Fam Friday: Meet Jackson Gledhill - Part One

Birth control and myself have never gotten along.  I was only nineteen when the Glediator and I got "engagged," as my mother would say.  The pill made me so sick to my stomach.  "You'll get used to it," Dr. Savage reassured.  While the nausea faded somewhat, I began to discover a few months into my marriage that taking the pill would guarantee on onslaught of tears and thoughts of doom and gloom about twenty minutes after consumption.  I was relieved to find that all the depression was from the pill and not from being married to Mr. Hot Stuff.  I tossed them into the garbage nervously, but concluded that nothing could be as bad as taking the pill - not even pregnancy.  Sometimes I am really smart.  Sometimes I am really not.

Soon after (like 48 hours), a little Gledhill was conceived.  More nausea.  More tears.  More doom and gloom.  What was I thinking?  I wasn't.  I was only a teenager!  

When Jackson was born, everything I did from then on out was guess work.  My mom lived in a foreign country and I was the eighth of nine kids, so I didn't have any knowledge of what to do with a baby.  I was frightened and awkward at first with a case of the Postpartum Blues I wouldn't wish on anyone.  We didn't own a rocking chair, so I just sat on the edge of the bed and nursed.  Ouch.  My back was never so sore in my life.  We didn't have a crib or a bassinet.  Jackson slept in his car seat next to our bed.  Of course my love for the little guy welled up in my heart like a flood - never wanting anyone to touch him, checking on him every five minutes as he slept to make sure he was breathing.  He needed me and I needed him to teach me how to be a mother.

Jackson is witty and very intelligent.  When he was three, I remember this one day from toddler hell when he was pulling things off of shelves, breaking the family heirlooms and destroying anything that dared cross his path.  He even chucked  a billiard ball at my face after I dozed off on the living room floor.  After nearly a full day of such behavior he dumped a bag of sugar and a bag of flour on the kitchen counter and floor, topping it off with a few cups of water.  Where was I?  Probably passed out on the living room floor.  When I came downstairs to see what was going on I had HAD IT!  "Jackson!"  I cried.  "Why do you keep doing these things?!"  I got down to his eye level and firmly gripped his shoulders.  "WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY?!!!!!!"  I started into a fit of rage when Jackson peered up at me under his shaggy bangs and pled:

 "Mom!  I choose LIFE!"  

I paused.

Then I began to laugh.  Hard.

Then he began to laugh.  Harder.

I picked up my little man, drew him close in my arms and told him I was sorry I got so mad.  

When I think about how growing into motherhood was a difficult process for me, I now see from a different perspective that maybe the nurturing and matriarchal aspects of it that I have lacked have allowed me to be more of a close friend to Jackson.  I try to see him as a fellow passenger on this journey through life.  I'm definitely not the perfect candidate, but I'm here to help him through it the best I can.  I want him to know that I choose life too.  Life with him, messes and all.