2007 Archives
DecemberThe Passing of the Magic Torch
One Saturday in mid-December this year my husband and I had planned to take our boys to ride the “Holiday Express” steam train as a special Christmas treat for us all. Our 2 ½ year-old is crazy about trains so we knew it would be a hit and we had cozy images of drinking hot chocolate and listening to Christmas Carols with a boy on each of our laps as the train chugged along on its 45-minute journey.
The morning of our adventure we told Finnigan we were going to go on a train ride that day and he literally began jumping up and down with excitement. So, it was with a tiny bit of panic that we discovered when we went online to order tickets that the “Holiday Express” was completely sold out. Having promised Finn a train ride we decided, in spite of the chilly temperature and the threat of rain, to head up to the zoo which was holding its annual “Zoolights” evening event to ride their train.
When we pulled into the parking lot at the zoo and saw people hurrying towards the entrance, huddled against the rain and cold, we nearly lost our nerve. How could taking a toddler and a 4-month-old to stand in long lines in crummy weather for a 15-minute train ride possibly be worth it? After a bit of deliberation we finally decided to give it a go. We bundled ourselves and the boys up in warm rain gear and headed out. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones who were braving the weather and we ended up waiting in a 20 minute line to get into the zoo and then a 25 minute line to board the train. Through it all Finn was so excited that every few minutes he would raise his arms above his head and holler, “Ride the train!!”, completely oblivious to the dripping rain and chilly gusts of wind. When it was finally our turn to climb aboard Finn was practically euphoric. As the locomotive chugged its way around the zoo Finn made “choo choo” sounds, waved at people as we passed, “oohed” and “ahhed” over the holiday lights, marveled at the sound of the engine letting off steam and bounced on our laps, laughing with happiness.
My own memory of childhood is so full of family adventures that I occasionally feel a little apprehensive that I’m not up to the task of creating the same sort of lifelong reminiscences for my own kids. Following our train ride, however, when we were finally back in our nice, warm car listening to Finn chatter happily in the backseat I realized that that is exactly what we’re doing. The magic that surrounds my own childhood memories of rock hounding trips to Eastern Oregon or ski trips to Mount Bachelor comes, in large part, from never having worried about packing my clothes or making lunches or troubling over the weather. It was a gift that my parents gave to me and my siblings and it is one that we’re now passing along to our own kids.
Family adventures are an entirely new experience this time around. Now I’m the one thinking about meals, naptimes, diapers and whether we’ve brought enough clothes for the kids. I worry about kids getting cold and miserable and readily ignore my own discomfort if it means eliminating theirs. A significant shift has occurred and now instead of receiving the magic, I’m helping to create it. As I watched Finnigan’s expression of pure joy as we chugged around the zoo in the rain with the holiday lights reflected in his eyes, I realized that that’s just the way I want it.
I hope that your 2007 was touched by moments of magic and that 2008 brings you even more.
November
Toddler Humble Pie
Last week at Indoor Park Finn dashed over to the big trampoline, eager to start jumping. Before he climbed on, I carefully explained to him that his turn would last a couple of minutes and I told him that I would give him a “five jump” warning before his turn was up and that lots of other kids were waiting. He nodded agreeably and, sure enough, when I gave the word he bounced right over to me. As his second turn came to an end I once again called his name and counted down five final jumps. In response, Finn smiled at me angelically, rotated so his back was to me and continued jumping. Suddenly, the eyes of every mother surrounding the trampoline were on me, awaiting my next move.
I tried being nice, but firm, “Finn, your turn is over now. Please come over to me right now. You may have another turn in a few minutes.” (Jump, jump, jump.)
When that didn’t work I tried authoritative, “Finnigan. Come to me right now or you’re going to get a time-out.” (Jump, jump, jump.)
Finally, I was faced with the prospect of climbing up onto the trampoline to physically retrieve my 37 pound two-year-old (who I knew would not come easily). To make this task all the more daunting (and the image that much more amusing), baby brother Indy was strapped to my chest in the Baby Bjorn.
Instead, I threw one last Hail Mary. I turned to the mother next to me, a kind-looking woman I had never met, “Would you mind asking him to get off of the trampoline?” I asked. “Not at all!” she replied, “Hey, Finn! Will you please come over and see your mom now and give someone else a turn?” “Oh, yes!” he replied eagerly, as if this was the first time anyone had ever presented the idea. He bounced right over to me and threw his arms around my neck, smiling widely.
I’m embarrassed to admit that, when Finnigan was an infant, I watched other mothers struggling with defiant toddlers and I often thought to myself that they weren’t doing it quite right. As I cuddled my newborn I told myself that if these other mothers would just set clear boundaries, if they were explicit with their expectations and utilized “time-outs” effectively, then their child would respond in a much more positive and constructive way.
HA!
Maybe it’s a form of self-preservation to believe that other moms are “doing it wrong” because parenthood takes such an awesome amount of confidence. When I was a first-time mother of a newborn, I also think it was just too scary for me to believe that my own child would ever have tantrums or that he would ever deliberately (and perhaps even loudly) disobey me in public. But, of course, he does.
Finn is a sweet, funny, energetic little guy who is well on his way to becoming a strong, independent person. I know this because he tests the limits in one way or another every single day.
While I’m overjoyed at the prospect of my son growing up to be an independent thinker whose energy and enthusiasm will help him succeed in life, in the meantime, I’ve learned that parenting a toddler is work. Honest to God, full-time, pull-your-hair-out-by-the-roots work. It is also incredibly humbling because, just when you think you’ve learned all of their tricks, a toddler will figure out a new way to test you. Because the stamina of a toddler is extraordinary, as a parent you soon learn that you will never outlast your toddler in a “behavior standoff”; therefore you must learn to outwit them. Yesterday, for example, in a perfect illustration of the energy and tenacity of toddler exploration, Finn smeared the window with baby lotion, drew on the floor, splashed water all over the bathroom, and emptied the kitchen drawers…all before breakfast.
To survive you become a constant master of distraction and a crafty disciplinarian, one who must use swift judgment as to the appropriate reaction to each and every test presented by your toddler. You have to be creative, like asking the mother next to you for help cajoling your son off of the trampoline. This constant parenting is exhausting and sometimes we aren’t up to the task. A great friend of mine who also has a 2-year-old and an infant recently confessed to me, “I get so tired of the constant disciplining that sometimes I’ll pretend that I haven’t noticed what he’s doing, just so I won’t have to do anything about it.” I love her.
Even when they’re not being naughty, toddler behavior tends to be challenging—this morning I discovered little Finn-sized bites out of each and every pear in the fruit basket. The books say to reserve “no” for the truly dangerous things so the word doesn’t lose its power. What then do I say to address tearing pages out of books, throwing food all over the kitchen and tossing toys into my parents’ Koi pond?
When our first babies are born I would imagine that most of us have a lovely image of the mother we will be as our child grows. We will be patient, creative, thoughtful and reasonable. Our children won’t watch too much TV or eat too much sugar. They will respect their peers, obey the rules, work enthusiastically on creative projects we dream up and go to bed without too much fuss because we will have established a clear, pleasant bedtime routine.
As the parent of a toddler it is easy to get frustrated with ourselves, because we are not living up to the image that we had of the mother that we would be. We lose our patience, we cave in to the whining, and we turn on cartoons at 3:00 in the afternoon after we swore to ourselves that we wouldn’t. In the midst of our toddler fatigue, we often get caught up in the negative instead of giving ourselves license to notice all of the great things about the little people that our children are becoming. Sure, Finn refused to get dressed for an hour the other day and also triumphantly peed on the couch, but he also said “thank you” when I gave him his snack, turned off the bath water the first time I asked, and gently kissed his brother on the head when he didn’t even know I was looking. I believe that these things are a better predictor of things to come than the fact that he repeatedly tears the paper off every presto log we naively set by the fireplace. At least, I sure hope so….
October
The value of a ‘jeans shopping friends’ and other thoughts from 3am
After a couple of weeks of getting up 3-4 times a night to tend to our newborn I thought I might collapse from fatigue. Our first child didn’t sleep through the night until he was eight months old and imagining the sleepless marathon in front of us left me feeling weak and debilitated. I started to dread getting into bed, knowing that I would be awake again so soon. At one point I even told my sister that I wasn’t sure I could do this again and that I was thinking we might reconsider having a third child. (To her credit, she didn’t laugh at me, just gently suggested that perhaps right now wasn’t the best time to decide.)
By the time Indy was about a month old, however, my mind and body seemed to adjust a bit, and Indy’s first stretch of sleep extended to a much more reasonable four hours. I felt myself start to mellow out. It was at about that time that I noticed that in the wee hours of the morning my brain drifts around strange and unexpected thoughts, unencumbered by the orders to stay on track that keep my mind from wandering during the day.
Since I don’t have anything I need to do or anywhere I need to go as I sit there nursing Indy in the dark I simply mull things over that I haven’t taken the time for during the day.
Gratitude: When Indy was 2 weeks old Finn came down with the worst gastroenteritis of his life. The things his poor little body went through for a very long 10 days were awful. One night when my husband was working our friend, Rebecca, came over and brought me dinner and stayed for several wonderful hours to visit with me. Just as she was about to leave, Finn, who had been seeming a little bit better walked up to me where I sat nursing Indy on the couch and let loose with a Hurricane of Vomit. For a few seconds Rebecca and I both sat, absolutely paralyzed. We looked at each other, both at a complete loss. When I finally jumped up and, covered in vomit and carrying Indiana, ran to the linen closet for towels, Finn chased me, vomiting all along the way. In a true testament to her character, Rebecca did not seize this opportunity to slip out the front door and instead immediately insisted that she would stay for as long as I needed her.
When the hurricane finally stopped, vomit covered Finn, Indy, me, the couch and the floor in two different rooms. It was hard to know where to start. Eventually, we got Finn into the bathtub and Rebecca bathed him while I scrubbed the floors and the couch. We then put Finnigan to bed; cleaned Indy up and Rebecca held him while I took a shower. Through it all, Rebecca was calm, loving to the boys and supportive of me. By the time she left, both boys were asleep, the house was (relatively) clean and I was showered. To this day I have no idea how to express to her how grateful I am that she was here when the whole thing went down. (See also Hurricane of Vomit)
Holidays: My childhood was full of wonderful celebrations for holidays big and small. My parents’ annual Pumpkin Carving Party, for instance, is a blast. Throngs of family members gather to drink cold drinks and eat hot soup, eventually hunkering down on a vast tarp with carving tools and buckets for pumpkin guts to create our small village of carved pumpkins. There was a time, however, between being a child and having my own children that holidays languished a bit for me in a weird limbo and they felt a tiny bit forced. It is an incredible relief to feel the magic coming back now that I have my own kids.
Hurricane of vomit: When we moved to Portland, just after we were married, Alan and I bought a deep red couch & oversized stuffed chair for our new house. The fabric is stain-resistant microfiber and during her sales pitch the woman at the store emphasized how great the fabric was with kids, “Stains just wipe right off of it!” Alan and I both giggled a little, imagining our future children and the darling little stains we would someday “wipe right off of” our awesome red couch. Two years later, to the saleswoman’s credit, her pitch has proven mostly true. A couple of weeks ago, however, the couch met its match and finally, out of desperation, I stripped all of the covers from the cushions and threw them in the washing machine. It wasn’t until I was putting the sparkling clean cushions back on the couch that I saw the care instructions attached to the seat, “Caution: Never remove cushion covers for separate dry cleaning or washing even though they do have zippers.” Ooops. (See also Gratitude)
Jeans shopping friend: Britney Spears is a total mess. I admit that I used to take some pleasure in her foibles (who drives up the Pacific Coast Highway with her baby in her lap?!) but now it just makes me sad. I think that she needs a “jeans shopping friend” to set her straight. You know the type, right? She’s the girlfriend you take shopping with you when you’re looking for a great pair of jeans and need someone who you trust to tell you the truth. She’s kind but firm and when you find the right pair she makes sure you buy them, even if they’re just a teensy bit out of your price range. Sure, it’s nice to go shopping with a friend who tells you everything looks amazing, but deep down you know that it isn’t true and you run the risk of ending up with a bunch of jeans that make your rear look weird.
Love: I read somewhere once that it is when children are acting the least lovable that they need the most love. Remembering that really helps me be a better mom.
Siblings: A childhood friend called recently looking for my perspective on being a middle sibling. She had just had her third child and had been receiving a lot of advice to have a fourth to spare the second child from “middle child syndrome”. As we chatted, she admitted that there was a possibility that having a fourth child would send her to the insane asylum. It sort of begs the question; is favoritism eliminated in families with more than three children simply because the parents don’t have the time or energy to give anyone extra attention?
Time: When Indiana was three weeks old I took him with me to the grocery store. I wasn’t exactly at the top of my game and had gone to the store because I needed to get out of the house for a little while. Indy had been sleeping in absurdly short stretches at night and Finn, our 2-year-old, was on day number 6 of awful vomiting and diarrhea. New babies, however, invariably attract a lot of attention so I soon found myself making small talk with the strangers who were admiring Indy. I tried to put on a brave face, but I was looking pretty haggard so when an older woman grasped my arm, looked into my eyes and implored, “Enjoy every minute of this precious time, it goes so quickly!” I sort of thought she was joking.
Later I realized that I had been feeling guilty for wishing away this time, looking forward to the days when Indy was sleeping better and Finn was through the rascally days of being two years old. When the boys were grown and gone on to their own things, I would long for these days, I reasoned. I would regret wishing away a single minute of their childhoods!
Luckily, I soon came to my senses. I don’t think it’s that time goes so terribly quickly, necessarily, it’s just that once something is over, it’s gone forever. I can’t stop time from marching on, but I can be mindful of the joys that are happening right now. As long as I can look back and think, “That was a wonderful time, I’m really glad that I appreciated it when it was happening” I’m pretty sure that I will be satisfied. And I can say with near certainty that I will never look back and wish that I was getting up all night with a baby and cleaning up the other one’s vomit and diarrhea.
Babysitter: I happened to come home on Friday just as Finnigan was finishing up lunch with his regular babysitter. Now, normally when Finn finishes eating Alan and I keep him strapped in his high chair and clean him up with a washcloth to keep him from propagating messes with his food-covered hands. But on Friday, as I watched in astonishment, Finn’s sitter asked him if he was ready to wash up and when he said yes she let him out of his chair. Finn then walked directly to the bathroom, holding his sticky little hands in the air to avoid touching anything and carefully climbed the step stool to the sink where his babysitter helped him wash his hands and face. From the natural way the whole thing transpired I could tell that this was the way they always clean up after Finn eats and it struck me that there are things I don’t know about my son’s life. Interestingly, it made me happy.
Secret: When I took Indiana in for his 2 week visit with the pediatrician I got to chatting with an older women as we sat outside the lab waiting for Indy’s PKU. The woman was lovely and told me that she and her husband were celebrating their 56th wedding anniversary that week. When I asked if they had any kids she chuckled and said, “Oh yes. We had five kids within six years.” Feeling completely fried by my own two children, I imagined having three more at home, all under the age of six. I felt such awe for this pretty, peaceful-seeming woman and asked her, a little breathlessly, how she had done it. I waited expectantly, maybe this was it! Perhaps she was about to impart the big secret of motherhood! She looked down at Indy nestled in my arms, smiled and said, “You just do what you have to do".
September
And then there were four…
On Monday, August 20th at 5:28 am my husband and I welcomed our second child, Indiana, into the world. People have babies every minute of every day. Babies are being born as I type this. And yet, I am still astounded by the miracle of our sons.
That said, I must admit that throughout my pregnancy my excitement was tempered just a bit by the apprehension of doubling our parental workload. When Alan was working a lot or when Finn was feeling a bit needier or more rambunctious than usual I would often think, “How in the world am I going to handle this when there are two of them?!”
A few days ago I spent several hours alone with our two boys for the first time while my husband went to see Modest Mouse in concert. Indiana was just 7 days old and Finnigan turned two in July. Alan was a little nervous about leaving us alone but it was only three hours before Finn’s bedtime and Indy still sleeps quite a bit so I convinced him that we would be fine, so off he went.
Things started off a bit hairy when Finn immediately began sobbing inconsolably because his dad wasn’t around to play baseball. After several attempts to cheer him up I finally bribed him back to smiling with frosted animal cookies; so far so good. It was a beautiful evening so we stayed outside for awhile and I nursed Indy while simultaneously playing catch with Finn. (I was fully appreciative of the difference between first and second born children as Indy’s dinner was repeatedly and rudely interrupted as I reached for balls hurled over my head.)
As the evening wound down, the three of us moved inside to watch a movie. As I cuddled with Indy and Finn on the couch I could feel my confidence building and was amused that I had been so worried. Sure, there would be challenges but I could handle them!
Then, of course, all hell broke loose. It started with our cat, McGonagall, wanting to go outside. When I got up to let her out Finn heard his friend, Nick, playing across the street and dashed for the door. I quickly closed it, which resulted in Finnigan having a meltdown that sounded like he was being subjected to some sort of torture. Hoping a passerby wouldn’t hear Finn’s screeches and call Child Protective Services; I put Indy in his swing and calmly tried to explain to Finn (over his repeated shrieks of “NIIIIIICK!”) that it was too late to go outside. He was having none of it and eventually his tantrum woke his little brother who, of course, began shrieking like a feral cat.
Then and there I decided that I was never letting Alan go back to work. In fact, I thought, I may never let him leave the house again; I was crazy to think that I could do this by myself.
Somehow, over the next couple of hours I managed to get Finn his dinner, into his PJs, read a few stories and into bed. I’m honestly not quite sure how, I just know that it was a fairly loud process all the way around and that it left me exhausted. With Finn finally sleeping soundly, I changed Indy’s diaper, tucked him into his cradle in our room and set about putting laundry away, starting the dishwasher and neatening up the house; all with the goal of getting myself into bed as soon as possible. About the time I had my hands completely full of toys, dishes, clothes and pacifiers I heard Indy start to cry.
Quite possibly the biggest challenge of bringing Indy home has been that if we don’t catch it in time his crying awakens his big brother. It didn’t take long for us to figure out that the only thing worse than a crying kid is two crying kids. So, when I heard Indy begin to cry I quickly dumped everything I had been carrying onto various surfaces and went sprinting in to scoop him up. Indy quickly calmed down, but I was too late and I soon heard Finn's whimpers escalate into all-out crying. Suppressing the urge to cry myself (I was sooo tired) I opened the door to Finn’s room with Indy still tucked into the crook of my arm, and found Finn was standing in his crib, upset and confused. When he saw me he immediately held out his arms and began crying, “Up! Up!”
Now, normally when Finnigan wakes up at night reading him a quick story will calm him right down, but I had forgotten to turn on the hall light so the room was too dark to read. So I asked Finn if he would like me to sing him a song. To my surprise, he nodded vigorously and then laid down, looking at me expectantly.
As the boys snuggled in I began to sing softly;
Baa, baa Black Sheep
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir
Three bags full
Incredibly, both of my boys looked totally engaged.
One for my Master
One for my Dame
One for the little boys
Who live down the lane
In the semi-darkness of Finnigan’s bedroom I could see four little eyelids growing heavier and heavier.
Baa, baa Black Sheep
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir
Three bags full
When I finished the song Finn struggled to open his eyes and his hands came carefully together to sign, “More?” while he hopefully mumbled the word through the falling veil of sleep. I smiled, tucked the blankets carefully around his shoulders, snuggled Indy in just a little closer and sang the song one more time.
And that’s when I knew, we’re all going to be just fine.
August
Tomatoes, Piano Lessons & America's Favorite Pastime
I grew up on a farm in Oregon complete with goats, chickens, horses and the occasional cow or pig. My siblings and I spent summers playing in the forest behind our house and eating cherry tomatoes right off the vine in my parents’ veggie garden. I left for college when I was 18 and have lived in cities now for years—first San Francisco and then Los Angeles before finally settling in Portland with my husband. I love where we live and while our kids may not grow up with a forest in their backyard they will have lots of playmates within a couple of blocks, a gelato shop down the street and several community centers within a few miles to choose from. But still, like many new parents, I find myself looking back upon my own childhood with nostalgia and searching for ways to recreate certain elements of it for my own children.
So it was with those childhood tomatoes in mind that I recently took my son shopping for tomato starts, containers and potting soil. After returning home, Finnigan eagerly helped scoop soil into the pots and smelled the fragrant tomato leaves with a mix of wonder and confusion over all of my enthusiasm. This being Oregon in the summer it wasn’t long before each of the plants doubled in size and began sprouting little yellow flowers that were soon replaced by tiny green tomatoes. I carefully pointed each new tomato out to Finn with more awe than I had expected to feel. Sitting together on the deck in the sunshine counting our tomatoes it was hard to imagine life getting any better.
We check on our plants often; the tiny green tomatoes growing barely larger with each passing day. Finn has indulged my interest gamely and it didn't take long before he began plucking the hard green fruit from the vine and bringing it to me like little offerings. Each time I have carefully tried to explain that the tomatoes aren’t quite ready, that when they are they will be bright red like the ones we bring home from the store. They will be juicy and delicious, I tell him, unlike the hard little nuggets he is currently clutching alternatively between his teeth and fingers.
I have been torn, however, about telling him not to pick the green tomatoes. On the one hand, I think to myself, they’re his tomatoes. If plucking them now brings him happiness, who am I to say no? On the other, I want to protect him from his own actions and be sure that he doesn’t pick all of the fruit before it is ready (which, at the rate he is picking them, is likely to occur within the next three days or so) and miss out on the joy of eating our ripe tomatoes right off the vine.
In this I have realized that our family is entering a new era. Up until now, Finn’s choices were largely limited to what Alan and I approved of and our judgment was mostly colored by whether his desired course of action involved a large amount of physical risk. With the tomatoes, however, we are faced with a new dilemma—picking the unripe tomatoes won’t hurt anyone and we can certainly buy ripe tomatoes but as the parents we understand something that Finn doesn’t and it is up to us to decide whether it is important enough to try to bestow this understanding upon him or wait for him to get there on his own.
It reminds me of a conversation I had recently with my sister about her daughter wanting to quit piano lessons. My niece is becoming quite good but at 11 years old is often certain that piano is a sort of torture and quitting would be the best thing ever. My sister hates seeing her daughter miserable but also mightily regrets that she herself quit taking piano lessons when she was about her daughter’s age. Should my sister push Elise to do something she doesn’t want to now because it may make her happy later? Or should she allow her to quit taking the lessons and risk the regret she may eventually suffer?
In a similar story, Finn’s teacher at Toddler Gym told me the other day that her younger son was crazy about baseball and showing signs of being quite gifted at the sport up until the time he was 12. She spent years sitting in the bleachers cheering him on and embraced her role as a baseball mom by driving him around the state for his various All-Star teams. Suddenly, however, one day in junior high her son decided that he no longer liked baseball and that he wanted to quit. His mom told me that she pushed back much harder than she ever had about anything else. She just couldn’t believe that her son was ready to walk away from something that he had enjoyed so much and had found such success with. Finally, however, she said that she had no choice. She couldn’t make him do something that he refused to do so he quit playing and they all moved on to new things. She missed the baseball games but what could she do? She had pleaded her case to try to keep her son playing and said she later even felt guilty about just how hard they had fought about it and how hard she had pushed him to remain on the team. So, imagine her shock and dismay when her son, now 17, casually turned to her recently and asked, “Hey Mom, why did you ever let me stop playing baseball?”
Reflecting upon these two stories made me realize that as Finn and his future siblings get older the challenges will get bigger and the decisions will get harder but that the basic principal may often remain the same. Since we can’t predict the future we simply can’t know whether it is best to guide our children to stick with their piano lessons or their baseball team or keep them from picking unripe tomatoes.
So, yesterday I finally decided that just like you can resume your piano lessons or join another baseball team later, you can also always plant more tomatoes, right? Finn is only two and the joy he gets from picking the little green tomatoes is enough for me right now.
Then I woke up this morning and realized that if I hide one of the pots of tomatoes around the corner of our house I can bring it back out after the tomatoes have ripened. Then, Finn and I can pick the juicy red fruit right off the vine and pop it in our mouths. They might just be tomatoes, but it will be such fun to see the look on Finn’s face when he tastes just how good they are...
July
“’Are they sure you’re only having one?!’ and other things pregnant women love to hear
As the summer days stretch into long, warm evenings, my husband and I have been enjoying walks around our neighborhood with our toddler son, Finnigan. Finn recently discovered that many houses in our area have bins of toys on their porches and through dedicated exploration has determined not only exactly which neighbors have these bins on their porches but also which ones contain things he particularly likes. When we get within about 50 feet of these houses he takes off at a dead sprint, scampers up the stairs and helps himself to the riches of sports equipment and toys the chests contain.
One of Finn’s favorite treasure troves is located about halfway down our block on the porch of a family of six kids. A few nights ago, Paul & Christine, the parents of the six who range in age from 5-16, were sitting in front of their house enjoying the evening breezes when Finn went tearing up their stairs to help himself to a baseball bat. As I chatted over my shoulder with the couple while simultaneously trying to keep Finnigan from injuring himself, me, or any attendant personal property, Christine began emphatically telling me that I looked wonderful and that I looked like I had lost weight.
I thought I must have heard her wrong. I looked to her husband for his reaction and he smiled, replying, “That’s rather statistically improbable.” Christine went on to insist that I really looked like I had lost weight which made sense since she had seen me chasing Finn all over the neighborhood.
I know, of course, that Christine couldn’t literally mean that she thought that I had lost weight. I’m 32 weeks pregnant and have gained 25lbs over the last 8 months. She can see as clearly as anyone that I’m roughly the size of Shamu these days. Perhaps the difference in Christine’s perception is that she understands that the truth is absolutely irrelevant at this point. Sure, the statement that I look like I’ve lost weight is patently absurd, but you know what? It made me feel awesome, I suddenly felt like I looked good and that is something that is pretty rare these days.
There seems to be something about pregnancy that makes many people forget all of the rules that pertain to a woman’s size and weight; namely, that you should only ever say how fantastic they are. I suppose it’s because pregnancy is a temporary state but when else would anyone ever say to a woman, as someone said to me recently, “My gosh, you’re HUGE!”?
Last week we had an ultrasound and learned that our little guy is, in fact, measuring in the 80th percentile for his gestational age. While this was extremely validating and helps explain why my back aches like I’m about 110 years old, it doesn’t make me feel all that much better about a woman who recently asked me, “Are they sure you’re only having one?” Or, worse, the woman who exclaimed, upon learning that I still had 2 months to go, “There better be about six in there!”
I stopped at the store the other day to pick up a few things on my way to a baby shower for a friend. I had taken some extra time to get ready and was feeling pretty good until the checker remarked cheerfully, “You look like you’re ready to pop!” Because, you know, that’s how every woman wants to look. As if, at any second, her body, which is apparently visibly straining at its epidermal seams, is actually going to give way to the pressure and burst open in the middle of Safeway. As I walked out of the store, cursing myself for not having the guts to tell the checker that women don’t actually like to be compared to over-inflated balloons, a pretty, smiling woman in the parking lot caught my eye and said, “What a darling outfit you have on!” And, just like that, she made it all ok.
Since college I have worked hard to appreciate and admire my body for all it offers. My attitude shift began when I casually mentioned to a co-worker that I would love to lose some weight. She looked at me with barely concealed anger and said, “Are you kidding me?! I would kill to have a body like yours.” In a flash I realized that for some reason it had always been easier, somehow, to feel bad about my body instead of good. I hadn’t been fishing for a compliment when I said that I would like to lose weight, surrounded by artistic waif-types in San Francisco I really did feel chubby, so my co-worker’s reaction made a huge impression on me. In that moment I vowed to stop comparing myself to other women and to concentrate on my own body’s health and strength.
Over the years my resolve has taken some hits but I’ve always tried to remind myself to appreciate my body for what it can accomplish rather than beat myself up over the size of my jeans. Pregnancy, however, is a whole new ballgame. There are times when I actually feel a little like my body has turned on me and it’s not just the weight gain. It’s the shortness of breath, the nausea, the headaches, the swelling, the insomnia and the overall soreness. It’s the almost comical strain of bending over to pick something up off of the floor.
It helps to remind myself that I am going through these things for the best possible cause. I would gladly suffer through these discomforts and more for the sweet baby I will soon hold in my arms as a reward. And I try to remember that this is my body’s greatest accomplishment of all. Even though this is my second pregnancy it is still nearly impossible for me to get my head around the fact that I’m actually growing another human being inside of me.
So why then, do I care if people comment on my increasing girth? That’s what’s supposed to happen when you’re pregnant. I’m not sure, but I could certainly relate when my sister-in-law told me recently that during her third trimester she felt like Sideshow Bob because people stared at her wherever she went.
I know that people aren’t trying to make me feel bad. Perhaps they just don’t know what to say in the face of the miracle of pregnancy so they say silly things about my size. Or maybe they really do think of pregnancy as a sort of time-out from a woman’s daily reality of struggling with weight and body image.
Whatever the case, I’ve once again made a conscious resolution to appreciate my body for all it does for me every day. I’ve decided to not take offense when someone tells me that I’m enormous/look like I’m due any day/appear to be having multiples and I will stop fantasizing about the witty but catty things I would like to say in response. Instead, I will focus on the positive. I will ignore the aches and the strains and remember how lucky I am to have a body capable of such incredible feats.
Oh, and one other thing, every single time I talk to a pregnant woman I’m going to express disbelief at how far along she is, tell her that she looks amazing and that I love her outfit.
June
"A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I was talking on the phone with my friend, Jeff, the other day and he asked about the subject of this month's Thoughts on Motherhood. I admitted that while I had a whole list of things that I was interested in writing about, I was just too tired. Between these hot lazy days, my 28-week pregnant body and my rambunctious 22-month-old, my brain just seems to have shifted to slow-motion. Jeff said that you would understand.
So, in lieu of my own thoughts this month, I have compiled a few from other people. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
It sometimes happens, even in the best of families, that a baby is born. This is not necessarily cause for alarm. The important thing is to keep your wits about you and borrow some money. ~Elinor Goulding Smith
Making the decision to have a child--It's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone
Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. ~Phyllis Diller
You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. ~Franklin P. Jones
A characteristic of the normal child is he doesn't act that way very often. ~Author Unknown
Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky. ~Fran Lebowitz
There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
The real menace in dealing with a five-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a five-year-old. ~Joan Kerr, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, 1957
People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. ~Leo J. Burke
Getting down on all fours and imitating a rhinoceros stops babies from crying. (Put an empty cigarette pack on your nose for a horn and make loud "snort" noises.) I don't know why parents don't do this more often. Usually it makes the kid laugh. Sometimes it sends him into shock. Either way it quiets him down. If you're a parent, acting like a rhino has another advantage. Keep it up until the kid is a teenager and he definitely won't have his friends hanging around your house all the time. ~P.J. O'Rourke
If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers. ~Edgar W. Howe
There's nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child. ~Frank A. Clark
One of the most obvious results of having a baby around the house is to turn two good people into complete idiots who probably wouldn't have been much worse than mere imbeciles without it. ~Georges Courteline, La Philosophie de Georges Courteline
A three year old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a fifty-six dollar set of swings as it does out of finding a small green worm. ~Bill Vaughan
I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it. ~Harry S Truman
May
Are Our Husbands Crazy?!
The other night my husband returned from playing volleyball, pumped with post-workout endorphins, all jazzed up over the prospect of the two of us forming a volleyball team together with our friends. Alan and I began playing weekly volleyball at a local community center not long before I got pregnant with our second child. After we discovered that I was pregnant it didn’t seem like such a good idea for me to be flopping on my belly after spiked volleyballs so I stopped going but my husband has continued to play as his schedule allows.
As I sat there listening to my enthusiastic husband chatter on about how much fun it would be to form our own volleyball team, my brain tried to catch up. My mind raced through the remaining 17 weeks of my pregnancy; then labor, delivery and healing; followed by several months with a sleepless infant; and, finally, to me trying to get back into some semblance of physical shape while working around breastfeeding, child care and exhaustion. Once my mind managed to sift through all of that madness, it slammed into the challenge of arranging for a sitter every Monday night so Alan and I could play volleyball with our newly formed team.
I didn’t want to burst my husband’s bubble, I really didn’t, but I couldn’t help but wonder….WAS HE INSANE?!?
I carefully attempted to explain to Alan that while I thought a volleyball team sounded like great fun, I just didn’t see it happening for awhile. I walked him through the crazy ride my thoughts had just gone on and quickly realized that not one of these things had occurred to my husband before they passed my lips. Furthermore, it was suddenly clear to me that the reality of our second child’s impending arrival hadn’t really hit him yet.
The first trimester of this second pregnancy was a doozy for me. Vomiting, fatigue, mood swings, headaches; I was a moaning illustration of first-trimester woes and, while my husband was enormously sympathetic, there were times when he would actually forget that I was pregnant. Not me. It occurred to me as I talked with him about forming a volleyball team that, for pregnant women, the massive changes in our bodies make us extremely aware that a child is on its way but that it can take the guys awhile to catch up.
When I mentioned the volleyball story to friends of mine who are also mothers I received lots and lots of knowing nods and a hilarious array of similar stories. It seems that while our men are able to mentally jump straight to the fun of carving turns in the powder of Sun Valley, as moms we get bogged down in the details of planning, packing, plane tickets and where exactly our toddlers and babies will be while we’re swishing down the mountain side.
Hearing all of these stories got me to wondering, why does it seem to be our jobs as mothers to rein our guys in and give them reality checks with regard to what makes sense for our families? I allowed myself a moment of indulgence and fantasized about an Alan who effortlessly recognized the reality of our current situation. An Alan who didn’t suggest we form a volleyball team or take back-country camping trips or travel to Costa Rica for surf camp. An Alan who looked forward to doing these things together again some day but who was exhausted just imagining them now. In short, an Alan just like me…… and then I thought, “EEEW!”.
Because, here’s the thing, if I could clone myself, then the laundry might get done a little more often and the kitchen floor would probably be sticky for shorter stretches of time but the truth is, the last thing our household needs is another me. The beauty of parenting with another person is that it is a partnership and just like in work or in sports, it’s best to have a teammate whose talents are different from your own. Alan and I are a team and we tackle the challenges of parenthood together, but we are also two different people who bring different strengths and weaknesses to the parenting table.
Right now it may be my role to remind Alan that we should probably clear a few things from our plate before we start our own volleyball team, but one day that won’t be the case and I’ll need him to remind me of that. I’ll need him to throw out another crazy idea about taking the kids on a backcountry trip or snowboarding weekend to realize that maybe it’s not so crazy after all.
April
The Tangled Emotions of Pregnancy Number Two
My office overlooks the street and as the weather has slowly improved recently I have enjoyed seeing people beginning to trickle outside for afternoon walks. I like to watch them as I work; out with their dogs, playing with their kids, admiring the first blooms of spring. Lately, I’ve particularly enjoyed one couple I’ve started seeing this year. They are young, lovely and clearly expecting their first child. In addition to the woman’s darling maternity outfits and growing belly, they have that wonderful, expectant air about them that seems to be unique to first-time parents-to-be.
In December, when my husband and I discovered that I was pregnant with our second child we were delighted but we haven’t had a lot of time to take leisurely walks through our neighborhood, dwelling on our happiness. We’ve been distracted by our crazy toddler who lately seems to be on a personal quest to risk his life in as many ways as possible. There are days when it feels like my husband and I spend all of Finnigan’s waking hours sprinting after him as he dashes toward street corners, swipes knives from the dishwasher and somehow reaches various dangerous objects on the counter that we would have sworn were out of his reach.
When Alan and I do get a quiet moment to talk about the new baby our conversation is often tinged with just a little bit of panic. How in the world will we chase Finn when we have a newborn? Will the boys get along? Will Finn be jealous? Are we going to need an additional crib or will Finnigan be ready for his “big boy bed” soon?
It has occurred to me that unless your first baby was one of those mythical creatures that slept through the night at 3 weeks, took regular naps without protest and enjoyed playing quietly by himself, it is easy to feel, along with the blissful anticipation of Baby #2’s arrival just the tiniest, eensiest bit of…please forgive me, future baby…dread. This time around I know that the pregnancy is the easy part, compared to the slew of sleepless nights and bouts of inexplicable crying (both the baby’s and mine) that our very-near future holds. My husband and I will soon experience, once again, the frustration of clean outfits (ours and the baby’s) suddenly covered in spit up just as we’re walking out the door. This time I know first-hand that this baby’s arrival will also mean the return of blow outs, leaky breasts, sore nipples and piles and piles of laundry.
So, as the young couple walked past my window recently I realized that watching them I felt both envy and a little bit of guilt. I missed the purity of emotion that I experienced when I was pregnant with Finn. During my first pregnancy I had no idea what to expect so all I expected was joy. This time around I felt sad and a little ashamed that my emotions were so much more tangled up.
But then something happened. I was having lunch by myself at a neighborhood restaurant and a couple came in with a tiny baby. They put his infant car seat on a highchair just like my husband and I used to do with Finn. Midway through lunch the baby started to cry and I watched with amusement as the dad quickly scooped the baby up, looking around furtively to make sure his baby’s tiny sounds weren’t disturbing other diners. As he and his wife took turns nuzzling that little, sleeper-clad bundle it all suddenly came rushing back to me but not the sleepless nights or the cranky afternoons. Nor the inexplicable crying, the blowouts or the spit up. No, instead I suddenly remembered with astonishing clarity the immediate and absolutely pure love I felt for Finn the very first time I saw him. I remembered pulling his little body in close to mine in the hospital and knowing without a doubt that I would do anything to protect him and keep him safe and happy. I remembered feeling like my heart would break at his first pediatrician appointment when they pricked his heel and his face scrunched up in pain and surprise. And I remembered that no matter how exhausted I was in the middle of the night, I was never able to let Finn cry for more than a few minutes before I scooped him up and nestled him into my arms.
All of these memories made me realize that my emotional rollercoaster this time around has been because this new baby isn’t Finn. Since I haven’t met this baby yet I’ve been thinking about all of the challenges of a newborn without all of the extraordinary love and dedication that comes along with them.
But seeing that brand-new baby in the restaurant caused something in me to shift. Now, my eyes well up with tears when I think of the nurse placing our new, tiny boy carefully upon my chest. I envision finally seeing his little face for the first time and inhaling his sweet, unique little scent. I think of folding him carefully into my arms and vowing to always protect him no matter what and these thoughts make my heart feel like it might burst.
And what are a few sleepless nights compared to that?
March
What, me worry?
When I was in high school I often treated my curfew as less of a rule and more of, let’s say, a suggestion. Usually this worked out just fine. My mom and dad slept through most of my early morning returns and while I sometimes got a suspicious, “What time did you get home last night?” over breakfast, my parents usually seemed satisfied by a nonchalant, “Not sure, around 11:45 I think.”
But then there were the nights when my parents woke up, hours after my curfew, and realized that I wasn’t home yet. As I turned into the driveway I would see the house lit up like a Christmas tree and I would know that I was in trouble. To tell you the truth, I never understood why my parents were so incredibly angry. It wasn’t like I was stumbling home, drunk and strung out with my underwear around my neck. More likely than not I had been watching a movie at a friend’s house and hadn’t wanted to leave before it was over. My mom would often interrupt my dad’s yelling to plead with me to, “Just call if you’re going to be late” or try to appeal to my teenage sense of compassion, “It’s 2:00 in the morning, do you have any idea how worried we were?! We thought you were in a ditch somewhere!”
Looking back it amazes me how easy it was to shrug off my parents’ distress and ignore their appeals to just pick up the phone if I was going to be late. My only defense is that I really didn’t believe that they were that worried. I truly thought that their anguish was mostly an act to try to guilt me into getting home on time.
And then I became a mother.
Motherhood has opened up a capacity for worry in me that I had no idea even existed. The stomach churning combination of anxiety and dread that I experience when I imagine things like my son falling off the slide or drinking Drano is the most helpless, horrible sensation I’ve ever experienced and it doesn’t stop there. I fret about accidents, diseases, kidnappers, toxins in the air, drunk drivers, steep stairs and bullies. And here’s my confession, I actually feel like these are kind of legitimate things to worry about. Because I also worry about Finn drinking too much when he’s away at college, getting bonked on the head by jet-liner waste, and yes, staying out past curfew and not calling because he’s in a ditch somewhere. The kid isn’t even 2 years old yet.
Now, I understand that much of this worry is hard-wired into me--a nifty trick of evolution to help mammals keep their weak and clueless offspring from falling over cliffs or being eaten by hungry carnivores. But how in the world does it help propagate the species when I agonize over Finn someday asking a girl to a dance and getting turned down? Or having his feelings hurt because he’s picked last for the dodge ball team in gym class?
Perhaps it’s that without the fierce love that we as mothers have for our children we wouldn’t be as inclined to chase them every time they head for the edge of that cliff. If we didn’t feel like our hearts were breaking each time our children had their feelings hurt, maybe we would hesitate before jumping between them and that menacing carnivore that is eyeing them for lunch.
Whatever the reason, with all of the anxiety I experience now, when my son’s world is so closely intertwined with my own, I can’t imagine how I will ever send him out into the world without me to protect him. And it is only since becoming a mother myself that I understand how gut-wrenching it must have been for my parents to wake up in the wee hours of the morning and realize that I still wasn’t home. As for my mom picturing me lying in a ditch somewhere, I just didn’t get it before. I’m think I’m beginning to now.
February
Calling All “Desperate Housewives”: Surviving Motherhood with a Little Help from Your Friends
I watched the first season of Desperate Housewives on DVD over a year ago and there’s one scene that remains vivid in my mind. One of the “housewives”, Lynette, is a former practicing lawyer who put her career on hold to raise a family. At the grocery store one day with her four young boys she runs into a lawyer she used to work with. The woman is lovely and she is dressed to the nines in a beautifully-cut business suit. Her hair is gorgeous, her make-up is flawless. Lynette, wearing clothes it looks like she might have slept in, is desperately trying to maintain both her patience and her dignity while simultaneously preventing her boys from reducing the entire place to a shambles. While the boys ignore Lynette’s desperate pleas to behave, the former co-worker innocently asks how Lynette likes being a mom. Lynette summons up her brightest smile and cheerfully claims, “This is the best job I ever had!”
I like to imagine how the interaction would have been if the former co-worker were also a mom (and, um, if Desperate Housewives weren’t just a TV show). She would have assessed the situation in a heartbeat, told Lynette that her boys were gorgeous and admitted that dropping her kids off at daycare and going to work sometimes felt like a day off.
One of the unanticipated joys of motherhood for me has been the close bond I have developed with other moms. Not since college have I met and become friends with so many new people and while in college we were brought together by dorms, parties and midterms, this time our commonality lies in our concurrent entry into the hardest job we’ve ever had.
In parks, coffee shops and playgrounds I see groups of moms creating their own communities and support systems. Perhaps it’s because we know that doing this alone is just too hard. And even though we also know that there’s not really anything our friends can do about our sleepless nights, our discipline dilemmas, our picky eater or the laundry piling up in the basement, just being able to say it out loud to someone who gets it somehow makes us feel better.
After all, who else but another mom could understand why sometimes washing my son’s high-chair tray yet again makes me feel like I might completely freak out? Who but another mom can listen with genuine interest to a 30-minute lament about a post-baby “muffin-top”? Who but another mom can really appreciate that the idea of having another baby is, at once, both thrilling and terrifying? And during those exhausted, frustrated moments when I say that, "I don’t feel like being a mom today", who but another mom could completely empathize while also understanding that given the chance I wouldn’t change it for the world?
Moms understand that there is an element of both truth and fiction in Lynette’s claim of, “The best job she ever had”. Sure, it is the most rewarding, fulfilling and important job we’ve ever had, but it is also the most challenging, demanding and exhausting. And so, we get together and we listen and we laugh and when someone needs to cry we know that that’s ok too. And, over and over, we tell our friends that they’re wonderful mothers because we know that as moms we don’t just take care of our children, we also take care of each other.
January
A New Tradition for an Old Year
I love this time of year. The transition from the festivity of the holidays into the relative calm of January feels like a nice, deep breath. I enjoy putting all of the holiday photo cards we received in December into an album and I like how clean and neat the house looks after we’ve tucked the holiday decorations carefully into their boxes.
There is one thing I don’t much care for this time of year, however, and that’s New Year’s Eve. Although I’ve never really put my finger on why I don’t like New Year’s, I suppose it’s because it has always felt like a holiday infused with too many expectations and not enough substance. After all of the richness of Thanksgiving and Christmas, New Year’s seems a little empty to me.
This year, in mid-December, I sat on the couch drinking a cup of coffee while my 17-month-old son played with his trucks on the floor. “Probably not a bad idea to drink less coffee in 2007,” I thought inhaling the delicious aroma from my steaming cup. Then I grimaced, mulling over how to implement resolution #2, cutting back on caffeine, while still sticking to resolution #1, implementing an early-morning work-out regimen. Ugh. I found myself wondering, absent-mindedly, if my son would write New Year’s resolutions one day. “Oh, I hope not,” I thought to myself, “I really hope that he likes himself enough to not waste his time writing resolutions.”
Wait, WHAT?!
Do you ever find yourself having a thought that is so unexpected that it brings your brain screeching to a halt? A thought so startling that it feels almost like it came from somewhere else? Because that’s what happened to me as I sat there on the couch that day; in a flash I realized that in the name of New Year’s resolutions I have spent the last few weeks of December for as long as I can remember contemplating all of the things I don’t like about myself, writing them down and vowing to change them in the coming year. No wonder I don’t like this holiday!
My mind began to spin with my new-found revelation. One of my central goals as a mother is to teach my son that he is perfect just the way he is, yet here I was, beginning each new year with exactly the opposite philosophy. Oh dear.
Slowly, I began to form a new resolution. I realized that it would be far more valuable to myself and my family if I could look upon the year past not with regret for the things I did not accomplish and disappointment over the aspects of myself I think I could improve but instead with respect and gratitude for all of the joys it brought to me and my family.
In this spirit, last night, my husband and I began a new tradition. Before dinner with friends and family we went around the table and took turns saying three things that we really loved about the year gone by. Not surprisingly, not one person mentioned cutting back on caffeine or sticking to a workout regimen. Instead, we talked about travel and friends and kids and the joy of trying new things. We laughed, remembering things we had nearly forgotten and heard stories that we had never heard before.
As our family grows, it is my hope that we will continue this tradition with our children and that in saying these things out loud we will remind each other that life is not always about looking forward and striving to meet our goals. Perhaps, with this small gesture, we will remember that the year past was full of moments of magic and that the year to come will, once again, offer us boundless opportunities to love our friends, our families and, yes, even ourselves.
