My Mother's Bedside Table

An essay by a four year old

My bed just sits in my room. A wall at the head of the bed and a wall to my left. I have no where to put my toys and reading material other than in my bed with me. My parents do not seem to care that I often awake with toys jabbing me in the side or worse so near my face that they are dampened with condensation from my nightly mouth breathing.

My mother has this magical table right near her bed. It holds books, her phone, and her glasses. This is ideal. I can walk into her room first thing in the morning, grab the phone and demand to watch videos. If I knock her glasses to the floor to some unreachable spot that's too far for her to see, she may collapse in irratitaion and let me watch something on the phone. However, I feel that she is far to stingy with the magic box that plays cartoons, so I often have to resort to books. I have covered her Pulitzer Prize nominated book with the board book of Are You My Mother?- a classic story about a lost bird and snort. You should check it out. I have also crowed the night stand with such treasures as used tissues, a marble that she said I couldn't have, and a sock. My mother seriously does not know how to use her little side table efficiently-her books have no pictures, the little dish of earrings is "too pokey" and the lamp is just green- no animals, no design, nothing! If I had a bedside table I would treat it right. Pile it high with papers, cups, toys, dirty clothes, and even my pet fish, Hula.

So mom, if you're reading this, give up your table. I already covered it in my stuff making it basically already mine. Perhaps you could get dad to go ahead a move it over to my room? Thanks. Oh, and I'll get you the rent check next month- the stick collecting market is flooded right now and isn't paying too well.

Siblings

I really like my siblings.  They are people that I would spend time with, even if I wasn't related to them.  We share a corny sense of humor and an affinity for donuts.  My sister and brother also demonstrate an incredible willingness to be helpful, kind, honest, and supportive.  I really think that they are top notch.


One of my greatest joys has been to watch my children become siblings.  My son was 3.5 when his little sister arrived.  He loved her from the start, but her noise and needs overwhelmed him.  More than once after being told to be gentle or she could get hurt he replied "you can just buy a new baby".  Which is both funny and f-ing terrifying.  For three months I lived on the edge of panic and awe as big brother came to understand his sister.* 


After three months, my daughter was actually eating, making her more sturdy and less grumpy, my 3.5-year-old starting turning into an almost 4-year-old, and after a surprisingly crumby southern winter, the sun came out.  Things started falling into place.


First it was that big brother could make sister smile.
Then it was that she was big enough that brother could hold her (with help from mom or dad).
Then came the laughing.
Then the sitting up.
Then the playing with toys together.
Then it was the rides in the double stroller.
Then the head-to-head nuzzle.
Then it was the bath time together until the water is cold and both of them are all pruney.

They used to be just two kids who happened to live together, but now they are siblings.


Every now and then as I watch them interact on the floor, I get this funny feeling that they are bonding together so as to team up against my husband and me in the future.  I have these little visions of the two of them demanding puppies or trips to amusement parks, and the visions-I always give in. 


I am grateful that they will have each other.  I know that the years of pulling hair, breaking things, arguing, and fighting are yet to come, but someday when they are in their 20's or 30's they'll have each other to complain to about the fact that their mom wrote the intimate details of their lives on an internet blog with a title about flatulence.  But you know what my darling children reading this in the future?  Tough shit.  Also, brush your teeth.  No one likes a stink mouth. XOXO, Mom




*This single paragraph recap is a gross underestimation of the struggle we endured as a family, but this is one of those "light at the end of the tunnel stories".

Two Kids, Five Days, One Bag

I recently traveled with my two kids to visit family six hundred miles away.  While there, my sister saw my luggage and commented on the one bag that contained all that crap that a three-year-old, a five-month-old, and their mama might need for a five day trip.  With her encouraging, I have decided to share what I have learned about efficient packing with children.

This is the bag post-trip.  If you are interested in the bag, it can be found at Large Utility Tote

1: You are going to use less than you think you are.

2: If laundry is an option at the place where you are going, pack even less.

3: If packing diapers, pack them into your travel bag with the clothes.  By putting them in with the clothes, you are constantly freeing up more space in the bag for the things you are surely going to accumulate on your travels

4: Embrace the idea of clothes as pajamas.  A pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt can be used both for sleeping and also as a backup outfit if needed. You can plan for the kid (or yourself) to wear them on the drive home, eliminating an entire outfit from the bag.

5: If a single outfit requires its own special pair of shoes, pick a different outfit.

6: Baby shoes, while cute and a natural cause of "aww", are useless.  If the kid ain't walking, the shoes are just taking up space.

7: Skip the awkward sized toiletry bag. Wrap your toothbrush in a paper towel and throw it in the bag.  Pack just the basics.

8: Duffle bags are a lie.  While unzipped, they seem to fit all your things, then you go to close it and its like putting sausage back in it's casing. Stick to rigid shapes if possible.  It also is easier to get to what you need.

9: Make it multi-purpose: hydrocortisone works on burns, bites, hives, and sores. Skip single purpose items.

10: Accept that you may need to stop at the drugstore.  To pack for all types of possible injuries and ailments is stressful and demands a lot of space.  Pack one type of pain reliever/fever reducer (sans box) and hope for the best.

*I also had a diaper bag with changing mat, bulb syringe, my wallet, phone, etc. and bag that contained my pump and supplies.

**From this trip I learned that I should have packed sunscreen and bandaids.  They were the only two things I needed by did not have.  Next time I will pack only the lotion-style sunscreen (the spray kind leaves a smell on clothes packed nearby) and two bandaids just tossed loosely into the bag.

***If you want specifics, here is what was in the bag.

For me:
1-dress
1-pants
2-shorts
1-gym shorts that were worn as pi's but could be regular shorts if need
1-pair of jeans
5-shirts
1-bra
3-unies
2-socks
1-pair of sandals
1-swimsuit
1-book
1-ipad
1-charger
1-sweatshirt
1-zipoc bag of vitamins
1-small tube of hydrocortisone
1- hair straightener

For the toddler:
3-shorts
1-pair of pants
5-tshirts
4-undies
2-socks
1-pair of shoes
1-swimsuit
1- one cup sized pyrex with medicine
1-sweatshirt

For the baby:
5-outfits
1-pj's
3-socks
1- cardigan
1-pack of diapers
1-pack of wipes
1-swimsuit
1-bottle of infant tylenol
1- container of formula
1-bottle

Windows of the Soul

Whoever wrote "The eyes are the windows of the soul" must have cared for an infant.

Among the pooping, spitting up, feeding, and crying (sometimes from the mama, too) babies occasionally afford the most miraculous experience to those who care for them.  It is hard to describe without cliché, but it is beautiful and wonderful and my goal to describe it here.

 I literally look at my newborn all the time.  I watch her eat and watch her play.  I check her body for rashes and bumps.   I see her.  She sees me.  We have even reached a stage of chatting with each other.  But now and then, my baby will catch my eye in such a way as to invite me into her soul. There is no other way to describe it.  She will lock onto my eyes with this smile of utter joy on her face and attach herself to my heart. I feel my eyes well up with tears and my heart beats a little faster.  It is so nearly tangible, that when I inevitably avert my eyes, I expect to see the tether between us.  I am always the one to break the stare.  I try not to, but within a few seconds it overwhelms me.  It simultaneously breaks my heart and fills it. 

Even among the adults I love most dearly I have never felt that anchoring of lives through a wordless look the way I have with my children.  Pride, shame, or fear prevent that exchange between adults-whether on my part or theirs, the window is closed. 

But a baby.  A baby will let you in.  All the trust that they have in their entire being is in you.  It is a charge that is humbling and terrifying.  But each little moment that I am granted that view, I feel the forces within me pledge myself to a life of loyalty, love, and care.  And I know that she is seeing me, too.  She is the breeze through the gap in the sill drawing out my secret self.  The part of me that exists beyond my self-consciousness, my self image, and my doubt.

I remember telling my sister in early months after my son's birth that sometimes I would look at him and it was more than I could see.  Like I couldn't take it all in.  But now, nearly four years later, I am keenly aware of what was happening.  I know because I can't sleep at night unless he has been checked on.  I know because I have washed his vomit out of my hair, and the only feeling I had was sadness that he was ill.  I know because I have loved him on the hardest days.  Those moments I had described before-he was letting me in.  And I was letting him in, too. 

Friends have asked what it is like having kids, well, this is it.

 

Information Overload

My sweet daughter came into this world at 41 weeks gestation- enough time to have been thoroughly cooked.  However, she arrived with some surprises that made the ability to eat challenging.*

Nursing was hard from the start. The lactation consultant came to the hospital room on the day she was born and told us that we were both capable of breastfeeding and that it would come together soon.  She didn't sound alarmed.  Then we went home at 30 hours post-partum.

At home, she screamed at me in an effort to latch on, sometimes taking up 15 minutes a side to get on the boob.  We powered through, with my expectation that she was just on the verge of figuring it out.  "She is able to eat and make wet diapers, so she is ok, it's just me having a hard time." I thought this every feeding, so 8-10 times a day for days.

In my delirium of new baby/raising a toddler/lack of sleep I let this go on for two weeks before loading up in the car and going to the lactation clinic, after first getting a prescription for such a service from my OB so that this visit wouldn't cost a million dollars.

This one visit turned into weekly visits, which turned into suck-training with a pacifier, which turned into pumping, which turned into supplementing using a special needs feeder, which turned into surgery to correct her tongue tie and lip tie, which turned into using a nipple shield, which turned into weaning off the nipple shield, which turned into a return to the familiar painful nursing we started out with along with supplemental feedings of pumped milk.

Meanwhile, baby girl was weighed weekly and I did everything in my power to fatten her up, regardless of her poor ability to suck, high palate, and ability to spit up the entire contents of her stomach three times a day.  At six weeks she had gained a whole pound since birth and I celebrated.  (I got chik-fil-a drive thru and sat in the parking lot listening to my audiobook for 30 glorious minutes)

We are making progress! So why the cynicism oozing from this post?  Its because at some point it all became just too much.  Too much talking about it.  Too much pumping.  Too much stress.  Too much time occupying my mind.  Too much information.

Here are just SOME of the titles of the handouts given to me from the ladies at lactation:
Need to Increase Your Milk Supply?
Let's Talk About Galactogogues
Relaxation for the Baby Who Arches
The Calma (propriety bottle nipple information guide)
Baby-Led Bottle-Feeding
Breastfeeding Tips for Babies with Muscle Issues
Posterior Tongue
Suck Training Exercises

Now these nice ladies are wholly invested in the health and well being of mothers and babies.  It is a noble job and an under promoted profession.  My feelings of irritation are not with these women, but with this idea that the right thing to do is to struggle.

One thousand times I have wanted to crack open the container of formula that sits smartly on the counter.  But I want permission.  I still can't seem to grant it to myself.  The approval of friends and loved-ones still hasn't convinced me. Mom guilt is incredibly powerful.  I don't even know where it is coming from, but that doesn't make it any easier to reckon.  I used formula to supplement my first child, then exclusively formula fed for months. I was formula fed starting at six weeks.  My issue is not with formula.  It is my stupid inability to admit to defeat, as long as I can continue to make forward progress with my daughter, regardless of how much anguish it causes me, I can't seem to let it go.  I can't seem to say out loud, "I need a break."

I gain nothing by being stubborn.  I gain nothing by allowing my spirit to become weakened by fatigue and failure.  I gain nothing by denying modern advances in baby care.  I know this.  I know this full well.

And so, anonymous stranger that sits in a library in Tallahassee perusing pintrest and happens upon this post, or beloved devoted reader, or whoever lands here and needs to hear it:

"You have done an amazing thing.  (You have kept a human alive.)  You have earned the right and privilege to let go of whatever that thing is that you keep mulling over in your mind.  Let's do it together."

*My daughter was born with the mildest of issues. I feel absolute gratitude for her health and functioning body.  My heart goes out to all babies and mamas that face life-threatening challenges.

UPDATE:  In writing this I freed myself.  I opened that carton of formula a day later.

And Then There Were Two

 It seems like you wait forever to meet your sweet babe, then suddenly they arrive and when your head finally clears the fog, you look up to see that weeks have passed.  At least that how it is for me.

I have not written for quite sometime due to equal parts busyness and inadequate words to describe the fullness of my life right now.

Last month we welcomed the arrival of a darling baby girl.  Her gender was unknown to us, but from the first time I visualized her little life, she was a girl.  So when my doctor announced that SHE had arrived there was a brief moment of surprise, followed immediately by the feeling of "of course".

Her labor is worthy of a post on it's own, so that will have to come later.

So what makes me pick up my decrepit old macbook after such a long hiatus?  The last two hours of my evening do.

My daughter was born tongue-tied and lip-tied making nursing a challenge.  Weeks of lactation consulting have resulted in endless nursing, pumping, and bottle-feeding sessions.  One "meal" for this kid is at least an hour long event.  With a solid hour hard to come by as a mom of two, breaks are taken to make sure that big brother gets what he needs, too. 

After an episode of Daniel Tiger, I interrupt the nursing session to get him into bed.  He requests and extra hug, then a kiss.  A few minutes later the door opens to request a song and yet when it is over and the door shuts, he cries "Mama" several times into his Darth Vader blanket.

Then it is back to the couch to resume the meal time routine for little sister.  This part is the worst-she cries in the boppy next to me while I pump for 15 minutes.  When I am done with that, I quick wash the pump parts for next time, the proceed to feed her a bottle.  This process is also slow in an effort to get her to keep the food down.

I just finish feeding her, when her brother's door swings open. "I think so, I pee the floor," says the teary voice at the end of the hall.  I lay the baby on my bed and go to investigate.  A mostly eyes-closed version of my son is standing by the door in a half gallon of pee.  I debate moving him to the bathroom, but reason kicks in and I realize I would have a long trail of pee to clean instead of a single puddle.  I watch the urine cascade down the crooked old floor and pool in the corner near the trash can.  

In a state of tiredness and confusion, the little guy is struggling to get his socks off in the clothes changing process.  He starts to fall over, so with pee-soaked hands, he grabs a hold of my shirt for balance.  I finally get him into dry pjs, get his hands washed and get him back into bed.  I clean the floor perfunctorily as it is after 10:00 pm and pee is sterile and I don't really feel like dealing with this now and pull the door shut.

Tired from the day and the added adventure of this evening, I wash up and head to bed.  The same bed where I laid my newborn.  I arrive to find her laying in a large pool of spit up on the down comforter.  I swaddle her and decide that I will just flip the comforter over tomorrow and call it good.

The evening was messy, tiring, and completely normal.  This is the pace of things right now.  Everything always has a little bit of body fluid on it and the laundry is my arch nemesis.  The days are slipping by faster than I could have ever imagined.  Everyday my kids are bigger, brighter, and more themselves than the day before.  It is my greatest gift to see them grow.   

These days of dampness, stickiness, and smell will pass, but for now, I am here.  I am in it.  And I am grateful.

Catharts on Parade

The first time I was pregnant, I had so much to process.  Everything was happening for the first time and I was the first one going through it in my circle of friends and similar aged family.  I found myself pregnant with thought. Pun intended.

I have been quieter the second time around.  This time, I have reflected more and generally piped down.  Also I was busy-like really busy and something else happened.  I started to receive praise, both from people I know and people I have never met.  Seemingly kind and encouraging remarks made me shut my mouth about how I really felt, put my head down, and keep going.

In the first few months, I was frequently doted on about my size.  "You're so small!"  "You have no belly at all!"  "I hope I look like you when I am four months pregnant!"  And what do you say to that?  Well I sure couldn't say, "Actually, I am fucking terrified.  I keep losing weight.  I feel discouraged because when I look at my body I can't see the baby that I am carrying.  I feel like it could slip away and no one would ever know it was there.  Standing up makes me feel so tired that I feel like a strong wind could turn me into sand and I'll blow away, lost in the breeze forever."  But that is what I desperately wanted to cry out to them.  Instead, I smiled awkwardly and tried to change the subject.

As months passed and my body grew, people shifted their words of affirmation to the way I was getting by.  "You have it all together."  "You are so calm." "I don't know how you balance work, grad school, parenting, etc.."  And again.  I would smile, thank them and squish the screaming thoughts in my head.  "TOGETHER!?  TOGETHER!?  I am literally alive because of Jimmy Dean frozen breakfast sandwiches.  I have stretchmarks, hemorrhoids, varicose veins, and heartburn.  There is a human shoved so tight in my ribs that I haven't had a deep breath since October. My nose bleeds.  My gums bleed.  And sometimes I pass gas involuntarily because a baby squashes my intestines."

Each time I would begin to let the levee break, I would think of my friend with MS who had the rockiest pregnancy I have ever witnessed.  I would think of my friend who has carried multiple children that she will not meet in this lifetime.  I would think of my grandma milking cows hours after her water broke.  These are the kind of people I know-women of incredible strength and courage. And yet I know that I could have said something at anytime to these brave ladies and they would have listened, but I couldn't.  I still don't feel like I have the right. (see multiple posts about stupid anxiety disorder...)

So what happens then?  My husband finds me sobbing in the bathtub two days before my due date.  On this occasion, the house was unusually messy, which stressed me out and gave me a nice gateway to CryTown.  Once I cried about the crusty crockpot that I would deal with later, I looked at the 2/3 of body that was sticking out of the water and I let myself think all the things I had been stifling.  When my husband came in, I blathered about my weird body, about trying to finish my research to graduate in May, about my job, about the unready nursery, and about a bazillion other things.  When I finally said all the things I could think of and stopped to blow my nose (still in the tub), I felt the breath of release.  My husband picked up my gushing face and confirmed that we would fine, that we love each other, and that this baby will be here soon.  And today I believe each of those statements, I just wish I hadn't waited 40 weeks to hear them.