On Being a Mom

My friend Natalie sent me this Anna Quindlen essay on Being a Mom. It came at a good time for me. E is already growing and changing so fast, and I long to hold on to her baby-ness for a while longer... Being a Mom Anna Quindlen If not for the photographs, I might have a hard time believing they ever existed. The pensive infant with the swipe of dark bangs and the black button eyes of a Raggedy Andy doll. The placid baby with the yellow ringlets and the high piping voice. The sturdy toddler with the lower lip that curled into an apostrophe above her chin. All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh Until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past. Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all. Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, and then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along; you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I temember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too. Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the, "Remember-When-Mom-Did Hall of Fame." The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, What did you get wrong? (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons... What was I thinking? But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less. Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were....

All About E

Almost a month ago, E officially became our daughter. It seems like she's been in our lives longer than that, although so much of her is still a mystery. She really is amazing, and while I will never forget the pain and emotional baggage of the long wait, it has faded to a very distant memory. Here's a little more about our girl: THE GOOD

• She smiles easily and often, and giggles are rarely hard to come by.
• When I approach her to pick her up and hug her, she will bounce up and down, grin from ear to ear, and quiver with anticipation (that's what she's doing in the photo here).
• She learns quickly, mimicking us in so many things and creating new little games all the time.
• She wants to walk with us ALL. THE. TIME. This is the "I hold on to your index fingers while I walk in front of you" style of walking. All over the house. Hour after hour.
• If we take her to a coffee shop or an outside cafe', she will generally be pleasant enough long enough for us to enjoy a latte' or a meal. Priceless.
• She is becoming more social and friendly with neighbors and friends, while still always preferring us and coming back to us quickly and happily.
• She ADORES her Nana, and our weekend visit with her went better than I could have expected (To say that Nana was excited about having her first grandchild is the biggest understatement in history -- she had built the visit up so much, I was afraid there would be a huge letdown, but she and E got along famously, and Nana was not too intense at all. Whew!).

THE BAD

• E hasn't napped for more than 45-50 minutes for the past several days, generally because the naps are interrupted by what we presume are nightmares. We hear her on the monitor, and when we go in the room, she is just quietly sobbing, often still asleep. And one awake, she will NOT go back to sleep, we think because she obviously doesn't want the nightmare to come back. It breaks my heart.
• Last night E had a nightmare overnight for the first time, and she ended up spending a good portion of the night in our bed. I hurt for her so much, but having her next to us was bliss. She is a restless sleeper, and kept alternating between cuddling up to me, and to R. But so sweet to watch your baby sleeping.
• We are struggling with eating. She takes a bottle easily, but at 14 months, she will not open her mouth for a spoon. She actually doesn't put anything in her mouth - no fingers, toys, nothing. She simply isn't getting enough calories for all her activity, so sleeping through the night without needing a bottle is rare. UPDATE: Since I started this post a couple of days ago, this is getting better. She still doesn't open wide, but she will take little bites of very runny food like yogurt...
• She hits. Oy, does she hit. She loves to bang and make noise, and all her favorite toys are loud. This seems to translate to wanting to pound on everything. So, if she's really happy or really tired/frustrated, she whaps us too (and others, including babies, it's not cute). I know this is not uncommon for her age, but it is a constant battle to tell her "no hit" and "be gentle."
• She fights sleep with all her might. I'm relatively sure this is a combination of her age (too many fun things to do to go to sleep) and also due to the nightmares/grieving. She is very naughty when we're trying to put her down to sleep. She will whap on us, throw books, and even beat on herself a little to try to stay awake. Luckily, if she is truly tired or not mid-nightmare, she gives up the ghost relatively easily and does succumb to sleep. And once she's happily asleep, she sleeps pretty well (notwithstanding the nightmare issues of the past few days -- after all, she slept for 45 minutes on a hard plastic chair in church yesterday, oblivious to clapping, loud music and much standing and sitting).

I know parenting has plenty of good and bad, so I'm not evaluating our experience based on these lists, just commenting on what's going on. As much as I hate the struggle to get her to bed, I'm also excited when she wakes up in the morning. Excited to see what she's going to learn, and what she's going to teach us. She is helping me be more patient, which has been a constant struggle for me in general. And she's helping me appreciate my husband, and how a partnership is one of the most valuable things around. OK, time to go spend some quality adult time with said husband. Thanks for listening, and I'll leave you with some fabulous cuteness...

Getting Back Into the Swim

OK, I'm amazed when I visit the blogs of my fellow travelers and find so many wonderful posts. I am having a hard time finding the time, energy and words to talk about our trip and our daughter. I've journaled quite a bit about our trip on my family website, so I'm not going to do a complete re-hash. I guess I'll talk about some of the things that are harder to express, so be kind. Our trip was more of an experience than I expected. Guangzhou was fascinating. So much of it was beautiful, all of it was interesting, and I would love to go back when we could really see it fully, we saw such glimpses and snapshots in this trip. But I've never been on a trip where I felt like I missed so much, like I did on this trip. We didn't shop much; we didn't explore much. What we did, of course, is become parents. It seems like such a simple thing to say, but it was beyond my expectations in almost all good ways. When they put E in my arms, she was fast asleep, and she stayed asleep for at least 45 minutes. So it was hard to have much of a bonding experience, or any experience for that matter! She was groggy most of the day, and slept so much. For the first couple of days, E just watched us -- us and everything around her. She was quiet, thoughtful, shy and always sleepy. By the third day, she started coming out of her shell. Giggles followed, along with much banging of toys. I enjoyed her so much, but the new parent thing was quite staggering for me. I felt over my head, and unsure of what to do, what to feel. The other parents seemed to be adjusting so quickly (of course, we were the only first time parents in our group). I'm still feeling my way, but I'm trusting myself more. And our little girl is truly a marvel. No longer shy (still very, very curious!), she crawls up a storm, babbles, plays quite vigorously, sleeps very soundly (after extensive persuasion), pulls herself up to stand (and will probably walk within a month), and mimics us quite readily. She can lift both arms to say "hooray," clap and wave bye-bye. She says Baba relatively easily, and Mama when it works to her advantage (i.e. not wanting to take a nap). I feel like attachment is going well for all of us. R is such a natural father, I am floored by him every day. He is far better at getting her to calm down and go to sleep, and he is endlessly fascinated by her every breath. It sounds like such a cliche', but I have fallen in love with him all over again. E and I have a more complex relationship. She always reaches out for me, and generally prefers being with me, but she also tests me more. We play a lot. I challenge her, and we roughhouse a little, which she loves. After a few minutes of playing on her own, she always checks back in with me for a hug, which is bliss. She will readily make eye contact with me when I feed and change her. I read to her a lot, and talk endlessly, naming everything in her sight. But I am not completely relaxed with her, and she senses it and sometimes takes advantage of it. For example, she will rarely go to sleep for me, but R has success every time. I'm working on it, but being a mother is more complicated than I thought. It's not just about loving her, which is effortless. I need to find peace with my skills and instincts and not worry every moment about the life we are giving her. We will do the best we can -- I will do the best I can. Does every mother always worry about whether that is enough? Anyway, this is a rambling post that doesn't pick up very well from where I left off, but it's where my head is at the moment. Don't misinterpret my ramblings -- I am so in love with this child, and enjoying motherhood greatly. I just need to unclench a little...