In general, my goal for these posts is to chronicle my life with Owen in a funny way, talking honestly about the rough patches of parenting but the murder of Trayvon Martin has made me think more seriously about what it means to raise a son. I have some friends who were recently joking about how the hard part about having sons was that you ended up losing them to a future daughter in law. I'm pretty sure that I will be an awesome enough mother and mother in-law that this will not be the case but I guess there's always a danger. I told them I was banking on my son being gay so I just get another son, though I guess their would always be mother to contend with. (Assuming he had one, he could have two dads too. . oops I digress.)
My husband's worry for our son is that he will be so sensitive that the world will be hard on him. I'm not sure where this fear comes from, perhaps the fact that Owen kisses his stuffed animals on the mouth or blows kisses at people on the television if they are crying, or seems to stop people on the street who look lonely and wave until they smile. I am not entirely convinced my husband's fear won't disappear entirely when the terrible twos arrives.
I do worry about raising a son in New York City. From my experience boys can sometimes be the target of other boys just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yes, girls fight too but it generally seems to be personal. But in the light of both Trayvon's death among other recent incidents I have thinking about how grateful I feel to not have the added burden of having to worry about the effect the race of my child has on his likelihood of being the victim of a crime. Yes, I still worry about cars and deadly animals and freak storms. I will probably worry about SIDS until Owen is out of high school. I worry about traffic accidents and poisoned Halloween candy even though we mostly walk in the city and have yet to go trick-or-treating and even when people thought old men were poisoning Halloween candy it wasn't really happening. But in general the only time I worry about the color of Owen's skin is when we are outside and he rips he hat off and I have to worry about his super pale baldie head burning in even the modest March sun. And while that IS a considerable worry as we come from a long line of skin cancer sufferers, to say that that is my "white woman's burden" is somewhat ridiculous.
What happened with Trayvon Martin is devastating but sadly not an isolated case. While our country has come a long way in regards to race, we still have a long way to go. As white parents, especially those who identify as being forward thinking, who regularly expose their children to different cultures, who talk about politics and morals, it is easy to think that our kids either do not need to be taught about race or that talking about race does not need to be explicit. But as books like "Nurture Shock" (Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman; Twelve, Hatchett Book Group, 2009) show, white parents are not talking about race, or at least not in a way that changes attitude or behaviors. (Read the chapter "Why White Parents Don't Talk About Race.") White children still tend towards associating positive traits with people who look like them and negative traits with people who don't. This is a problem. Sure, eventually this problem will be solved when white people don't exist anymore, and yes this day is coming even if it won't happen in our lifetime. But that seems like a lazy, irresponsible solution.
The most powerful thing we can do as parents is to make sure that we don't create the George Zimmerman's of the world. Or even if are to give him the deepest benefit of doubt and take a step further back, that we don't create the world that gave space for his fear to feel so real. This is our moral obligation.
I don't purport to be saying anything particularly new or daring. I don't claim to be above or beyond racism in any way. I am most decidedly not naive enough or egotistical enough to think that my talking about race will magically make it disappear for my son's generation. But I do think that sometimes as parents, especially white parents who consider themselves 'aware of race' that we do not address it directly enough. We do not talk about it in a real meaningful way. In general, parents offer vague comments like, 'race doesn't matter' or 'anyone can succeed.' This does little to change children's perceptions. One study in the Journal of Marriage and Family 2007 shows that our of 17,000 families with kindergarten students 45% do not talk about race at all and if you look just at the white families that jumps to 75% (Bronson & Merryman 2007).
75% is not acceptable.
So while you might not be able to change the mindset of a neighborhood watch person miles away or change the mentality of police who still racially profile, or individuals who do the same, what we can do is teach our children about race. Use this incident and others to make a difference in some way. Telling kids that skin color does not make a difference does not make a difference. We need to be explicit and real. Kids do respond. And start talking now. Kids are never too young.
Now to be clear, I don't think I can have a completely meaningful conversation with Owen today. As advanced as I think he is, he's still mastering words like "water" and "milkies" so I don't know if it makes sense yet, though my mom claims she gave me a very meaningful lecture about the birds and the bees when I was four. She said she wanted to get it out of the way. And while I think perhaps her approach was a little off (sorry Mom) I also think that maybe she is on to something. If we start talking about it freely before kids can really understand, it will not be as hard later because we will be so used to it.
So when the story came on the news again last night, I told Owen what had happened and why I thought it was wrong. And because I'm still hormonal (yes, I know it has been a year) I explained to him why I was crying and how I hope so much he would be safe always and how I felt so much sadness for Trayvon's mother. I'm not sure he got it but it does not matter. He will some day.
Showing posts with label Parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parenting. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Reshaping Shower Games - Or Why Tossing Water Balloons Does Not Prepare You For War
I have played quite a few games at baby showers and heard of many more that I have not had the good fortune to play. What I have come to realize in my first year of motherhood is that all of these games have one thing in common, they were completely designed to put a rose-colored glow on the dirty part of parenting. They are roughly the equivalent of training future soldiers by tossing water balloons for grenade practice or playing paintball to practice face-to-face combat. So I propose that we revise these games to retain the fun while incorporating a hard dose of reality as well as some necessary skill building.
Game #1 - Diapering a stuffed animal. In this game the participants have to diaper a stuffed animal and whoever does it the quickest wins. Once I saw someone diaper a watermelon. I can tell you that diapering a stuffed animal does not compare at all to diapering a child. Even the blindfolded variety does little to help you.
Alternatives:
a. Diaper a cat. I have a cat and I can tell you that he enjoys many things, tuna water, corn chips, baked goods, being scratched under the chin, even broccoli and occasionally being put in a paper bad and swung around in circle but he does not enjoy being diapered. But then again neither do babies. If you try to diaper a cat you face rapid movement and squirming and have to avoid being scratched and/or bitten. This is what it is like to diaper a baby after they learn how to roll.
b. Diaper a rotating sprinkler before it gets back around to you. This is where speed comes in handy. You have about 30 seconds to get the diaper on before the water comes back around and hits you in the face. If you are up for it, and are throwing your shower somewhere you don't have to clean up or ever see the host again, go ahead and fill that sprinkler with pee, or if that's a little too much, just die the water to freak people out a little.
c. Diaper a cat while playing whack-a-mole. The goal of this challenge was inspired when Owen found his penis. Now, I don't care if Owen plays with his penis, pretty much every child will find and be in awe of their genitals at some point and more power to them. In fact, it makes diaper changing a lot easier when Owen does find and enjoy his mini-manhood because it keeps him occupied. (And of course by 'min-manhood' I mean baby-sized, not small. In case this blog comes to light in his teenage years I want to make it clear that Owen is exceptionally well endowed.) But the problem with the penis play is that the penis is often covered in poo when I first take the diaper off and playing with a poo-covered penis is where I draw the line. But it is VERY hard to get in there and wipe before he gets to it. So, hence whack-a-mole. . change a diaper while completing other high speed tasks at the same time, such as wiping the penis down, catching tubes of butt=paste as they sail from the table, trying to get him not to eat the clean diaper before it is on him, or quickly wiping his hand that has just been plunged into the tub of A&D ointment before he plunges that same hand into his mouth. And that is just the beginning.
Game #2 - Trying to identify the taste of baby food blindfolded. Here you taste jars of baby food and try to figure out what's in them. In the first place, baby food is disgusting. What you will realize when you have a baby is most babies will refuse to eat jarred baby food if they ever get the chance to taste something else because 80% of them are inedible. So unless this game is a teaching moment to allow you to empathize with your future bundle of joy, skip it.
Alternatives:
1. Try to feed baby food to a cat strapped in a high chair. Here you will find that most cats also don't like baby food. Even mine who will eat wonder bread off the street won't eat jarred baby food. Cat's also don't like to be in high chairs and yes I know this for a fact.
2. Make recipe combinations that make anything taste like either a pear or a banana. In this game, you try to make foods that are not a pear or a banana blend well with a pear or a banana which seem to be like beer goggles for babies, making food they will not eat, look and taste delicious. To make this challenging include foods like fish, lima beans and brussel sprouts. And if it is truly successful you will be able to feed it to your husband or partner and they will not realize it is baby food. Now Owen eats what we eat and has a quite varied palate but I'm not going to lie, in the beginning the only home cooked food was his so we often ate that.
2. Try to catch finger foods flung off a balcony while eating a sandwich and feeding another sandwich to your friend. For this game you need a partner, or a cat. In this game, you try to eat some food, it does not have to be a sandwich, whatever you are serving at the shower will do, the sandwich is just best for beginners because you can eat it with one hand. With the other, you should try to feed your partner, or a cat if you feel like it. Then someone will start flinging food, good options are: cheerios, blueberries, pieces of cut up chicken, peeled and halved grapes. Your job is to catch as many food items as you can.
Game # 3 - Trying to identify what type of candy bar has been melted into each diaper. Okay, this game is pretty close to being perfect already. It is pretty gross and has you doing things you think you won't actually do, like examine the contents in a diaper trying to identify its origin. But the problem is, it's just not gross enough. There is a big difference between sniffing a melted Reese's Peanut Butter Cup or a Twix and peering at actual poo to try to see if those remnants are peas or corn or cat food. (as an aside, while cats do not necessarily like baby food, babies do like cat food.) You might ask, "Why would you want to know what was in there poo?" There are so many reasons, you are trying to see if they digested in properly, they had a bad reaction and you are not sure what it was so you are trying to figure out, or you are just falling into the examining poo as pride trap that many people do to this day, as if getting out a good poo was something your child should be proud of. I don't really have a game alternative here because it's kind of like that show Dirty Jobs, you might want to watch someone else do something but you don't want to do it unless you have to or you're getting paid for it.
Game #4 - Guess Mommy's Tummy Size - In this one guests try to guess how big mom to be's stomach is. Now in my opinion this is pretty much no fun from the get go because even though I LOVED my baby bump, I can pretty much tell you at 8.5 months I would have hit anyone who guessed that I was three feet around. Also, even if the guest of honor is the 1 in 100 women who is happily immune to feelings of body image towards the end of pregnancy, there's just no real learning here.
Alternative:
a. Guess how many months post-pregnancy this woman is. Here, you show pictures of women post-birth both from vaginal births and c-sections and guests have to try to guess how long it has been since the woman has given birth. Fact is, I left the hospital after my c-section weighing 3 more pounds than I went in, wearing my husbands shoes because my feet were still swollen and my maternity yoga pants and even larger granny underwear to fit over my still enormous belly plus scar.
Okay, I could do lots more like 'try to keep a cat lying down in a crib, try to punch 'gently', how to make a diaper MacGyver style when you have run out, how to play chess while someone screams in your ear, how to walk on a balance beam after you haven't slept for a month, but those all require too many props and preparation. Please enjoy these, and let me know if you try them!
Game #1 - Diapering a stuffed animal. In this game the participants have to diaper a stuffed animal and whoever does it the quickest wins. Once I saw someone diaper a watermelon. I can tell you that diapering a stuffed animal does not compare at all to diapering a child. Even the blindfolded variety does little to help you.
Alternatives:
a. Diaper a cat. I have a cat and I can tell you that he enjoys many things, tuna water, corn chips, baked goods, being scratched under the chin, even broccoli and occasionally being put in a paper bad and swung around in circle but he does not enjoy being diapered. But then again neither do babies. If you try to diaper a cat you face rapid movement and squirming and have to avoid being scratched and/or bitten. This is what it is like to diaper a baby after they learn how to roll.
b. Diaper a rotating sprinkler before it gets back around to you. This is where speed comes in handy. You have about 30 seconds to get the diaper on before the water comes back around and hits you in the face. If you are up for it, and are throwing your shower somewhere you don't have to clean up or ever see the host again, go ahead and fill that sprinkler with pee, or if that's a little too much, just die the water to freak people out a little.
c. Diaper a cat while playing whack-a-mole. The goal of this challenge was inspired when Owen found his penis. Now, I don't care if Owen plays with his penis, pretty much every child will find and be in awe of their genitals at some point and more power to them. In fact, it makes diaper changing a lot easier when Owen does find and enjoy his mini-manhood because it keeps him occupied. (And of course by 'min-manhood' I mean baby-sized, not small. In case this blog comes to light in his teenage years I want to make it clear that Owen is exceptionally well endowed.) But the problem with the penis play is that the penis is often covered in poo when I first take the diaper off and playing with a poo-covered penis is where I draw the line. But it is VERY hard to get in there and wipe before he gets to it. So, hence whack-a-mole. . change a diaper while completing other high speed tasks at the same time, such as wiping the penis down, catching tubes of butt=paste as they sail from the table, trying to get him not to eat the clean diaper before it is on him, or quickly wiping his hand that has just been plunged into the tub of A&D ointment before he plunges that same hand into his mouth. And that is just the beginning.
Game #2 - Trying to identify the taste of baby food blindfolded. Here you taste jars of baby food and try to figure out what's in them. In the first place, baby food is disgusting. What you will realize when you have a baby is most babies will refuse to eat jarred baby food if they ever get the chance to taste something else because 80% of them are inedible. So unless this game is a teaching moment to allow you to empathize with your future bundle of joy, skip it.
Alternatives:
1. Try to feed baby food to a cat strapped in a high chair. Here you will find that most cats also don't like baby food. Even mine who will eat wonder bread off the street won't eat jarred baby food. Cat's also don't like to be in high chairs and yes I know this for a fact.
2. Make recipe combinations that make anything taste like either a pear or a banana. In this game, you try to make foods that are not a pear or a banana blend well with a pear or a banana which seem to be like beer goggles for babies, making food they will not eat, look and taste delicious. To make this challenging include foods like fish, lima beans and brussel sprouts. And if it is truly successful you will be able to feed it to your husband or partner and they will not realize it is baby food. Now Owen eats what we eat and has a quite varied palate but I'm not going to lie, in the beginning the only home cooked food was his so we often ate that.
2. Try to catch finger foods flung off a balcony while eating a sandwich and feeding another sandwich to your friend. For this game you need a partner, or a cat. In this game, you try to eat some food, it does not have to be a sandwich, whatever you are serving at the shower will do, the sandwich is just best for beginners because you can eat it with one hand. With the other, you should try to feed your partner, or a cat if you feel like it. Then someone will start flinging food, good options are: cheerios, blueberries, pieces of cut up chicken, peeled and halved grapes. Your job is to catch as many food items as you can.
Game # 3 - Trying to identify what type of candy bar has been melted into each diaper. Okay, this game is pretty close to being perfect already. It is pretty gross and has you doing things you think you won't actually do, like examine the contents in a diaper trying to identify its origin. But the problem is, it's just not gross enough. There is a big difference between sniffing a melted Reese's Peanut Butter Cup or a Twix and peering at actual poo to try to see if those remnants are peas or corn or cat food. (as an aside, while cats do not necessarily like baby food, babies do like cat food.) You might ask, "Why would you want to know what was in there poo?" There are so many reasons, you are trying to see if they digested in properly, they had a bad reaction and you are not sure what it was so you are trying to figure out, or you are just falling into the examining poo as pride trap that many people do to this day, as if getting out a good poo was something your child should be proud of. I don't really have a game alternative here because it's kind of like that show Dirty Jobs, you might want to watch someone else do something but you don't want to do it unless you have to or you're getting paid for it.
Game #4 - Guess Mommy's Tummy Size - In this one guests try to guess how big mom to be's stomach is. Now in my opinion this is pretty much no fun from the get go because even though I LOVED my baby bump, I can pretty much tell you at 8.5 months I would have hit anyone who guessed that I was three feet around. Also, even if the guest of honor is the 1 in 100 women who is happily immune to feelings of body image towards the end of pregnancy, there's just no real learning here.
Alternative:
a. Guess how many months post-pregnancy this woman is. Here, you show pictures of women post-birth both from vaginal births and c-sections and guests have to try to guess how long it has been since the woman has given birth. Fact is, I left the hospital after my c-section weighing 3 more pounds than I went in, wearing my husbands shoes because my feet were still swollen and my maternity yoga pants and even larger granny underwear to fit over my still enormous belly plus scar.
Okay, I could do lots more like 'try to keep a cat lying down in a crib, try to punch 'gently', how to make a diaper MacGyver style when you have run out, how to play chess while someone screams in your ear, how to walk on a balance beam after you haven't slept for a month, but those all require too many props and preparation. Please enjoy these, and let me know if you try them!
Monday, February 6, 2012
There Are Starving Kids In Africa - Or My Sophomoric Moment
The fact of the matter is, I work through things better with sarcasm and self-deprecating humor than with sappy introspection and for the most part those posts are a better read. So I apologize in advance for the shear indulgence and perhaps banality of this post but I can still blame it on the hormones for at least another month.
My husband and I have spent a lot of time recently talking about the future, if we want to have more kids, if we are in a financial position to do so, if we can even currently provide for Owen the way we would like to, etc. The only answer where there is a "yes" is the first one, well for me it's a yes, for my husband it's more of a "maybe." The other two are pretty solid nos, or at least for Mitch. I pretty much live in the world of, "hey, it will work out," and he lives in the, "things do not work out unless there is a plan," camp. And sometimes these camps blend nicely, like a well shaken salad dressing and sometimes they don't blend at all.
This week a lot of this came to a head as we heatedly discussed each of our future earnings, a timeline for having another child, Mitch's income goals prior to having another child, my returning to work or not returning to work. For me the discussion has the loud background music of a very loud biological clock sounding much like the tell-tale heart beating under the floor boards from Poe's horror story, louder and louder until it practically drowns out Mitch's words. And on top of all of this, Owen got sick again.
As Owen moved into day two of 102.458 fever, I broke down and took him to the doctor. I know that that seems like a very specific fever but for some odd reason my thermometer is stuck in Celsius and as I am an American I have a pathetic understanding of most measurement systems. Each temperature reading was displayed along side either a frown or a smiley face, tokens to my illiteracy. All of his readings displayed frowns. But there were no ranges of facial expressions like the ones used on doctor's charts to show pain on a range from "everything is okay" to "my genitals have been lit on fire." So, I was not sure if it was a, "Hey, he has a little fever but you might as well go to the grocery story and get a bottle of wine," or an, "Immerse him in an ice bath STAT and call 911 type of fever." So, I ended up doing an internet search after each reading to calculate for me.
But I could tell without knowing an exact temperature that he was not well. His skin burned beneath my fingers, even his hands which are habitually cold and he was listless, clingy and sad. He whined, cried, and clung to me and was generally miserable which made me alternate in waves of sympathy, love, and frustration. The doctor basically said he probably has a virus, keep watching the temperature and let me know in four days.
I went home, bitter about my $30.00 co-pay and not feeling any relief. That night, Owen started screaming in his crib, this high-pitched whine that I had never heard before, and frankly, scared me. We went and got him from his crib and he was burning up. We took him temperature, and after a quick search on my IPad, saw that is was 104.256. We stripped him of his pajamas, and tried to cool him down with a washcloth as he nursed and whimpered. I put him against me skin to skin because I had a vague memory that this helped regulate body temperature though I had no idea if this worked with a fever. When we picked his arm or leg up, they were completely limp. After an hour or so, he felt a little bit cooler. And after another one, we all drifted back to sleep.
In the morning, the fever was back below 101.789 and it continued to drop from there. I know that these sicknesses will be less scary as time goes on but there is something so helpless about the feeling of having your child be sick and not being able to do so much to change it and being a new enough parent that even what you can do, you second guess at each step. Am I stupid to take him to the doctor with a cold? Am I stupid to not take him to the ER with a high fever? Do I warm him up? Cool him down? Use the nasal aspiration? Not use it?
By that weekend he seemed to be recovered and I took a much needed trip to the gym where I planned to work out and take a long steam. I took the book I was reading to the gym and as I pretended to go somewhere read it with the enjoyment of a gourmand who now subsists mainly on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches getting a once a week taste of truffle oil or farmer's market greens. The novel took place in Africa, a fictionalized portrayal of the dubious morals of big Pharmaceutical companies in third world countries. I read the following line, " . . and the women holding babies to sick to cry." And right there, on my elliptical machine, in the middle of my fancy gym, I lost it as tears leaked down my face. As helpless as I felt, I can not imagine what it must be like to be a mother who can not feed your baby, who can not do anything to prevent what probably should be a very preventable death. To not be able to breastfeed because you are starving, and to have no alternatives.
I came home and hugged my husband and told him this. I was thinking about our discussion about potentially not having a second child because we could not afford to give them what we wanted, and of course by this we meant summer camp, piano lessons, trips to Europe, etc. And the fact is, we are so lucky. I am lucky to be able to take Owen to the doctor when he as a 102.347 fever. And if this life is really it, then really we are just so damn lucky. And yes, I know this is very prosaic and pedantic in a way, a sophomoric realization of your order in the order of things but hey, you can not process things as a mother until you are one, or not in the same way, so I guess being sophomoric is okay.
My husband and I have spent a lot of time recently talking about the future, if we want to have more kids, if we are in a financial position to do so, if we can even currently provide for Owen the way we would like to, etc. The only answer where there is a "yes" is the first one, well for me it's a yes, for my husband it's more of a "maybe." The other two are pretty solid nos, or at least for Mitch. I pretty much live in the world of, "hey, it will work out," and he lives in the, "things do not work out unless there is a plan," camp. And sometimes these camps blend nicely, like a well shaken salad dressing and sometimes they don't blend at all.
This week a lot of this came to a head as we heatedly discussed each of our future earnings, a timeline for having another child, Mitch's income goals prior to having another child, my returning to work or not returning to work. For me the discussion has the loud background music of a very loud biological clock sounding much like the tell-tale heart beating under the floor boards from Poe's horror story, louder and louder until it practically drowns out Mitch's words. And on top of all of this, Owen got sick again.
As Owen moved into day two of 102.458 fever, I broke down and took him to the doctor. I know that that seems like a very specific fever but for some odd reason my thermometer is stuck in Celsius and as I am an American I have a pathetic understanding of most measurement systems. Each temperature reading was displayed along side either a frown or a smiley face, tokens to my illiteracy. All of his readings displayed frowns. But there were no ranges of facial expressions like the ones used on doctor's charts to show pain on a range from "everything is okay" to "my genitals have been lit on fire." So, I was not sure if it was a, "Hey, he has a little fever but you might as well go to the grocery story and get a bottle of wine," or an, "Immerse him in an ice bath STAT and call 911 type of fever." So, I ended up doing an internet search after each reading to calculate for me.
But I could tell without knowing an exact temperature that he was not well. His skin burned beneath my fingers, even his hands which are habitually cold and he was listless, clingy and sad. He whined, cried, and clung to me and was generally miserable which made me alternate in waves of sympathy, love, and frustration. The doctor basically said he probably has a virus, keep watching the temperature and let me know in four days.
I went home, bitter about my $30.00 co-pay and not feeling any relief. That night, Owen started screaming in his crib, this high-pitched whine that I had never heard before, and frankly, scared me. We went and got him from his crib and he was burning up. We took him temperature, and after a quick search on my IPad, saw that is was 104.256. We stripped him of his pajamas, and tried to cool him down with a washcloth as he nursed and whimpered. I put him against me skin to skin because I had a vague memory that this helped regulate body temperature though I had no idea if this worked with a fever. When we picked his arm or leg up, they were completely limp. After an hour or so, he felt a little bit cooler. And after another one, we all drifted back to sleep.
In the morning, the fever was back below 101.789 and it continued to drop from there. I know that these sicknesses will be less scary as time goes on but there is something so helpless about the feeling of having your child be sick and not being able to do so much to change it and being a new enough parent that even what you can do, you second guess at each step. Am I stupid to take him to the doctor with a cold? Am I stupid to not take him to the ER with a high fever? Do I warm him up? Cool him down? Use the nasal aspiration? Not use it?
By that weekend he seemed to be recovered and I took a much needed trip to the gym where I planned to work out and take a long steam. I took the book I was reading to the gym and as I pretended to go somewhere read it with the enjoyment of a gourmand who now subsists mainly on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches getting a once a week taste of truffle oil or farmer's market greens. The novel took place in Africa, a fictionalized portrayal of the dubious morals of big Pharmaceutical companies in third world countries. I read the following line, " . . and the women holding babies to sick to cry." And right there, on my elliptical machine, in the middle of my fancy gym, I lost it as tears leaked down my face. As helpless as I felt, I can not imagine what it must be like to be a mother who can not feed your baby, who can not do anything to prevent what probably should be a very preventable death. To not be able to breastfeed because you are starving, and to have no alternatives.
I came home and hugged my husband and told him this. I was thinking about our discussion about potentially not having a second child because we could not afford to give them what we wanted, and of course by this we meant summer camp, piano lessons, trips to Europe, etc. And the fact is, we are so lucky. I am lucky to be able to take Owen to the doctor when he as a 102.347 fever. And if this life is really it, then really we are just so damn lucky. And yes, I know this is very prosaic and pedantic in a way, a sophomoric realization of your order in the order of things but hey, you can not process things as a mother until you are one, or not in the same way, so I guess being sophomoric is okay.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Sweet Potato Madness
When Owen first started eating solid foods, we started off with bananas and then added pears and apples (both organic) to the mix. He seemed to love them, and love eating so I figured it was time to move on to vegetables. I thought that my best bet was sweet potatoes, though one could argue that a sweet potato's vegetable status us somewhat dubious. In make your own baby food world sweet potatoes have a stellar reputation, they are virtually the baby gourmet equivalent of foie-gras (minus the unethical tarnish) so I thought I was in easy home-run territory. So, I purchased some wonderful organic sweet potatoes, steamed them, pureed them with some fresh breast milk and presented them to a smiling Owen. He leaned his mouth forward to take the spoon heaped high with a mountain of orange glory, took it in his mouth and then promptly spit it out with such force that it painted my face, his high chair, and even the wall behind me.
I took this as a sign that he needed another bite. After all everyone says that babies can not develop a like or dislike for a food until they have tried it several times. I thought perhaps if I added a train noise and roller-coaster swoop as I brought the spoon towards his mouth he might find it more enjoyable, much like baby dinner theater. This time he spit it out so hard it landed on the ceiling fan. This time the message was clear - Owen did not like dinner theater. I tried a third time as the cat wisely hid under a chair just in time. Then I gave up, put the spoon down and peeled a banana.
Over the next few weeks, I tried sweet potatoes a few more times but all to the same effect, though the furniture suffered less as I learned to cover everything with TV's Dexter's kill-room like precision. He learned to love several other foods he originally hated: peas, spinach, zucchini, but alas the poor potato that helped so many Irish survive was the eternal pariah, that is until one momentous Tuesday.
We were over at our friend G_____________'s house having "music class." (As an aside I know it is ridiculous to use a letter and a dash to refer to people but I quite enjoy the Austen/Bronte quality of it and no one really asked to be written about in my blog so I want to protect the innocent) Music class mostly consists of having music on in the background as four babies crawl around occasionally banging on a xylophone but mostly chewing on maracas and batons. At some point, I stopped and fed Owen his lunch of papaya and mango that I had brought with me but after he ate he still seemed hungry. G___________'s mother brought out some food for all the babies and offered some to us. It was of course, sweet potato. But it was not just sweet potato, it had been cooked in a slow cooker with onions, pork, salt and pepper. I took a bowl without great hope but Owen had that piranha/succubi mouth action going so I put the spoon in. And lo and behold, he LOVED it. I could not shovel it in fast enough. He lurched towards the spoon as soon as he had swallowed, gasping and grunting for more. Before I knew it, the bowl was empty.
He lurched forward again, mouth agape and met an empty spoon. "It's all gone baby," I said as his mouth started to twitch. I added the sign language for 'all done' in case that would help clarify things but before the knowledge could sink it he started to sob. And not just the 'I am slightly upset sob' of discontent but a full-on body shaking wail. As he screamed at the top of his lungs, tears coursed down his face as he shook so hard I thought he might be having a seizure. He reached out his hands towards the bowl and looked at me in desperation.
"What's wrong with him?" one of my friends asked.
"Um, I think he wants more," I said, mildly embarrassed at Owen's clear lack of table manners and gratitude. Luckily, instead of being horrified G_________'s mom found this cute. I guess in some ways it was a huge compliment on her cooking, if somewhat of a condemnation of mine. Apparently even babies can recognize the difference a little salt, pepper, and pork fat bring to an otherwise annoying vegetable. (It is here I will confess that I actually hate sweet potatoes as well but also found these to be delicious.) So, we stole some sweet potatoes from the other babies who were less gluttonous and Owen sighed in contented relief as a full spoon of porky potatoes made their way into his mouth.
I was so inspired by this that I decided to repeat the experiment at home, making my own slow-cooker concoction of similar ingredients. And I can honestly say, it had nothing with trying to heal my wounded sense of pride at my own food having been rejected with a vigor equivalent to the joy the other was received.
And low and behold, the porky-potatoes were a hit! I tried to snap photos to show my friend the joy that her recipe had inspired at home, but it is hard to take pictures while a baby demands to be fed his third bowl. So, I don't know if sweet potatoes have made it to banana status yet but I have learned that apparently babies, like their moms, find foods more enjoyable when they are actually, well enjoyable.
It also made me feel genetics is no joke because to be honest, it is only a sense of propriety that keeps me from wailing sometimes when I clean my plate, or more likely, it's because I have mastered the skill of refilling my plate on my own. My third most infamous childhood story is centered around a reaction to food deprivation wherein I was so incensed I stomped on the floor until the chandelier beneath me was shaken free. My first and second involve lecturing my nursery school teacher about birth control and drinking out of discarded glasses of beer at a state-fair - both before I was six. I'm sorry mom and Dad.
Payback's a b. . bowl of potatoes.
I took this as a sign that he needed another bite. After all everyone says that babies can not develop a like or dislike for a food until they have tried it several times. I thought perhaps if I added a train noise and roller-coaster swoop as I brought the spoon towards his mouth he might find it more enjoyable, much like baby dinner theater. This time he spit it out so hard it landed on the ceiling fan. This time the message was clear - Owen did not like dinner theater. I tried a third time as the cat wisely hid under a chair just in time. Then I gave up, put the spoon down and peeled a banana.
Over the next few weeks, I tried sweet potatoes a few more times but all to the same effect, though the furniture suffered less as I learned to cover everything with TV's Dexter's kill-room like precision. He learned to love several other foods he originally hated: peas, spinach, zucchini, but alas the poor potato that helped so many Irish survive was the eternal pariah, that is until one momentous Tuesday.
We were over at our friend G_____________'s house having "music class." (As an aside I know it is ridiculous to use a letter and a dash to refer to people but I quite enjoy the Austen/Bronte quality of it and no one really asked to be written about in my blog so I want to protect the innocent) Music class mostly consists of having music on in the background as four babies crawl around occasionally banging on a xylophone but mostly chewing on maracas and batons. At some point, I stopped and fed Owen his lunch of papaya and mango that I had brought with me but after he ate he still seemed hungry. G___________'s mother brought out some food for all the babies and offered some to us. It was of course, sweet potato. But it was not just sweet potato, it had been cooked in a slow cooker with onions, pork, salt and pepper. I took a bowl without great hope but Owen had that piranha/succubi mouth action going so I put the spoon in. And lo and behold, he LOVED it. I could not shovel it in fast enough. He lurched towards the spoon as soon as he had swallowed, gasping and grunting for more. Before I knew it, the bowl was empty.
He lurched forward again, mouth agape and met an empty spoon. "It's all gone baby," I said as his mouth started to twitch. I added the sign language for 'all done' in case that would help clarify things but before the knowledge could sink it he started to sob. And not just the 'I am slightly upset sob' of discontent but a full-on body shaking wail. As he screamed at the top of his lungs, tears coursed down his face as he shook so hard I thought he might be having a seizure. He reached out his hands towards the bowl and looked at me in desperation. "What's wrong with him?" one of my friends asked.
"Um, I think he wants more," I said, mildly embarrassed at Owen's clear lack of table manners and gratitude. Luckily, instead of being horrified G_________'s mom found this cute. I guess in some ways it was a huge compliment on her cooking, if somewhat of a condemnation of mine. Apparently even babies can recognize the difference a little salt, pepper, and pork fat bring to an otherwise annoying vegetable. (It is here I will confess that I actually hate sweet potatoes as well but also found these to be delicious.) So, we stole some sweet potatoes from the other babies who were less gluttonous and Owen sighed in contented relief as a full spoon of porky potatoes made their way into his mouth.
I was so inspired by this that I decided to repeat the experiment at home, making my own slow-cooker concoction of similar ingredients. And I can honestly say, it had nothing with trying to heal my wounded sense of pride at my own food having been rejected with a vigor equivalent to the joy the other was received.
And low and behold, the porky-potatoes were a hit! I tried to snap photos to show my friend the joy that her recipe had inspired at home, but it is hard to take pictures while a baby demands to be fed his third bowl. So, I don't know if sweet potatoes have made it to banana status yet but I have learned that apparently babies, like their moms, find foods more enjoyable when they are actually, well enjoyable.
It also made me feel genetics is no joke because to be honest, it is only a sense of propriety that keeps me from wailing sometimes when I clean my plate, or more likely, it's because I have mastered the skill of refilling my plate on my own. My third most infamous childhood story is centered around a reaction to food deprivation wherein I was so incensed I stomped on the floor until the chandelier beneath me was shaken free. My first and second involve lecturing my nursery school teacher about birth control and drinking out of discarded glasses of beer at a state-fair - both before I was six. I'm sorry mom and Dad.Payback's a b. . bowl of potatoes.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Heavens To Miss Betsy - Why Gymboree May Not Be For Me
The other day we took a free preview class at Gymboree. We used fake ID to get Owen into the 6-10 month class because he is only five months, well five months and three days to be fair. But one of our mom/baby friends was going and the people at Gymboree said as long as Owen could reach for things we were okay.
We almost didn't make it. Fifteen minutes before class Owen was still sleeping and at this stage of the game I wouldn't wake Owen if Oprah was giving out free cars on the corner. . well, maybe. But at the last minute he woke up and after a quick compromise feed we ran off to Gymboree!!! We made it exactly on time and ran into our friends at the door.
When we walked, we were greeted by a cheery voice across the room that brightly said, "Oh good, you're here. I was worried you weren't coming! I was wondering where you where!!! " This was news to me as up to a ten minutes ago, I didn't even know that I was coming. Word must travel fast. in Gymboree land. When we went to sign the woman entered Owen's name wrong before correcting it. "Oh, rats," I said, "Now our plan to come back and take a free class under a false name won't work."
"Aw, you wouldn't want to do that, would you?" the woman said. "That would be like taking money from us! And we need our money." I am tempted to point out that the use of the word "we" here is a bit creepy and that if I actually wanted to do that, I probably wouldn't have warned her and while I may have been unemployed since November I hope I am never actually reduced to the point of moving around the city having Owen take free trials of Gymboree classes under pseudonyms. "Well," I say back, " I have been unemployed since November so I just might." And then I laugh to let her know that I'm not serious. And then she offers advice on finding a job. Okay, so aside from the use of "we" she is really, really nice.
I should have just stayed at the front desk chatting with A________ but our fearless class leader is still waving us over and jumping up and down with excitement so we move over to the mat where we join a few other baby/caregiver pairs. Our class leader is young, blond, and exceedingly cheerful. "Good morning boys and girls," she exclaims. "My name is Miss Betsy and welcome to Gymboree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
I am not sure if it is the use of the label 'Miss' or the effervescent tone of voice that makes me think of the Mickey Mouse Club if it took place at a Scientology seminar. "Are you ready to play?" she asks. "Gymbo the clown wants to say hello to everyone!" Okay, as an aside, I regularly talk to Owen in a tone of voice I thought would never come out of my mouth and use improper words such as "milks" in the context of "Does Owen want some milks?" or worse "milkies" but this voice is SO cheerful it makes me want to grab Gymbo from her and beat her over the head. But I think, she can't keep this up for an hour.
But she does.
To be fair to both Gymboree and Miss Betsy, the class itself was pretty good. There are tons of toys and things to play with, brightly colored materials, songs, movement, interaction but I just CAN'T get passed two things - the creepy cheer and the way that Gymbo (Jimbo?) pops up everywhere. There is Gymbo on a stick, three foot Gymbo, Gymbo on the wall. It is creepy, pervasive branding that really whispers, "Drink the Kool-Aid, Drink the Kool-Aid." I start to think, maybe it's just me when I turn to my friend who mouths, "I can't take it! Help!"
Ten minutes before the end, Owen and I slip into a quiet corner to nurse, partially because he seems to be hungry and partially because Gymbo on a stick is giving kisses to all the kids and I'm not sure I want Owen's first non-familial kiss to be a clown on a stick, especially as Miss Betsy just told everyone that Gymbo was over thirty years old.
I want to like Gymboree, I do but I don't. Maybe when Owen is a little bit older (and I don't just mean a month) and he can really get something out of the activities but I really think that I need just a slightly more cynical play class. And, as my cousin pointed out, I DO realize that what seems over the top for adults can be perfect for babies' development, something here was just too much. I have pretended I was a tree and a cobra in mommy and me yoga classes, I have stomped and swung in mommy and me movement classes but here I draw the line. It's hard because while for me, Miss Betsy just seemed like a Southern, failed musical theater major turned cult leader, I suspect she is really good at her job. She was enthusiastic and kind and could really carry a tune but in the end, Gymboree is not for me.
Since taking the class I have actually talked to several parents who had the same experience, and say their friends have told them the same thing which made me feel moderately less judgmental. I'll never say that I won't go back to Gymboree, after all some days alone get very, very long but I might try a lot of other places first. Also, at $179.00 a month for a weekly class AND a $50 enrollment fee (which they would have waived if I signed up on the spot of course) it's a little pricey for settling. For that, I could probably buy a few more things for my living room and recruit a few baby friends and have my own version. The only thing I would have to do is design my own doll. . What would I call it? Perhaps, "Heather-O!"
We almost didn't make it. Fifteen minutes before class Owen was still sleeping and at this stage of the game I wouldn't wake Owen if Oprah was giving out free cars on the corner. . well, maybe. But at the last minute he woke up and after a quick compromise feed we ran off to Gymboree!!! We made it exactly on time and ran into our friends at the door.
When we walked, we were greeted by a cheery voice across the room that brightly said, "Oh good, you're here. I was worried you weren't coming! I was wondering where you where!!! " This was news to me as up to a ten minutes ago, I didn't even know that I was coming. Word must travel fast. in Gymboree land. When we went to sign the woman entered Owen's name wrong before correcting it. "Oh, rats," I said, "Now our plan to come back and take a free class under a false name won't work."
"Aw, you wouldn't want to do that, would you?" the woman said. "That would be like taking money from us! And we need our money." I am tempted to point out that the use of the word "we" here is a bit creepy and that if I actually wanted to do that, I probably wouldn't have warned her and while I may have been unemployed since November I hope I am never actually reduced to the point of moving around the city having Owen take free trials of Gymboree classes under pseudonyms. "Well," I say back, " I have been unemployed since November so I just might." And then I laugh to let her know that I'm not serious. And then she offers advice on finding a job. Okay, so aside from the use of "we" she is really, really nice.
I should have just stayed at the front desk chatting with A________ but our fearless class leader is still waving us over and jumping up and down with excitement so we move over to the mat where we join a few other baby/caregiver pairs. Our class leader is young, blond, and exceedingly cheerful. "Good morning boys and girls," she exclaims. "My name is Miss Betsy and welcome to Gymboree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
I am not sure if it is the use of the label 'Miss' or the effervescent tone of voice that makes me think of the Mickey Mouse Club if it took place at a Scientology seminar. "Are you ready to play?" she asks. "Gymbo the clown wants to say hello to everyone!" Okay, as an aside, I regularly talk to Owen in a tone of voice I thought would never come out of my mouth and use improper words such as "milks" in the context of "Does Owen want some milks?" or worse "milkies" but this voice is SO cheerful it makes me want to grab Gymbo from her and beat her over the head. But I think, she can't keep this up for an hour.
But she does.
To be fair to both Gymboree and Miss Betsy, the class itself was pretty good. There are tons of toys and things to play with, brightly colored materials, songs, movement, interaction but I just CAN'T get passed two things - the creepy cheer and the way that Gymbo (Jimbo?) pops up everywhere. There is Gymbo on a stick, three foot Gymbo, Gymbo on the wall. It is creepy, pervasive branding that really whispers, "Drink the Kool-Aid, Drink the Kool-Aid." I start to think, maybe it's just me when I turn to my friend who mouths, "I can't take it! Help!"
Ten minutes before the end, Owen and I slip into a quiet corner to nurse, partially because he seems to be hungry and partially because Gymbo on a stick is giving kisses to all the kids and I'm not sure I want Owen's first non-familial kiss to be a clown on a stick, especially as Miss Betsy just told everyone that Gymbo was over thirty years old.
I want to like Gymboree, I do but I don't. Maybe when Owen is a little bit older (and I don't just mean a month) and he can really get something out of the activities but I really think that I need just a slightly more cynical play class. And, as my cousin pointed out, I DO realize that what seems over the top for adults can be perfect for babies' development, something here was just too much. I have pretended I was a tree and a cobra in mommy and me yoga classes, I have stomped and swung in mommy and me movement classes but here I draw the line. It's hard because while for me, Miss Betsy just seemed like a Southern, failed musical theater major turned cult leader, I suspect she is really good at her job. She was enthusiastic and kind and could really carry a tune but in the end, Gymboree is not for me.
Since taking the class I have actually talked to several parents who had the same experience, and say their friends have told them the same thing which made me feel moderately less judgmental. I'll never say that I won't go back to Gymboree, after all some days alone get very, very long but I might try a lot of other places first. Also, at $179.00 a month for a weekly class AND a $50 enrollment fee (which they would have waived if I signed up on the spot of course) it's a little pricey for settling. For that, I could probably buy a few more things for my living room and recruit a few baby friends and have my own version. The only thing I would have to do is design my own doll. . What would I call it? Perhaps, "Heather-O!"
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Things That Go Bump - Or Getting Over The First Big Ouch
I am an exemplary disasterist. Yes, I know that's not a real word but it should be. I can, and regularly do, imagine in vivid detail both realistic and preposterous disastrous ends to any scenario. I am not a pessimist. I don't actually believe that these calamities will happen but my mind creates such vivid scenarios that I viscerally feel the sorrow or terror in my body. From plane crashes to cars running out of gas on desolate highways, being trapped in the desert without water to a bus jumping the curb and plowing into me, to the group of rowdy kids at the end of subway platform responding to my imaginary scolding with violence, there is no end to the ends. Since, I have had Owen these disaster daydreams have horrifically shifted to all the ways that harm could befall him.
For example, I am walking him in his stroller and I have not buckled him in (okay that part is often real) when a car plows into the stroller sending the car seat skyward and Owen flying out of it, landing on the pavement and. . well enough said. I hate myself for being so stupid to not to strap him in where the car seat might have saved him. Or. . I am with a bunch of friends driving down to the shore (this part is grounded in reality) when we stop at a rest stop to get some food and use the bathroom. Owen needs to nurse so I stay in the car by myself. (Have I mentioned it is night and the rest stop is rather desolate?) A man comes up to the open window and puts a gun against my head and tells me he wants the car. My mind races as to how I can make sure he takes the car and lets us go . . or at least Owen. Yeah, I know.
I prefer to ascribe this to being a writer and not to the fact that I might be mildly insane. They all start off rationally. Yet, somehow how will I drive several hours with a group of people and deal with nursing Owen ends up with a carjacking gunman outside of a rest stop McDonald's. But for all of these situations I can see everything so clearly - the blood on the pavement spilling from an open skull or Owen looking up at me innocently as he nurses as the metal of the gun hovers inches from my forehead, that they physically bring to me a halt.
But up until Saturday, the worst thing that has happened to Owen was my husband dropping Thai food on top of his head once while we were out eating which caused a fit of hysteria on Owen's part either because he realized what a crap deal he has been getting on breast milk or because it woke him from a nap and on mine for a myriad of reasons from wondering if he would ingest chilies and burn his throat to, well. . . write your own disaster ending.
At some point, I told Mitch that if he was ever responsible for Owen's death that I did not know if I could forgive him. He told me that made sense and that he probably would not be able to forgive me if the situations were reverses. I guess that's pretty normal, at least the reaction, if not the fact that we were discussing this ahead of time.
Which brings us to Saturday. Don't worry, there is no death in this story. If there was, I would not be blogging, I would be in a loony bin.
We were out at my mom's house on Long Island and I was in the kitchen cooking breakfast. My mom and step-father had just gotten home from church and my husband had Owen in the backyard. Later he told me he had been showing Owen how beautiful the world was after a rain. I can imagine this as well. Mitch is so excited about showing his son the world. I picture him almost whispering into Owen's ear as if he was letting him in on a secret, describing the vibrant green of trees and grass, the smell of moist earth, and the sounds of birds announcing where the best worms were wiggling up from the ground. But at the time, I don't know any of this. I am focused on putting the finishing touches on some eggs, enjoying the contrast of the yellow mixed with the red and green of the vegetables when I hear Owen screaming. This is really no cause for alarm as this is something that Owen often does. In fact aside from peeing, it is the thing he is currently best at. My mom calls out my name a few times in a manner that seems more urgent than normal so I turn towards the sound. And it is then I see her come around the corner carrying a wailing Owen in her arms. Owen's head is covered in what looks like soot but even through that I spot what looks like a huge cut on his head. I honestly can not remember what happened next. I know adrenaline surged through my body as if the house was on fire and I started crying as I took Owen into my arms. I somehow piece together from my mom that Mitch fell while holding Owen and that Owen fell to the ground. She tells me that he fell on Mitch first before he hit the pavement. All I can hear is that he hit the ground. All I can see is the cut on his head and his face twisted in pain. And yes, the twisted in pain looks pretty much like the "I can't poop face" or the "I'm super exhausted face," but right now it's clearly a face filled with pain and the look of, 'but you are supposed to take care of me, how could you not take care of me?' I think my mom must have cleaned his head off while I am holding him because by the time I'm cuddling him to my chest and nursing him to a calm him the dirt is gone, Bacitracin is on his cut, and it should be clear that he will live.
He wails for a while while nursing, his choking cry escaping from the sides of his mouth but quiets down quickly and starts to succumb to drowsiness. Usually I am thrilled at any indication of sleep but I panic and pull him off because we aren't sure if he has a concussion yet and don't want him to sleep. We examine his pupils, we gently palpitate his scalp, check the reflexes in this toes, try to coax a smile. Everything indicates he is fine. Bruised but fine. Wanting to be cuddled but fine.
But I can not believe he is fine. I ask my mother again and again how hard he fell and she tells me but it doesn't matter. I don't even realize until later that I did not even ask if Mitch was okay. I'd like to think I assumed that someone would have done something if he wasn't and also he was standing there, glaringly alive. I'm angry at him even while I am telling him not to worry, that accidents happen. Of course, at the time, I think that it wouldn't have happened to me. How could he have been so careless as to fall? I walked up and down those steps the day before so slowly and carefully that there could have been an earthquake and I would not have fallen. But of course, even if this was true, I could have as easily been responsible for something else. It was just an accident and objectively I know Mitch would lay down his life for Owen or I.
It's not the actual accident that upsets me though both Mitch and I are terrified all day to let Owen nap without watching him. Mitch spends a good ninety minutes watching Owen's chest rise and fall through his afternoon nap. It's not the actual accident that keeps stopping me still in the middle of the rest of the day's activities, it's the accident that could have been. Mitch falling forward instead of backwards or not being able to hold onto Owen. It is Owen's head split wide open, it is a million things that do not heal in a day, if ever. It is the things I write in my head, it is the hypothetical conversation that is suddenly not as hypothetical, it is the clear, strong rush of love in my body that wants to hold my baby flush against my skin, tucking him inside my rib-cage to protect him.
By night it is clear that Owen will be fine. It's also clear that Mitch and I will both take a little longer. "I feel like I won't forget this for a long time," I tell my mom. "You won't forget it ever," she says. "I still remember vividly every accident that I had with you."
I would not mind remembering this accident vividly. That would be easy. But it's not the picture of this accident that continues to stop me cold - it is the one that did not happen. But I know that that will fade a bit, in fact four days later it already has as I watch Owen laugh as he rolls over from left to right and back again, delighted in his new found power. I call Mitch on the phone to tell him how amazing it is and I know that we are all fine . . . for now. Knock wood.
For example, I am walking him in his stroller and I have not buckled him in (okay that part is often real) when a car plows into the stroller sending the car seat skyward and Owen flying out of it, landing on the pavement and. . well enough said. I hate myself for being so stupid to not to strap him in where the car seat might have saved him. Or. . I am with a bunch of friends driving down to the shore (this part is grounded in reality) when we stop at a rest stop to get some food and use the bathroom. Owen needs to nurse so I stay in the car by myself. (Have I mentioned it is night and the rest stop is rather desolate?) A man comes up to the open window and puts a gun against my head and tells me he wants the car. My mind races as to how I can make sure he takes the car and lets us go . . or at least Owen. Yeah, I know.
I prefer to ascribe this to being a writer and not to the fact that I might be mildly insane. They all start off rationally. Yet, somehow how will I drive several hours with a group of people and deal with nursing Owen ends up with a carjacking gunman outside of a rest stop McDonald's. But for all of these situations I can see everything so clearly - the blood on the pavement spilling from an open skull or Owen looking up at me innocently as he nurses as the metal of the gun hovers inches from my forehead, that they physically bring to me a halt.
But up until Saturday, the worst thing that has happened to Owen was my husband dropping Thai food on top of his head once while we were out eating which caused a fit of hysteria on Owen's part either because he realized what a crap deal he has been getting on breast milk or because it woke him from a nap and on mine for a myriad of reasons from wondering if he would ingest chilies and burn his throat to, well. . . write your own disaster ending.
At some point, I told Mitch that if he was ever responsible for Owen's death that I did not know if I could forgive him. He told me that made sense and that he probably would not be able to forgive me if the situations were reverses. I guess that's pretty normal, at least the reaction, if not the fact that we were discussing this ahead of time.
Which brings us to Saturday. Don't worry, there is no death in this story. If there was, I would not be blogging, I would be in a loony bin.
We were out at my mom's house on Long Island and I was in the kitchen cooking breakfast. My mom and step-father had just gotten home from church and my husband had Owen in the backyard. Later he told me he had been showing Owen how beautiful the world was after a rain. I can imagine this as well. Mitch is so excited about showing his son the world. I picture him almost whispering into Owen's ear as if he was letting him in on a secret, describing the vibrant green of trees and grass, the smell of moist earth, and the sounds of birds announcing where the best worms were wiggling up from the ground. But at the time, I don't know any of this. I am focused on putting the finishing touches on some eggs, enjoying the contrast of the yellow mixed with the red and green of the vegetables when I hear Owen screaming. This is really no cause for alarm as this is something that Owen often does. In fact aside from peeing, it is the thing he is currently best at. My mom calls out my name a few times in a manner that seems more urgent than normal so I turn towards the sound. And it is then I see her come around the corner carrying a wailing Owen in her arms. Owen's head is covered in what looks like soot but even through that I spot what looks like a huge cut on his head. I honestly can not remember what happened next. I know adrenaline surged through my body as if the house was on fire and I started crying as I took Owen into my arms. I somehow piece together from my mom that Mitch fell while holding Owen and that Owen fell to the ground. She tells me that he fell on Mitch first before he hit the pavement. All I can hear is that he hit the ground. All I can see is the cut on his head and his face twisted in pain. And yes, the twisted in pain looks pretty much like the "I can't poop face" or the "I'm super exhausted face," but right now it's clearly a face filled with pain and the look of, 'but you are supposed to take care of me, how could you not take care of me?' I think my mom must have cleaned his head off while I am holding him because by the time I'm cuddling him to my chest and nursing him to a calm him the dirt is gone, Bacitracin is on his cut, and it should be clear that he will live.
He wails for a while while nursing, his choking cry escaping from the sides of his mouth but quiets down quickly and starts to succumb to drowsiness. Usually I am thrilled at any indication of sleep but I panic and pull him off because we aren't sure if he has a concussion yet and don't want him to sleep. We examine his pupils, we gently palpitate his scalp, check the reflexes in this toes, try to coax a smile. Everything indicates he is fine. Bruised but fine. Wanting to be cuddled but fine.
But I can not believe he is fine. I ask my mother again and again how hard he fell and she tells me but it doesn't matter. I don't even realize until later that I did not even ask if Mitch was okay. I'd like to think I assumed that someone would have done something if he wasn't and also he was standing there, glaringly alive. I'm angry at him even while I am telling him not to worry, that accidents happen. Of course, at the time, I think that it wouldn't have happened to me. How could he have been so careless as to fall? I walked up and down those steps the day before so slowly and carefully that there could have been an earthquake and I would not have fallen. But of course, even if this was true, I could have as easily been responsible for something else. It was just an accident and objectively I know Mitch would lay down his life for Owen or I.
It's not the actual accident that upsets me though both Mitch and I are terrified all day to let Owen nap without watching him. Mitch spends a good ninety minutes watching Owen's chest rise and fall through his afternoon nap. It's not the actual accident that keeps stopping me still in the middle of the rest of the day's activities, it's the accident that could have been. Mitch falling forward instead of backwards or not being able to hold onto Owen. It is Owen's head split wide open, it is a million things that do not heal in a day, if ever. It is the things I write in my head, it is the hypothetical conversation that is suddenly not as hypothetical, it is the clear, strong rush of love in my body that wants to hold my baby flush against my skin, tucking him inside my rib-cage to protect him.
By night it is clear that Owen will be fine. It's also clear that Mitch and I will both take a little longer. "I feel like I won't forget this for a long time," I tell my mom. "You won't forget it ever," she says. "I still remember vividly every accident that I had with you."
I would not mind remembering this accident vividly. That would be easy. But it's not the picture of this accident that continues to stop me cold - it is the one that did not happen. But I know that that will fade a bit, in fact four days later it already has as I watch Owen laugh as he rolls over from left to right and back again, delighted in his new found power. I call Mitch on the phone to tell him how amazing it is and I know that we are all fine . . . for now. Knock wood.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Mommy Cam/Nanny Cam - Or How To Fire Yourself
A few days ago there was an segment on the news about the many ways to spy on your nanny. From nanny-cams ton an online site in NYC where people take pictures of nannies doing "inapropriate things" and post them so parents can scan them in case their nanny was caught in the act of doing egregious things to the children in their care.
Now, having gone to a liberal arts college in the 90's I am programmed to be "fight for the rights" of the worker/nanny and yet I also completely empathize with the mother who wants to make sure her child is in the right hands. When I went to that developmental movement class from the last post there were two care-givers there with children. One of them was basically the Mary Poppins of nannies, well possibly Mary Poppins meets Piaget. She was engaged, asked questions, practiced on her child, shared in detail the developmental milestones of the kid. Basically she was like a very involved mother, well in some ways better than most of the other new mothers there because she evidently knew what she was doing and let's be honest, the rest of us are still kind of in the trial and error stage. She was the "Top Chef Master" equivalent to my "Let's turn whatever is in the refrigerator into a one-pot wonder." Not that those one-pot wonders aren't delicious and filled with heart but they sometimes lack some technical knife skills or a recipe/plan.
And then there was the other nanny. I don't know if she was tired, having a bad day, or really just mediocre, but she spent the entire class texting, even when her ward army-crawled over to my immobile babe and tried to claw his eyeballs out with saliva-drenched fingers and then promptly spit-up up on our swaddle. And for those of you not schooled in the mommy and baby events, laying down the swaddle in front of you pretty much creates a territorial spot of sanctity. It is the baby equivalent of pissing on your section of the rug. It is the layer of germ protection, sleep inducer, baby comforter. . well you get the picture. And even then, bad nanny didn't move, so, I did carting my baby and swaddle to the other side of the circle as the kid went after his next target.
And this is when I had the us vs them moment. I thought - my god I wonder if her the mother knows how bad her nanny is. And furthermore I understood that if I knew who that mother was, I would tell her. GASP! I recognized within myself the potential to be a nanny-tattler.
The aforementioned news segment said that nearly 100% of people who install nanny cams fire their nannies within 24 hours because they are so horrified. Now I do realize that these numbers are probably fairly unscientific. In the first place, probably few people who have Mary Piaget Poppins who bother to install a nanny cam and second I'm pretty sure anyone responsible for watching a colicky infant for 14 hours straight would have at least one "fire-worthy" moment a day.
And today - if someone was "nanny-camming" me, I'm pretty sure I would have been canned. This is roughly what they would have seen.
7-7:30 breast feeds baby while watching Sister Wives on-demand. (okay ignore the fact that it would be weird if your nanny was actually breast feeding your child since the whole wet-nurse thing went out a few decades ago not to mention the fact that no one should be watching Sister Wives at 7 AM -we'll let these go)
7:30-8:30 plays with baby, does some great yoga exercises, encouraging tummy time with the techniques learned in developmental movement class while watching Good Morning America. Now potentially there is room for nanny failure since one should focus completely on the baby and not divide one's attention between the baby and the screen but to be fair Lady Gaga was on GMA and any employer should be sympathetic to that.
8:30-9:15 baby naps. . none of your business what I was doing here. .oh wait, it would have been caught on nanny cam. . fine. I ate breakfast and checked facebook
9:15-10:00. . baby nursing .. . (blah blah - nothing interesting here fast forward the tape)
9:45-10:45. we play, dance around the room, go look at ourselves in the mirror
10:45 - 2:00 I'm not going to break-down this timeline further because it is all a part of the hysteria section and the minutes become a blur. . a very, very slow blur, but a blur nonetheless.
Baby goes into the swing for a nap, I vacuum to lull him to sleep (look a nanny who cleans bonus!) He does not fall asleep but is calm so I go to the bathroom. While there, I get mesmerized by the mirror, examining all the baby weight I have not managed to slough off through the "miracle of breast-feeding" (I'm pretty sure this would be considered 'ignoring a child' in nanny-cam world but probably still not fire-worthy.) The baby starts to cry. I leave my reflection in the mirror, pick him up, rock him, dance him around, re-swaddle him, burp him, change his diaper. He is having none of it and is now screaming so loud he's choking and turning red. I put the vacuum back on with one toe so I don't put him down. He screams more. I feed him again, he starts to spasm and grunt and cry WHILE his mouth is attached to my breast. I decide to go for a walk. Now the nanny cam could not follow me here but if it could it would see him momentarily calm down and then start to scream again. I pick up my phone to text my friend to not to meet me at the park because our mission is being aborted (yes while the baby is crying) and I'm sure someone would be taking a picture of me to post on 'nannywatch' if I didn't look so, well, white. I pick him out of the stroller, put him in his carrier and walk the stroller back with one hand while jiggling him up and down and patting his back. We get home, he eats again, and he is STILL crying. It is at this point that I kind-of-sort-of scream at the baby. It wasn't a full scream but it was surely a "fire-worthy" scream that went something like "PLEASE BABY, PLEASE STOP CRYING. . OH GOD I JUST NEED A MOMENT!!! PLEASE STOP!!!" Okay, so it was a scream. Not a 'god what a worthless piece of cr*p baby you are (shake-shake) moment' but a 'God I sure am glad my bad mommy/nanny moment was not caught on tape moment. Note to my husband: If you ever put a nanny cam in our apartment I will divorce you. I promise for the most part I am a wonderful, loving, giggle inducing, creative mom.
So I am torn between having sympathy/empathy for nannies and also understanding that when you leave your kid with someone it is hard not to want hold them to higher standards than yourself, meaning I would probably fire her if she was me. And this is not self-judging, As indicated, I think that I am doing a bang-up job. But looking at a tape of anyone doing their job over the course of sixty hours would probably lead them to being fired. So we'll see. For now there will be no nanny-cam because of course there is no nanny, and probably unless I win the lotto, never will be one. But if I do have a nanny, well, I guess I'll have to wait and see.
Now, having gone to a liberal arts college in the 90's I am programmed to be "fight for the rights" of the worker/nanny and yet I also completely empathize with the mother who wants to make sure her child is in the right hands. When I went to that developmental movement class from the last post there were two care-givers there with children. One of them was basically the Mary Poppins of nannies, well possibly Mary Poppins meets Piaget. She was engaged, asked questions, practiced on her child, shared in detail the developmental milestones of the kid. Basically she was like a very involved mother, well in some ways better than most of the other new mothers there because she evidently knew what she was doing and let's be honest, the rest of us are still kind of in the trial and error stage. She was the "Top Chef Master" equivalent to my "Let's turn whatever is in the refrigerator into a one-pot wonder." Not that those one-pot wonders aren't delicious and filled with heart but they sometimes lack some technical knife skills or a recipe/plan.
And then there was the other nanny. I don't know if she was tired, having a bad day, or really just mediocre, but she spent the entire class texting, even when her ward army-crawled over to my immobile babe and tried to claw his eyeballs out with saliva-drenched fingers and then promptly spit-up up on our swaddle. And for those of you not schooled in the mommy and baby events, laying down the swaddle in front of you pretty much creates a territorial spot of sanctity. It is the baby equivalent of pissing on your section of the rug. It is the layer of germ protection, sleep inducer, baby comforter. . well you get the picture. And even then, bad nanny didn't move, so, I did carting my baby and swaddle to the other side of the circle as the kid went after his next target.
And this is when I had the us vs them moment. I thought - my god I wonder if her the mother knows how bad her nanny is. And furthermore I understood that if I knew who that mother was, I would tell her. GASP! I recognized within myself the potential to be a nanny-tattler.
The aforementioned news segment said that nearly 100% of people who install nanny cams fire their nannies within 24 hours because they are so horrified. Now I do realize that these numbers are probably fairly unscientific. In the first place, probably few people who have Mary Piaget Poppins who bother to install a nanny cam and second I'm pretty sure anyone responsible for watching a colicky infant for 14 hours straight would have at least one "fire-worthy" moment a day.
And today - if someone was "nanny-camming" me, I'm pretty sure I would have been canned. This is roughly what they would have seen.
7-7:30 breast feeds baby while watching Sister Wives on-demand. (okay ignore the fact that it would be weird if your nanny was actually breast feeding your child since the whole wet-nurse thing went out a few decades ago not to mention the fact that no one should be watching Sister Wives at 7 AM -we'll let these go)
7:30-8:30 plays with baby, does some great yoga exercises, encouraging tummy time with the techniques learned in developmental movement class while watching Good Morning America. Now potentially there is room for nanny failure since one should focus completely on the baby and not divide one's attention between the baby and the screen but to be fair Lady Gaga was on GMA and any employer should be sympathetic to that.
8:30-9:15 baby naps. . none of your business what I was doing here. .oh wait, it would have been caught on nanny cam. . fine. I ate breakfast and checked facebook
9:15-10:00. . baby nursing .. . (blah blah - nothing interesting here fast forward the tape)
9:45-10:45. we play, dance around the room, go look at ourselves in the mirror
10:45 - 2:00 I'm not going to break-down this timeline further because it is all a part of the hysteria section and the minutes become a blur. . a very, very slow blur, but a blur nonetheless.
Baby goes into the swing for a nap, I vacuum to lull him to sleep (look a nanny who cleans bonus!) He does not fall asleep but is calm so I go to the bathroom. While there, I get mesmerized by the mirror, examining all the baby weight I have not managed to slough off through the "miracle of breast-feeding" (I'm pretty sure this would be considered 'ignoring a child' in nanny-cam world but probably still not fire-worthy.) The baby starts to cry. I leave my reflection in the mirror, pick him up, rock him, dance him around, re-swaddle him, burp him, change his diaper. He is having none of it and is now screaming so loud he's choking and turning red. I put the vacuum back on with one toe so I don't put him down. He screams more. I feed him again, he starts to spasm and grunt and cry WHILE his mouth is attached to my breast. I decide to go for a walk. Now the nanny cam could not follow me here but if it could it would see him momentarily calm down and then start to scream again. I pick up my phone to text my friend to not to meet me at the park because our mission is being aborted (yes while the baby is crying) and I'm sure someone would be taking a picture of me to post on 'nannywatch' if I didn't look so, well, white. I pick him out of the stroller, put him in his carrier and walk the stroller back with one hand while jiggling him up and down and patting his back. We get home, he eats again, and he is STILL crying. It is at this point that I kind-of-sort-of scream at the baby. It wasn't a full scream but it was surely a "fire-worthy" scream that went something like "PLEASE BABY, PLEASE STOP CRYING. . OH GOD I JUST NEED A MOMENT!!! PLEASE STOP!!!" Okay, so it was a scream. Not a 'god what a worthless piece of cr*p baby you are (shake-shake) moment' but a 'God I sure am glad my bad mommy/nanny moment was not caught on tape moment. Note to my husband: If you ever put a nanny cam in our apartment I will divorce you. I promise for the most part I am a wonderful, loving, giggle inducing, creative mom.
So I am torn between having sympathy/empathy for nannies and also understanding that when you leave your kid with someone it is hard not to want hold them to higher standards than yourself, meaning I would probably fire her if she was me. And this is not self-judging, As indicated, I think that I am doing a bang-up job. But looking at a tape of anyone doing their job over the course of sixty hours would probably lead them to being fired. So we'll see. For now there will be no nanny-cam because of course there is no nanny, and probably unless I win the lotto, never will be one. But if I do have a nanny, well, I guess I'll have to wait and see.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Please Eat My Tummy - And Other Ways To Scar Your Children
I love to eat Owen's tummy. Not actually bite, digest, etc., but I love to take little nibbles off of his tummy several times a day. It is one of our favorite ways to play. I say, "Oh no, I have to eat the tummy. I'm going to eat the tummy, I love to eat the belly," and then I make little growling noises as I "bite" his belly. And then the payoff- he giggles and smiles, and on occasion laughs.
Now, I don't think there is anything wrong with this. Most of my friends with babies seem to have a predilection for some part of their baby's body. Some swear by cheeks, others by toes, but for me it's the belly. The other day as I was talking to a friend on the phone she asked how Owen was and I said, "He's so cute, I can't stop eating his belly." Then after a pause I added, "Now of course, I'm probably scarring him for life and when he grows he's going to develop some bizarre fetish during sex and not understand why he has to beg people to 'please eat my belly, oh I love it when you eat my belly.' "
Of course, I am 95% sure this is not how sexual fetishes are created, but who knows? Did our friends the furries have mothers who innocently tickled them one too many times with their plush stuffed animals? Did our foot fetishists have moms who went after those cute little toes one too may times? Highly doubtful. I'm pretty sure that it's more likely that too much exposure to Sesame Street is the root of making one want to dress up as a mascot in in bed than it is that one's parents caused it. Still, as parents it is overwhelming how much we have the ability to scar or help our children.
I went to a developmental movement class the other day where I learned that apparently everything I have been doing with Owen is delaying his "development." From the way I pick him up (under his armpits) to the way we move into tummy time (I flip him over and place him on his belly) to the coup-de-wrong (holding him under those same armpits to let him 'stand' on his feet.) And oh yes, I know these sound innocent, in fact I see evidence of these parental failures everywhere I look. These actions are obviously from lack of knowledge rather than any pernicious intentions- how was I to know that letting a baby stand before his time would prevent him from crawling? Yet, now I am illuminated with the fact that everything I do has a potentially instructive or destructive effect on my child. The instructor actually said at one point that while these 'failures' as a parent (she of course did not say failures) could not be traced forward to developmental delays such as.. wait for it, wait for it. . cognitive impairment, learning delays, physical delays, that all of those developmental failures (no she did not say failures here either) COULD be traced backwards to babies missing these developmental milestones. In other words, their failures later in life could be traced back to the parent, or in this case my husband. (just kidding honey)
So here I am with Owen only eleven weeks old and but for the grace of this class, I could have been taking the first steps in ensuring my son would be forever grounded in mediocrity. I in no ways mean to say that the class was the instigator of my anxiety, or that it was alarmist in nature. As a life-long educator I was actually fascinated and intrigued by the class. The instructor was informed, intelligent, and compassionate. And what she said made sense and I do want to try the things she was teaching. I just need to find the balance between learning things that will help my son develop into the most fabulous human being that he can and also just letting myself be an occasionally, if unintentionally, mediocre parent. Also, holding him under his armpits and letting him 'stand' is kind of fun and it makes him happy, even if he crawls a little bit later.
Now, I don't think there is anything wrong with this. Most of my friends with babies seem to have a predilection for some part of their baby's body. Some swear by cheeks, others by toes, but for me it's the belly. The other day as I was talking to a friend on the phone she asked how Owen was and I said, "He's so cute, I can't stop eating his belly." Then after a pause I added, "Now of course, I'm probably scarring him for life and when he grows he's going to develop some bizarre fetish during sex and not understand why he has to beg people to 'please eat my belly, oh I love it when you eat my belly.' "
Of course, I am 95% sure this is not how sexual fetishes are created, but who knows? Did our friends the furries have mothers who innocently tickled them one too many times with their plush stuffed animals? Did our foot fetishists have moms who went after those cute little toes one too may times? Highly doubtful. I'm pretty sure that it's more likely that too much exposure to Sesame Street is the root of making one want to dress up as a mascot in in bed than it is that one's parents caused it. Still, as parents it is overwhelming how much we have the ability to scar or help our children.
I went to a developmental movement class the other day where I learned that apparently everything I have been doing with Owen is delaying his "development." From the way I pick him up (under his armpits) to the way we move into tummy time (I flip him over and place him on his belly) to the coup-de-wrong (holding him under those same armpits to let him 'stand' on his feet.) And oh yes, I know these sound innocent, in fact I see evidence of these parental failures everywhere I look. These actions are obviously from lack of knowledge rather than any pernicious intentions- how was I to know that letting a baby stand before his time would prevent him from crawling? Yet, now I am illuminated with the fact that everything I do has a potentially instructive or destructive effect on my child. The instructor actually said at one point that while these 'failures' as a parent (she of course did not say failures) could not be traced forward to developmental delays such as.. wait for it, wait for it. . cognitive impairment, learning delays, physical delays, that all of those developmental failures (no she did not say failures here either) COULD be traced backwards to babies missing these developmental milestones. In other words, their failures later in life could be traced back to the parent, or in this case my husband. (just kidding honey)
So here I am with Owen only eleven weeks old and but for the grace of this class, I could have been taking the first steps in ensuring my son would be forever grounded in mediocrity. I in no ways mean to say that the class was the instigator of my anxiety, or that it was alarmist in nature. As a life-long educator I was actually fascinated and intrigued by the class. The instructor was informed, intelligent, and compassionate. And what she said made sense and I do want to try the things she was teaching. I just need to find the balance between learning things that will help my son develop into the most fabulous human being that he can and also just letting myself be an occasionally, if unintentionally, mediocre parent. Also, holding him under his armpits and letting him 'stand' is kind of fun and it makes him happy, even if he crawls a little bit later.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Are You My Mother? (a picture book for the modern age)
The other night my husband and I were sitting on the couch playing with our son. I was doing something intensely fascinating like saying, "Who is the best baby in the world? Is Owen the best baby in the world? Yes, he is! Does Mommy love Owen? Of course she does!" etc., etc., when Owen actually laughed out loud for the first time, cackled in fact. Now, Owen has smiled before but this was his first official laugh, around seven o'clock, smack dab in the middle of week ten and eleven of life. I responded in the way any normal new twenty-first century parent would, I squealed, I cried - and then I tried to videotape it with my phone. I should have just stuck with the first response, the pure enjoyment part of it. Not only because I in fact failed at videotaping this, or should I say digitally recording a mini-movie, but because I left the moment of it.
Now, I don't feel that this separation happened in any dramatic way. I did not feel disconnected when it happened and in retrospect I can't even pinpoint a real "lack of being in the moment" feeling. But without a doubt the most pure moment was the first few laughs, not only for the sheer miracle of watching him verbally express joy for the first time but for the heart-wrenching, if narcissistic knowledge that it was my connecting with him eyeball to eyeball that made him laugh in the first place. The camera/cell phone does not make him laugh. The proof is that whenever I take it out to capture the moment of a smile, a particularly happy, funny, or expressive moment, he pretty much stops what he's doing. I try to encourage the moment back by peering around the camera to re-inspire him but the moment never comes back, he's a little too fickle for that.
One of my favorite childhood books was, "Are You My Mother?" where the baby bird wakes up alone in his nest without his mother and starts walking around trying to find her. He encounters many things, including several different animals and even a bulldozer, asking each of them, "Are you my mother?" until at the end he finally finds his real mom. I picture the babies of our generation are moving through their own disturbing version of this book, asking video cameras and cell phones, and web cams the same insistent question. I'm pretty sure that if the first time Owen says 'mama' he is looking at our digital camera it will break my heart.
Obviously, I know this is not going to happen, that Owen and I spend hours of time together, and I do mean HOURS AND HOURS, where cameras are not present. And I also recognize that there is a magic of catching these moments on 'film' even if film really doesn't exist anymore. But I want to be a little more aware that it's actually I that made Owen laugh, not our Sony Digital, and I wonder if the laugh would have lasted a little bit longer if I had not bothered to pick up the camera.
Now, I don't feel that this separation happened in any dramatic way. I did not feel disconnected when it happened and in retrospect I can't even pinpoint a real "lack of being in the moment" feeling. But without a doubt the most pure moment was the first few laughs, not only for the sheer miracle of watching him verbally express joy for the first time but for the heart-wrenching, if narcissistic knowledge that it was my connecting with him eyeball to eyeball that made him laugh in the first place. The camera/cell phone does not make him laugh. The proof is that whenever I take it out to capture the moment of a smile, a particularly happy, funny, or expressive moment, he pretty much stops what he's doing. I try to encourage the moment back by peering around the camera to re-inspire him but the moment never comes back, he's a little too fickle for that.
One of my favorite childhood books was, "Are You My Mother?" where the baby bird wakes up alone in his nest without his mother and starts walking around trying to find her. He encounters many things, including several different animals and even a bulldozer, asking each of them, "Are you my mother?" until at the end he finally finds his real mom. I picture the babies of our generation are moving through their own disturbing version of this book, asking video cameras and cell phones, and web cams the same insistent question. I'm pretty sure that if the first time Owen says 'mama' he is looking at our digital camera it will break my heart.
Obviously, I know this is not going to happen, that Owen and I spend hours of time together, and I do mean HOURS AND HOURS, where cameras are not present. And I also recognize that there is a magic of catching these moments on 'film' even if film really doesn't exist anymore. But I want to be a little more aware that it's actually I that made Owen laugh, not our Sony Digital, and I wonder if the laugh would have lasted a little bit longer if I had not bothered to pick up the camera.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
You Can Never Shake A Baby but Sometimes You Have to Kick a Cat
One of my favorite party tricks while pregnant was to put my hands on either side of my stomach and shake my stomach while saying "Never shake a baby". (Okay I swear it played better in real life than in writing.) Occasionally someone would be horrified but for the most part everyone knew that I was not "the type of person" who would shake a baby. The people who did this were one step away from the people who left their babies in trash cans on prom nights, or left them alone for hours while they drank beers with their friends and watched marathons of Jerry Springer. But on the other side of pregnancy, six hours into an intense, and as far as I could tell "causeless" crying jag, I realized that I was one breath away from being that person.
Now I like to consider my self a fairly self-possessed and restrained person. I admit I have a red-headed Scorpio type temper that was first evident when as a seven year old I apparently stomped a chandelier off the ceiling in a fit because I was not allowed to eat French Toast while recovering from a tonsilectomy. But I felt that as an adult who has developed both self-awareness and self-restraint through years of yoga, mediation, and my fair share of therapy, that when I became a new parent I would have so many coping mechanisms I would fly through parenting 101. This is not the case.
The first time Owen cried for six hours in a row I was home by myself. I started out capable: I sang, I burped, I rocked, I nursed, I walked around the block, I nursed, I put him in the carrier, I nursed, we watched Chuggington, I nursed, gave him a pacifier, I nursed and he did nothing but scream. He cried until he was choking. I cried until I was choking and sometime in the middle I found myself screaming at him, "There is nothing wrong with you!! What is wrong with you?" His answer was of course to cry louder. And then came the moment where I felt my hands twitching and wanting, more than I could ever have imagined, to shake the baby. I might even have begun to do it, just the first arc of the shake, not the actual shake, because right before it happened I was able to stop myself. I'm not sure if it was due to all the videos I had to watch in high school, a deep sense of self-awareness, or just luck but I did not shake him. Instead I put him down in the stroller, both of us still crying and turned away.
It was at this moment one of our two cats had the misfortune of adding his wail to the mix, and running between my feet almost tripping me. And it was also in that moment that I kicked the cat.
I am not proud of the fact that I kicked the cat. I realize that some pet activists or well anyone who has not futilely tried to calm a screaming baby for six hours in a row might argue that kicking a cat is almost as bad as shaking a baby but let's get real - it's not. It was a one-off. The cat was not injured and has apparently retained no ill feelings from the mild kick. It didn't make me feel better, that is not the point. The point is that being a parent is hard and too often it's so easy to draw a huge divide in our minds about they type of people who would hurt their babies, intentionally or not, and those of us proud, together parents who would never, ever, ever do that. But the truth is, much of what parenting a newborn, particularly a fussy, cranky, colicky newborn is like is akin to how governments torture prisoners: sleep deprivation, lack of ability to control your environment, loud high stress noises, and ISOLATION! And none of this facilitates your ability to always respond carefully and calmly.
So when a friend of mine asked me what it was like to be a new parent I very honestly said. "Part of the day is filled with the greatest joy I have ever felt and the other part is filled with moments where you tell yourself that you can never ever shake a baby but sometimes it's okay to kick the cat."
Now I like to consider my self a fairly self-possessed and restrained person. I admit I have a red-headed Scorpio type temper that was first evident when as a seven year old I apparently stomped a chandelier off the ceiling in a fit because I was not allowed to eat French Toast while recovering from a tonsilectomy. But I felt that as an adult who has developed both self-awareness and self-restraint through years of yoga, mediation, and my fair share of therapy, that when I became a new parent I would have so many coping mechanisms I would fly through parenting 101. This is not the case.
The first time Owen cried for six hours in a row I was home by myself. I started out capable: I sang, I burped, I rocked, I nursed, I walked around the block, I nursed, I put him in the carrier, I nursed, we watched Chuggington, I nursed, gave him a pacifier, I nursed and he did nothing but scream. He cried until he was choking. I cried until I was choking and sometime in the middle I found myself screaming at him, "There is nothing wrong with you!! What is wrong with you?" His answer was of course to cry louder. And then came the moment where I felt my hands twitching and wanting, more than I could ever have imagined, to shake the baby. I might even have begun to do it, just the first arc of the shake, not the actual shake, because right before it happened I was able to stop myself. I'm not sure if it was due to all the videos I had to watch in high school, a deep sense of self-awareness, or just luck but I did not shake him. Instead I put him down in the stroller, both of us still crying and turned away.
It was at this moment one of our two cats had the misfortune of adding his wail to the mix, and running between my feet almost tripping me. And it was also in that moment that I kicked the cat.
I am not proud of the fact that I kicked the cat. I realize that some pet activists or well anyone who has not futilely tried to calm a screaming baby for six hours in a row might argue that kicking a cat is almost as bad as shaking a baby but let's get real - it's not. It was a one-off. The cat was not injured and has apparently retained no ill feelings from the mild kick. It didn't make me feel better, that is not the point. The point is that being a parent is hard and too often it's so easy to draw a huge divide in our minds about they type of people who would hurt their babies, intentionally or not, and those of us proud, together parents who would never, ever, ever do that. But the truth is, much of what parenting a newborn, particularly a fussy, cranky, colicky newborn is like is akin to how governments torture prisoners: sleep deprivation, lack of ability to control your environment, loud high stress noises, and ISOLATION! And none of this facilitates your ability to always respond carefully and calmly.
So when a friend of mine asked me what it was like to be a new parent I very honestly said. "Part of the day is filled with the greatest joy I have ever felt and the other part is filled with moments where you tell yourself that you can never ever shake a baby but sometimes it's okay to kick the cat."
Friday, May 20, 2011
Diaper Music - Learning To Find Music In The Dirty Parts of Parenting
Diaper Music - I'm not sure who created the term first, my husband or I, but I'm pretty sure it was created around 3AM one morning when we were trying to put a positive spin on the rather loud and liquidy noise that had woken us both from our sleep. Now it's pretty impressive that a little nine pound creature can make a noise while going to the bathroom that is loud enough to wake two sleep deprived adults from their desperate slumber. And while I would like to think our son is extraordinary in this way (yes parents will brag about almost anything their child does that can be counted as "exceptional" even if it is emitting particularly loud poos) but the digestive system of a newborn is something to be admired, if not emulated. Food passes through their sysems at a speed and force relatively akin to a person on a diet of prunes, coffee and ex-lax. And here was the proof, an excretion so fabulously loud it could have served as an air-raid siren.
"So that was some diaper music," one of us said. I'll let my husband take credit, not because I am generous at granting credit but because I'm pretty sure I would have said something like, "Holy shit, that was a loud crap!" Or I would have pretended I did not hear it so I would not have to be the one to change it. (The first step in creating effective co-parenting is to force the other person into action by your own denial of the urgency of a situation UNLESS you are the partner who did not push the child out of your womb this strategy is just called being an a**hole.) Either way, there it was 'diaper music' the ability to melodiously name what is really a rather disgusting but militantly insinuating thing. And I think this is what parenting is really about - the ability to be proud of your sons ability to poo so loud that it wakes you up in the middle of the night, to pee so hard in the middle of a diaper change that it hits not only the wall but the ceiling (okay that never happened but imagine it did.)
So now there is diaper music. I don't know how long this term will last. Most likely it will die out right about when the poo stops smelling like breast milk and starts smelling - well, like, poo. But for now, it remains a cause for elation, a sign he's eating enough and processing enough that his gas won't make him cry for another six hour jag.
And his diaper music has inspired some of my own. These are the first tracks from my first album "Diaper Music"
(To the tune of Don't Cry for Me Argentina - my apologies to Andrew Lloyd Weber (or not) )
Don't pee on me Owen Thomas
The Truth is I don't deserve it
All through your colic, your mad existence
I kept on rocking
Now keep your piss-tance!
(and from when he HATED having his diaper changed)
A stinky stinky diaper - what do you do?
It's a catch twenty-two when you're covered in poo
A stinky stinky bottom, everybody's got em
But if we don't change it pee - u , pee-u
You may fight it, you may scream
But trust me this is no one's dream
(And yes I realize this second 'song' contradicts my argument that poop does not smell but this is for the formula babies out there.)
"So that was some diaper music," one of us said. I'll let my husband take credit, not because I am generous at granting credit but because I'm pretty sure I would have said something like, "Holy shit, that was a loud crap!" Or I would have pretended I did not hear it so I would not have to be the one to change it. (The first step in creating effective co-parenting is to force the other person into action by your own denial of the urgency of a situation UNLESS you are the partner who did not push the child out of your womb this strategy is just called being an a**hole.) Either way, there it was 'diaper music' the ability to melodiously name what is really a rather disgusting but militantly insinuating thing. And I think this is what parenting is really about - the ability to be proud of your sons ability to poo so loud that it wakes you up in the middle of the night, to pee so hard in the middle of a diaper change that it hits not only the wall but the ceiling (okay that never happened but imagine it did.)
So now there is diaper music. I don't know how long this term will last. Most likely it will die out right about when the poo stops smelling like breast milk and starts smelling - well, like, poo. But for now, it remains a cause for elation, a sign he's eating enough and processing enough that his gas won't make him cry for another six hour jag.
And his diaper music has inspired some of my own. These are the first tracks from my first album "Diaper Music"
(To the tune of Don't Cry for Me Argentina - my apologies to Andrew Lloyd Weber (or not) )
Don't pee on me Owen Thomas
The Truth is I don't deserve it
All through your colic, your mad existence
I kept on rocking
Now keep your piss-tance!
(and from when he HATED having his diaper changed)
A stinky stinky diaper - what do you do?
It's a catch twenty-two when you're covered in poo
A stinky stinky bottom, everybody's got em
But if we don't change it pee - u , pee-u
You may fight it, you may scream
But trust me this is no one's dream
(And yes I realize this second 'song' contradicts my argument that poop does not smell but this is for the formula babies out there.)
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