Thursday, January 31, 2008

Worried about my parenting skills

Not me. No, I'm pretty confident in my ability to keep my babies alive and even thriving. But Moxie, the two month old, has no confidence. She spends most of her day looking like this:

Worried.
Then, when she gets to crying, in those seconds before I figure out whether it's hunger, sleepiness, or poop, she screams, arches her back and looks frantically around the room as though to say, "HELP! Could someone who knows what they are doing Puh-lease Save Me??!!"

I thought this would even out as we got to know each other. She might cut me a little slack after a few weeks of getting her needs met, having her every whimper attended to. But no. Yesterday in line at the post office, a woman asked me if she'd gotten bitten (!!) on her face. Um no. Those are her worry lines. The deep divets at the eyebrow are just her constant concern over my parenting ability. I'm saving up for her Botox now because if things continue this way, I'm going to need to paralyze her 'skeptical' face before we get to kindergarten. Imagine facing this every time you fold a towel or pick out an outfit:



Just this morning she started getting crabby, obviously needing something. But instead of screaming outright, she gave me this meek little smile, as though she's given up on crying as a way to get her needs met and is resorting to playing cute games for attention. How can someone be passive aggressive at TWO MONTHS?

Give me plain old aggressive any day.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

You must understand my obsession

I woke this morning to a four year old standing at the foot of my bed.
"ssst"
"SSSssst!"
"Yes, Tallulah?"
"Mommy, it's morning and I have no pants on."
"Why?"
"Come here. I want to show you something."

What an ominous beginning to a day. Horror movies use less foreshadowing. I follow Tallulah into the bathroom where 12 rolls of toilet paper are stacked tall like the Eiffel tower....ok, Tower of Pisa, pajama pants and night diapers are on the floor, and the toilet is full of poop.

"...then it was on my foot and I wiped it with my finger and..."Tallulah was saying as I tried to make sense of the scenario with sleep-bleary eyes.
"Wait, what was on your foot?"
"Poop. I sat down and poop got from my butt to my foot. I wiped my foot with my finger and poop was on it. Then I wiped my finger on my leg-- here-- and poop got there, too. Then I played with my toys."

I don't even know where to begin cleaning this house, but my obsession with showers and personal cleanliness is becoming understandable, no?

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Cleanliness is my new Obsession

I took a shower today.

And before you applaud or sigh in relief or any other comical response I would normally find oh-so-funny if I didn’t constantly smell like baby spit and diapers, today’s shower is amazing because I didn’t have to

A. sing the entire time to assure my baby that I still exist and she was not, in fact, alone in the universe.

B. turn the temperature of the water just a touch colder than I like because some little girl decided at the last minute to join me. Or

C. have the following conversation while drafts of cold air enter my shower space:
“Have you seen my sweater?”
“What sweater?”
“You know, the black one with the shoulder detailing.”
“Do I know that sweater?”
“Yeah, you know I wore it to that party we went to with the girl you like.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“No, you know, that party, at the house with the thing…come one, you have to remember.”
“I have no idea what party. Or what sweater. Can I finish my shower now?”
Stomps off grumpy, leaving the bathroom door open so any bit of my body not directly in the water stream gets hit with cold air.

But not today. Today I got clean without interruption, without frenzy, and without compromising my temperature preference. So, how did I get this amazing shower? The YMCA. After strollerobics I put both kids in childwatch and took a leisurely shower. Which means I’m using a gym locker room as my personal spa and retreat. My life is sooooo glamorous. This is truly NOT what I imagined adult life would be when I was 12. But I’m not going to think about it too much because I’m clean, I got some exercise, my kids were not neglected, and I’m feeling pretty damned relaxed. It’s a good day.

I just hope I don’t get athlete’s foot.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

I'm so clean, it's disturbing

A friend suggested I share this email I sent her earlier and since I've got no other parenting stuff to write about, despite my aggressive, 24 hour a day parenting schedule, here goes:

you know that joke Sarah Silverman makes about how, when you take a shower with your boyfriend, your breasts will come out sparklingly clean? Tonight I discovered that it is also true when you take a shower with tallulah. Sparkling.

Actually, I take that back. I do have parenting stuff to write about.

Last week or so, I wrote about how my husband's Gung Fu practice was causing a dilemma: schedule it in the evenings and make me crazy with no help during our family witching hour, or make him (and me) miss doing a fun activity altogether. Kent and I negotiate our down time and now, with the addition of Moxie, are going through a completely new cycle of negotiation. Because both solutions were sacrifices, we kept going around with it until Kent came up with the brilliant solution of asking his sensai to change the class time. He did and now Kent's practice is at 8:30 and he can help me put Tallulah to bed before he goes. Yay.

There is some kind of moral here about negotiation and communication and expressing your needs, but I've been in uber-parenting mode all day with a limit-pushing four year old and all of my cause and effect processing has been whittled away by the word, "why."

"No, you can't have another muffin."
"Why"
"Because you've already had three"
"why?"
"Because mommy is weak willed"
"why"
"Hmm, I don't know. Low self esteem? A pathological need for love and acceptance?"

I have to post this now because my computer time is officially over. I just heard Moxie fill her diaper and I'm across the room from her.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Hallucinations

After six weeks of four interrupted hours of sleep a night, I'm starting to hit the wall. I'm hallucinating bugs flickering around in my periphery and my eye keeps twitching.

Yesterday I fell asleep at Whole Foods. We stopped for an afternoon snack of chocolate cookies-- Tallulah, Moxie, and me. While Tallulah munched her cookie and played at the activity tables, I sat and jiggled Moxie to sleep. The next thing I know, I'm jerking awake as my arm goes limp. Thankfully, I jerked awake before Moxie took a header to the floor.

I'd really like to slow down a bit, but I don't know how. I set a precedent of being able to manage and now I have a bunch of goals and to do lists to maintain. Plus, everybody keeps telling me how awesome I'm doing with two kids and I'm kind of basking in the praise. I think I'll just keep going at this pace and claim I have narcolepsy. And tie my sling a little tighter.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

I'm a person-- a really sore person

My arms hurt so badly I don't want to carry Moxie around. And we had a bad sleeping night last night so I'm overtired. Parenting is such a roller coaster-- one minute everything is happy and glowy and the next minute, I want to throw myself out the window. Thankfully, I have no strength in my legs for jumping.

Monday, January 7, 2008

I'm a person again! And Moxie is turning into one!

This week marks the six week postpartum point. Which means, working out is back in and sex is back on the table. Not literally--figuratively as in, medically approved.

So to celebrate I went to strollerobics and I feel great! Tallulah is back in school, I've got an endorphin high, and to top it all off, Moxie gave me a great big smile-- her first!-- in the middle of the sit-ups portion if class. This whole recovery from childbirth is going smoothly. I can tell that it is much different from my recovery from Tallulah because of the little old ladies.

Little old ladies have been mobbing me everywhere I go.
"Oh, she's beautiful. Let me tell you about my grandchildren."
"Oh, so tiny. Here's a picture of my three year old grandson."
Then they come at me and my tiny, beautiful baby with their grandma claws-- and they don't care if she's sleeping or in a swaddle or even nursing. Just today, I was having lunch while Moxie had lunch and a grandma came up to me, had a discussion about-- what else-- her grandchildren, comented on my nursing my daughter, "Oh, it makes them so healthy-- all my granchildren were nursed" then reached for the blanket covering my slurping daughter and naked breast. Are you kidding, lady?

I carry my babies in a sling and with Tallulah I felt that the sling helped delineate my dancing space. As in, my baby is attached to me, so you need my permission to touch. But it turns out that a much more effective force field was my harried look, unwashed hair, and ability to burst into tears at the approach of a stranger. Cuz these ladies don't care if my sling is strapping my child to my chest, my breast, I could probably strap her to my ass and they would still be trying to grab a handful.

The best were these two encounter:
*The drunk woman at a holiday party who bemoaned the fact that Moxie was sleeping because, "I just want to hold that little thing, squeeze her and cuddle her!" Like I'm going to pass my baby around at a party full of DRUNKS.
*The little old lady at brunch who said these memorable words, "Enjoy them while they're little like this. Soon enough they'll just grow up, tear your heart out, and leave you."

I should hook those two ladies up. And stop washing my hair.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Moxie speaks!

I set Moxie down in her crib while she was in her happy babbling time and ran off to fold some laundry. From the other room I heard her say "Ahh!" so I called to her that I was coming and a couple seconds later I heard "Ahh!" again, a bit louder. Again, I called out to her that I was coming. This happened a couple more times with her calling out to me and being satisfied by hearing my voice. By the time I went back to her crib, she was making her crabby, I'm about to scream face. As soon as she saw me, her face relaxed and she started babbling, more quietly than she was yelling "Ahh."

It really seemed like communication. She's only five weeks! It's official, she's a genius.

Time moves erratically

Moxie, unlike Tallulah as a baby, has a pattern and schedule. Every hour and a half to two hours she goes through a cycle: Wake up, eat, look around and kick and coo a bit, then get crabby needing to fall asleep, moving and rocking to fall asleep, sleep.

Wake up, repeat.

But time keeps doing weird things. Like yesterday, I was at a friend's house, nursed Moxie before we left and a couple minutes after we got home, she was hungry again. She can't be hungry, I thought. But then I thought about what really happened: Nursed Moxie (20 minutes)
Grabbed my diaper bag, found keys and phone, wrestled shoes and socks onto Tallulah and hustled her out the door (15 minutes)
Strapped Moxie into her seat, chased Tallulah off the front yard tree swing and into her seat (10 minutes)
Drive home (20 minutes)
FPL trimming the Oak tree in front of my house. Take Tallulah to look at the guys tied to the high branches and the wood chipper (10 minutes)
Tuck Tallulah into bed for her nap with a story and a song (15 minutes)
Moxie wakes up, ready to eat.
Total time elapsed: 1 and 1/2 hour

So I keep trying to do things, simple things, like spend time with Tallulah or write this blog in between feedings and rocking/walking Moxie to sleep. But then she starts doing cute baby things like cooing and babbling and I can't miss that, can I? So, the bottom line is, I keep getting surprised by the speed and whimsy of the clock. And I can't get anything done.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

My dilemma

*The Best Day*

Saturday Kent, the girls, and I went to the local Farmers' Market as part of our New Year's resolution to eat fresh and local as much as possible. We stopped at the french pastry shop downtown and got Tallulah a pastry for breakfast, bought ourselves a couple of coffees, and wandered the stalls looking at brightly colored fruits and veggies. We had a grocery list, but of course made a few impulse purchases: bright red, perfectly ripe strawberries, a cup of freshly squeezed orange juice, a balloon animal made by a man who shamelessly hawked his wares to our four year old.

When Moxie needed attention, Kent rocked her while Tallulah and I chose veggies. Tallulah helped count the sweet potatoes (4), choose the best strawberry container, and sniffed the fresh flowers. We chatted with vendors, scurried out of the way of tourists (recognizable by their inability to make eye contact as they tried to cut in front of us in line), and repeated endlessly, "thanks, she's one month. Yes, we think she's beautiful, too."

The day made me feel that life as a family of four wasn't just possible, it might be enjoyable.

*The Worst Day*

Tuesday Kent left for Gung Fu at 6:30pm, leaving me to put Tallulah to bed at Moxie's worst time of day. Don't get me wrong, Moxie is absolutely fine in the evenings as long as someone
A. holds her
B. keeps her tightly swaddled
C. walks briskly
D. pats her on the bottom or back
and
E. makes shushing noises

We figured out the combination from Harvey Karp's "Happiest Baby on the Block" book and it truly does work, but how do you care for an older child at the same time? In the evenings when Moxie needs the whole combo to be happy, Kent and I trade off-- one is with baby, one is with older child.

On my first evening as sole provider, Moxie spent a lot of time unhappy, Tallulah got to bed late and with less storytime than usual, and I cussed Gung Fu for existing-- and Kent, too, just for good measure.

*The Dilemma*

Kent's Gung Fu instruction has been variable lately, alternating between evenings and Saturday mornings. He loves the instruction and always comes home peaceful and refreshed. Not to mention the lovely way his arms fill out when he's been exercising regularly. So Gung Fu is absolutely important to his well-being. But the question is, should he do Gung Fu in the evenings at the family's hardest hour or on Saturday mornings, the family's finest hour? Is it better for him to share the burden of the family or complete the perfection of the family? Kent and I, since becoming a family, are constantly weighing the balance of freetime and familytime, chores and play. With Tallulah, we'd gotten the balance down pretty well. Now we're having to renegotiate.