March 12, 2009
A Job…Done
Let’s face it: I’m a housewife. I know the term has come to sound vaguely derogatory, but are the modern euphemisms any better? Stay-at-home mom? Bullshit: I spend my days running from the market to the parent-and-me class to the park to the play date. My husband’s the one at home (albeit running his marketing business). Homemaker? I’m not crazy about that label either; I feel that it sets too high of a standard.
The truth is I feel like Sisyphus when it comes to “keeping house.” It seems that the majority of my time at home is spent cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, recovering misplaced objects, and then cleaning some more. Yet I don’t feel like I do any of it particularly well: My cooking isn’t that great. My house isn’t that clean.
It’s not that I’m a bad cook; I just have the special privilege of cooking for two especially picky eaters, so I sometimes end up preparing three completely different meals for lunch and/or dinner. Not surprisingly, they all often end up being pretty mediocre. It’s hard to be invested in making any dish that you know your family isn’t going to sit down and enjoy together.
As far as housekeeping goes, I’ll admit that I’m more of a “straighten up” kind of gal. If it looks cleanish and we don’t have a bug problem, I figure it’s good enough. Because honestly, between the sporadically incontinent dog, the free-roaming toddler and the well-meaning but not-especially-fastidious husband, I would drive myself insane trying to keep the house spotless. But even the seemingly simple tasks of clearing dishes, picking up toys and keeping “stuff” from accumulating on various surfaces sometimes feels like a Herculean effort (am I being too liberal with my references to mythological figures?). The mess just NEVER STOPS.
Still, pretty much every day I can say that I prefer this job to the one I left after Donovan was born. And that’s because of the other implied meaning of the word “homemaker.” I’m creating the most nurturing and stimulating environment possible for my child. Unswept floors and bland meals aside, this home is a safe and loving place for Donovan. And in that sense, he certainly has it made.
February 12, 2009
I Don’t Feel Like a Yoga Mom Today
I just completed my kids yoga teacher training: five days of bonding with eight other beautifully enlightened women, each representing a shining beacon of hope for our children’s future. Each session involved lots of meditating, chanting, deep breathing, yoga poses and discussion about the infinite value of giving kids the ability to develop self-confidence, feel centered and nurture the mind-body connection that is so integral to a happy, successful life. I came away from the training excited to pass what I had learned on to my 22-month-old son, and to myself get back into a regular habit of meditating and breathing consciously.
This morning I woke up groggy at 6:45, but was determined to start my day with Donovan by doing some yoga. The only problem was, he wasn’t into it. Not in the least. And he wasn’t just disinterested; he was actively and vocally opposed to participating in any capacity. I’d start chanting “ong namo guru dev namo” and he’d wail in protest. I’d brightly exclaim “let’s do washing machine” while rotating side-to-side with my hands on my shoulders and he’d scream “NO washing machine.” It was discouraging.
Donovan’s contrary mood lasted pretty much all day. Maybe I should’ve been grateful for this challenge, using it as an opportunity to breathe deeply and remain vibrantly present, calm and centered for my child. But as the day wore on, I found myself counting the hours until bedtime. At 6:15 I finally broke down and turned on Sesame Street (it’s on right now).
So now I’m telling myself that this kids yoga teaching thing is a marathon, not a sprint; as long as I put in the time and practice I’ll eventually be able to maintain that yoga state of mind. And with any luck, Donovan will follow suit. I sure hope so, because I’m going to feel like a pretty ineffectual kids yoga teacher if I can’t even get my own child to participate.
Update: Things are looking up. After two-thirds of an episode of Sesame Street, I took Donovan upstairs to play for a little while and read stories before going to bed. He was in a considerably better mood, as was I. I think that 40-minute break from each other did us both some good. I started rotating my upper body as I sat on the floor next to him, doing one of my favorite kids yoga moves, Stirring in a Bowl. Donovan looked up with a knowing smile and said “Mommy stirring bowl.” Then he started doing his own thing: He was sitting with his legs folded underneath him as he played with his toy trash truck, and he started squeezing his thighs together in time to the music that was playing. “Donovan!” I cried, “Look at you – you made up your very own yoga move!” He smiled proudly as he continued to squeeze his thighs together and pointed at me “Mommy yoga move!” I started doing it too. Then I got up into Down Dog. I couldn’t get him to join me, but he started pushing his truck underneath me, saying “Donovan play under Mommy Dog.” I was so delighted to see him getting involved. Of course, this type of involvement could make for some pretty chaotic kids yoga classes. But at least it’s a start.
December 19, 2008
I Don’t Negotiate With Terrorists
Donovan has embarked on a brand-new reign of terror. His people-pleasing stage was delightful but torturously short-lived and we are now locked in what feels like a perpetual battle of wills. Temper tantrums have grown longer, more frequent and more intense, and to top things off, he isn’t sleeping very well right now.
There are some cool aspects to this phase; it’s fascinating and gratifying to observe how well he understands just about everything I say, how quickly he picks up new ideas and how good he’s become at communicating verbally. The flip side of these developmental milestones is the willfulness and boundary-testing that come with them. Also, he’s going through a phase of extreme mommy attachment, which only compounds the problems.
It all comes to a head at bedtime. I can usually manage daytime tantrums with diversion tactics and, if needed, time outs. But now that Donovan’s no longer contained in his crib – he climbed out a few nights ago and never looked back – putting him to bed is an award-worthy challenge. The first night he climbed out and came upstairs to our bedroom, we didn’t know what to do, so we put him in bed with us. This no doubt kicked off his current bout of clinginess. I hardly smell wonderful when I’ve been sleeping under a heavy pile of covers all night, but Donovan got that nighttime whiff of mommy and he was hooked.
We were never a co-sleeping family, but now I know why so many people do it. It’s very sweet to slumber side-by-side with your child, plus the alternative, sleep training, is a total bitch. But I need my space to get a good night’s sleep – I’ve never been fond of nighttime cuddling either – and I want Donovan to be comfortable and secure in his own sleeping space as well, so sleep training it is.
We haven’t bought him a bed yet, as we hardly expected him to be out of his crib before he turned two, so his new “big boy bed” is a mattress on the floor in his room. Needless to say, the crib-scaling monkey won’t stay put on his mattress if he doesn’t want to, so I had to consult the book (Good Night, Sleep Tight) that I used to get him to sleep through the night in his crib. The solution is a total bummer: I have to spend nine to 12 consecutive nights sitting with him until he falls asleep, moving a little further away every few nights until I’m eventually sitting outside of his bedroom door.
Over the last few nights, this has been taking anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour. Donovan first tries to stall by asking me to read him more stories (I resorted to hiding all of his books in the closet last night), then asking for milk, which he then refuses, and then saying he wants to dance, play with blocks, or any other activity besides sleeping. When that fails, he tries to engage me in conversation: “This: Winnie Pooh. This: Bear. Daddy: Working. Hear: Tuffy.” I gently tell him to go to sleep. Once he finally lays down, he inches off the side of the mattress so that his foot is touching me, or tries to reposition himself so that his head is in my lap, and I have to keep putting him back on the mattress and saying he has to sleep in his bed, which is heartbreaking. Eventually he falls asleep and I sneak away. Then we get to go through the whole song and dance again at 1:30 in the morning. And then he wakes up at 6AM.
As I sit next to him at bedtime and struggle to keep my resolve, I try my damnedest to simply be in the moment and enjoy the quiet time with my son. But I’m plagued by thoughts of dishes to wash, toys to pick up, emails to write and finally, television shows to watch. I simply don’t possess the infinite patience that would make life as a parent so much easier. And the fact that I’m thinking about household chores makes me feel like a cliche and pisses me off even more.
This whole situation wouldn’t have come as such a blow if Donovan hadn’t been sleeping so beautifully for so long. I used to have a smug sense of superiority toward parents who had to engage in lengthy bedtime rituals like singing a series of lullabies, bottle-feeding until the child started to doze off, or reading the same six books in the very same order (for the record, last night I read nine). As usual, I received a swift and stinging ego check.
In reading over this post, I realize that it sounds a little heartless to compare my over-tired, mommy-clinging child to a terrorist. But anyone who has suffered through Donovan’s recent series of eardrum-busting tantrums – in a state of sleep deprivation, no less – wouldn’t bat an eye at the metaphor.
December 11, 2008
Ugh, I Feel Like a Mom
I’ve just had one of those mom days, and I don’t mean that in the best sense of the word. I mean it in the cliched, woman-being-done-in-by-her-crazed-toddler way.
That isn’t to say that Donovan was being any crazier than usual today. He was actually pretty charming most of the time. In fact, it felt like a breakthrough day in terms of language. He’s been quite the talker for awhile now, and has become very adept at telling me what he wants. But there was something different about the way we were communicating today – it seemed more meaningful somehow. For example, he’s started to correct me (with surprising patience) when I mistake what he’s trying to say. He was talking about guitars and I assumed he wanted to play with his toy guitar. I muttered something distractedly about how the guitar was in his room and he should go get it, but then Donovan made a point of getting my attention and pointed to the picture of a musician playing a stand-up bass that we have hanging in our living room and repeated very clearly, as if I were an idiot, “guitar.” Ah.
But I digress. It was around the same time this afternoon that I gave him a Snack Trap full of Cheerios to munch on while he wandered around the house and I tried to figure out what we were going to do to entertain ourselves during the several hours we had to occupy before dinner, bath and bedtime.
Here’s the thing about Snack Traps: They suck. I had forgotten about this because the thing had been out of commission for months, growing mold under the passenger seat of my car (yeah, I washed it). In direct conflict with its intended purpose, the rubber lid with the slits cut in it only seems to incite toddlers to turn the cup upside down and rapidly shake it until the contents fall out. Should that prove unsuccessful, they proceed to reach in and simply throw their food on the ground. It’s as if knowing that there is a mechanism in place to try and prevent a certain outcome, the little devils do everything in their power to overcome that obstacle. At least that’s the case with my little devil.
None of this would matter much to me under normal circumstances. Donovan normally gets his snacks in a plain old uncovered bowl, and 80 percent of whatever he’s eating always seems to end up on the floor. That’s what our dog is for. But today was the day of our every-other-week visit from the housekeeper and she had just left! I was so desperately (and naively) hoping that we could at least maintain clean floors through the afternoon. A ridiculous notion.
It was in the midst of Donovan’s battle with the Snack Trap that I took a look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t wash my hair this morning because I was in such a rush to get to our weekly Parent & Me class. The short haircut that had at first seemed cute and youthful in a punky/pixie sort of way was now growing out into that awkward phase and looking puffy and misshapen – it was starting to resemble your quintessential low-maintenance-middle-aged-woman short cut (AKA my worst nightmare). Makeup had for the most part been neglected as well. I was wearing the same yoga pants for the third day in a row – I thought they made me look svelte and sporty yesterday, but for some reason today I was feeling a little thick around the thighs. Shit, at this point I may as well have thrown in the towel completely and pulled on a pair of high-waisted “mom jeans.” I leaned in closer and examined my face. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep or the particularly dry weather, but I felt that I looked a good ways deeper into my thirties than I actually am. My God, this kid is aging me.
Of course, the rational part of me knows that I was just having a bad day, appearance-wise. And the cool experiences I had with Donovan more than made up for my perceived physical inadequacies. That said, I’m going to blowdry my hair, sweep the mascara wand and squeeze into my skinny jeans tomorrow. Enough with this looking-like-a-mom shit.
August 18, 2008
Brilliantly Useless Advice
One of the best pieces of new mother advice I’ve received so far was also the most infuriating. Donovan was about six months old or so and I was going back and forth on the issue of sleep training (I’ve always hated the way that sounds, like my child is a pet or something). There are several schools of thought and countless books on the subject, and I was desperately seeking the right answer from some of my more experienced mother friends.
There were some who advocated the “cry it out” method, wherein I checked on my child when he first woke up crying and then left him to sort it out on his own (in other words, exhaust himself screaming and go back to sleep). Draconian as this sounds, it was a tempting solution, as I had heard that after only a few nights of this torture, he’d be sleeping through the night on his own. Then there were those who preferred kinder, gentler methods such as holding and rocking the baby back to sleep, or simply staying nearby in the room as reassurance. And some of the mothers I knew simply took the child into bed with them, popping in the boob as needed so that everyone could get back to sleep quickly and with a minimum of fuss.
The cardinal rule to sleep training, I was told, was that you had to be consistent no matter what you did, so as not to confuse your baby. A simple enough-sounding concept, sure, but damn near impossible to abide by. How was I supposed to stick with any one method when I couldn’t figure out which one was right for me and for Donovan? Every night I would watch the clock obsessively to make sure I got to bed within a couple of hours of putting him down, and then I would go to sleep with a sense of anxiety about how I was going to handle it when he inevitably woke up screaming a few hours later. This made me a lot of fun to be around; just ask my husband.
When I finally sought the advice of one friend who has two children, a preschooler and a baby girl a few months old than Donovan, she had this to say, “Whatever feels right to you is the right thing to do.” Great, I thought. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?
Six months later, I realize that this is pretty much the last word on just about any one of the many hotly debated topics of parenthood. I still couldn’t tell you exactly when, how or why Donovan started sleeping through the night because, in all honesty, I wasn’t consistent in how I handled it, and I think it had as much to do with him being ready to do it on his own than it did with me “training” him. And, at nearly a year old, there are still some nights when he wakes up unexpectedly at 3:30 or 4 AM. It happens sometimes when he’s sick or teething, in which case I might just go ahead and nurse him back to sleep, even though my pediatrician would no doubt say we should’ve left that crutch behind months ago.
Here’s the thing that infuriates me most about baby advice books and rigid parenting philosophies. Every child is different, and they’re constantly going through changes. The same goes for parents. It all has to do with this wonderful thing called being human. How is it possible that anyone has figured out a solution that works across the board? It’s an absurd notion. In other words, there are no easy answers.
And on that note, I will end this entry, no doubt leaving my readers to wonder, what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?
