Memoirs on Mommihood

Memoirs on Mommihood Part XXI

THE BIG TRADE OFF

It's been nearly two months now since I attempted to do the tight rope walking, ball juggling circus act know as full time working Mom. In some respects this hectic life has fallen into a normal routine of chaotic house, rushed mealtimes and minimal sleep habits. George plays housewife, cooking dinner, caring for Owen and doing dishes until I stumble in the door late in the evening, ragged from the perpetual grind of the bumper to bumper commute. There is barely enough time left to eat, bathe the gooey monster and send him off to bed before I devote the rest of my evening to compiling three lunches, two snacks and breakfast. By the time the weekend rolls around I stare at Owen in wonderment, struck by the ways in which he is grown and trying not to feel as if I barely know him.

And while our financial urgency has eased, the trade off has been enormous. I try not to focus on the resentment I feel every time I notice a new word, a new mannerism that I am certain he has learned somewhere else. Every moment I am not there to see the first scramble down the stairs, the first ride across the driveway is a moment I ache to relive. A moment I know is gone forever. This is the stuff that is priceless, the experiences you can not have back. This is the big trade off.

I think the only thing that sustains me as a parent is to never look back. My hold on the certainty that this is a temporary solution is all I have. And so I work harder, longer trying to secure that day when I will not have to leave him, when I will not have to be the third or fourth person to hear him say "Thank you" for the first time.

Just this week, Owen stopped protesting my departure. For a month and a half straight, there were tears and quivering lower lips every time I removed him from the safety of my arms in the morning. And then suddenly he stopped. The first day Owen looked simply panicked as I began to wave goodbye and move towards the door, but a word and a hug from his babysitter soothed him and he simply watched me leave. The next day he smiled, waving and calling out "bye, bye!". The last time I dropped him off he practically shoved me out the door, cheerful and confident in his happiness. "Bye, bye momma..."

And then it was my turn to sit out in the car and cry.

Memoirs on Mommihood XX

A VERITABLE ARSENAL OF VICES

I recently engaged in the much anticipated and celebratory weaning of the breast. This carefully and strategically planned event was a great success and left me free to take up with all my old vices- caffeine, wine, women and song. I was even able able to begin popping pills again and my cabinet full of supplements has been called into action.

So I was surprised to find that taking up all my old, bad habits was not as satisfying as I had anticipated. My first days of coffee left me light headed, with an acidic stomach and a case of the jitters that resembled a mild case of Parkinson's. George and I knocked off a bottle of wine together one night and while I felt pleasantly warm and fuzzy, it didn't compensate for the annoyance I felt with my sluggish reactions or my marathon headache that stretched on and on for the next three days. I eagerly filled up my pill box with a rainbow assortment of antidotes for varicose veins and vision problems, but it took me nearly three weeks to empty it because I continuously forgot to actually swallow them despite the fact that they sat out on the counter in the bathroom and stared me in the face every time I peed.

I find myself feeling miserably elderly. At that tragic age when being bad is just too much of a bother. There is, however, a certain satisfaction in knowing that I own my vices and not the other way around. That any day I could choose to dump them all overboard and go back to drinking herbal tea and offering to save drunk college women from themselves. Because seriously- I'm just too old for this crap.

Memoirs on Mommihood XIX

HUMBLE PIE
I started taking the O-face to our local county library about a month ago. It was the dead of winter, we were severely bored with one another and short of peanut butter wrestling in the bathtub, I couldn't come up with a better idea. They have a half decent children's section with a few toys, tables and even a puppet theater. And of course books. Shelves and shelves of books.

I read to Owen three times a day, three books each session. I guess that works out to be nine books a day for all those stellar mathematicians out there who must have missed their calling for a career in statistics. Nine books divided into the moderate library I have compiled from used bookstores and yard sales still means I see the same book once every couple of days. And lately, that has seemed one time too many. So we've been checking out board books. Sturdy, impenetrable cardboard things that will withstand accidental encounters without costing my library card and my wallet pain.

We'd been to the library twice already with some success. While Owen was not overly impressed with this temple of learning, he was fairly quiet and content to page through the books I dolled out to him on the floor. Occasionally he would waddled away a few feet when the voice of another child or the wildly patterned rug beckoned. This week was a complete disaster for an entirely predictable reason that should have hit me over the head days ago.

Owen has been going through a shelf clearing phase recently. My bookshelves are in the living room and while we have devoted the rest of the living room to Owen's empire of toys, I was not in any hurry to relocate my collection. A few weeks ago he began making great heaps on the floor of all of the titles he could throw off the shelves. Thomas Wolfe, Cormac McCarthy, Ayn Rand- he was alarmingly indiscriminate. He wasn't interested in anything between the covers, thankfully. Just in creating a large, heavy mess that resembled a leaning tower of literature. I had resolved this issue by packing the books in so tightly on the shelves Owen frequents that he was not able to wedge his little fingers in. Problem solved by ingenious mommy type. Next step, world dominance.

But then, without a second thought, I took him to the library and set him down in front of a long, low shelf full of board books. This was like giving a prison inmate a loaded gun. He began throwing books off the shelves as fast as I could put them back. And because there was no space in which to contain him, no convenient door to throw him behind, no way to avoid a screaming tantrum in the middle of a public place devoted to quiet introspection, I created the perfect storm. Owen giggled and shrieked with delight- there were hundreds of possibilities for destruction and upheaval. I quietly followed behind, fuming at my own stupidity and secretly appalled. Because if you know anything about me, you will understand the reverence I have for books. Throwing a work of literature is the same as if we were Jewish and Owen decided to light a big, fat doobie with the menorah candles. It was so wildly inappropriate that it took my breath away and I could only stare. I may be atheist but libraries are like temples to me, sacred places entombed with the knowledge of the ages. Places where we walk softly and speak hushed because there is an understanding that this is sacred ground. And here was my OWN son, yelling like a lunatic and dismantling an entire section of books. I was as horrified as my grandmother would have been if my father had dared to get hit by a car and shown up at the hospital in dirty underwear.

Lesson learned. All those parents who put their toddlers on the end of leashes that were the secret subjects of my ridicule... I have just one question for you. Where do you buy kiddie handcuffs?

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part XVIII

YOU'LL NEVER KNOW UNTIL YOUR MOMENT COMES

When I was pregnant I wondered a lot about what sort of Mom I would be. Because I was so disillusioned with the aura of mystique surrounding pregnancy, I think I was concerned motherhood would be similarly anticlimactic and uncomfortable. I can't think of many things I have been that wrong about in my life. Motherhood has certainly never been dull and as for the uncomfortable part of the equation... well, that's a VERY kind way of putting it. It's more like willingly giving your body to science to dissect while you're still breathing. A really bad idea if you can avoid it.

Last week, before our entire house was blindsided by the wretchedness of a monstrous flu, I had a revelation. Owen had been awake since five am, vomiting every twenty minutes. He was exhausted but unable to get comfortable enough to sleep and so he simply lay across my chest, mumbling and softly groaning from the dark, deep covers of our bed as Teletubbies marched across the TV screen. These were desperate hours, forcing us to resort not only to the poison of television but to programming that threatened to make me suicidal at any moment. Owen began to make those little gasping and gulping noises and I jumped up from the bed and sprinted towards the bathroom. Halfway across the room, I realized I wasn't going to be making it to anywhere with tile. And so, without a second thought, I held out my hand and let my son throw up. In my hand.

Don't get me wrong- there was an entire thought process behind this action. I looked at our new carpet gleaming in it's beige majesty at my feet. I thought about how long it might take me to scrub vomit out of the fibers and how Owen only stopped crying when comforted by the context of closeness to my skin. There was only one choice to be made here and I made it without regret. Hands are easy to rinse and can be washed with a baby on one hip. Carpet? Not so much. This decidedly gross reaction was not solely based on practicality though. I have to admit some level of motherly instinct here, an honest desire to provide whatever assistance I could in Owen's hour of need.

If you had asked me if someday I would ever willingly hold out my hand for someone else to throw up in, I'm pretty sure I would have emphatically said "No," probably accompanied by something along the lines of "Are you f**ing crazy?" But there I was, with a handful of yellowish, baby vomit and not a single regret or an ounce of squeamishness. When you're someone's Mommy, getting grossed out by bodily fluids is a luxury time does not afford you. I guess you're never sure what kind of mother you'll be until your moment comes. And then you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Spit on your kid's face in the checkout line to remove a chocolate stain or hold his soggy, mucus filled tissues in your jacket pocket? Yeah. That's me.

Memoirs on Mommihood Part XVII

THE GUF

Before Owen was born I worried alot about whether or not I would have the patience to care for a baby. I was hoping actually that he would come wrapped up in bows, completely pottytrained. Children are best, in my opinion, around age 4, when they're able to rationalize the difference between "tastes great" and "less filling." I didn't have much experience with toddlers or infants and tended to avoid them because, well... they smell bad and they're rather obnoxiously loud. And nobody likes something that is perpetually sticky.

Those who know me well find it somewhat miraculous that I am able to care for and teach children considering that I have absolutely no patience in any other faucet of my life. I hate waiting in lines. When I was in college, if the line at the dining hall was too long, I'd just go home and eat fruit loops or spaghettios warmed up in the dorm microwave. There is very little that is worth shaving WHOLE minutes off of my life expectancy. If there is traffic on a particular route, I will go another way that is twice as long just to feel as if I am still moving. Around our household, I am the master multi tasker. It's difficult for me to just sit and watch TV. I'd rather be folding laundry, cleaning the dogs ears and balancing a cup and saucer on my head at the same time just to say that I didn't waste a single moment of my evening.

Enter motherhood. For the first several months I shocked myself. I was never impatient or brusque, rarely frazzled or angry. This, however, was the honeymoon period. To be fair, it lasted quite awhile. But I think my patience is something akin to the Guf- when it's empty, the world ends and there ain't no going back. I think Owen's late night hyjinxs finally sucked that well of patience dry a few weeks back. The dogs walk around the house on eggshells, afraid that any moment a seething rain of reproach and wrath will fall upon them. When Owen doesn't finish a nap or worse, refuses to sleep at all, it's hard for me not to feel as if it were a personal insult. I have to coach myself through these moments with chocolate and big bowls of Lucky Charms. He's not out to destroy your life, I mumble to myself over and over. It's just a unwonted side effect.

This past weekend, when I got a few hours to myself, I realized that there is only one solution that will refill the Guf of patience for me. Being miles away for an afternoon in absolute silence in the wilderness, paying someone exorbiant amounts of money to massage my head and feet until the twitching goes away, or refusing to lift a single finger around the house and spending the entire day in bed with the crosswords, a bag of pistachios and HBO as my only company. Before I regarded these things as luxuries, activities that got dropped to the bottom of the to do list until I became the perfect mother and learned how to kickbox and puree babyfood at the same time. Now that the Guf is yawning before me like a black hole, empty and horrifying, I understand these bits of quiet and solitude are a necessity for me. And for Owen, too. I can be a better person, a better mother, a better wife if I just let someone else take over once in awhile. And it doesn't matter how many pacifiers get lost, how much gunk is left unwashed under his baby folds of chin, or how many toys get misplaced while I'm away. The important thing is that Owen doesn't have a psychotic mommy and that when this whole baby thing has passed us by, Owen will be happy and intact and I'll still bear some resemblance to a person. And really, that'll be everything I could have wished for us all.

Memoirs on Mommihood Part XV

EAT THIS

I'm not sure why I can't stand spoonfeeding another human being, but it ranks right up there with chewing wool and nails on a chalkboard for me. Everytime the patient journey from bowl to mouth begins with the dip of the spoon, I begin to get the irresistable urge to gnaw my own limbs off. Perhaps it is because I am by nature an impatient person and there is nothing like feeding someone an entire bowl of runny oatmeal with a spoon the size of a dime to make you want to run around the house, painting walls in your own feces.

Owen does not make this aggitating task any easier with his constant grunting. And when I describe the noise he makes as constant, you should think of a vacuum cleaner or the endless stream of nonsense that comes out of Dick Cheney's mouth. A perfectly and absolutely annoying accompaniment to every mouthful. I have no earthly idea why he makes this noise and he never made it previously to his introduction to the spoon. Now he even grunts during his breastfeeding sessions, like a little buddha doing his meditation chants.

There are lots of things about motherhood I should find more dehabilitating than this. The heady intoxication of sleep deprivation, the neverending stream of unsolicited parenting advice, not to mention the diapers, the massive piles of laundry and having to siphon boogers out of someone else's nose. But none of those things set me on the razor's edge quite like feeding time. I feel like I'm loading one of those stupid little Playdough Fun Factory toys- you know the ones where you put in the playdough on the top and push the handle down and out squeezes purple spaghetti. For every mouthful I put in, at least half comes back out, only partially resembling its former self. I hate that shit. Give me an easy bake oven and be done with it.

For now, someone has to keep shoveling in the food, spoonful by patient spoonful. But the day when Owen picks up a piece of food and deposits it in his own mouth I'm throwing that stupid baby feeding spoon into the garbage disposal where it belongs.

Memoirs on Mommihood Part XV

The Parenting Club: Membership has its benefits.

It wasn't so long ago when I used to look at frazzled parents in shopping mall parking lots, dragging their kids from cart to car seat to stroller and think: "Now why would anyone in their right minds put themselves through such a torture?" Having children seemed then some distant possibility to ponder after I'd done everything, seen the world, made my fortune, and fucked Pierce Brosnan senseless.

And now here I am... struggling pitifully under mounds of debt, virtually housebound with a small bundle of defenselss, endlessly needy human. Pierce Brosnan would have to resort to Chinese water torture just to keep me awake during unspeakable sex acts. I look into the mirror only to realize that I haven't looked into the mirror all day and that I must have had that long line of spitup running down the side of my shirt when I went to the bank this morning. That highly unglamorous, tortorous, enormously stupid life seems to suddenly be mine.

Ever since this spring, I'd been looking forward to attending a particular wedding this summer. Out of the three invitiations we'd received, this was the only one we decided to attend. I'd even imagined myself in a devastating dress and zeroed in on the wedding date at the end of August as a deadline for major weight loss. George and I had made plans to go by ourselves for a wild, adult spree, leaving Owen (and the dogs) with my Mom for a few days. I had been staying up late and pumping breastmilk, stocking up a supply like a dutiful Mormon preparing for the second coming. I had stored away more than twenty servings for Owen over the course of the last three months. When my Mom let us know that she wouldn't be able to come watch Owen, I was somewhat dissapointed. Oops... there goes the naked orgies. But I tucked an image of Owen perched on my hip into the scene with the devastating dress and it didn't look so bad. I could be wild, I could be reckless, and I could sing all the verses to "Wheels on the Bus." My sexy swingin' days weren't dead yet.

Yesterday the couple made it known that this event was absolutely, irrevocably, unequivocally an "adults only" event, a fact which had escaped my mental grasp. I completely understood and sympathized with their position. It wasn't so long ago when it was me, horrified by the thought of wailing child within a twenty foot radius. I was, however, crushed with deep disappointment and another, more subtle emotion that was slippery and difficult to define. I realized later that it was the sting of rejection. For the first time in my life, I'd been excluded from something on the basis of who I was. A parent. It was an uncomfortable sensation but it gave rise to something unexpected.

Unable to sleep, I wandered into Owen's room and hovered over his crib, tucking the covers around him and listening to his breathy sighs. And instead of feeling sorry for myself and the opportunities I would miss, I felt sorry for all the people who might never hear his squealing giggles or see his open, delighted, gummy smile. And a feeling of deep tenderness engulfed me when I realized how much better every moment of my life after this would be simply because Owen would be there, breathing life and laughter into every corner of it. So instead of imagining myself twirling across the dance floor in my devastating dress, I painted a picture of Owen and I, romping in the mellow sunshine of twilight on the back lawn, my skirts ruffling in the breeze. It was almost perfect... just missing one tiny little touch. There. Pierce Brosnan watching us from the porch, holding a tall, cool glass of lemonade. Ahhh... now there's a life worth imagining.

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part XIV

RESPECT

I've never been a very reverent person. Celebrity mania seems like a disease I wouldn't want to catch and when it comes to God... well, let's just say I'm pretty sure Jesus was a real nice guy. Even things I've participated in, such as the serious endeavor of matrimony, inspire my flippant, unholy attitude. I think George and I should get divorced as a testiment to our love on our twenty fifth anniversary so I can be sixty and living in SIN. So, yeah. Not alot of respect here in the Weida household for the sacredness of cultural shit. George says he even refuses to celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day because it's a holiday Hallmark made up. Course this is the same guy who ritualistically observes Faschnact day. We have priorities. They're just weird.

But I've found a new source of reverence as a mother and it makes me feel all squishy and embarassed, like a big twinkie cliche. My relationship with my own mother has passed through the standard stages. Complete childhood dependence and adoration gave way to mortification mingled with teenage angst. After college, we passed into the the phase of acceptance and akward truce. Marriage was followed by a season of goodwill and mutual friendship. Now, as a mother in my own right, I find myself moving into a bewildering and foreign territory- respectful awe.

Everytime I am out walking around a block and I see a young kid go riding by on their motorized scooter (nobody rides bikes anymore, didn't you know? So last year) or a toddler playing in the grass, the first thought that streakes through my brain is this. Someone stayed up nights, fretting and worrying about that kid. Some mother hung on the edge of delirium and exhaustion, sacrificed the shape of her body and the future of her thighs, gave up her financial security and maritial stability just to send that little being out into the world, fully clothed and adored. The strength of the sacrifice and the intimacy of the relationship is humbling.

Fortunately for Moms, this is not a one sided gig. As I write this, I'm balancing a leaning Owen, who is attempting to devour the bare skin of my shoulder whole, bathing it in his drooling slober. I'm inhaling the distinct smell of new skin as his cheek drifts back and forth past my own and I'm thinking there's nothing lovelier than this. And then he spits up in my hair.

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part XIII

Isolation Island

If there was a mommy reality show, I'm pretty sure this is what the network execs would call it. After your little bundle of joy is born, you become a member of the mommy club and begin to descend into the depths of social withdrawal. It's not like you're a social pariah or anything. That's reserved for people who know all the words to every John Denver song. It's just that the first two years of babydom seem more like voluntary house arrest.

For those of you who don't know me well, you make be shocked when I admit that I'm not really a people person. Yes, it's TRUE! I don't even like talking on the phone and the idea of chatting makes me vomit, especially if it concerns nail polish. I'd be perfectly happy holed up in a cabin in the woods somewhere, plotting my next assination attempt in front of a roaring fire on my buckskin rug. Call me bat-shit crazy. The life of a hermit, a nun and the psychotic, committed mental patient have all appealed to me at one time because they were areas of society so blessedly clean of that emotional mess that comes with people. I could mumble to the walls and pretend to pick bugs out of my fur without interruption.

Now that I've living squarely in the SAHM category, I find a strange phenomena occuring. I wouldn't go so far as to say I MISS people. That would be rather too large a step, right into the world of pleasantries where I feel utterly lost. But the sting of isolation is starting to get to me. I noticed this at work the other day where I spent the entire afternoon talking the ear off of a college age LDS girl. She is, naturally, pregnant and I found myself prattling on and on with baby advice in the most nauseating manner. I tried looking at her and imagining her in her MORMON underwear in order to break the chatting trance that had overcome me, but it didn't work. My mouth just kept going on and on and on. I find myself whipping around in the grocery store when Owen does something cute just to see if maybe that old lady by the produce saw it too and we can talk about how insanely in love with him I am. George comes home with tales of work and all I want to do is trade tales of poop in return, when really, we'd both be better of NOT talking about diapers during dinner.

Isolation Island isn't all that terrible, because Owen (and Miles and Timber, who blessedly don't speak or CRY) is stranded here with me. I spend my day discussing political events while he smiles and ask questions. But I know the day will come when we'll have to leave Isolation Island because I won't be able to use the word FUCK anymore without having it repeated back to Owen's preschool classmates like a chatty Kathy doll. And I depserately need at least one place in my life where I can say FUCK really loudly and offend at least one MORMON.

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part XII

THE ONLY TIME IN MY LIFE I'LL GENUINELY WISH I WAS AN OCTOPUS...

You've heard it a billion times- "there just aren't enough hours in the day." While this cliche has certainly rung true plenty of times in my own life previously, I now get to enjoy the reality of the mommy version of this cliche.

"I just don't have enough hands."

Yes, I have the standard two like most homosapiens. But once you become someone else's food source, personal maid, and lifeline, your hands (along with your boobs) suddenly aren't your own anymore. And I miss them. Sure, I could stick him in a carrier or a sling and get the use of my own two hands back, but they wouldn't be enough anymore. It would be like my breasts shrinking from there current size D back to the old B cup. Seems inadequate all of a sudden. Because now that I've become a mommy, I've decided the optimum number of hands to possess would be about eight.

One: Obviously to hold onto the little pain in the ass so he doesn't fall on his head and retain permanent brain damage more significant than the kind he already has.

Two: To perform same task as above, although once he is able to hold himself upright and control his bobblehead, I'll take this hand back and use it to clip my toenails, a task I haven't managed to accomplish since Owen's birth.

Three: This hand is exclusively for the amazing amounts of laundry generated and the time it takes to sort, load, fold, and put away said laundry.

Four: I'd like to reserve this hand just for diaper changes. Why? Because they're gross.

Five: This one is for cooking dinner, doing dishes and all other food related activites, including, once in awhile, actually consuming something myself.

Six: I have to reserve an extra hand for talking on the phone because no matter how much you plan it, people always call when your baby is screaming, your dinner is burning, or your pants are around your feet.

Seven: This is just to rock Owen to sleep and to master the art of laying him down in the exact position he fell asleep in, because otherwise the bastard wakes up because he knows you've snuck off to sip tequila again.

Eight: And this hand, sacred before all others and at the right hand of God himself, is the pacifier hand. Because nothing says shut the fuck up like a big, rubber nipple.

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part XI

The Scoop on Spitup

To say that Owen spits up more than the average baby is akin to claiming that an elephant is heavy. It doesn't do the reality justice. Our baby is a fountain of regurgitation, an olympic spitupper. When he was born, he should have come out with burp cloth attatched. To give Owen to an innocent bystander without ample warnings and a spitup rag is like giving a kid an electronic toy at Christmas without the batteries. It's just mean spirited.

I didn't intitially realize our little one was such an accomplished vomiter. I assumed a certain amount of regurgitation is normal, but I began to be suspicious when the doctor asked me if he spit up more than three or four times a day and in excess of two tablespoons. Are you kidding? Try three to four times a feeding and in excess of a quarter of a cup. We wear rain slickers when he eats just to stay dry. The doctor didn't seem alarmed and assured us that Owen had some acid reflux but that it would receed once his digestive system matured somewhere around four months old. Four months old! I explained that we might drown by then and to please call 911 if we didn't show up for our next appointment.

In the meantime, we've tried many different tactics to cut down on the copious amounts of spitup. Elevating Owen at a 45 degree angle while eating and keeping him elevated for twenty minutes after a feeding, using a wedge pillow in his crib to cut down on reflux, and spacing his feedings at least three hours apart (although we violate this rule to cluster feed him in the evenings so he'll MAYBE sleep though the night). All this helps, but Owen is still a pukey baby.

You'd be amazed at the different kinds of spitup you can get. There's the chunky, half digested curds- in my opinion the grossest variety. Also, the thick white paste that doesn't really dribble so Owen pushes it forward out of his mouth with his little lizard tongue. The leaker, which is just a small amount of spitup that drips from the corners of his mouth. The opposite of this is the gusher, a projectile vomiting that once hit Miles from several feet away.

With all of this liquid, George and I are bound to get wet. And we do. I have yet to successfully make an appearance in public and return home without some portion of my clothing retaining a spit up stain. George used to change clothes everytime he got puked on, which made me laugh outloud. I mean he cuddles me and sometimes I have the same pajamas on two days in a row. Does he have any idea how much regurgitated milk he is actually touching, however vicariously? Now he simply mops up his shirt and moves on, except when he's been involved in a "gusher." But even I change for those. I do have some standards of personal hygiene. They just aren't very high.

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part X

Weighing on My Mind

I try never to step on a scale. It's a kindness I do myself as a woman. This is not to say that I am oblivous to my physique, but I prefer to use the measure of my size 7 Lucky jeans. If they fit too snugly, it's time to lay off the HoHos and walk an extra lap around the block until they stop constricting the flow of blood to my limbs. Otherwise, I don't sweat it. I exercise frequently and lift weights several times a week to keep the jiggle at bay. The arbitrary numbers on the scale don't frighten me anymore, although I have been known to go into fits of neurotic behavior in the past over impending weddings, birthdays and after any run in with an ex boyfriend or an estranged father. You know. Normal girl stuff.

Pregnancy took my normality and set it on its head. Because, you see, it's not normal to treat your body as a human incubator. There are consequences to be suffered. Some of them (please God, no!) might be rather PERMANENT. But I was determined that the 50 pounds I gained in the last nine months wasn't going to be one of them. Yes, that's right. 5...0. Let me explain why I sound so complacent about that rather large number.

Let's head back circa college years. I began college as a size 9. I ended it as a size 14. I have a combination of forces to thank for this, including those 2 am pints of Ben and Jerry's and all those Grand Slams the morning after. At my heaviest, I was only five pounds shy of what I weighed when Owen was born. So, I'm not afraid. I've been down this road before and those big bad numbers that oscilate before me on the scale don't scare me. Now Billy Blanks- he scares me. And clowns. But that's besides the point.

The point is that I've battled my weight before and won. And I don't intend this time to be any different, although I'll have sleep exhaustion and a pooping, screaming, spitup machine to contend with as well. When I went to my postpartum visit, I discovered I had already dropped 30 pounds in the six weeks since Owen was born. And while those Lucky size 7's don't zip up yet, these last twenty pounds that are circling my hips, thighs and stomach don't seem like such a Heruclean feat. And for all those folks out there, men and women, who seem to think that once you have a baby you have doomed yourself to a life of wearing frumpy shirts that hide your middle and a droopy ass, I have one thing to say. Not me mother fuckers.

Just give me until July. Or until Owen starts sleeping through the night. Whichever comes first.

Memoirs on Mommihood Part IX

Holy Lactation

I'm not sure if I'm the only one who feels this way- but having milk pouring from your breasts is the most surreal, weird experience of young mommihood I've yet encountered. It just seems so twilight zone somehow. For most of my life, these mounds of flesh have sat on my chest not doing much of anything useful, although George might disagree with that assessment. Then, pregnancy and they take on girth and become fairly... akward. At least for a girl whose used to having just enough cleavage to make a small shadow between her breasts. After the baby is born, they begin to ooze and within days they are producing so much milk, you can shoot your offspring in the face with an accidental leak during feeding. You sleep on your side and wake up in the night, shirt drenched and the breast facing the bed heavy and engorged. You start to notice the faint smell of sweet, sour milk permeating all your clothing and bedding and you're never sure if it's from the copous amounts of spitup you seem to be constantly swiping up or the insane amount of leakage from those milk jugs attached to your body.

Yesterday we took Owen and actually went out in public. Together. To go shopping. It was long and hellish and mostly unpleasant, although Owen slept through it like a champ. As we were in the grocery store I looked up suddenly at George and said,
"It's been three hours since Owen was fed."
"How do you know?"
"My milk just let down."
With breasts like this, who needs a watch.

Memoirs on Mommihood Part VIII

THE BIG SLEEP

Yes, I heard all the warnings over and over. Sleep would be precious and fleeting after Owen's birth. I should rest rest rest while I could... blah, blah, blah. Yes, I understood this was probably true. But nothing ever feels real until it happens to you. And now I can definitely say that I would trade one of my limbs and maybe an eyeball for two nights of uninterrupted sleep. Because frankly, I'm already operating at half mast so the idea of becoming further incapacitated doesn't bother me much. I crave sleep like a shipwrecked unfortunate on a barren island dreaming of Big Macs. My mouth waters at the thought of it.

Perhaps I should explain that Owen is not an unusual baby. He doesn't suffer from long bouts of colic or extreme episodes of unexplained crying. His thirst for breast milk, however, keeps him cycling on and off the tit at two hour intervals. But there are nights when he sleeps three hours straight at a time. THREE HOURS. And then he follows that marathon nap with a five hour period of incessant whimpering and grunting, usually between the desperate hours of two and five in the morning. This is the origin of true madness. To be hanging on the edge of exhaustion at three am for the third night in a row, listening with rage to your partner snoring beside you.

Fortunately, there is one nap I can count on. Owen goes down like clockwork at three in the afternoon. I started this ritual when we first came home and the routine is always the same. We plop down in bed with the remote and turn on a decorating show or a HBO rerun movie. I haul out a breast. He eats until, half an hour to forty-five minutes later, the nipple falls from his mouth and he leans back in sleeping ecstasy, milk running from the corners of his little mouth. Sometimes he even grins. I lay him down next to me and lower my head to the pillow. Sometimes he wakes up and we stare at each other sleepily, holding hands, until one of us drifts off. The dogs curled at my feet, those are the best two hours of my day. Thank God I spend them sleeping.

Memoirs on Mommihood Part VII

Owen's Arrival

It's hard to believe it was only this morning that I was dozing fitfully, up and down out of bed like a jack in the box. At 2:45am I laboriously turned my cumbersome body and felt a gush of fluid. I sprinted out of bed before the scarce quarter cup of liquid could soak the sheets and exclaimed,

"I think my water just broke!"

George turned on the light and rubbed his eyes groggily. "Are you sure?"

Half an hour later in the shower, the contractions began. For the past two days I'd been having extreme amounts of lower back pressure and what I like to politely call "bowel pressure." My contractions were less like muscular convulsions and more like cramps. They were strong enough that I had to reach out and hold onto something as we struggled to pack, feed the dogs and think of every last item we might possibly need but would inevitably never use. We strolled into the hospital at around 3:45am and I have to admit to a certain amount of giddiness. I had no idea what to expect but in less than 24 hours I wouldn't be pregnant anymore. And who wouldn't feel happy about that? Ah... so young. So naive.

An hour later the giddiness had faded into something approach alarm. By the time I got settled in the hospital room my contractions had intensified to the point where I couldn't offer smart ass answers to the intern who was taking something called a "patient assessment." It seemed like a gallop poll gone wrong with irrelevant questions and even absurder language. As I hissed through the sharpening pain of my contractions, I simply glared at her when she used a fancy schmancy medical term and gave her an "I don't think so," which was obviously not a choice she was given on screen and led to extended amounts of frustration on both our parts.Another nurse used me as a sticking pin.It took them five tries and two nurses to run an IV for antibiotics. Jennifer, my nurse, kindly stuck her hand up me and determined I was not going home today. I was already a five.

By 6:30 the contractions and low lying pressure approached the "don't touch me, don't look at me... I live in my own world of pain and I can't hear you here." I was puking every once in awhile with the pain- lovely yellow acid stuff. My midwife, Karen, wasn't due in until 8:30 since some other dumb girl had decided to have a baby this morning. The nerve. While waiting I tried the bath, the rocking chair, and every other conceivable spot to relieve the pain but oddly enough, the only place I was able to breathe through the contractions was either standing straight up and pacing or laying on my back.

When Karen arrived I was an 8. The room was thrilled and I felt slightly elated. 2 more centimeters, a quick bout of pushing and it was over. No epidurals, no begging for mercy. I had maintained my dignity, despite the constant stream of fluid that leaked out of me with every contraction. Hey. Babies ain't glamorous.

An hour later, Karen had to be paged because I had quickly become a 10. I was instructed to start pushing at around 9:30. With the first bout of pushing I realized this was going to be the hard part. I braced myself. I can get through a half hour of anything.

After half an hour they had me on oxygen and it was beginning to dawn on me that Owen had a very large head. After an hour I began to think about seriously giving up on this whole labor thing and begging them to just take it out. Suction sounds so pleasantly unoffensive. My water broke then with a dramatic splash. After an hour and a half, when Karen asked me if I wanted to feel the hair she was just beginning to see, my first thought was- I don't really give a shit. Get him out. The problem was his head was faced the wrong way and he needed to turn to get through the canal. The other problem was that putting something the size of a watermelon through a hole that used to be the size of a quarter is not possible. After two hours, his head had finally been appropriately cone sized and my perineum had been ripped enough. With two bouts of massive pushing, out he came. I had a moment of terror when his head was out and I still had to push his shoulders out with the next contraction. I didn't think I had it in me, but then I thought about walking around with his head hanging out of me for the next nine months and figured I should at least try. I faintly heard George say "Holy crap," and I think I said "Thank God, it's over!"

Owen didn't cry at first, just blinked. He was all purple and blue eyed. George cut the cord and they put him on my chest. It's amazing how your world shrinks to this object in your arms. I didn't hear much of the conversation that was literally taking place between my legs. Something about the amazing "Paul Bunyon" size of my umbilical cord and placenta. Even when Karen was politely numbing me up and stitching away, I was focused on trying to get Owen to nurse.

Yes, it was the most painful and enormously stupid thing I have ever undertaken. But I am shocked to say that Owen seems rather cute for a baby. George has actually spent more time bathing and changing and wrapping him than me. I'm just the milkman. He was hungry and grazed for the first two hours and has been sleeping like a champ ever since. Right now he and George are snoozing on the couch, no doubt both dreaming about women and glasses of beer. Just what I needed. Another good looking, lovable man in my life. Miles will be so jealous.

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part VI

END OF DAYS

It's been a sobering experience to hit the 30 day mark. 30 days until Owen makes his appearance, all wrinkled, red and wailing and our lives become permanently impaired. For me, it's almost a relief since I feel like an oceanliner now and I'm not sure where this last five pounds are supposed to go (Dear God, please don't let it be my thighs). When I move through a room, tummy first, I feel like I should have one of those beeping alarms that sound when trucks back up so everyone knows to clear the path of travel. "Gynormous pregnant lady coming through... please step aside sir."

Owen stirs and kicks and froths and generally makes a nuisance of himself from early afternoon into the late evening. Sleep has become an elusive commodity. I lay in bed, tossing, turning, itching and sighing. When I do manage to get some relatively undisturbed shuteye, it's interrupted by the demands of my miniature bladder every half hour.

On the plus side, he's pretty cool to play with these days and we can poke, prod and torture him through my stomach to our heart's content- something I'm not sure child services will allow once he's an independently functioning human. He still gets hiccups often- in fact he's got them right now as I'm typing this and it feels like someone plucking a guitar string repeatedly in your groin muscle. Bet you wanted to know that. The pelvic pain comes and goes. Last night it felt as if he was bound and determined to bust out by grinding his head like a juicer against my closed cervix. We go back to the midwife on Thursday this week and then every week after that.

Owen's room is finished and we'd thought we'd give you a peek. This is a panorama view stitched together. Yes, that's a slinky stretched out above his bed and a hanging ball of twine. We thought we'd give him a head start on geekdom. All the pics on the walls are ones George has taken of trees and the rocking chair is one my parents made for me years ago for Christmas. The cam attached to Owen's bed is so you can watch him sleep online (as fascinating as watching grass grow, I'm sure). We have every intention of continuing to exploit his daily activities for our own amusement as he grows older.

I plan to take a leave of absence from work in mid January, provided I last that long. Until then, it's just a matter of time. 30 more days, to be exact.

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part V

THE BABY ATE MY BRAIN
As we round the final stretch here (pun intended), I have become increasingly cranky. Cranky is probably a kind way to express the torment I have been putting George through. I'm feel like a rabid dog, snarling and snapping and biting the hand that feeds me. But when you every part of your body itches with a mouth watering intensity and gravity seems to have shoved you into a corner of the couch and left you there to suffocate, you feel sure somebody has it out for you.

Besides the everyday severity of physical discomfort, there is the retardation factor. I'm not sure I should be allowed to go out in public. Simple things like driving past your own house or missing the turn to work. Knowing that you must have locked the door like you always do but being absolutely physically unable to remember doing it so that you have to heft your round body out of the car and go check again. Someone will ask for a product and I'll stare at them blankly like an Alzheimer's patient. George has stopped being frustrated with my five second memory and my foggy confusion. I think he's accepted that this is practice for when we're ninety and he'll have to lead me by the hand to our front door. "This is where we live honey. Don't forget next time. Your scaring the neighbor's kids."

Owen is in his thirty-fourth week and a six pounder already. It's hard to imagine where the hell the rest of him is going to fit in there for the next month. My tummy is as tight as a drum and sore from the strain of my muscles attempting to hold together this engorged balloon of a baby. He is still head down, banging away at my cervix and causing intermittent bouts of pain. I am thoroughly annoyed with the frequency with which Owen gets hiccups. He's like the local drunk, sloshed and hiccuping through life. I had hoped he'd be dreaming up a sonata in there, but instead I think he's been sampling the punch. Although the poor kid is floating in his own urine at this point. I'd be drinking too.

Memoirs on Mommyhood: Part IV

HEY... WHO TURNED THE HEAT UP?

I only have about nine weeks left and it's a good thing it's winter, because I'm roasting over here! Who would have ever thought it? All that extra blood and body fat have turned me from a whimpering, shivering, circulation impaired woman to a human body furnace. George, who has always preferred our bedroom at artic temperatures because he sleeps better, is now getting a taste of his own medicine. I keep the house at 65 and when he comes home from work, he has to immediately turn up the heat to thaw the icicles that gather on his nose and eyebrows. He looks at me in wonderment,

"Aren't you cold?"
"No."
"But isn't it cold in here?"
"I guess so. I never really noticed."

He looks at me like a cyborg has taken over my body. I can see him thinking- this can't be my wife. My wife, who huddles in flannel pajamas and fleece socks from Halloween until Easter. Dear God, what have they done with my wife?

Owen is about four pounds now and our midwife says he's already in the head down position. His kicks and pokes can be seen from the outside of my stomach and look like waves rolling across my belly. He moves most in the evenings at bedtime- basically as soon as I lay still. I can see we'll have to load up on NyQuill before he's born so we can drug him often enough to prevent sleep deprived psychosis. The midwife was asking me at our last appointment if I had started feeling any contractions but I don't think so. An occasional cramp or twinge but if those are contractions, they'll have to get alot stronger for me to take notice or I'll be popping the kid out by suprise at work one day.

Yes, I'm still working full time (actually more than full time since I now manage the store, homeschool my boss's son, and tutor five clients on Mondays). It's been harder this week since my belly is beginnning to interfere with normal human functions like shoe tying. Also, because I seem to have caught a cold from someone (guess who) and I feel as if I could sleep and sleep and never want to wake up. It doesn't help that our endless list of things to do for the house never seems to find an end (I guess that's the definition of endless anyway). But I still walk three miles a day and try to fit in as much exercise as I can because I know every extra pound now will be a month of blood, sweat and tears coming back off later. And there's only so much Billy Blanks one person can endure. (Tao Bo, people. There's no faster way to lose weight that to try to follow that maniac for forty five minutes.)

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part III

KEEP IT DOWN IN THERE

I should have known from the beginning that I am just not the sort of woman that is cut out to be a human incubator. When I was wretchedly miserable my first trimester, well meaning people would console me with the fact that pregnancy would be down right enjoyable in a few weeks once the worst was behind me. It certainly is wonderful not to feel as though every movement could suddenly bring forth a wave of nausea and vomit, but I have to say that I've found pregnancy and the expansion of my stomach (and thighs, unfortunately) to be nothing more than tolerable. The reality is still unbelievable and there are times when I look down, see the bulge that is slowly obstructing my view of my own previously attractive feet, and think... oh, yeah. There's a baby in there. That's right.

There have been instances lately though when, to my great amusement, Owen will not allow me to forget that he's in there. At odd moments that seem to have no connection to each other, he'll release a series of kicks and punches that feel like butterflies beating their wings inside my stomach. And I'll look down and think, okay little one, take it easy. Quiet down in there. Enjoy the blissful serenity and mindless euphoria now, cause when you come out, its going to suck. I promise.

I still move with ease, although extracting myself from the depths of the couch at the end of the night is sometimes more difficult than I would like to admit. The hardest part has actually been finding things I can wear. My closet has dwindled down to a few shirts, a sweater or two, and less than three pairs of pants that will successfully accomodate my current waistline. Since I'm nearly six months along now, I don't feel too badly about this development. But the frustration of being without a washer and dryer and trying to make it two weeks on variations of the same three outfits is becoming legistically impossible. Tomorrow I have to face the serious decesion- go to the laundromat or have to wear pajama pants all day.

I don't know... what do you think Owen?

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part II

THE BIG BELLY BULGE

As I enter the second trimester of my quest to be the most miserable pregnant woman in America, a growing bulge has taken up residency along my former waistline. While my abhorrance of the phrase "maternity clothing" has kept me squeezing into the roomier pants, skirts, and t-shirts in my current wardrobe, I may have to give into the inevitable. I've made it four months without the bulge I fondly refer to as "the lump," making itself obvious to the outside world and I'm shooting for two more months before I have to wear shirts and dresses that resemble tents.Ah, the humilation of it. To have to shop for your clothes at LL Bean and REI. "I'll take that without the poles and stakes, please."

George, in his oblivious maleness, has bumbled his way into further humilating me in the land of maternity ware on several occasions. Like yesterday when I commented that I couldn't find the maternity section at Old Navy and he pointed to the "Plus Size" aisle. Or earlier, at Victoria's Secret,. where I slipped in discretely hoping to find a sale bra to fit my exciting new bulging cleavage. When the well meaning sales girl sauntered over and asked if she could help me find something, seeing that my hands were up to the elbow in bins full of mismatched lace and straps of torture, George asked if they carried maternity bras. I managed to blurt out past my flushed face and her obvious confusion, that he has refering to "nursing bras." She began to explain that they didn't carry such sexy pieces of expectant motherhood, but I motioned her away with a look of seething anger. George, seeing my obvious distress, said "What?!" and then quietly excused himself to Aeropostale across the way, where he probably attempted to draw pictures to get the teenage male clerk to help him find maternity hoisery. He tries to be helpful but he's an engineer. It's just not his fault.

On the "Plus" side of things, my constant state of nausea has dimished and the mind numbing fatigue that saps one's will to live has receded to something more like a necessity to nap. While being pregnant still isn't what I would term as "fun" (although if you like those amusement park rides that spin you around and around and then drop the floor out from under you as you stick to the wall and your insides liquify, pregnancy might be just the fun you're looking for), it's growing tolerable. In the next two weeks, we should have a pretty good idea of whether or not we can name this baby Vinyl or Stone and I should feel my little tenant making unruly disturbances. We will, of course, keep you posted. And keep an eye out for a link to our baby registry. Because, while I think George's idea of swaddling the child until the age of two and allowing the dogs to raise her is an excellent one, the department of child welfare might find that course of action unexceptable. In that case, we might need to beg friends and relatives for some baby supplies.
But be warned... if you send anything I find silly or too cutesy for a baby of mine to be subjected to, we're making the dogs wear it and posting pictures on one of the internets. Because, while I won't torture my baby with it, I feel fine about humilating Miles and Timber.

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part I

THE ALIEN INVASION

I can not explain how absolutely strange and invasive it feels to know something is growing inside you. The books says this little parasite leaching nutrients and fluid from every organ in my body is now only about the size of my thumbprint. It's difficult to believe something that small could cause the sheer daily havoc I am experiencing. My own body was turned traitor.

"Morning sickness"does not accurate reflect what I have been feeling the past three or four days. They should call it "all day miserable vomiting sickness" instead. Gingerale has become my drug of choice. I keep saltines by the bed so I can nibble on them before I get up and the nausea sweeps over me like a steamroller. I try not to ever let my tummy get completely empty because then is when it seeks its revenge by throwing all its remaining acidic contents towards the back of my throat. They say this nausea thing can last until the 12th week. That means by the fourth of July I should feel better. God damn it- whose bright idea was this?

When I'm not in the bathroom trying to hang onto my sanity and my lunch, I'm there for other reasons. All other bodily functions seem to have been switched to "over react" mode. I can't go a half hour without feeling the desperate need to pee. I thought this didn't kick in until the baby was bouncing up and down on your bladder in the last two months? The books say your "kidney functions" speed up in order to expel toxins quicker and cleanse more blood that is on its way to your very own selfish fetus. The books also say that you feel fatigued and dizzy because your blood pressure is actually bottoming out. Your vessels dilate to force your body to create more blood in the first trimester and until it makes up the difference, you'll feel like you just gave five pints at the Red Cross blood drive. This is probably why when people talk to me it sounds as if they're under water and everything looks blurry, like I've just drunk a fifth of Jim Bean.

I get reassurances on paper and in person- "the first trimester is always the hardest," "it will get better," etc. But I've been doing my reading and as the alien invasion progresses, the outlook doesn't seem too rosy. In four weeks my tailbone will start to hurt because my hip bones are actually trying to get wider to accomodate squeezing something the size of a watermelon out of a hole the size of tampon in about nine months. Oh, joy!

The only true benefit I've seen so far is now I have cleavage without a push up and while my chest still sticks out farther than my tummy, I'm gonna use it. Too bad I can't earn any free drinks at the bar with it. How corny does that sound...
"You sure look hot- can I buy you a drink?"
"Sure. I'll have a gingerale straight up. And can I use your glass to vomit in? The marathon line at the girls bathroom looks like a casting call for an Olsen twins movie."