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erin

erin

I'm Erin Jo. I'm thinking, writing, dreaming, mothering, loving, living, praising, BLESSED to be Fiona to my Shrek and Mommy to my four amazing kiddos.

dave

dave

Shrek is "like an onion with many layers" but has a heart of gold. He's my husband and my friend, and we just get better all the time.

lily

lily

Lily is my first baby and only girl. She's smart, funny, tall and kind. Keeping up with this girl is a challenge and a joy. She's terrific!

max

max

Max is one part ogre, two parts lover and all boy! Our little man has a temper but gives the best hugs of anyone I know!

colby

colby

Colby is as ornery as he looks. He flirts shamelessly, even with strangers. He's all mouth and curls and the loudest by far.

luke

luke

Luke is the baby of the family, but holds his own. He's happy and adorable. And he's a terrible sleeper. =)

This One

January 7th, 2012

This picture-this one right here-is my reward of the day. I had seven kids in my care. Seven delightful, adorable, worthwhile, amazing kids in my care.

I did not worry about money. I did not worry my sweet little head about my career. I tried not to yell too much. I didn’t wish to be somewhere else or with other people.

I woke to a call from my harried sister. I changed about ten diapers. I made meals for many. I snuggled, I mothered. I pushed swings. I reveled in the near 60-degree sunny day that was January 6th. I soothed. I got mud on my jeans. I gave three babies a bath at the same time. I thought about my childhood and thanked God for helping to shape these. I made cookies.


I kissed my husband and visited long and hard with my sister. I tucked four little ones into their beds and shared prayers. (“Please make Ava super super super better so she can play.”)
It was a good day.

Positive Change

October 20th, 2011


Sometimes it feels like I’ll never blog again. I’ve had an eight-day hiatus here, maybe my longest yet, but it isn’t for lack of trying. The baby, beautiful boy that he is, is having trouble finding his happy place in the crib at bedtime. He’s down, he’s up, he’s down, he’s up, he’s hungry, he’s down, on and on… By the time I get him to sleep, I’m spent and half-asleep myself.


I think the hardest thing about my motherhood right now is feeling so behind all the time in spite of the fact that I’m always busy. I’m working, I’m thinking, I’m sidestepping disasters, and I’m trying to preserve my sanity. But I’m terribly behind on photo prints, scrapbooks, baby books and other things. I look at Luke and see that he’s nearly nine months old and I wonder if I’m going to remember his babyhood at all. And I know his baby book looks bare compared to the others.


I still have hope that I’m going to catch up with all of this in true Erin fashion. I am pretty sure that I will; I just don’t know when. Or with what resources. But it’ll happen.

* * * * * *

I would be remiss not to write a brief statement tonight on how I’m feeling about the tragic loss of 50 exotic animals up near Zanesville, Ohio, about 50 miles from where I live. For those of you who might not know the story, see MSNBC.

I’m an exotic animal lover. I used to work at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, and it was a magical place. During my relatively short stint there, I climbed into a pen with a Red River hog to interview its keeper, I got to pet the bridge of the nose of a male giraffe named Tsavo and I fed an elephant a “monkey biscuit” (no monkey involved). I had some amazing experiences. And I got to know some tremendous professional animal keepers who I’m sure are in deep mourning tonight.

The loss of animal life is terrible, but I’m in support of Sheriff Matt Lutz and his team for handing the situation with competence, urgency and confidence. The scene in Muskingum County could have been so much worse.

We can all state our opinions, conflicting though they may be, and attack one another for our differences. We can post the grisly, powerful image of the dead animals that escaped the scene and is now plastered all over Facebook. And we can think of the ways in which it might have gone down differently.

But, really, the only thing that makes a bit of sense is to take this tragedy and affect change in the way exotic animals are kept by individuals on private farms in Ohio. We can work together to influence positive change for both humans and animals in a state where, obviously, anything goes. We can be part of the citizenry that stands up for all beating hearts, whether they be human or animal, and for a better tomorrow.

Let’s move forward from the horror of this day to make sure this never happens again. Not here. Not anywhere.

The Forest

October 12th, 2011


Colby and his buddy Brooklyn enjoy some downtime.

Earlier tonight I was feeling like the worst mother ever. I was home for less than an hour between working late and heading off to a league volleyball game. None of the kids were happy to see me go, especially Miss Lily, who was told weeks ago that she could come with me to watch me play a late game.

The time never seems right. This week she’s recovering from pneumonia, and I knew I wouldn’t be home until at least 9:30 p.m., a bit late when there are three days left in the school week.

It is hard to describe the guilt that comes with motherhood, especially motherhood times four. I decided to do this ten-week session of league volleyball for me. While I am enjoying it, I am learning that putting the oxygen mask on myself first, so to speak, also comes with pain.

I really do hate these times when I’m running like a crazy chicken with my head cut off. I know I am not alone in this, although sometimes it feels that way. There are millions of mothers out there trying to balance this crazy life and learning that, oh yes, it’s true, that sometimes fatherhood really is motherhood without the guilt (and a million other things.)

As I drove alone to the game tonight, I found some solace on my iPod. I clicked on an oldie — Bread’s “Anthology” — and it brought back memories of hours and hours spent “sitting on the wall” during my teenage years alone in my bedroom. I had the highest vertical jump in the history of my high school volleyball coach’s tenure at the time. Every night I honed it by sitting on the wall and strengthening my quad muscles, sometimes for an hour at a time. Those days taught me tolerance and discipline. I learned a ton of albums, wrote in my journal, chatted on the phone.

Tonight, I got my $*^ kicked on the volleyball court. In spite of it, I left the gym feeling amazing. I had a great workout, an hour of physical play, good teammates.

And daddy handled bedtime, set the trash to the curb, and greeted me with a smile.

The worst mother in the world is feeling better, as one might suspect. Tomorrow is another day, another chance to get this right. If I can just keep giving my kids the right tools, they’ll be stronger. There will be days when they have to go it alone, with mommy at work, on a trip, at a ballgame. But they’ll be fine. And I’ll give them kisses and cuddles every chance I get.

Balance is a beautiful thing. It’s precious and it’s rare. I just have to remind myself, often, to see the forest and not the trees.

Transitions

October 11th, 2011


In prepping Max for my cross-country trek, he was most fascinated by the idea of my flying on an airplane and wanted me to take pictures of the clouds. You got it, babe.

I had an amazing trip to Denver, Colorado. All of those fit, beautiful people out there are right: Denver is worth it! I didn’t even have a chance to get into the mountains, but I know God treads there, in that beautiful city.

I did get to stay at a drop-dead gorgeous hotel. I met up with an old friend. I ate like a queen. I drank wine with some really successful, really genuine people. I visited with my “godbrother,” and put that special time with him like a penny in my pocket.




It was amazing.

And, oh yeah, it was a work trip. The events went well, the meeting was productive. It was a pat on the back, a push to do more, do better, do right.

I called home to talk to the kids several times. They were in good hands, and I was so busy and gone for such a short time that I didn’t long for them. Lily had been diagnosed with walking pneumonia the very afternoon I was slated to leave. My mom swooped in to help with her, and I am so grateful. Dave did an amazing job, and I came back to happy kids and a clean house.

When I left Denver, it was 34 degrees and snowing. Three hours later, I was welcomed by sunshine and 80 degrees in Columbus. Coming home was also a transition of the heart.

I am back to wiping noses, pushing swings, folding laundry, and playing chauffer. I’m back where I have found my place among my sweet family, my reasons.

The trip was a blessing, but it’s a blessing to be home to this little man and his siblings as well.

Have a great week, everyone!

The Best Idea in the World

October 1st, 2011


Lily and I had “the best idea in the world” tonight as we stood in line waiting to pay our admission into the high school Homecoming game. Sister hadn’t felt well all afternoon, but made an amazing recovery before game time. But standing there in that line with her, in the fall chill, with her cold hands and her already wet socks, I knew it was not to be. I convinced her her “cold” was going to get colder, that we could very easily step out of that line, come home, make hot cocoa, put on our pj’s, paint our nails and watch a movie. And that is just what we did, all the while congratulating ourselves for being so smart and warm and cozy. Gosh, it was such a relief! I had been wearing Luke in my Ergo front carrier, and my back was killing me. And with the busy-ness I’ve had lately and the time away I have scheduled, home is sweet, indeed!

One thing that isn’t sweet is the smell wafting up from the carpet beside me where one of the boys spilled Lily’s milk Wednesday night. (I just put two and two together to identify the problem.) Another is a $400 car repair bill I paid this week (but the mechanic tells me I’m very lucky to be alive, so how about that?) And maybe a final is that my girl truly isn’t well again. She went to bed with a fever and a bellyache, and I’m scheduled for a minor overnight trip tomorrow and a major cross-country trip later in the week.

And then there’s that baby! He’s crying again, up for the fourth time in as many hours. Not only is he waking up often, but he wants to be nursed back to sleep every time. I, fourth-time mother, am at a real loss what to do with this kid and his terrible sleep habits. We’ve tried many things. All I know for sure is that his daddy is going to be very tired and very frustrated with him later this week when I fly the coop for three whole nights.

I am busy, blessed, tired and pressed for time. I’m looking forward to the many events in my life over the next couple of weeks, but looking forward also to nights like these, when my girl and I have the best idea in the world: to enjoy our home on cold nights with creature comforts and special people.

And I’m going to shampoo this floor first thing in the morning… after I wake up every hour or two to nurse this babe back to sleep. For every thing there is a season. This is the season of night nursing and, always, for the best ideas in the world.

Bunnies and Butterflies

August 29th, 2011



It’s hard to stay on an even keel in this world. Our human emotions can take us so many places, both welcome and unwelcome. We face each day not really knowing what it will bring, but pursuing it anyway because there is no alternative.

I’m becoming even more in tune to the slight–and not so slight–dips in my mood, my energy, my ability to kick it every day. That is remarkable to me: that I am able to discern those slight changes, that I am able to be aware at all of my own self in the spinning, harried ballet that is my motherhood.

I told you last week that I loved fall. And that’s true. But it’s always been a hard season for my marriage. I sometimes think Shrek’s love for the Steelers equals his love for me. And that can be on a good day in the fall. Let’s not even start on deer season and the many hunting seasons for every small creature. (Run, rabbits, gather the squirrels and the snipes and get moving…)

On my worst of days, I’m miserable. Womanhood and motherhood team up to pound me into the ground in turn. I’m frazzled, short-fused, unproductive, poor. On my best of days, I’m remembering my reasons, taking life in stride, feeling challenged but triumphant.

Today, I’m all of these things. The weekend is winding down. I’m nearly ready for the b%#*& that is Monday morning. I’m up too late, unshowered, behind on so many things, but maintaining. I’m remembering how I got to see a very special little girl meet her new furry little friend at a birthday party Friday night; how I cleaned, within an inch of its life, my upstairs on Saturday morning; how I rocked my $2 yard sale dress at a wedding that night; how I managed to upright myself and four children and dress all in respectable church clothes all by myself to attend Mass this morn; how I laid on a blanket and looked up at the clouds with my babies at Lake Tweet this afternoon; how I soaked up a visit with my sis, my mom and seven children at my sister’s new place; and how I rolled with all the punches. There were about a million details in all of that. It was, it is, my life.

An amazing thing happened tonight. All four of my children were in bed. The sun was still up. I had the urge to go on a run. And my running shoes were actually here at the house, and not in the camper where they’ve been hibernating most of the summer. I tied those laces, grabbed my iPod, hit the sidewalk and ran. I’m every bit as unfit as I thought I was, but it isn’t as bad as it could be. There’s an athlete living inside of me, of that, I have no doubt. The madonna has been taking precedence, but it just might be time for the athlete to rise, if only a little.

I ran. I walked. Alternated the two. I planned to wear better underwear next time and to lose the dangly earrings. It was nice. And life-affirming. And necessary.

And, of course, when I got back, I paid for it. The baby had been up, screaming off and on for fifteen minutes. But momma got him back to sleep, rocked the sit-ups, conquered the dishes, had to ask for help on the morning prep and got it.

Tomorrow is another day. It’s imminent, welcomed, unknown. I’m not going to wait for the other shoe to drop, but instead force it to land in the right direction.

Here’s to hoping the melancholy will be gone, to be replaced, as Lily sometimes says, with “bunnies and butterflies,” or, in adult-speak, happiness.

Goodnight Blues

August 10th, 2011



Sometimes you just can’t get a good picture….



Wow, am I feeling low tonight… I had hoped to title this post a little more positively – maybe after a glass of wine – but then that last thing happened, and it all went to hell. I am so tired of trying to do it all. I don’t know what the answer is anymore, how to keep this working motherhood ship from going over the edge and into the falls. There are so many dynamics. It’s not even the details anymore. It’s that the major components aren’t even in place to keep the whole gig from sliding down the drain.

I got home from work today to a house where everything was wrong. There was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the kids tonight, and a daddy working late to boot. They are all four bathed and sleeping now, and I’m too despondent to even feel a sense of accomplishment.

Mama said there’d be days like these…. only she didn’t. Conventional wisdom tells you there will, but I really can’t recall my mom ever telling me this.

Women have been mothering for centuries. There have always been challenges. I think the set of challenges today’s mothers face can’t come even close to the worst of times for mothers through the ages. We’ve got so many modern conveniences that make the sheer work of motherhood so much easier than it used to be. But we’ve got too much technology, too much desire for perfection, too much of a role society expects us to fill.

Working motherhood is for the birds. There are good days at work, good days at home and a whole lot of terrible days, where nothing jives, no one is happy and momma’s candle is burnt all the way down on both ends.

I don’t know what the answers are for me, but I’m not going to give up on finding them. I’m holding on to the few smiles I can remember tonight, the few moments where I wasn’t feeling clobbered by the messy house, the mosquito I can’t seem to find but who won’t stop finding me, the kids that were acting out the way that I feel. And I’m hoping those kids, bad though they were, forget the yelling and grumpiness that was their mother.

I’m hoping I’ll be back next time in a much better place. In the meantime, if you know of an awesome sitter who wants to watch my kiddos while I do the work “thang,” give me a yell. ‘Cause on top of everything else, the perfect one I had lined up just fell through. (And, of course, I understand. Our plates are ours to fill, and we can only guess at our limits.)

So goodnight, moon. Goodnight, you. Goodnight, overwhelmed. Goodnight blues.

Mother Up

July 12th, 2011


I’ve been thinking about this a ton lately. I’ve been a mom for almost eight years. I’ve had four children in that time. I have been busy, tired, challenged, blessed. I once heard of a woman at Ohio University who choreographed a ballet based on the movements of motherhood. I often have that mental image of myself: gracefully nursing a newborn on one foot while swooping in with an arm and a tissue to wipe another child’s nose and then pirouetting just in time to stick out my pointed toe to stop a third child from getting hit by a closing door.

My life has been one of rapid chocolate-milk stirring, endless details, mountainous laundry. But now, oh now, I believe the work will begin in earnest.

And, by this I mean, the work of motherhood is shifting. While I’ve been physically growing kids, keeping them out of danger, offering my own body as sustenance, I hope I have also laid the groundwork for good morals, awesome work ethics and general humanitarianism. Because now, I have a seven-and-a-half-year-old girl, which, for those of you that haven’t heard, is the new eleven. That is to say, this girl is picking up the sass, being marketed to as a “tween” and wishing for, but thank God, not yet asking for, her own cell phone and laptop. She’s seven!

She’s at a very formative age. It’s a pivotal time to be her mother.

And it’s a whole new ballgame. If I play this inning right, I’ll have the kind of relationship I really want to have with her as she ages and runs into the icky stuff: the mean girls, the steep learning curves, the dark corners and who knows what else! And, let’s face it, her worst enemy might be herself.

How do I grow a girl who isn’t full of herself, yet believes in and values herself?

I have the memory, the hindsight and the wisdom to know that finding myself was not easy. My daughter will have to do it for herself. It’s one of those things: you can’t get around it, you just have to go through it.

I have faith that we’ll do this together. We’ll keep talking about what is and isn’t right, fair, respectable. We’ll mess up, both of us. I already know I’ve made some mistakes. But I am going to keep pouring on the love. I’m going to remind myself that while the baby needs to nurse, the two-year-old is playing in the toilet and the five-year-old is “baking” in the kitchen, that there is a seven-year-old still keening to spend time with me, still needing those “snugglefests” and back scratches. She not only tolerates me at this point, but she wants me around.

So, you see, this is the work of which I speak. While my motherhood hasn’t exactly been easy, I have a feeling it will become harder, in some ways. I’m up to the challenge. I’m going to “mother up” and do this with my eyes, arms and heart wide open.

These are the best days of my life. Never again will I have the opportunity to shape my children the way I can and will in the next decade.

Ain’t nobody gonna hoe this row for me. It’s time to “mother up.”

Winning

July 8th, 2011


The other day I promised on July 1 I would do a mid-year review of my New Year’s resolution, to “Do What {I} Love.” Well, I then went AWOL and returned, forgetting my plan to give myself a mid-year grade.

I remember now. And I give myself a B. I am doing what I love, plenty of it. But there are still some things that I need to work on. I am a busy, busy lady. Some things fall by the wayside. These things include working out, working on my writing career, keeping up with photo albums, scrapbooks and baby books. Finding clothes that fit, ridding the house of clutter.

My reasons why I should do all of these things and my reasons why I just don’t have time are the same: these four gorgeous kids are keeping me on my toes all the time. I’m doing a lot of laundry and dishes, I promise you. And I’m kissing a lot of boo-boos, wiping a lot of tears, doling out hugs like crazy. I’m mothering.

Mothering takes a lot of time, passion, love and patience. In spite of all of the things I’m not getting done, I am doing this–day in, day out, I am mothering these reasons.

So, I guess I am doing okay on that resolution. While life isn’t perfect, I am “doing what I love” most of the time. And that means I’m winning.

This Is How I Do It

June 21st, 2011


I have a confession to make. I don’t even know where my real camera is. I might as well keep going… I am way behind on organizing photos, and let’s not even talk about the kids’ scrapbooks. There has been clean laundry stacked in my glider rocker in my bedroom for weeks. I’ve been digging through it and it’s nearly to the point where it doesn’t seem clean anymore. I have dirty dishes in the sink, clean dishes to put away, dirty clothes, clean clothes, bills to pay, toys and shoes to sort, an endless gaggle of stuff conglomerating on my dining room table. In short, this is how I do it.

I let things go. I do what I can, and every now and then, I do major work to catch up.

Yesterday I got pooped on. It happens. Today, a tire blew on my van as I traveled at a rate of about 65 mph on my way to work. I’m fine. I’m in a really good place right now. I have established an inner peace that fuels me through the craziness, the uncomfortable situations, the not-so-good moments.

And I’m having a whole hell of a lot of fun on the way. There are ballgames, campfires, swimming parties and picnics. I am tired, I am grateful, I am blessed.

And now, it can’t wait any longer. I must get ready for morning and get myself some sleep in the peacefulness of a slow oscillating fan. Can’t wait!!