Dear Beyotch,

When I turned down the baby food aisle and saw you I had no idea what an impact you would have on my day. I was just minding my own business with my son, looking to use a coupon on the one baby food item I buy. Yes, that’s right, I feed my son Gerber chicken sticks. And I do this because he eats virtually no other meat and very little in the way of other protein foods and so occasionally my husband and I resort to these stupid little wieners because he loves them and will eat them. Not that this is any of your business.

But how is it that you have the audacity to watch me put a few jars in my cart, pick up the item yourself to look at it, and then almost immediately make a sound somewhere between an “eew” and a “yuck” before promptly replacing it on the shelf? Did that seriously just happen? Are you not also standing in the baby food aisle? And, just out of curiosity, was it something on the label that you found so offensive or was it just the unappetizing appearance of said wieners? Not that it matters. Do you often look at what others are eating in restaurants and if you don’t find it appealing you make faces at them or say something along the lines of, “Oh, that is so GROSS! I can’t believe you’re eating THAT!”? I’m just wondering, just wondering if this blatant rudeness is common for you or if it only surfaces when you are passing judgment on how others raise their children. Because, you know, that’s what us moms really need is to be judged while shopping at Target with our toddler. In general I think we could all use a little more criticism of how we are doing as parents, especially from total strangers, and I certainly think it’s great for us, as moms, to be totally unsupportive of one another because of course society gives us all the support we need, right? Yeah. Right.  Wait, are you even a mom? Where is your child? Why the hell are you standing in this baby food aisle anyway? Oh, right, I forgot. You’re here to look down on me.

So here’s a little tip, my beyotch friend: step off. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since becoming a mom it’s that you do not get to judge your fellow mommies. We are all in this together and we are all dealing with very different and very difficult issues to the best of our ability. So until you have walked in my 4 year old ratty sandals and tried every possible way you can think of to get your kid to ingest any form of protein you can STEP OFF. Make those noises of disgust at yourself for thinking you are better than me for buying a jar a Gerber.

Ah, you’re wondering why I didn’t just tell you to step off right then and there? A valid question. I’ll tell you why - because I’m not going to be rude to someone in front of my son, and at the time I had absolutely nothing positive to say to you. So instead I paused, dumbfounded, wondering how you could possibly be so obnoxious, and then threw a few more jars into my cart because you know, my kid eats a whole lot of these wieners!

Sincerely,

A Fellow Mom just trying to do the best she can

***********And on a much more serious and important note: I hope that everyone donated what they could to the causes featured on Idol Gives Back last night, because the shoes I cannot imagine walking in are those worn by a mother who has to hold her baby and watch him die from a preventable disease because she couldn’t get him the care he needed. If you’ve not already done so you can still go and donate on the American Idol website.

Labels: Mommyhood

After writing my last post, it was clear to me that I have let this winter, the exhaustion of raising a toddler while pregnant, numerous colds and illnesses, and an extreme lack of sunlight get to me. That’s not to say I don’t have those feelings, but they are on they negative end of the spectrum for me and unfortunately have been surfacing more and more recently as the cold weather dragged on…and on…and on…there is a note at the bottom of this post discussing those feelings a little more clearly as they have been the subject of much discussion around here lately. And luckily the weather is now gorgeous and the job description of the stay at home mom has become totally different than the winter version. But that won’t stop me from sharing what we did for out last week of winter, just in case another bout of crap comes for me or any of you…

I realized that the previous post has very little to do with actually “Embracing the Inner Housewife,” as its title suggests. Instead, it reflects my seeming inability to do so. So last week I decided to suck it up and see what would happen if I tried to be more active with Sam, both indoors and out, no matter how much energy it might take or how much clean up would result. And I have to say, it was a much better week. Not all of the activities we did were great, nor will they all be repeated any time soon, but having more to do really helped us both through yet another crappy weather week. So here are a few suggestions I have for those of you biting your nails waiting for the sun to emerge as you stare at your toddler for the 8th hour that day and proceed to push that train around the track the 6,787th time.

Monday - Dough: I’ve talked about Sam’s love for playdoh before. Honestly though, there came a time when I just couldn’t take it anymore because it ALWAYS resulted in some sort of tantrum. And as I’m sure you are all aware there is a level of clean up that is somewhat trying - picking up those little pieces off the floor when you are large and pregnant is not fun. So this week we made some cloud dough, which has a different consistency than playdoh. It’s lighter and more elastic so little pieces are not an issue. It is a bit oily, so I recommend keeping this activity limited to a table for a quicker clean up.

Sam LOVED this stuff. We made it together so he could play with the flour and the food coloring, and then once it was done he experimented with it for at least an hour. Yes, my almost 2 year old did an activity non-train related for an HOUR. He loved mushing it around, rolling it with a rolling pin, raking it with a fork, and stamping it with a cup, as well as ripping pieces off and hiding them inside the big blob so that he could try and locate them again. This activity was a keeper. And here’s the recipe in case you’d like to try it out.

Cloud Dough:

3 cups flour
1/2 cup oil
about 1/2 cup water

Knead the ingredients together and add coloring if desired.

Tuesday - the Mall: Would you like to know who is at the mall on weekday mornings? Moms. It’s ALL moms with strollers. And now I can see why. The mall is filled with activities for toddlers and you can have fun with them WITHOUT EVER ENTERING A STORE. I spent not a penny…well, that’s not true. I took a whole stack of pennies for Sam to throw in the fountain so really this trip probably cost me around 43 cents. In addition to watching the fountain and throwing coins, we rode the escalator and Sam thoroughly enjoyed running his stroller around obstacles such as benches and planters. Those are things you can do in just about any mall anywhere. Additionally, this mall happens to have a carousel, which rocks, and this amazing and wonderful thing called Reactrix, which seems to be some sort of ad network, but this one was only an ad for Reactrix itself. It’s an interactive projection that is spread across the floor and it responds to your steps when you walk on it. So envision looking down at something like a tv screen displayed on the floor of the mall, and it has fish swimming around in water. When you step on it near the fish they swim away from you. Or there is a soccer ball in the middle of a field with two goals at each end. You then walk up and “kick” the ball around, to each other, and into the goal to score points. Or there is a group of chicks and you try and round them up to the center where the mama chicken sits. It is awesome. I have no idea if this thing is good when it is just an ad for coke or visa, but the product itself is cool and a toddler’s dream. Sam played on it and ran himself ragged for about half an hour and was then joined by a few other kids. So if you are out shopping with your kid and you see a weird moving image projected on the floor, go and check it out.

Wednesday - Playgroup: I got our butts in gear and actually made it to a playgroup. Enough said.

Thursday - The Child led Walk: I believe Maria Montessori talks about the importance of walking with your child and letting them lead, no matter how long this activity may take. It is important to let them explore at their own pace and let go of the sense of needing to “get somewhere.” Whenever the weather has permitted I’ve tried to do this with Sam and it has been very rewarding…usually. Sometimes we end up far from the house and he refuses to walk back, resulting in me having to carry him, sometimes while screaming (him, not me…usually…), all the way back to our building. Or perhaps it gets too cold too fast but he does not yet want to go inside. Those times suck. I’m not going to lie. But usually it’s nice to walk with him and explore those little things I often don’t see. On this particular day the main event was hitting a puddle with a stick he had found. In case you are not aware, there are many ways to hit a puddle: you can slap it, swat it from side to side, or slide into it with the mud that surrounds it. Sam explored them all and was downright jolly about it. And other than some muddy shoes and immediately dumping our pants into the laundry this is a pretty quick clean up activity.

Friday - Fingerpainting: Well, it was fun while it lasted. Sam loved the colors and mushing them around to make everything a nice shade of brown. I think the main problem here was that I started to get worried about the mess as he started to stray from the table. He wasn’t really done painting yet but it was not keeping him totally occupied either. We also began to battle about whether or not he could have more paint over and over again, even though he already had plenty, and then it was just unpleasant. You can see it: kid covered with paint and becoming increasingly more distracted and on the brink of a tantrum because you won’t load up the plate of paint again. And so, the clean up, which would be difficult anyway, is now rendered horrendous because he’s writhing around and doesn’t want to wash his hands. Don’t know that I loved this one, but the pictures before the meltdown sure are cute.

Bonus activity - Bubbles: Easy, fun, and fascinating - blow some bubbles in the kitchen. Then have your child wipe up the residue from the floor by sliding around in their socks. Sounds good to me. You can even sit, that’s right, SIT DOWN while you blow bubbles for your kid. Wow!

I do want to say one thing about my last post, for those of you still reading. I wasn’t being totally articulate, and after having more time to think I believe I’ve narrowed down the real problem. I do not believe my college education was useless; it shaped who I am today whether I am directly using a degree or not. I think more than anything that the fact that many of us went to college, chose majors, and started careers is solid proof that we really did at some point have our own interests and pursuits. It’s what all moms/parents must deal with to some extent (college or not) - that loss of identity. It’s just hard to go through each and every day and feel like there is nothing that is your own anymore, nothing that resembles what your path once was, no time for yourself. And due to some recent changes in bedtime as a result of the time change and a child who will only let mommy put him to bed, what little time I had each day seems to have disappeared. Not to mention the fact that pregnancy really does take a lot out of you so nap time, for example, which long ago was a time to pursue my own interests (like blogging) is now spent just trying to rest up for the remainder of the day. I know you all understand my feelings because of your comments. I too don’t even know what I want to to with my time anymore and feel like I need to make a list of things I enjoy or to find something that is all mine, only mine. And I too don’t remember what that might be because I feel like I need the time to sit down and just think about what I want, and I don’t even have the time to figure it out.

I can say though, that making an effort to improve on the things I feel I lack as a mom does make it feel better. I don’t know any more about what I want for myself or where I am going, but I do know that Sam and I had a good time this week and, more importantly, I didn’t feel like I was doing a bad job…at least not as much as usual. That makes a big, BIG difference since parenting Sam right now is my job and the most important thing.

Labels: Mommyhood, Recipes, Toddler

I wouldn’t consider myself a very good homemaker. I don’t really enjoy cooking nor do I thrive on all of the things that go along with providing healthy meals for my family – menu planning, shopping, etc. I don’t hate cleaning, but I also don’t think about it very often. Occasionally I become a bit obsessed when the apartment is so bad I feel we are living among germs, but this doesn’t happen frequently enough to create what anyone would really consider a remarkably clean living space. When I look around at all of your blogs and I see amazing recipes that would take one more than 15 minutes to cook or, dear God, craft projects that you have completed, I am amazed and wonder why I can’t do that too. I realize that it is ok for me to not enjoy certain things, but I guess I want to enjoy them and just can’t seem to make myself; it just feels like work. More importantly, I don’t know how to find the energy.

I don’t mind that I’m not a great housewife/homemaker/whatever you want to call it. What I mind is not feeling like a good “stay at home mom.” The trait that I feel I lack is the creativity (or the energy) to keep my son occupied, stimulated, and happy. It has been a winter of lethargy. I know no other way to describe it. It got to the point where I felt like every time I took him out he would catch a cold, a bug, something. And so then we’d be stuck inside recuperating until we both got so stir crazy I was willing to leave our house again. Just this past week I finally got us out and to a playgroup on Tuesday and by Thursday night Sam had the Croup. It makes me want to be a hermit with him, which would all be fine and good if that meant I found ways to keep him busy when it is just the two of us at home, but I’m just not very good at that. It’s hard for me. On the one hand I get bored pushing a train around a track all day long and then on the other, when I try to do an actual activity, I wonder what the hell I was thinking as I try to clean finger paint off of a writhing toddler. Half the time the activity feels like it’s just not worth it, so I then try to just follow his lead (which means pushing the train around the track), and then I’m bored again. And so I busy myself with things I don’t really care that much about – laundry, dishes, cooking – just so that I can feel like I’m doing something and accomplishing something. But Sam wants me to play with him ALWAYS, and then comes the guilt, because I just can’t sit on the floor and play all day, and I feel like I should be able to do that and find a sense of accomplishment in that alone. I know there are so many working moms out there who wish they could do just that all day. And yet I can’t.

I never saw myself as a “housewife” when I was growing up. I know that’s not what we say now, but that’s what it was called at the time. As girls it was made abundantly clear that we could do what we wanted, hold whatever job we wanted (supposedly) and also have a family. None of us were really trained in the ways of raising children, pleasing husbands, and keeping house. We went on the assumption that we’d be doing more than that and followed whatever path in our education that we thought would lead us to what that “more” would be. That’s what I did – went to college, got my degree, worked several years in my field before getting married and then a few more before getting pregnant. And now here I am, feeling like I am supposed to be doing more even though it is my choice to do just this. But be it society’s expectations or my own, it just never seems like this is enough. How is it possible to feel so guilty about not doing more – for one’s family, in one’s life, for one’s self – and yet feel so completely drained at the same time? How do we justify the training/schooling (not to mention the financing of that education) we all went through when it now appears to be wasted now that we are, according to many, “just moms”? I have trouble making sense of it myself so I don’t know that I can even blame our culture for being hard on something they don’t completely understand.

Sometimes I wonder what it was all for too. Would I have still gone to college and done the years of work had I known that when it came down to it and I had a baby that there was no way I would leave my child with someone else in those first years if I had a choice in the matter? I don’t know if it makes sense or not. I know my life would be very different had I not had all those years. I know that I would be a very different person. But I’m not sure it’s possible now to not feel some sense of…failure almost that I didn’t stick to the plan. I imagine very few of us were thinking, “I want to be a stay at home mom when I grow up.” So how do we make sense of everything we’ve done that preceded this time in our lives? And I’m not saying I feel no satisfaction in what I am doing; that’s not the case, but sometimes it is just so hard to feel satisfied, engaged, energetic, motivated, fulfilled, and happy when there is a nagging feeling that it will never feel like enough.

Then other times I look closely and think to myself, “You know what - you made that smoothie, and it’s good for him dammit, and he likes it. And more importantly, you made that boy, he certainly doesn’t look miserable, and that’s all you have to do. There is no ’supposed to’ about it so get over it and stop complaining!” And that’s really nice while it lasts.

Labels: Mommyhood, Pictures

This is what happens when you ask Sam to smile for a picture nowadays.

In other news: I wrote a long post a few days ago to make the following announcement, but as I published it our internet died. I know better; I know I should always copy everything. But after that I just couldn’t bring myself to rewrite it. So without suspense, insight into my feelings, anecdote, what have you, Sam is going to have a little brother:)

Labels: Pictures, Pregnant