Parenting
I’ve had my share of surprises in motherhood. I’m sure all mothers have. But when I was chatting with a pregnant first-time mom the other day, I realized there were about a dozen things I really couldn’t have anticipated, no matter how much I read, quizzed seasoned moms, and needled my own saintly mother. This isn’t a list that covers what you “should” know, because there are very few “shoulds” about parenting, outside of safety of the child and mental wellness of the parent. I.e., don’t shake a baby no matter how angered you are by screaming and get help and space between you and an incessantly screaming baby so you don’t go crazy and hurt the baby. It’s simply a few discoveries that I didn’t know would happen, and I’m glad they did. 1) People will ask awfully inappropriate questions and yet mostly don’t mean to be rude. I.e., You look so big! (to moms carrying in their wombs) or You have a kid? I didn’t know you were pregnant (to moms carrying in their hearts) or Your baby doesn’t sleep through the night?! 2) I was overwhelmed. Just simply: overwhelmed. 3) I didn’t magically lose the baby weight but eventually did. It wasn’t night/day after delivery. 4) That annoying sing-song voice people use when talking to children? I unconsciously adopted it. 5) I count a meal as eating slices of cheese and meat and a paw-ful of grapes while standing and watching them eat their carefully curated lunches of the same damn…
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Burnout doesn’t discriminate. You have one child or twenty. You work or you stay home. You are a single parent, you have a partner. Every mom I’ve ever asked has confirmed: she’s experienced burnout. The funny thing is that not only does burnout look different for different people, but we cope with the experience and find our way out of it differently. Last fall I was so burnt to a crunchy crisp of a brussel sprout roasting in the oven after too many commitments. Only after I faced my overcommitting tendency was I able to really look and see, yes, I was burning up & out, but yes, I also can pull back. I also can feed my kids whipping cream for breakfast. How I’ve pulled myself back this time, and I’m writing it down so I can remember it the next time it ratchets up. 1) See the burnout, look at it, acknowledge it. Naming it is half the battle. And no shame here. It’s okay to say parenting small children, and heck, older children, is hard. That doesn’t make you a weak parent. It doesn’t make you a less-than parent. It doesn’t mean your children “won” and you “lost.” It means you’re experiencing something very normal that most of us go through. All of us, really. 2) Stay hydrated and respect the hormones. I never am hydrated enough. Especially as I am nursing. Water helps everything. It also helps stabilize your appetite and mood. Drink up. Maybe infuse it. Contemplating buying…
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Where is the three year old in this photo? Outside the frame, bawling because someone took her favorite fill_in_the_blank. Having a three year old girl, and this SweetPea with her particular temperament, feels so different than having had a three year old boy who is coming up on five in just a few days here (stop the sands of time!!!). His personality presented its own challenges, as does hers. I wrote about his challenges: Three steps to taming your tantruming toddler; Three & a half year old habits & mama bad habits; how I keep my kids from killing each other; and more in the archives under “kid.” In a way, I was prepared for the prefrontal cortex burgeoning and developing at a rapid, can’t-keep-up-with-the-spasm-de-jour pace. In many ways, I was not prepared for how sensitive to me and my moods she would be. Girl thing or her thing? Either way, I’ve learned the hard way about how to lovingly parent a sensitive three year old. So naturally, I thought I would foist my experience on to you! 1) Hear her out. When she starts freaking out, I try to take her aside and hear exactly what it is that’s bothering her, being sure to repeat it to her so she knows I get it//got it//good. Many times, this simple act of acknowledgment is a calming force. It may take 3-4 minutes to get it all out of her and restate it, but that could mean the difference between a relatively…
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Dads of the world, I salute you. You’re not mothers. You’re your own thing. Your own way of bonding, loving, disciplining, never-dressing-them-in-enough-layers of a thing. You make Saturday mornings the most sought-after real estate. You can make anything fun and everything safe. My own dad still makes life easier for his five kids. His neverending devotion to finding the right rug for our houses, the best Indian fare for dinner, the best baby holder in the hammock. I’m simply the mom so I don’t know how it feels to be the dad. I know you need the garden to make something right with your hands at the end of the day. I know you need to read a book with our fiercest firiest child, that second-born daughter. I know the baby’s open toothed kisses on your nose in the morning make you laugh. I know pitching and hitting with the big boy is your love language to each other. The days blur together but that underdog push on the swing at the park? The look on your daughter’s face? That’s never leaving your mind’s eye. That look when your son holds his cousin? These moments are forever. I think of the two men who are godfathers to my three kids, my brother being pressed for into service for both his nephews. I think on their spiritual fatherhood and the wonderful example of humility and strength they are. I think on the endless love lavished on our daughter by her…
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You know what they say . . . wisdom comes with age? You learn through experience? Your first child suffers from all your experimental parenting? Oh, maybe they don’t say the third. Maybe it’s just me. When people see the baby and I running errands, he is highly complimented on his blue eyes and sweet clutching chubby hands. I get knowing looks from older women, the look of oh, to have a baby again–so simple, so sweet. I want to assure them all that I’m no spring-chick mother. I have two older kids. I know all the unsolicited advice they’re wishing they could mombard me with because it’s along the same lines of what I’d harbor in my head seeing a new mom. What I’d really want to tell her, though, isn’t to make sure to air dry if he has a diaper rash before you slather all that stuff on his bottom. What I’d really want to tell her, in a clutching her shoulders, crazed sort of way, is to not repeat the mistakes I made when I was a first time mom. She’s probably smarter and wiser than I was, so perhaps she’s graduated to her own level of errors. 1) I was afraid to look like a first-time mom. Wiping toys and pacifiers that fell on the floor? Should I? I don’t want to look like a germaphobe, or worse, a first-time mom. Insistent he receive reassurance the second his toddler padded cloth diaper bum hit the ground after…
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We took a leap of faith and went on an 8 hour car trip to a cousin’s wedding. Three kids under five in the car for that long is not for the faint of heart. I was initially hesitant about being able to make it due to the fact the baby is almost 13 months old and still nurses for primary nutrition. That’s a lot of stopping to nurse. But what I didn’t factor in was the three year old girl. Three. The roughest and cutest age. She made every moment a possible tornado touch down. Living by the seat of our pants//how many cheddar bunnies she could stuff in her mouth. Let’s begin, shall we? On the drive down, she had to go potty. About 86 times. I offered her a diaper. She looked at me with the scorn of a thousand arrows. At the farmer’s market. She sees food. SHE WANTS IT ALLLLLLLLL. She also wants no one else to have any. Back at the hotel. She wants the baby’s pack & play. She wants not to eat the cold oatmeal. She wants desperately to be the baby. She was comforted by snuggling like a mummy in the queen size bed alongside her big brother. The two of them were like cocoon babies. At the wedding ceremony itself. More talking. Upon seeing another child eating a snack. MAMA I need to eat. No, I need what he is having. My stomach is telling me so. Upon seeing another…
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