug in the earth. There was nothing else I could do in that moment except to nurture what was in front of me.

So I planted seeds. I picked up the baby when she fussed. I bounced her and lifted her up to the sky. I nursed her to sleep. I turned on the sprinkler and watered the ground. I strapped her to my body and walked up the road and back. I let my worries and thoughts bounce off the hills.

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Tragedy isn’t new to the human race. Children across the world live and suffer through much more than seeing it on their television screens with the privilege of shutting it off and returning to the swing set in their backyard.

And while parents worth the job want to protect their children from the harsh realities of this world, I know that protection from the truth is a disservice to our human race.

Because kids aren’t immediately responsible for helping to make decisions for a better world, but eventually they will be.

Letting them in on the truths of life, teaching them about respect and consequences, helping them process pain and suffering, cultivating their ability to have compassion, all of these are important lessons that can only be taught against the backdrop of reality.

Listening teaches them to listen.

Questioning teaches them to question.

Yes, I want my daughter to feel safe here in her home protected by the coulees and hills of North Dakota. Held tight in my arms. But holding her so close will inevitably hold her back from learning to understand, appreciate and respect the differences we celebrate as human beings.

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As parents it’s our biggest role to create the compassionate helpers in this world.

And while these hills can’t protect us from pain and tragedy, they can hold us.

And we can hold one another.

And if I can teach my daughter anything, I hope it’s that.

 

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What it takes to be a dad

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I’ve always said that men can’t multi-task. This weekend Husband proved me wrong.

Apparently it just depends on the task.

This is fatherhood.

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I’ve wondered a long time how it would look on him.

On Sunday mornings when we don’t have to rush off to some big chore right away, it looks like this.

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And on nights when things are rough (like when she’s cutting top and bottom teeth at the same time and mom had nothing but a granola bar and guacamole for breakfast, lunch and supper) it looks like this.

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And while there’s no question that there is plenty of sacrifice in being a mother, I think sometimes we’re guilty of skipping over the dad part.

Like, we just got in from a beautiful summer evening, an evening Husband could have used  to fix fence or ride through the cattle or go fishing or drink beer on the deck, pretty much anything else in the world, but he didn’t. Instead he spent it in his fancy shirt carting the baby around the hills and smiling for a photographer so we could get those family photos I’ve been talking about for weeks.

And while I will admit that I’ve complained plenty during my six + months of being a momma (knowing full well I should just shut my mouth and be grateful after all we’ve gone through to get to this point but sometimes I’m tired and sometimes it’s hard) but I will tell you the truth here, the man I married hasn’t complained one moment about his role as a dad.

Not one moment.

Even when I leave for the night and she only wants mom and lets him know it loudly and for a long time.

Even when she poops through her pants and on to his.

Even when he has to leave his perfectly cooked steak at the table to bounce her on his knee.

Even when he has to take part of the day off work to give me the chance to do my work.

Even when she cries in her carseat the whole hour drive home, and so do I.

And what great qualities to find in a man, the ones that aren’t written about in the Cosmo Magazine articles about dating and finding a perfect match, the ones that will make him a good father to the kids you may one day have together. The most important ones.

Turns out, in the end, it isn’t his six pack abs or his high paying power career or his kick ass karaoke skills that really matter when you find yourself at your wits end because you can’t get the damn carseat installed or you need someone you can count on to get home from work when he says he’ll be home from work because you have a deadline or somewhere you have to be. No. All those things are fun and the karaoke skills may come in handy for the lullabies, but it’s the steadiness, the strength of character, the reliability that matters the most when you need it the most. Because turns out the task of raising a human just might be the most terrifying and wonderful and most important part of your relationship. And so you should pick accordingly.

Not something you really think of when he put a ring on it.

But it’s true.

And after a long day with a teething baby where I only had granola and guacamole for breakfast, lunch and supper, I am glad to be in the trenches with a man who was built for this stuff.

And I’m so glad to know that I did something right, picking him to be Edie’s dad.

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Happy Father’s Day to you and to all the good ones out there.

Love,

Your girls

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Valentines Day Outfit

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I think they put Valentines Day in the middle of February to warm us northerners up and help us come up with creative ways to celebrate the people we love.

Husband and I have never been big Valentines Day celebrators. If I’m going to be truthful, out of the two of us I’m the worst gift giver. I used to be better, but frankly, I’ve run out of ideas that aren’t practical kitchen gadgets.

Seriously. For Christmas this year I got him a knife sharpener and a deep fat fryer (which went against my 9+ year rule that we would never have a deep fat fryer in this house, indicating just how desperate I was for an idea).

Anyway, here we are a few days ahead of the holiday and I chose to celebrate by having my husband help me take pictures of our baby in a tutu that he helped me pick out in town last week.

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Yup. The man showed up at mom’s store after work and walked with his girls down the block to pick out a tutu and a headband just so we could dress up our baby for a five minute photoshoot before he had to go outside to do man things.

He’s gone soft I tell you. He turned into the best possible form of mush.

And you should hear how he gets these smiles out of her…

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He’s good at it.

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It’s hard to get too much done around here with this kid waiting to show us her new tricks.

And how gravity works on those cheeks in the most perfect way.

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They didn’t tell me that having a girl would mean that I would be spending double extra time picking out outfits. As if it wasn’t hard enough to get myself dressed to go out in public, now I have a new little smushy human to obsess over.

I didn’t know I would be that way. I thought I would keep it simple, dressing her in nothing but white onesies while we hung around the house.

But as soon as she came out it seemed the closet full of neutral/beige basics waiting for her just wasn’t going to fulfill her tiny wardrobe needs.

Oh, I’m not the only one. The day she was born, Husband had to take a run to the store for supplies and he came back with a purple outfit.

Let’s not even mention the grammas, aunts, cousins and friends that have supplied us with plenty of pink and frills…and, of course, the right amount of jeans, flannels and shirts with horses on them, to keep her balanced.

And I hate to admit it, but I think the girl might have more shoes than me…and she can’t even walk yet.

I’m not sure how it happened, but another pair arrived via Amazon earlier this week.

Ah well, we’re having fun before she grows up and she finds it all has become thoroughly annoying.

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Turns out I’m better at shopping for my offspring than I am for my poor husband.

Happy Valentines Day friends. If you need me, well, you know where to find me…

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Sunday Column: Dreaming of horses…

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Coming Home: Dreaming of horses, the best gift a ranch kid can get
11-9-15
by Jessie Veeder
http://www.inforum.com

A funny thing happens when you’re in the home stretch of your first-ever pregnancy. Between all of the unpleasant symptoms we’ve all heard about — the heartburn, the aches and pains, the insomnia — you suddenly find yourself with an overwhelming need to purchase a festive Christmas baby hat because the most important thing in the world is being prepared for this new baby’s first Christmas photo under the tree.

It’s all you can think about, never mind that you don’t yet have the car seat properly installed or a single diaper stocked up. If you have this hat, you will be ready.

But three days later when that handmade Rudolf hat with the red button nose arrives in your mailbox, you’ve completely forgotten that 5 a.m. panic order altogether. Because you’ve already moved on to the next obsession.

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And lately, for me, three weeks away from my due date, I’ve decided I should really be thinking seriously about this kid’s first horse.

It’s not logical, I know, not in the sequence of things anyway. I mean, I have a good few years to find the right animal, one I can trust to take care of my firstborn as he sits tall in the saddle beside us, chasing cows or checking fence, honing his skills and his way around this place.

But to have a horse of your own as a kid is a unique and life-shaping privilege, one not granted to every child, and one I want to give to mine. Because I remember how I was one of the lucky ones. I inherited an old red mare from my grandma. Her name was Rindy, and she was short and squat with just the right amount of attitude and a rough trot.

I would ride her bareback in the summer, learning about balance and patience as I searched the tree lines for raspberries, leading her to big rocks or side-hills to help me swing my short legs up on her back if I happened to climb down or fall off.

 

I broke my arm tumbling off Rindy.

I broke my foot jumping off her in a youth rodeo.

I won “best groomed” at a sleepaway horse camp because she couldn’t find a mud hole to roll in like she did at the ranch each time I groomed her the night before a 4-H show.

I put red, white and blue yarn in her mane and rode her in the county fair parade.

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I rode double, or triple, with my best friends on her back, trotting through clover fields, seeing how fast we could go before we all tumbled off, leaving her grazing a few yards away as we rolled around on the ground laughing.

And in the fall I would saddle her up, pulling the cinch as tight as I could around her round back, and she would puff out her belly to trick me into thinking that’s as tight as it would go only to let the air out once I climbed on, her way of controlling her comfort level, I suppose.

Oh, that horse was something. But that’s the thing, anyone who had a horse of their own as a kid will tell you stories like these about an animal that helped raise them in an environment that has the potential to be intimidating for a kid.

But a horse out here gives a kid some power. I felt like I was worth something on Rindy’s back, like I could help move a cow through a gate or learn where the fence lines run. I had a partner, a big companion that gave me new abilities. I was stronger and bigger up there. I was capable.

Who wouldn’t want to give that gift to a child if they could?

And so I have that Christmas hat in the drawer, we’ve set up the crib, I’m washing onesies and putting away diapers, and late at night, when the world is dark, my husband’s chest rising in sleep next to me, I lie with my eyes open in our bed, a hand on my swollen belly, waiting on this baby and dreaming of horses.

Maternity Haze