change is hard

What to do when one starts walking and weens and turns one all at once? Take refuge in a teddy bear, I suppose. Clark's never had an attachment to a stuffed animal or blanket or anything, and suddenly he's got both. It's very sweet. The bear was given to him by his babysitter which I think is relevant because he loves her so much. It's a white bear. White. Which it probably won't be for long... It's funny to me that he's sort of out of the blue attached to the bear and the blanket also (light blue, satin trimmed) but M pointed out that until recently he had the boob for comfort.

I'm sad about the weening. I had thought I might nurse him a while longer, a few more months, a walking nursing baby. I was pretty sure I didn't want to nurse a talking toddler though I have friends who have done that. But it doesn't seem my style. Still, I wasn't quite ready for it to be over. When we were in Michigan last week and Clark clearly didn't want to nurse anymore I felt I should have some sort of ritual to mark the end, but I couldn't think of what.

Today is his birthday. I'm having trouble with this one and I wish we'd planned a party for today. My mom's coming next week and we thought we'd have a little celebration then (it's not like the kids know the difference...) but I think it would have done me good to have something today--something to mark the year's passing, to note that he's not just one but as of last week also walking and weened. How did that happen all at once? Today at the gym I chatted with someone and when I told her it was Clark's birthday I started crying right there between the elliptical machines and the stair-steppers. Embarrassing. I've been crying for the past few days, in fact, and I didn't know why I was depressed and emotional. Guess what? Not only is today Clark's first birthday, but just tonight I started my period. You may be wondering why that's noteworthy, and it's because this is the first period I've had in THREE AND A HALF YEARS. I'm serious. And sad it's back. *sigh* A year after giving birth, and something else to mark the occasion.

The past few emotional days I've been wanting another baby. I've always wanted another, I suppose, and now that Clark's turning into a little person it's coming on strong. Still, I don't know if it's a good idea for us. As I've said before, if family were near things might be different. Alas.

In other news, I got a new laptop! Which means I'll probably be posting more regularly now... Off to straighten up the crazy mess that is kids in the house.

simple joy

Clark is seriously the cutest thing ever on the planet. I don't remember thinking this about Frances when she was this age and lately I've been wondering why that is... Perhaps I just don't remember correctly. But then I realized that when F was this age I was pregnant and very sick and exhausted and in fact didn't want to have much to do with her. I didn't have the energy to be animated and every time I changed a diaper I threw up. The smell of her formula made me sick, as did the smell of most things. It was not a good time. Also, Clark is a snuggler. He nestles down on my chest with his thumb in his mouth, just to take a play break or to recover from a spill, or just because he's a mama's boy. That mama's boy thing isn't without merit, for sure. Frances wasn't attached to me like this, and she also wasn't nursing still. Clark and I have this little private time, several times every day. So sweet.

"Ghap!" he says with his hand up in the air, reaching for the far corner of the room in salute. "Bhak!" and then a sweet squinty grin like Frances used to flash. Charmed.

I have mastitis

and it's the pits.

the *right* way to parent

When Frances was first born several things became quite clear to me, one of which is that there is no “right” way to do things with a baby. Sleep schedules, feeding routines, whether or not to co-sleep or baby-wear or offer a pacifier. It differs for each baby, for each family, for each combination of personalities and situations into which this individual baby is born. I believed this strongly. I didn’t judge any other mother for her decisions, including ones I was sure I wouldn’t have made for my baby.

But in the last nine months I’d forgotten some of that.

Which is why, I believe, I felt so guilty about the breastfeeding thing. I’d come to believe that there’s one way, and that way is to breastfeed, at least for me. While I may have remembered that things differ for other mothers, I’d forgotten that I too needed to be flexible and adjust to this baby’s personality. Now I need to remember again.

What brought this thought on just now is a book my friend Anna gave me to read: Momfidence. It’s a fun read, and insists that these days we moms are way too wrapped up in being superheroes that we forget to enjoy being a mom all together. I’d argue that it is the Boomer Generation that created this view of moming, the generation that in the 80s first suctioned ‘Baby on Board’ signs to the inside of their minivan windows. It’s the generation that instituted laws for car seats, created an industry of childproofing, and coined the term SoccerMom. It’s the generation that created the Just Say No campaign and Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, that censored rock lyrics and insisted on school testing. So how does my generation respond to this when it’s our turn to be parents? The standards have been set… This is what it looks like to be a good mom.

And this generation is still in control to a large degree, due to the opportunities of fertility treatments. The Boom Generation now has children in their 30s, but it also has John and Elizabeth Edwards and their preschoolers.

The question all of this raises is: what kind of mom do I want to be? I’m not sure I fully know the answer yet, but I currently see that as a good thing, something I’ll feel my way through as I go along. My friend Erynn will buy books but not video games, which is interesting because one of her kids loves to read and the other loves electronics. She says maybe it’s unreasonable but that’s the way it is. I don’t see it as unreasonable at all… Seems to me it embodies the ideal of putting your values into action.

When I was in Seattle we had to drop by the Target to get some pacifiers because I’d managed to lose the ones I’d brought. I had Frances in her sling, and in the pacifier/bottle/bib/booster seat aisle there were a pregnant woman and her mom, the two of them picking out things for the baby registry. When I had chosen my pacifier color, the mom asked me how I liked my sling. (Did you know, by the way, that they are now selling Hotslings at Target?? I’ve been wondering when one of the baby carrier companies was going to get on that wagon—seems to me someone needs to get Mei Tais in mainstream stores as well.) So I chatted for a while about slings and carriers in general (I can go on for a good bit about that subject) and then she said, “I see you have pacifiers in your hand. How do you feel about those?” To which I said, “I am a big fan of the pacifier.” Later it occurred to me that in their eyes, it was possibly confusing, or at least contradictory, that I was baby-wearing but pacifier-using. This seems funny to me now—it probably wouldn’t have before Frances was born. But these norms, these ideas of what kind of parent you are (that if you baby wear you won’t like pacifiers, or if you use the infant carseat as a carrier you don’t sleep with your baby, etc.) are clearly for those who don’t actually have kids. I suppose there are some folks who have very stringent ideas about how to parent and really stick to one “style” or another, but my guess is these are few. When it comes down to actually being a parent, you do all kinds of things you thought before you had kids you’d never do. And it’s not a compromise, or a forfeit, but an acknowledgement of reality. Yes, kids do get flat heads from spending too much time in the carseat, and I do believe that the invention of this convenience has created a problem for the children of some unknowledgeable folks. But a child carried in a carseat might also spend time in a sling—it's had to judge. Just because you have your kid in the carseat on top of the shopping cart, this doesn’t mean your kid spends 80% of her time there. It’s okay.

I also believe it’s my job as a parent to prepare my child for the actual world. Not for constant success in the world, because that’s not the real world—that’s some fantasy. There’s something to be said for the experiences of fear and failure as blessings. We need to teach them that it’s okay to be afraid, it’s okay to fail; these don’t mean they are failures as people. The kids I teach at Elon University are so unused to failing at anything, even when they aren’t particularly good at it. They at least “gave it their best shot” or “had a good attitude.” How on earth are these kids going to fare as adults? We’re setting them up… Sometimes trying doesn’t help one succeed, and what we need to teach our children is that this is okay. What we are inadvertently teaching them instead is that if they don’t succeed, or aren’t the best, they are failures in full—which just isn’t true. The reality is that they don’t have to be good at everything; they don’t have to always win. They are still of value. What I want Frances to know most is that not only is she of value when she fails or when she wins, but that her essential value doesn’t depend on these things at all; her essential value is constant. It is her experience of the world that fluctuates, and this depends not on her success, but on believing in who she is, on acting in ways that she believes to be right, on walking in the light and telling the truth.

weaning work

Well, I’m done now—done with the pumping, pump washing, pump sterilizing, bottle storing, milk freezing. We’re on to formula, plus bits of food she tries to stick in her mouth with the flat of her palm. When I googled (in many different word combos) the hormonal effects of weaning, all I got was results for the effects on the baby. But—hello?—what about the mother? Frances is fine, let me tell you. Since she is the one that initiated this thing, I don’t have to worry too much about the emotional repercussions of taking my boob from her. But the emotional rollercoaster that it has set off in me is not pleasant. Crying, general grumpiness, depression that makes me wish I had the freedom to lie all day on the couch looking at the television set. Needless to day, I don’t, and I suppose hanging out with the girl probably helps the blues overall. So does my morning walk, it turns out, which I didn’t take this morning and which I regretted not much later but could do nothing about since it was 98 degrees by noon. I feared I would die if I tried it then. Tomorrow is always another day, albeit a hot one.

breastfeeding is not the only thing

I’m a leftist kind of mom: I make my own babyfood; I cloth diaper; I own five different baby carriers. And to suddenly have my child decide she doesn’t want to nurse has been a struggle for me, and not in just the expected ways. I am, understandably, concerned about when it is “okay” for me to stop breastfeeding—when it is that she’s gotten enough of the good stuff from me such that her health benefits are maximized. No one can seem to tell me this. The World Health Organization says one should breastfeed for two years, the national health blah blah says one year. My family practice doctor recently said, “oh, give it up already,” with a slight shake of her head and intonation that indicated I was being obsessive and ridiculous. Which is possible. I’ve been known to do that before on other issues. But this is my baby’s health we’re talking about! In any case, for the past month I have participated in this gymnastics of pumping and bottles that is less than convenient. The question is: am I indeed being overly conservative about this issue? Is there truly no longer any benefit to her getting her milk from me at this point? Does it really not matter? Because if it does, if there is some benefit to her, I can continue this hassle. There are worse things.

And there’s the emotional stuff—the fact that it’s hurt my feelings just a tiny bit. We had a good thing going; she would cry, I would pick her up, lie us down on the double bed in her room, which is also the guest bed, and when I lifted my shirt she would curl toward me. I was able to soothe her. It was a nice trick, this soothing ability, and a sweet snuggle during which she used her free hand to absently finger my shirt or my hair or the back of her head. Who says these things should be rational? Now when I lift my shirt she screams like the thing I’ve suggested is painful. Sigh.

A couple of weeks ago she was drinking her bottle of pre-pumped breast milk and started banging her head into my chest. I thought perhaps she wanted to nurse so I lifted my shirt. And she looked at my boob like she’d never seen it before. Just looked at it. She put her lips on it just for a second, pulled back, looked up at me, and giggled. Then she did it again—put her lips on it, pulled back and giggled. Hilarious. She really cracked herself up. She did this three or four times and while she was quite cute doing this, I did not find it funny. I’ve been replaying it in my darker moments.

I’ll get past it. She’s enormously healthy and there are other things I will eventually focus on, I’m sure. If she were adopted she would have been on formula from the beginning and I never would have worried about what she isn’t getting. Besides, the next thing we’ve got to work on convincing her to eat vegetables.