Kelle, Author at Enjoying the Small Things

Tiny Dancer

May 16, 2012 By Kelle

I don’t know how I had forgotten but suddenly it was Tuesday morning—a very special one—and Nella had nothing to wear to her first ballet class. And by nothing to wear, I mean she had a closet full of clean clothes but not what I had in mind for my girl’s first class, which is just as much about this thing I have with ballet and my own little moment in motherhood, as it is a daughter’s milestone.

I tied my hair into a ponytail yesterday morning, poured some coffee to go and slipped out of the house early to find the smallest leotard—smaller than Lainey’s old one I found in the dress-up box, smaller than the pink bathing suit the big sister insisted would work. I don’t know why that little leotard was so important, but $7 later, I felt prepared. Nella needed that new leotard.

Putting it on was an event. Lainey ran to help as we laid the little sister down, changed her diaper and pulled from the pile of ballet necessities—tights, legwarmers, leotard, tutu. I called for each one while Lainey proudly passed them to me. The finishing touch—two soft slippers, the smallest ones we could find.

Maybe my tears had nothing to do with inclusion and expectations and how having a syndrome somehow makes milestones seem more obvious, although I celebrated Lainey’s first day of ballet very much the same. Maybe my tears were just the same ones every sappy mama spills when they’re standing in a ballet studio, listening to classical music while they watch their toddler transform into a little girl. I do know though, that my heart hurt in the same way it did when I choked through wedding vows or that first Happy Birthday chorus. It hurt good.

I am so proud of how she learns, how she observes those around her, how she mimics and how she smiles that tiny little “I’m doin’ it” grin.

She’s doing it.

Thank you to Miss Blair, our wonderful ballet teacher who is extra special, extra gentle and attends to each and every student’s needs so seamlessly.

*****

Several of you have asked how I make my photo/video slideshows. I am no expert, and my attempts at movies are more for just preserving some memories, but it is very easy and quick to make one of these (the Windows software is free online). I ran through a quick instructional video if you’re interested.

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We’re party planning…someone’s turning five here this weekend.

Dropped my phone under my bed this week–dug to get it and found the other earring to my favorite Darlybird pair. So, yay.

We’re learning the hula hula.

Our Monday evening moon walk

Mother’s Isle

May 14, 2012 By Kelle

Our beach at the Isles of Capri welcomed us yesterday, its skinny shore recently renovated with a line-up of new adirodacks in jelly bean hues that nicely compliment the kids’ swimsuits. Lime and lavender, melon and mint green, a great sea blue and my favorite–the yellow chairs, pulled to the front stage of knee-deep water.

Circling the colored chairs are red kayaks, walls painted yellow and trimmed in turquoise, a crayon box of colors represented in scattered beach toys, and a small community of sun-kissed children, darting from dock to shore in suits of blues and greens and loud purples. Together, it is quite a kaleidoscope of colors–an island buffet of happy hues, which happens to be exactly what I was craving for Mother’s Day.

Gulf water temperatures never drop as low as the Atlantic and, in Naples, you can damn near take a warm bath–a salty one–in August when swimming in the gulf offers little refreshment from hot and humid afternoons. But right now, the gulf is the perfect blend of inviting and adventurous. You can glide from knee-deep to waist-deep without holding your breath and yet, right when your brow is sweating and your legs are sticking to that lovely yellow chair, a trip to the water makes it all better.

Lainey and her Grandma Colleen

Because the beach is truly alive with the sound of music and Julie Andrews is one of a great many heroes, let me break it down for you Fraulein Maria style.

These are a Few of my Favorite Things (about our famous happy place):

By the way, I am singing this part. In a nightgown.

1. It’s a natural play pen. The beach is small, bordered by a dock, a cluster of mangroves, a stack of kayaks and Johnson’s Bay. There is no place for babies to wander off to but right here. No Nella chasing. No panicking because I can’t see blond pigtails in my peripheral vision.

2. Tide Changes. In the span of nine hours, the shore line will change–pushing forward while we pull chairs back and fetch floating shovels that have been swallowed up; and pulling back, revealing muddy puddles and dense sand that entertain the kids for hours. Nella flings wet sand.

3. Island Adventures. There’s one sidewalk that trails around the one main street on the Isles of Capri. When we’re feeling adventurous, we’ll leave the happy confines of our beach sanctuary and walk barefoot past the newspaper stands, past the marina, past the little bait shop with the live shrimp that jump out of their pool, past the vegetable stand with the rainbow umbrella–the one where the woman stands inside and says “ONLY VEGETABLES.” Even when you point out that there’s also fruit and a cooler of soda and a coffee pot in the back next to the inviting tables that, you swear, are for guests–she still firmly demands “ONLY VEGETABLES!” We found two treasures yesterday–well two if you count a graveyard of fly-ridden crab pots that reeked of dead fish a treasure. The other was a closed island mart–abandoned on a Sunday afternoon but practically rigged with a sign that said “Please Visit.” I mean, there were two chairs, a small table and a deck of cards just waiting for us. We Goldilocks-ed the place.

4. Island Initiations. For first-timers. (This includes newborns). I still haven’t perfected the initiation ritual in my mind which–not to get you excited–but involves some sort of chanting, a rain dance, some burning sage, a pelican feather, a shot of Jamaican rum, two conch shells, and the scales of a native fish. Until then, we say “Welcome to our happy place,” slap a dollar on a bar beam and take a picture for posterity’s sake.

Nella’s P.T. and O.T. and family joined us yesterday

‘Sup, Ivy? It’s your FIRST TIME to I.O.C.!

My friend Rebecca’s cutie husband, Ian (when a guy can hold a baby like that, I think we can all agree, he’s cute).

5. Heavy skies. They glide in like time lapse photography, sending us excitedly running to grab our bags and move camp to the tiki hut. On a perfect Sunday, this happens right after sunset, and the remainder of the evening is spent huddled around bar tables where we share drinks, wind down and brush sand off the babies.

There are more favorite things, of course, but I have to leave room in the song for when I jump off the bed, grab the curtains and decide to chop them up into little German rompers for my girls to wear next picnic.

The crazy part about Sundays at Isle of Capri? Going home is just as much a part of our enjoyable ritual as packing the car and getting there.

I usually hate endings. I’m a walking ad for Zoloft the day after Christmas holidays, and the last day of vacations might as well just be a wash because I’m so sad it’s over. But Sunday nights, after the perfect Isle of Capri day and right before the dreaded Monday? I’m actually cool with it. The wind-down is necessary and good. The drive home is quiet. We all process our memories in our own way, and as we arrive home and unpack, quickly bathing the kids and tucking their tan little bodies under sheets, I’m always ready to go to bed and start a new week. Maybe I’m just getting older–understanding that work and routine are just as important as fun and relaxation.

Either way, I appeciate them both. Fridays and Mondays…and all the in between.

*****

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*****

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day.

Your Stories: We Bloom

May 13, 2012 By Kelle

Our kitchen is a scattered mess of bowls half-filled with soggy cereal, coffee cups, a few groceries that haven’t yet been put away and a pile of bathing suits, towels and sunblock sticks set aside in preparation for our Mother’s Day celebration today–an afternoon at our happy place. I’m waiting for Brett to return home from some errands, and while I prepare beach bags and attempt to clean up a bit of our morning, I sit down again and read through your stories, narrowing down my list from twenty to ten, from ten to eight, from eight to seven…they are all so important.

When we hear stories of heartache and loss, I think we naturally immediately turn to our own good fortune and say things like “Wow, am I ever grateful.” Gratitude is a wonderful and necessary emotion and yet, in these instances, to say I’m grateful doesn’t seem enough. It can sometimes feel rather like “I’m grateful those things happened to you and not me.” Although these story-tellers, in all the infinite wisdom and perspective they’ve gained through challenges would tell you just that…be grateful.

True gratitude is not simply self-serving though in the “I’m thankful I have a wonderful life” sense. True gratitude is not just a passive recognition but an active responsibility, a complex relationship between awareness and our own capabilities to make change. True gratitude not only makes us appreciate what we have but draws us closer to our most compassionate selves, allowing the stories of others’ challenges to extend beyond a thankful acknowledgment for our lack of such challenges and forcing us to analyze our own stories. How can we learn the same lessons? How can we relate? How can we better help those around us in dealing with their pain?

I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Mother’s Day than to share a few stories from readers–stories that made me grateful in every sense of the word. I am thrilled to continue sharing on this blog my own joys and struggles and all the yellows, parties, cute sandals and beach sunsets in between. Thank you for reading and, for this invitation, thank you for sharing. Inspiration is always a two-way street. You have to take, you have to listen, you have to embrace in order to give anything back.

In sharing your stories, many of you expresssed admirable honesty–that you are still struggling to find peace, happiness, the “good” amid the challenges. I love that vulnerability–a rich soil for seeds of confidence and gratitude to begin growing.

Whether it’s been poverty, abuse, accepting special needs, depression, failed relationships, or loss, we are together learning that overcoming the unexpected takes work and sacrifice. It also yields rewards, even if it simply means we say we survived, we learned something, we helped someone else.

The lessons in these stories and the many others shared poignantly relate to motherhood. It takes work and sacrifice but truly yields the most valuable rewards.

Happy Mother’s Day to anyone who has ever loved a child, and to everyone who has been changed by a mother’s love. That means you.

The Stories of We Bloom (I chose five…just couldn’t settle on four)

Ellie; her blog: Facing West:

The hardest thing I have ever done — the very hardest thing, in a life of hard stops and painful lessons — was saying goodbye to my children as I was wheeled into surgery to remove a brain tumor.

I don’t tend to like the platitude, “God only gives us what we can carry,” as it doesn’t really square with my theology. I don’t think we’re necessarily fated to walk certain paths. Free will and circumstance and accidents and God’s mercy and grace, they all weave together and either we grow or we don’t. Some of us learn to carry what we are given with joyful hearts and open hands; it isn’t easy, and it isn’t a given. I am grateful for all that I have learned, for how much I have grown, in the twenty-two months since that surgery.

I am disabled now. We live in poverty. I cannot work, or run errands, or cook, or do household chores; I cannot drive a car, or take walks, or use a desktop or laptop computer; I cannot comfortably use the telephone, go to a movie theatre, or listen to music. The tumor was located in the cerebellum — the balance and muscle coordination center of the brain — and I am well-scrambled, now. I have chronic vertigo, unceasing skull pain, my altered balance affects every moment of every day; my brain is constantly struggling to properly sort sensory input.

So many cannots and not possibles. So much loss and adjustment and pain. And yet …

And yet … I can love my children. And nurture them, and laugh with them, and read to them, and listen to them, and guide them, and teach them Latin and Greek and Algebra. So what if the laundry rarely gets folded? We are so blessed. So blessed. Every single day is imbued with grace. I am a better mother now, my children are thriving, my faith has deepened. And it is enough. It is enough. Life is a glorious, gorgeous gift and I am nothing but grateful.

(a note about the next story: Diana has been commenting on my blog since Nella was born. I always wanted to know more of her story. I knew she had lost a daughter based on a few comments. Diana has always shared the most encouraging words on this space and, during some times when I questioned my own acceptance–if perhaps my happiness lost its credibility because we were in some kind of denial–I remember feeling confident reading Diana’s comments. She was, no doubt, deeply hurt by the circumstances in her life but, even from the few words she left on this blog, she was clearly making the best of her life, helping others and…smiling. Her profile pic was always smiling.)

Diana Doyle; her blog: Sunshine in a Blue Cup

Within 3 years I lost 3 of the most important people in my life.

My sister was killed in a car accident, leaving 4 little ones behind boys aged 8 and 5 and twin girls only 6 months old. I’ve learned it only takes a moment to change a life….my roller coaster carriage had commenced its uphill climb…..

During that year, my adored mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

While coming to terms with mums fate, and caring for my sister’s children, we were hit with the ultimate tragedy. Our beautiful 2 year old girl Savannah was diagnosed with the terminal illness Metachromatic Leukodystrophy, which is similar to Lou Gherig’s disease. Over the course of the next year Savannah lost the ability to walk, to talk, to eat and became a tiny rag doll in a bed that could only move her enormous blue eyes.

I don’t have the words to describe the pain……

Amongst all the chaos and grief I gave birth to our second child Dempsey who is thankfully happy and healthy and doesn’t have the genetic fingerprint her sister had. My sunshine in a blue cup!

I nursed my mother that year until she passed away. Savannah and Mum being in sync with their dying.

Savannah died at the age of four and a half. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss those eyes or who she’d be now….

Throughout my journey I’ve discovered the gift of grief, the awareness it brings and a gratitude for life.

Challenges create growth and strength and are fuel for the soul….the human spirit can survive anything…..

Today, I’m grateful for my memories that are trapped like the snow in a snow globe…sometimes shaken up, sometimes bittersweet, however there to remind me to never to take a day we are gifted with for granted.

Miggie, Her blog: This Little Miggy Stayed Home

With Beanie’s baby pictures in hand, I started cutting. Cutting around the perfect outline of a perfect baby’s body. As I take scissors to paper and trace around our first born’s body I wonder how this will turn out. This wasn’t an art project or scrap-booking fun, this was practical. I needed to have a visual, some preparation. Then in what seemed like something only a deranged person would do I cut off all the limbs one by one. Who would mutilate a picture of their own child? It’s not something any mother would do willingly. Consulting the notes from my ultrasound appointment, I reassemble each limb in a best-effort attempt to create an image of what our unborn baby’s body will look like. There is however, one limb that doesn’t go back on. The end result is sobering and my heart breaks all over again.

I wrote that a little over 2 years ago shortly after we learned that our unborn baby would be born with limb differences on all four limbs. Since that time I have learned so much, but one of the main lessons is this: I don’t love my children for how cute they are, how clever, funny or smart they are. I don’t love them for what they do or don’t do for me, how obedient or talented they are. I love them because they’re mine. They were meant for my family, regardless of ability or disability. In the words of another mom, all they had to do was show up.

In an effort to share this message of love, I started a special needs spotlight on my blog every Friday. The situations, conditions, illnesses are all different…but the love is the same and it is always there.

Maggie, Her blog: Pink Shoes

When my husband and I decided to go the route of domestic adoption after five years of unexplained infertility I was determined not to let our social worker talk me into an open adoption. I knew it was becoming the norm. I knew that adoption counselors were trying to “push” it on people and I didn’t care. It wasn’t for me, I didn’t like it and I wasn’t going to do it.

And then we met our daughter’s birth parents and I knew again. I knew I’d been wrong. We were going to have an open adoption. There was no way around it. I fell instantly in love with them and the little girl they were willing to selflessly hand over to us to raise and care for and love like they knew they weren’t ready to do.

When our daughter was born, we cried with them in the hospital and hugged them and clasped their hands and they whispered,“This is right. She is your daughter. We want you to love her like crazy and raise an amazing little girl. We picked you to do this. We want this. It’s best.”

And it has been…….the best.

Now, three years later, our daughter’s birth mom comes to birthday parties, has us to her house to go swimming, and invites us over for dinner. I couldn’t imagine my life or my daughter’s without her in it.

I’m forever grateful that adoption brought me to that vulnerable place where I could admit I’d been wrong, where I could acknowledge that my thoughts and pre-conceived notions aren’t always right, and that I could experience the gift that birth mother’s give their children. I’m a mother because of my daughter’s first mother.

And that is an amazing thing.

Summer, her blog: Running Chatter

Kelle, I read every post, but have hidden in the shadows. My heart quickened when I read your invitation today. . . thank you for giving us all a chance to share our stories. Here’s mine. . .

It’s been two years since my life changed forever. Two years of being a motherless daughter. Two years since I’ve called to say hey, or to ask for the umpteenth time do I grill chicken on direct heat? Two years since I’ve sent a picture just to show her how the kids are dressed. Two years since I’ve wrapped my arms around her and felt her envelop me. Two years since I’ve heard her say we are so proud of you. Two years since her voice uttered, I love you.
It’s been two years since hope for her healing died.
It’s been two years since I’ve cried myself to sleep wondering if she will be okay tomorrow. Two years since she broke a promise. Two years since I’ve wondered will it happen today?
It’s been two years since we lost my Mom.
Two years ago I didn’t know how I’d get through it. Dad’s words, take one day at a time and before we know it, we’ll look back and be surprised at how far we’ve come. He was right. Two years ago I wouldn’t have guessed this is where I’d be.
Over the last two years my world has changed. My courage has grown and fears diminished. Life has become richer and love, deeper. In two years the preciousness of life has become more real and I’ve understood that we only get one pass through life. I’ve vowed that I won’t just pass through. I will live and live authentically.

So here I am. . . a Mom, needing her Mom. A daughter, missing Mom. The hurt is still there and the pain is just below the surface, but you know what? That’s okay. I’ve become comfortable with the crashing waves of grief. Comfortable with questions. Comfortable being me.

Women, you have some amazing stories. I am encouraged and challenged to embrace the ever complex meaning of both gratitude and this honor we call motherhood. We Bloom.

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If I published your story today, please e-mail your address to kellehamptonblog@comcast.net, and I will send you a personalized signed copy of Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected