Leaping

September 16, 2010 at 10:09 pm (Motherhood)

I only blow-dry my hair once a week. (If that.)

I refuse to wash my hair more often than every other day. (Actually, I started that before I became a mom.)

I read a lot of blogs, particularly mommy blogs.

The TV is actually off during the day quite frequently.

I’ve started wearing something besides jeans every single day. I’m wearing shorts for the first time in years! (Can’t haul around a 24 pound kid and a diaper bag in 100+ degree heat wearing jeans. Uh-uh.)

I go to bed earlier.

I cook.

I use coupons.

I make a total fool out of myself in order to make my son laugh.

I love and accept myself more than I ever have. I know myself better than I ever have.

I’ve been reading a lot of mysteries, which I always longed to do, but never did.

I’ve started doing things instead of longing to do them. The big leap in to motherhood made all of the smaller leaps easier. And more important.

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My little vampire

September 6, 2010 at 11:44 pm (Biting, Max)

I don’t like being bitten. Shocking, I know. And I have a child who, for lack of a better word, is a biter. But not an aggressive, angry one. He seems to bite out of love. And therein lies the complication.

Let me back up a bit. Our son has a previous history of biting, but nothing that serious. We went through a phase where he started biting me while nursing. Not only did that hurt, but it totally stressed me out. It just sucked. I had to willingly offer one of the most sensitive parts of my body everyday to someone who was almost certain to bite it. And then grin at me like it was funny. He even started looking up at me right before he did it, almost as if he was seeing if he could get away with it. It was like offering my nipple to a piranha three or more times a day.

He did grow out of that, but nursing ended not too long after anyway. He would occasionally bite our fingers when we brushed his teeth or our hands, but it was never a big problem and it was limited to my husband and me.

Until the day my child decided to go all Twilight in playgroup. We went on a playdate with some friends from his music class. It was at the playscape at the mall and everything was going perfectly at first. However, we were already not having a good morning. We had to get up early and rush, which I, and I suspect Max, do not like to do. Furthermore, I had lost my patience with his squirming on the changing table and broken a sweat putting him in his carseat at 10 in the morning.

We get to the playscape and it is absolutely full of kids, older kids, despite the fact that the sign very clearly says it is only for children under 1. Plus, all of the parents are wearing shoes and it says no shoes! Grr. Anyway, Max apparently became excited and overwhelmed and started biting everyone. EVERYONE. First, his little friends, then their caregivers, then kids we didn’t know. He even tried to bite adults we didn’t know, but I managed to stop him. I was so blindsided and embarrassed. Thank goodness, his friends’ nanny and mom had seen him behave perfectly in music class for the previous seven weeks.

I cried buckets after we got home, from stress and worry and goodness only knows what else. He has continued to bite too much since then, although not with the frequency of that day. He is getting better, but I feel guilty, because I flinch too often when I see his mouth headed towards any part of my body. Or even just his head. I try so hard to wait and let him make contact and only pull away if he actually bites, but I just can’t sometimes. It’s an involuntary reaction and very hard to control. It’s natural to flinch away if you think someone is going to bite you, right?? But I think it is his way of kissing and showing affection and I am terribly afraid he feels rejected when I flinch away or nudge him away. I have gotten better and, ironically, he bit me kind of hard on the jawline when I was putting him to bed tonight (I was overwhelmed with love and hugged and kissed him tightly and he responded in his own unique way.) and that made me less afraid of the biting. Still, I wonder if damage has been done. We show him so much love and affection and he does not act like he feels rejected, but I worry about what goes on in that little head of his.

Does it make you a bad mom to not want to be bitten? Surely not. Heck, it’s gotten to where sometimes I’m excited when I see his teeth headed towards my skin, so I can give him a chance to show affection without biting. I want to not worry about biting. Just let whatever happens happen and handle the problem when and if it happens. I want to do that with pretty much everything else, too.

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Letter to Max at one year

August 5, 2010 at 10:38 pm (Max)

Dear Max,

You’ve been one-year-old for a week and a half now. I meant to have this letter ready for your first birthday, but it’s been so hard for me to figure out what to say. You mean so much to me. (Just typing that sentence brought tears to my eyes.) I can’t put into words how amazing this past year has been, how much you’ve enriched my life, and how much you’ve helped me become the person I want to be.

Maybe I should talk a little about what I want for you, the person I hope to help you become. I want you to be happy and kind and self-sufficient and to know who you are and what and whom you love. I want you to be brave in your pursuits and to learn, as I have, that there are many, many ways to be successful in this life and many of them have nothing to do with money. Oh, how I want you to be brave and confident and to love yourself. I have spent so much of my life in fear, little man, and I am only just now learning how to embrace my imperfections and to just jump in and try and make mistakes and learn from them. That is largely thanks to motherhood, so thank you.

I guess the preceding paragraph sounds a bit cliche. These are probably the things most parents want for their children. Maybe I should be more specific, but I just don’t have a specific vision for you, such as being a doctor or being President someday. I really just want you to live your life in happiness and peace. The only specific wish I thought of just now is that you will at least be kind to animals and maybe even love them, as I do. That smack in the face you gave Fort yesterday isn’t a great start, but I think you had good intentions.

Just know that your father and I love you so, so much. We fairly burst with it at times. We spend time at night discussing how special you are. You are such a thinker. You like to sit back and examine things and figure them out before you jump in. We took both swim and music lessons this summer and you were quiet and contemplative most of the time in both.

You are not walking yet, but you are very close. You practice everyday and flirt with letting go and taking off. You’ve fallen a few times, but, true to your cautious nature, you seem to be waiting until you’re pretty sure you have it down before you go for it.

Elmo seems to be your first celebrity “crush”. You get a smile on your face every time you see him. In fact, you were fussing today and you stopped every time you saw the tiny Elmo face on your washcloth.

Your favorite book is “Llama Llama, Red Pajama”. It is the only book you actually look at the entire time we’re reading it and you even lean towards the next page in anticipation. We think you like the vivid colors in the illustrations. I bought you a Llama Llama doll last Friday and you carried it all around Barnes and Noble, only parting with it so I could pay for it. You did seem just as enamored of the price tag you were chewing on as the doll, but you seem to love the doll now, even without the tag.

We have a sniffing game that developed out of my method of sniffing your blanket every night to ensure it’s clean enough for you to sleep with. It’s gone from me sniffing the length of the blanket to tossing it over my head and sniffing exaggeratedly around the room until I get to you and give you a big kiss through the blanket. You always smile in anticipation when I approach your crib at night and you laugh so hard.

You get laughing fits where you laugh silently, your face turns red, and your whole body shakes. Sometimes you laugh so hard you get upset, but it’s mostly worth it to see and hear those adorable giggles.

You love the windchimes Daddy hung over your changing table a few days ago. Grandma, Aunt Pat, and I like to believe that Grandma Lowder is talking to us when we hear windchimes and Grandma gave me those as a college graduation present. I love to see the rapture on your face when they ring. I am sure Grandma Lowder loves you very much and is watching over both of us and it means so much to me to see any little part of her in your life.

You’re not really talking yet, except for “Mama”, “Dada”, and possibly “No”. (We’re not sure about that last one.) You can imitate sounds wonderfully and have been able to since you were only a few months old. I swear I’ve heard you say “Uh-huh” a few times and even “cat”.

We bought many musical instruments for you for your birthday and you love them. You’ve been playing with your lollipop drum so much and you finally made a connection between mallet and drum yesterday. You were holding the drum backwards, but you still did it and were so proud of yourself.

There are so many adorable attributes I could add to this snapshot of you at one year. I don’t want to forget anything, but I know I will, even if that sounds impossible now. However, I will never forget how you delight me everyday and make me feel like the luckiest mommy on earth. I love you, Max Max sugar smacks. 🙂

Love, Mama

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The 12-month doctor visit

July 28, 2010 at 4:45 pm (Max, Motherhood, Pediatrician)

It’s occurred to me since having a child that it’s a good thing the child does not know his monthly birthdays and even his first birthday are really any different from any other day. Most of them are marred by a doctor visit and shots. Today, Max and I endured the 12-month checkup and I was startled by the exponential increase in difficulty of the doctor’s visit since his nine-month visit. (We were there a few weeks ago when he had strep, but I guess the illness kept him in check.)

A timeline of the day (or how not to handle the 12-month visit)

10:50 a.m. Put son down half an hour early for nap.

12:00 p.m. Get son out of crib after roughly an hour of not napping.

12:15 p.m. Start bottle early (It was due at 12:55, but appointment is at 1:45.)

12:25 p.m. Son wants break from bottle.

1 p.m. One more break and half an hour later, bottle mostly done. Settling in high chair for lunch.

1:02 p.m. Pinch son’s delicate tummy skin in high chair. Spend frantic minute finding source of crying. Remove from chair, comfort, return to chair CAREFULLY.

1:25 p.m. Finish fairly uneventful lunch. Rush upstairs, change diaper, and dress child.

1:30 p.m. Rain starts pouring, rush upstairs for umbrella.

1:35 p.m. Place child in carseat, say f-word three times, volume increasing with each repetition, as you futilely attempt to close umbrella. Head to doctor’s office, which is more than ten minutes away, especially in the rain.

1:50 Arrive at doctor’s office, park in newborn and mother-to-be parking with one-year-old. (Hey, I never got to use it when I was pregnant and then actually had a newborn.) Curse your luck when notice mother with apparent newborn parked next to you.

1:51 Sigh with relief when you find out hers is nine-months-old.

2:00 p.m. Start waiting in exam room with restless toddler who can’t actually toddle very well yet and only wants to play with the wipes container and germy exam room toys, despite the ones you brought from home.

2:20 Finally get your exam. Try to contain toddler who cries while his ears are being checked.

2:35-ish Start waiting for the nurse to come back with the shots. Pace back and forth holding child, making sad puppy noises from your son’s favorite song from music class, hoping no one in the hall or next room can hear you.

2:45 Start going crazy waiting for the shots. Decide to let son down on floor, thinking that will make the nurse show up.

2:46 Son smacks face on floor. Starts screaming. Nurse walks in.

2:55 Comfort screaming son after shots. Head home, stopping at Starbucks on the way.

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Isn’t there a culture that considers them good luck?

July 14, 2010 at 1:01 pm (Chris, Relationships)

My husband told me the funniest story on Monday night. It was about our second date in March 2006. We went to a Persian restaurant named Ararat. (It has since closed.) For whatever reason, things didn’t really catch fire between my future husband and me until the following summer and this date was going a bit awkwardly.

However, my husband had heretofore unknown (to me) reasons for feeling awkward. Apparently, a cockroach ran up his pants leg. He gallantly squished it and sat there for the rest of the dinner without telling me. I don’t know how he stood it. I also don’t know how I would have reacted at the time if he’d told me. (Although I now think that it would be difficult for any restaurant in Texas or really anywhere to never encounter the odd cockroach.) I hope I would have thought how funny, sweet, and gallant it was of him to endure squished cockroach on his leg in order to salvage our date. Regardless of how I would have reacted then, now it makes me love him even more.

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Accepting the “me” in Mommy

July 7, 2010 at 10:52 pm (Motherhood)

It’s a little disconcerting that I’m still so selfish at times, even though I’m a parent. I hesitate to use the word “selfish”, since it has such a negative connotation, but since I’m feeling negative about this right now, I guess it’s the right word.

Everyone talks about mothers as being so self-sacrificing. My own mother really was. She somehow managed to take care of three (Later four after she remarried.) kids, sending the two younger ones to Catholic school, and never left us wanting for food or clothes or books or really anything we wanted. She never seemed to get anything for herself. If that bothered her, she hid it well.

Sure, she occasionally told us we couldn’t afford something or told us we needed to save up our money or wait for Christmas or a birthday. But that just seemed to teach us patience, making good choices about whether we REALLY wanted something, and that you can’t have everything you want in life.

I’ve read so many blogs and articles about mothers not making time for themselves. And it’s really true. Sometimes I will go through phases where I just get exhausted because I am never taking the time to rest or participate in treasured activities like reading a book.

However, sometimes Max will get a bottle or a nap a bit late because I spent a little extra time looking around a store on an errand or wanted to finish the last little bit of a TV show I was watching or a blog entry I was writing. And I feel so guilty, even though Max doesn’t seem to care most of the time. I expect myself to be perfect and be able to shut off every single bit of self-interest or self-centeredness, despite the fact that I constantly remind myself that I need to take care of myself in order to take care of everyone else.

And I still want things. I can say no (Like I did yesterday to the fancy designer glasses frames, even though I might go back and get them in a few days.), but I buy myself new clothes and still spend quite a bit getting my hair cut and highlighted every few months. We’re not hurting for money, thank goodness. We can afford these things. But we do want to cut back a bit because of all the extra moving expenses. And Max is still too young to really want or ask for things, so I don’t feel as if he’s being deprived. And yet, I feel guilty that it wasn’t easier to say no to those frames. That I almost didn’t.

Why do I feel guilty when my son is getting everything he needs when he needs it? When he’s happy and healthy? When I’m actually balancing my needs and my family’s quite well? Why can’t I give myself a break??

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Posting Day

June 30, 2010 at 11:14 pm (Life, Writing)

Due to the whole Mom gig and the fact that I am STILL unpacking and arranging my new house (three and a half months after the move), I have not been posting much. So, I decided I must do something about that. I have certain days of the week for certain tasks, so MAYBE if I assign a day of the week to updating my blog, I will actually get it done. (Although things that are good for me that I actually enjoy often fall by the wayside. Big surprise.) I have not decided which day yet. Maybe it will be Wednesday, since today is Wednesday and that is usually a light chore night.
As I was playing with my cats tonight (Another enjoyable task that has fallen by the wayside since my son was born. Actually, since I met my husband. No wonder cat ladies are so often single.), I reflected on a topic that has amused me with its irony lately. At least, I think it’s ironic. Ever since Alanis Morissette released her “Ironic” tune and everyone picked on her so mercilessly for misusing the term, I am afraid to apply it to anything.
Before my son was born, I often experienced difficulty finding time to write my blog, play with my cats, exercise, read and, really, do much of anything besides hang out with my husband and watch TV when I wasn’t teaching or grading papers. Somehow, despite the incredible busy-ness of being a mom, I am more productive in all of these areas now. I watch less TV (but enjoy it more), I read more, I write on the blog more (the last month being an exception), I exercise well, about the same, (I’m working on that.), and I am prioritizing playing with my cats again. Not only that, I am going to swim classes and music classes, and watching things like “Sesame Street”, “Caillou”, and just plain cheesy daytime TV sometimes. I am a homebody again. I am starting to feel really happy with my life. And I think I’ve figured out one of the main reasons why.
I get to be home again. I get to take care of my home. I get to run errands and watch kiddie shows and classic sitcom reruns with my kid. I get to take walks around the neighborhood. (Well, not now in the crazy Texas summer where it’s either triple digits or a tropical storm, but come fall we’ll be back out there.) I am enjoying being a homebody, staying home when I want and going out when I want or need to. I am reliving my childhood, except I am the adult this time. Which is even better in some ways, because I can decide to go to the pool! Or the park! Or the mall or the bookstore! I don’t have to ask my mom! I AM the mom! (Sorry, Mom.)
I can’t believe I spent 20-odd years going to school, getting an advanced degree, and going from job to job, only to finally get back to where I started, the place I wanted to be all along. Home. Isn’t that the darnedest thing?

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Message to Procter and Gamble

May 31, 2010 at 11:49 pm (Motherhood)

Re: Your Mother’s Day ad

“What do you call a person who does everything and asks for nothing in return?”

P&G’s answer was “Mom”. And while that made me feel all teary for about a second, my answer would be “a saint”. And while I am a mom, I am not a saint. I was discussing this with my husband earlier and we agreed. A mother will most definitely love and care for her child whether or not she gets anything in return, if she is any kind of a mother at all. Asking for nothing in return? Maybe I will need to start dodging flying tomatoes here, but I do want things in return. I might not come out and actually ask for them, but I want them. I want my son to love me. I want him to behave nicely towards me (at least most of the time). I want him to be proud to call me “Mom”. And I want at least a card on Mother’s Day, my birthday, and Christmas. Or a phone call once he’s grown up.

Hopefully, P&G just wanted to make us moms feel appreciated and warm the cockles of our hearts. And I’m sure they did for many. Usually, I’m one of them. But now that I’m a mom, I know that it’s ok to want things from the people you love and work so hard for, even your own children. All it took today was a smile from Max when I walked in the room after an absence. Just a smile. It was simple. But it was something. And we moms are human and we need it. And there is nothing wrong with that.

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Bookworm and son

May 29, 2010 at 4:10 pm (Books, Max)

Most parents imagine all of the clothes and toys they will buy for their child. At least, I think that’s the case. I’m a little weird in the respect that I dreamed, not of those things, but of sharing books with my son. I am sure there probably are other weird parents out there who dreamed of sharing their favorite books with their child and discovering new ones to love. However, I think that is almost exclusively what I thought about. The only other thing that came close was my desire to share my love of music. But that’s another post.

In fact, for the first several months after he was born, books were all I bought for him, aside from the necessities, such as diapers. I was just very anxious to ensure he started out with a good book collection, a good shot at being a reader. Others had bought him plenty of clothes and toys, so I decided it was going to be up to me to fill the bookshelf.

Towards that end, I decided to start a tradition of buying a new book for him on his birthday every month. I have not decided yet how long I will continue this tradition, but right now, it will be until his first birthday at least. I have cheated a few months and bought two (In fact, I bought three for his ten-month birthday last week.), but overall, it has been a good, fairly inexpensive way to regularly add to his bookshelf. Plus, I get positively giddy when I order new books for him from Amazon and envision reading them to him for the first time. So, it’s a little something for me to look forward to every month. And who doesn’t need that?

That is part of the reason I have shared on this site when I read a new book with him. I have fallen woefully behind during the whole moving process these past few months, but I am going to try and share a few titles right now, rather than try and write a separate entry for each, as usual, and fall further behind. I hope any of you parents trying to raise readers might get some inspiration (and send some my way, if you like) and that Max might someday enjoy knowing the books we shared together and when.

Harold and the Purple Crayon 50th Anniversary Edition (Purple Crayon Books)

The New Adventures of Curious George

A Treasury of Curious George

Olivia (Classic Board Books)

Corduroy

Max Counts His Chickens (Max and Ruby)

(This last one was a present for his first Easter. An impulse buy at the register at HEB that worked out really well.)

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Snail mail is not dead

May 14, 2010 at 12:03 am (Life, Moving)

Why can’t I find any change-of-address cards? The last time I moved, three years ago, I found some easily at Target. Now, I could only find way over-priced (Ten for $20! Just because they can go through your printer!) ones at HEB. HELLO, SOME PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE E-MAIL. SOME PEOPLE ARE NOT ON FACEBOOK. Like my grandmother. Who sends me birthday checks. AND I JUST HAD MY BIRTHDAY.
Plus, I just think it’s polite to send cards through the mail. Maybe that’s weird, but it wouldn’t feel right not to.

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