Mommy Wars

As I was walking out of work last night, I caught a glimpse of Grace's birthday picture, stuck inside my ID case. I looked at her pudgy little cheeks and thought, I'm so proud we made it a whole year with breastfeeding.

...and then I instantly felt like I had to qualify that. To myself?! Yeah, I know. Anyway. Because breastfeeding is up there with vaccines, cosleeping, and circumcision in the world of mommy wars. When we want to be hard on each other, we chooses any of these topics to judge each other, look down on other people's decisions, and assure ourselves that our way is best and anyone who disagrees is wrong. And, gasp, maybe they don't even CARE!!!

It's not okay. We have to stop being so shitty to each other. And the thing is, I think we all know that. But we're all so insecure about what we're doing, and looking for validation that we're doing the right thing, and sometimes the way we do that is by looking down on other people's decisions. Other times, we've decided something after careful thought and research, and our choice seems like the ONLY choice. And sometimes we're just being assholes.

So I instantly feel guilty for being proud of something like nursing for a year, because it feels like I'm looking down on all the other moms who chose differently. And I'm really not. I mean, when I feel proud about having run a marathon, I'm not looking down on everyone who didn't, and nobody would think that for a second. Nobody would say, "Yeah, well you know, I tried really hard to run a marathon and I coudln't," or "You know there are other valid choices besides running a marathon. Walking a 5k isn't rat poison." (Ok, that analogy doesn't play out as well, heh.) So why do I have to qualify this? Is it something so totally unique and personal about motherhood that makes us all feel so defensive of our choices?

I am proud that I nursed Grace for a year. It was a lot of hard work, teaching her how to latch on, coaxing her back when she went on strike, pumping for what felt like hours at a time, carrying around extra weight for a whole year so I wouldn't risk my supply, and on and on. And I can be proud of that without judging anyone else, without thinking they made the wrong choice or judging them. But it doesn't really feel like it...

I don't have anything profound to say here, obviously, just something that's been rattling in my brain since yesterday.

Three Years Ago,

The friday before Christmas was the 22nd. It was unseasonably warm, which was great for Chicago, but not so much for lots of other cities, which ended up veiled in thick, soupy fog. The attending on call decided to be charitable and sent me home just a few hours after I got to work. I decided to stop at the grocery store on the way home, and texted Stephen at work to see if he needed anything.

...Except he wasn't at work. He was sitting in the lobby of our building, sweating his ass off, because the engagement ring he'd had made by a jeweler in Alabama was supposed to get FedEx'd to him that day so he could propose before Christmas. But, remember, fog? Ring was not showing up. And now I was on my way home, and he was supposed to be at work. He quickly came up with an excuse for why he was home, and I quickly came up with all kinds of ideas for how to spend our awesome bonus day! We were both home! Woo-hoo! Did I mention he had to sign for the ring in person and show photo ID, due to the value of the package?

He did agree to go for a walk, maybe we went out to lunch? I think we did. He made up some other story about needing to be home to accept a package that included his mom's Christmas present. I was TOTALLY ANNOYED because we had a dry cleaners in our building that also served as our package receiving, and since when did he have to sign for a book from amazon.com???

He spent half the day fighting w/FedEx on the phone. I was totally frustrated that we were losing our awesome bonus day when he could just tell me the name of the stupid book he'd bought and I'd buy it the next day while he was at work.

When we postponed dinner plans to drive to the FedEx hub in the 'burbs, I started to wonder if maybe something else was up...but dismissed the thought and went along for the ride. I dropped him off to an overflowing hub office, filled with people who hadn't received their last-minute Christmas gifts due to the fog and had shown up, hoping to pick them up in person. Stephen's package was not in the office. It was locked in a truck, parked behind the hub. While I went bra-shopping at Target (heh), he was begging to have the truck opened.

...and they did (is this starting to sound like a tiresome sitcom to everyone but me? it is? Eh. Tough.) He threw the package in the backseat of the car and we drove to dinner in Chinatown. He had to leave the ring in the car, because he couldn't explain why he had the package on the dinner table. Once we sat down, he made up a story about needing his cell phone from the car (further frustrating me- first our lost bonus day, now he needs HIS PHONE?!?!) and ran back to retrieve the ring before someone stole our car and the ring was gone forever. We ate dinner and took the scenic route home. While we cut through downtown, I commented that Millennium Park looked pretty, and he actually asked if I wanted to go walk around. Shocked, I said yes! yes yes yes!

After walking all around the park, stopping at the Bean (where he wanted to propose but some stupid family wouldn't stop taking pictures, curse them for thinking they had the right to be there!), we walked out onto the bridge, and the rest is history.

Three years, one baby, and one very old house later, it all feels like a different lifetime. But every time I see that bridge, I sigh a little bit, and every Christmas since then, I've thought back to the cool, foggy night when the life we have now started to come together.

ONE

If I were a more eloquent person, I would write the entry that perfectly captures how I feel as the mom of a one year old. I'm really not very eloquent at all, though, so if I tried that, I would just frustrate myself and sound stupid in the process. I'll leave that to the writers, I think, and instead, I've spent the last few days thinking about the things I've learned over the last year.

1- Parenting a colicky baby is like dropping a knife. You don't try to change anything, you just go with what works. Screw the stupid books that insist you need to establish behaviors and prevent bad habits.

2- The world becomes much, much scarier after you have a baby. Car accidents, cancer, and plane crashes go from minor distractions to majorly terrifying, if you let them take up too much space in your brain.

2a- It does not pay to let car accidents, cancer, or plane crashes take up too much space in your brain, unless you're making decisions about carseat usage.

3- There is no greater luxury in the world than sleep (I kind of knew that one before. I really know it now.)

4- Today's colicky baby is tomorrow's angel baby. No matter how many times I heard that, I never believed it, until it happened for us. Then again, I also never believed I'd actually have a colicky baby, so maybe I'm more skeptical than most people.

5- There is nothing better in the world than being a parent, and no matter how much I looked forward to it before, I still had no idea how much I would love it.

BONUS: in the words of Wise Donna, the days are long, but the years are short.

The End of an Era

This whole breastfeeding thing, it didn't come to us easily. As I might have mentioned. From the world's clumsiest latch to hatred of one side to full-fledged strikes, the only things in our favor were a ridiculous supply and my single-minded, bordering-on-pathological determination to make it work. We were going to be successful. WE WERE. (did I say bordering on? ....anyway)

But when it clicked, it clicked. It took probably five months, but when we got there, it was just the easiest, most natural thing in the world. For Grace, it went from the worst torture to the greatest comfort. And for me, I went from counting the days until I could quit with a clear conscience to panicking when I realized we were almost done.

And we're there. I didn't want to nurse her past a year, and I still know it's the right choice to stop now. But ohhhhhhh. I'm sad. I'm sad about the whole weaning process, and I'm sad about being done and never having that same relationship again. I am absolutely dreading the first time she makes it clear that is what she wants, and I have to tell her no. I know that it will hardly be the last time I have to tell her no, but there's something about THIS. I remember once watching a patient grabbing for his father's hand, and his father backed away and put his hand in his pocket. When I think about weaning, that's how I feel. She's looking for physical comfort from me, and I'm telling her no.

I look back on all my insanity, the ridiculous lengths I went to, getting her back in the groove with this, the time I've spent with the dreaded pump, the frustration and the stress, and now the thought of taking it all away, and I still don't regret a second of it. I wouldn't change a thing. Except maybe I'd have her wake up tomorrow and hate nursing. That would be pretty freaking awesome.

Houseiversary

We moved into our house a year ago today. It was a rough day- I had my 36 week appt the same day, and I couldn't reschedule it because I was the only person working the next day. We had no food in the house, so I didn't have breakfast until we were driving to the new house and I stopped at Dunkin' Donuts. I went straight from there, to the appt where my doctor told me I was not at all dilated, but high and closed and started explaining how they schedule inductions. Then I went home and helped my poor one-armed husband unpack.

I definitely don't recommend moving when you're nine months pregnant and your husband is two-weeks postop from significant shoulder surgery. Just saying, in case you were considering it.

It feels so weird to look back on the last year, because obviously life is so, so, so different now. I think about how I felt and what I expected and yeah...it hasn't been at all what I expected. And since we moved in right before she was born, I think of our time in the house the same way I think about our time as parents, and it's just...weird. I'm not explaining this well. If I were a better writer, I could say exactly what I'm thinking, how I remember trudging up the back steps every day after work, still hugely pregnant, still not in labor, and the day when Grace was less than a month old, and we had to go to my parents' house because they were replacing the windows in the house, or how a few weeks before that, we had to keep spending the day there because they were rewiring the house (didn't expect that one!), or how my parents had to sit at OUR house, because they were replacing the basement windows, but we were in the hospital having a baby, and it makes me feel SOMETHING, I just can't put it into words or explain exactly what I mean. It's frustrating.

I guess maybe my only point is that I usually don't pay attention to something like a houseiversary, but I do here, because it's all tied up with so many other intense memories, and I feel the need to commemorate it somehow. Like I should go home and watch The Money Pit.

Eleven?!

Yikes. My baby is only one month away from being a whole year old.

I remember this day like it was yesterday:



There was nothing really special or outstanding about that day, it was just a really nice day, a little cool, nice breeze, and Gracie was happy to play in the yard. Well, no. There was sort of something special about that day- it was the first time I realized Gracie wasn't difficult anymore. She was playing on the blanket, without crying or arching or getting mad, and I realized she hadn't done any of that for awhile. You know how people talk about losing a lot of weight, but still thinking of themselves as heavy? It was kind of like that. It made the day that much sweeter.

I didn't really have any major epiphanies or anything today, we just had similarly nice weather, and a lot of fun playing outside again. It was the perfect way to spend the day, and get ready for her to go from being a baby to being a toddler (even if she'll always be my baby). (ew, Kathy, when did you get so cheesey?) (December 8, 2008, at 8:38am.)

Of course, that was then...

When I was a staff nurse, the absolute worst thing that could happen was having to work a night shift when we turned the clocks back. We did get paid for that extra hour, but I didn't care. I'd give back the money to not have to work a 13-hour shift. Yech. I didn't think it was possible to hate the time change more than I did then.

Gracie woke up at 3:08 today. On a normal day, 4:08 would be an unacceptable wake-up time. This morning, it was downright perverse.

Proving once again, you should NEVER say "well, at least it can't get any worse..."