begin!

I grew up ten minutes from the Atlantic ocean. I spent many of my teenage days and nights at the beach, and I love the look and the sounds and the idea of the ocean. When I'm too far away from the ocean, I can feel the distance in my bones. Now that my family and I live in Atlanta, we have a membership to the Georgia Aquarium and there is nothing I love more than watching the whale sharks and beluga whales glide through the clear, clean water. But I don't actually want to get in the water. I'm terrified, actually. I don't like that I can't see through the murky green water of the ocean in my hometown of Charleston, SC. When I'm standing in the ocean, I don't know what kinds of creepy crawlers (or swimmers) are hanging out around my feet. I can't really avoid stepping on sharp shells or getting knocked around by a wave, and it has been years since I've gone a full day at the beach without getting stung by a jellyfish. I don't like having an experience I can't control. I don't like surprises. I don't like being in too deep.

The title of my blog comes from a book. I don't remember the title of the book, or what it was about, or whether I even liked it. I'm pretty picky when it comes to books, so chances are I didn't even finish it. What I remember is that I read it shortly after I brought my older daughter, Lucy, home from the hospital and that the image-- of an entire ocean crammed into the tiny space of a cradle-- is one I think of almost daily. It's the perfect metaphor for my experience of motherhood. Here is this cradle, or this house, or this life, right? And in the scheme of things, it's so small. My home, my marriage, my kids. But then inside the cradle, inside the pretty package of daily life as a housewife with two children, there is this whole terrifying, beautiful, unknowable vastness only comparable to the ocean in my mind because I am drawn to it, I need it to be happy, but it scares the shit out of me.

My husband, Thom, has been encouraging me to start a blog for a very long time now. I post a lot of pictures of my kids on Facebook, a lot of quotes and funny stories and the things that help me get through days that are sometimes so frustrating all I can do is reach a desperate hand from the depths of this cradled ocean and beg my friends and family to pull me out. About a year ago, I moved from Charleston to Atlanta and away from most of the people I know and love, and those people-- who love me and my children and who have helped me to see the humor and tenderness of raising a family-- have wanted me to start a blog as well. I told my friend Ben that if I started blogging, I would immediately end up oversharing and this is my first entry and it's already happened! But there's a freedom in putting all your mess out there. There's a freedom in saying, "My daughters are wonderful and hilarious and beautiful and they are the joy of my life and sometimes I seriously consider putting them up for adoption and my husband has to talk me out of it."

I hate starting things so let's just jump in and get this first entry over with.

My name is Lindsey. I'm 28. I grew up in Charleston and graduated from College of Charleston with a degree in Women's and Gender Studies. It took me eight years to graduate from college because I had a baby when I was 20, got married at 23, and had another baby when I was 24. I was really broke for a really long time and then my husband got a good job and now all of a sudden I live in a suburb of Atlanta in a house with a two car garage and instead of working the customer service jobs I've loved and loathed all my life, I'm a stay-at-home mom. The only thing missing from our All American family is a golden retriever, which is too bad, because I hate dogs.

My husband's name is Thom. He's six months younger than me and likes to celebrate his half-birthday on my birthday. We met when we were fourteen, but didn't start dating until we were twenty-two. He's an actuary. I've been asked more than once how it feels to be married to a man who handles dead bodies all day, but that's a mortician. They work in mortuaries, which are places, not people. A woman once asked him if he'd been in anything she'd seen, but "actuary" is not a fancy name for actor, either. He does numbers. He's a nerd. A very tall nerd. And he does not play basketball.

We are not the stars of this blog. We are not even the stars of our lives. We are, in fact, very dull. The only truly interesting things about us are our children, Lucy (7) and Stella (4). They need no introduction. Creative, intelligent, emotional, strong, silly, beautiful, funny, kind...they are everything, and they are everything to me. Literally. So it's a good thing I like them.

I don't have a plan for this thing, except to serve as a record of these precious, frustrating days. The funny, sometimes infuriating things my kids (and partner) say and do. And the way I feel about those things, about what a thought was just a cradle and turned out to be the sea.