A Moment in Time

One really weird thing about having a baby is that while this is probably the most challenging, significant part of my life so far, Amelia won't remember a second of it.

Obviously there are important things happening for her here--science agrees that much of how she will interact with the world is figured out at this point. That's why I spend time helping her sleep, snuggling her, feeding her good food. If she didn't remember it and it didn't matter, I could feed her whiskey to help her sleep or ask Cypress to babysit.

Not that I would but...you know. I could.

This weekend I was laying on the couch with Amelia heavy and asleep on my chest (the only way she will currently nap). I could tell you that I always spend those moments marveling at the beauty of parenthood and magical unicorns and so forth, and while that does happen, most times I just scroll through social media on my phone and wait for her to wake up.

Not a lot of people tell you that about parenthood so here it is - there's a lot of waiting and moments "in between."

Anyway my phone started to die and I'd already slept for a few minutes, so I stared up at our skylight and started to think about how Amelia won't remember anything from this time. If she talks about herself as a baby, it'll only be through the lens of the memories I share with her. It's strange that this time can be simultaneously so unimportant in terms of her own memories and yet so significant to the development of her brain, her personality and her ability to relate to others.

As I looked down at her and thought of who she'll be in 5, 10, 20, 50 years, I realized that in some small way these experiences will stick with her. Maybe one day she'll smell something that reminds her of me--perhaps my infrequently-applied deodorant, or Tide detergent, or Burt's Bees chapstick--and feel a little nostalgic drop in her stomach that she can't quite identify but that is oddly peaceful to her.

That made my own stomach drop a bit, thinking of how vital I am to her survival now and how one day I will be only a piece of her life. I read the other day that the goal of parenthood is to make yourself obsolete, and my greatest wish for Amelia is that she feel confident enough to let go of me and Rob and move forward. But it doesn't mean it isn't a little sad to think that one day in the (hopefully) distant future I'll be nothing more than a series of memories to her.

Interesting how new life can make you think about death, isn't it?

Some Lists

Here are some lists about Amelia's life lately.

Nicknames
1. Goon
2. Goon-la-loon
3. Bitsy
4. Bits
5. Bootsie
6. Mealie-bot
7. Botskidoo

Favorite Toys:
1. Captain Calamari
2. Anything that isn't a toy
3. The remote control
4. Mom's phone
5. Stacking cups
6. Bath toys
7. The fireplace
8. The dog's paws, nose and eyebrows
9. The dog
10. The diaper wipe box

Sounds:
1. Rolling her tongue
2. Sharp inhales when she cries
3. Babbling (bababa, rarara. Sometimes it sounds like she's saying rob-rob-rob-rob)
4. Growling at dad

Skills:
1. Pulling herself up on anything and everything
2. (Almost) standing without help
3. Sleeping on her belly
4. Crawling like a champ
5. Growling at dad

Favorite Foods:
1. Anything that is food

Favorite TV Shows:
1. Sesame Street
2. Hockey games

Teeth:
1. Bottom
2. Bottom
3. Top
4. Top

Favorite Songs:
1. Anything by Meghan Trainor (I know, I know)
2. Alkaline Trio's latest album

Least Favorite Things Ever:
1. The carseat
2. Napping alone
3. Loud ripping or snapping sounds
4. The dog barking like, right in her ear

I Don't Mind

I don’t mind.

I don’t mind that you woke up for the fourth, fifth, sixth time tonight for no obvious reason. I don’t mind that it’s 4:35am.

I don’t mind that when I come into your room that you’re awake. Not wide awake, but definitely more awake than, you know, asleep.

I don’t mind bringing you downstairs to do the one thing that has always soothed you even in the deepest throes of colic: dancing to music. I picked Alkaline Trio this time.

I don’t mind having to turn off the computer screen and the nightlight while we dance because if I don’t you’ll stare at them and stay awake.

I don’t mind having to constantly readjust so that one hand is always holding your head as we dance. I know it helps you fall asleep and more importantly, I know you like it.

I don’t mind that you fight me again with increasingly quieter squawks. I know you want to experience the world around you instead of sleeping, and I hope you retain that curiosity as you get older.

I don’t mind that my feet are getting cold pacing the floor as you resist the sleep you so desperately need. I don’t mind that my arms ache from holding and swaying you.

I definitely don’t mind the way your body and head slowly get heavier against me as you drift off to sleep. One day I’ll remember this moment and I’ll miss it when you are grown. I don’t know what that feels like from experience, but the seed of that future loss was sown the day you were born and I am constantly aware of its presence. Sleep seems so important now, but I know it won’t some day.

I don’t mind walking you back upstairs and laying you down, taking extra, excruciating care to make sure I don’t wake you up.

Honestly I do mind a little bit when your eyes immediately snap open and you start to scream again the second you hit the bed.

But it's okay. Alkaline Trio has a lot of songs.

Motherhood Lately

Amelia is about 9 days away from turning 8 months old.

And where the hell that time went, I have absolutely no idea.

When she was first born, and really until she was about 4 1/2 months old, time could not have gone slower. As I've written about previously, she was very colicky, and with the specter of postpartum depression hanging over my head and the anxiety of being thrown into motherhood...let's just say it was a tough fourth trimester.

Everyone told me that it'd get easier, that it'd get better, that I'd forget the absolute drudgery of that time. I'm not far enough away from it to forget it (some days I think it's actually worse in my memory than it was in reality), but I can finally report that it did, in fact, get better.

At 7 1/2 months old, Amelia is bright, aware, engaging, communicative. She reaches both for me and for Rob, eats whatever we shovel into her mouth, doesn't (always) scream when I leave the room, is back to sleeping through the night in her own bed (knock on wood), is working toward crawling and walking simultaneously. She is still fussier than a lot of babies, but generally only when she's tired, lonely, hungry, or wakes up from a nap too early. If there is such a thing as an introverted baby, she is one; when we go somewhere new or when someone new comes to us, her fussiness ramps up a bit and she requires a fair amount of "recharge" time. Sometimes I worry that she is this way because in her first months we didn't go many places or meet new people, but either way it is how she is and we are learning to adapt to meet her needs. A lot of our day is still spent pulling her back from the brink of misery (for all involved) but it's about a thousand times less unpleasant than it was in her first few months.

I suppose that along with her evening out, we have gotten a lot better too. We are more used to her ups and her downs, we know what works and what doesn't, and we learn more about each other every second of every day. Before she was born I always thought there'd be a point at which we felt like we had the basics down and had a good flow; I've realized, though, that this point doesn't really exist at least in the way that I had expected. It might be that my baby is uniquely difficult, but it seems that she never has one habit for too long and as soon as we get accustomed to her she flips the tables on us.  The most recent example is that she was napping only in the carrier for months, and now putting her into the carrier launches a massive screaming fit. At the current moment I can only get her to nap in our bed with me there, and it takes a lot of fighting and nursing to make that happen. Another example is that she was almost 100% weaned onto formula for several weeks only to give up and refuse bottles in favor of breastfeeding again. It's taken awhile for my milk supply to respond to "unweaning" but I think we're in a good place. At this point I might just nurse forever for how well it works toward getting her to sleep.

This is one thing I would convey to expecting mothers from my experience: plan away if it helps you, but be ready for near-constant change. Don't internalize it, because it probably isn't your fault. Babies are terrible.

Aside from all that (or maybe partially because of it) motherhood is as amazing and beautiful. I don't know why I feel the need to clarify to the world that I love my kid--it should be a given--but I share a lot of the tough stuff so there's some positive for you too.

Happy week, friends!

In Which I Compare Parenthood to Fictionalized Serial Murder

You know that scene at the end of Se7en where (spoiler alert, if you just time traveled here from 1995) Morgan Freeman opens the package to find Gwyneth Paltrow's head, and he realizes that Kevin Spacey has totally used him and Brad Pitt to complete his murderous tableau, and that in his words, "John Doe has the upper hand"?

I had a realization the other day that that, for me, in a nutshell, is what it's like to have a baby.

WHAT'S IN THE FUCKING BOX? It's my sanity.

I've written before about how prior to Amelia's arrival I had read and saved dozens of blog posts that ranged in topics from sleep to Montessori activities to raising an "independent" child. They were all centered around one key idea, that by performing the correct steps in the correct sequence, you could in turn determine the child and person that your progeny would become. 

This concept appealed to me, since as an anxious person the ultimate goal of worrying and obsessing is to control a situation that is fundamentally uncontrollable. 

I realized in short order that not only are babies not blank slates, they also don't read or adhere to parenting advice. Or at least mine doesn't. The little rebel.

Though Amelia slept through the night by 5-6 weeks, we have since "regressed" to full-time cosleeping. It's literally the only way she will sleep. Not only does she need to be in our bed, but it means I can't leave the bed (even when she's asleep) without her screaming. And it's real screaming, not just angry baby noises. Despite the fact that when she was a newborn I made something of an effort to not hold her constantly, she is currently at least somewhat unhappy unless she is in my arms all the time. 

I'm revealing my own naivete, perhaps, when I admit that I thought if I had a good sleeper by 3 months or so then that was it. My work was done barring the occasional episode of teething or developmental leaps.

Going back to my metaphor, finally coming to and accepting the realization that parenting advice is really more of a guideline assuming you have a certain type of kid was a bit like Morgan Freeman opening the box and realizing that he never had the control he thought he did. 

I know that a lot of my parental desires boil down to wanting Amelia to be independent. That isn't because I want to be left alone or that I don't want her thinking she can depend on me; rather, I know from personal experience how hard it is to go through life requiring validation, constantly feeling uncomfortable in your own skin, never feeling truly comfortable being yourself. I don't want that for her. 

Perhaps appropriately given my own mental state, I don't want her to be like me.

But that's not what parenting is about, is it? Once you get past the obvious initial stage, it isn't about creating a person from scratch. It's growing a person, shaping a person. And that's exactly what she is--a person, albeit a small one.  Who she is is largely beyond my control, and while it is my job to guide her during her formative years, it is also to love her no matter who she is or who she becomes. Not only that, but who she is at 7 months is unlikely to be who she is at 7 or 17 or 70. 

If she's like me, maybe she'll feel fortunate that she has a mother who can understand her anxiety beyond tired platitudes like "just stop worrying." If she ends up being more independent like her dad, maybe she'll cherish the fact that she when she feels vulnerable she has a mom who is well-versed in the ways of fear.  Either way all I can do is what works best for the both of us and try to let go of the illusion of control.

And that, I guess, is why parenting is like finding a bloody head in a box in the best way possible.

What Parenthood Looks Like

I find that when it comes to motherhood, there are two general narratives you find online.

The first is of the mother that has everything together (or at least appears to), who has the Pinterest-worthy nursery and birthday parties, who speaks glowingly about every single phase of a child's life as being truly magical.  This mother inexplicably has white walls and light-colored carpets, always has the laundry done and makes her own baby food.  Even when this mom "keeps it simple" the result could still feasibly be its own magazine cover. She also probably cloth diapers and talks about how much easier it is (convinced this is a lie).

The second is an opposing vision: this mother loves her children as well, but neglects her significant other. She wears crusty, stained yoga pants, her hair hasn't seen shampoo in weeks. This mother defines her parenting style by the absence, rather than the presence, of overachievement. As proud of the other mother is of her parties and her nursery, this mom is just as proud of the fact that her children ate cereal for dinner while she drank her wine.

At this point I will say that I am not suggesting that either of these parents loves their child more or less than the other; indeed, though you find plenty of examples of both these narratives on the internet, I don't think either tell the entire picture.

The plunge into parenthood is fraught with as much guilt and insecurity as it is with joy and amazement. that much any parent will tell you.  With mothers in particular (in a biased, heternormative sense as that is my experience) I think many find it easier to express the push and pull in extremes, such as the extreme examples above.  This doesn't leave a lot of room for the grey areas into which most people fall. If there's one thing I've learned about parenting over the last 5.5 months, it's that you'll often find yourself immersed (submerged? drowning?) in nuance and grey areas.

All that said, I thought I'd share with you what parenting, and more specifically motherhood, look like for me--equal parts overachievement and "just getting by."

• No matter in which direction I look, there is at least one baby-related item in my periphery. 
• Spending an additional .50 on the "nice" baby food jars to compensate for the guilt of not making my own healthy baby food.
• Trying the Ferber method, then trying full-time cosleeping. Mixed results with both.
• Making sure the plastic toys I buy are BPA and phthalate free despite the fact that I can't tell you with any certainty exactly what BPA or phthalates are.
• Breastfeeding exclusively except for the odd bottle of formula to get a break.
• Babywearing, not for its supposed benefits but because it's the only way my baby naps that still allows me to get work done.
• I could not care less about the decor or cake for Amelia's first birthday.
• In a fit of exhaustion I might've told Amelia I'd sell her to the circus. 

So there you go. Parenthood. At least my kid should develop a good sense of humor out of all this.

The 5 People You Meet on Mom Forums

Here's a secret about me: one of my guilty pleasures is internet drama. When I come across a controversial article the first place I go is the comments. I'm a regular reader of the Scary Mommy Confessional. As a result of this guilty pleasure it is not surprising that I often find myself reading forums on BabyCenter.

For those of you who have not sunk into the depths of the Internet Mamarati, BabyCenter is what people warn you about when tell you not to Google anything. Sometimes I'm convinced that BabyCenter hires people to post ridiculous threads that get clicks because they are so fucking out there. I just can't (or don't want to) believe that people like this exist.

But they do, in some form, and below I've shared the five types of moms I've come across on mom forums.

HAVING IT ALL

1. The Overachieving Crunchy Mom: Many of the regulars on mom forums create a "signature" for themselves that appears every time they post. The Overachieving Crunchy Mom's signature is chock full of all her crunchy achievements with near-unintelligible acronyms. This mother practices EBF (extended breastfeeding) and CD (cloth diapering), doesn't vaccinate or try CIO (cry it out) and plans to "unschool" their darling LO (little one).  Because it isn't enough to just feel strongly about these things, this mom makes sure that all other posters know all the ins, outs, and questionable science behind all of it.

Example Posts: 

"Have you tried squirting breastmilk on your LO's cut/broken bone/eye? We've been EBFing our 4yo and breastmilk in her ear canal cured her multiple ear infections!"

"You took your baby to get shots at 2 months old? EDUCATE YOURSELF WITH THIS SERIES OF BLOG POSTS I FOUND, SHEEP."

*~*~*~*~*

2. The Sanctimommy: Mom forums are positively rife with this type of mom. This chick replies to every post, welcome or not, with passive-aggressive assurances of how much better of a mom she is and how what you're doing is not only wrong, but will most likely ruin your child for life. Every decision, no matter how tiny or seemingly insignificant, has massive, irreversible effects to this mother.

Example Posts:

"How could you leave your CHILD to cry for an hour? My child has never even cried for 20 seconds let alone an hour! It's called being a loving parent."

"I guess whatever works for your family, but I could never do that personally."

*~*~*~*~*

3. The Humblebragger Mom: Another frequent poster. This mom will reply to every anxiety-laden question by confirming another mom's fears with her own experiences. Worried about the fact that your child isn't rolling yet? This mom's baby has been rolling since she was 4 weeks old. Concerned about your baby's babbling skills? This mom's kid was speaking in full sentences as a fetus. But no worries y'all, babies develop at a different pace and I'm sure he will soon!

Example Posts:

"My husband and I have had sex 78 times a week starting when my baby was 2 weeks old!"

"My child has slept through the night since she was 3 days old! SO BLESSED."

*~*~*~*~*

4. The "Bumper" Mom: When a mom's post doesn't get a response quickly enough, this mom will comment with "bump" to return it to the top of the page..over and over and over again.

Example Post:

*Bump*

*Bump*

*Bump*

*~*~*~*~*

5. The TMI Mom: Motherhood tears down a lot of walls, particularly in the realm of bodily functions. For this mom, this manifests itself in sharing graphic photos of feces, vaginal discharge, and wounds.

Example Posts:

"I found red strings in my LO's poop today. GRAPHIC PHOTO."

"Does this cervical mucus mean I've ovulated?"

*~*~*~*~*

Want to hear a funny story? Some of these are based on actual conversations/replies on BabyCenter forums.  Motherhood is a whole other world, y'all. Don't Google.