So I wake up around 6:30 am. This is not uncommon. Pregnancy has made me wake up around 4:00 or so every night and then only have some very light sleep until Sam and I both get out of bed around 8:00. 6:30 is also roughly when Hubby begins to get ready for work. As I lay there, trying to go back to sleep, I notice Hubby seems to be making a lot more noise than usual as he prepares for the day. He has shut the bedroom door, as he always does, but I can still hear him stomping around the hall, closing other doors rather loudly, and then, at one point, I hear him talking in his regular phone voice. My husband has the loudest phone voice of anyone I have ever heard, with the exception of the two that can at least match him, his father and brother. So I’m laying there wondering why he is doing absolutely nothing to keep his voice down since he knows we are trying to sleep, why he is slamming doors, why it sounds like he is literally running in the hall. I decide that he has gotten a call from work asking him to come in early, which is possible since the judge he works for is currently the “emergency back-up,” meaning that this week Hubby is, in fact, supposed to be ready in the event of a judge-like emergency to go to work. So I envision him running around the house, having just received the call, trying to get ready as quickly as possible. I go back to sleep.

Amazingly, Sam and I sleep until nearly 9:00 (uh, time change anyone?). We come out to the living room and I put Sam down to play while I go to the kitchen. Next thing I know Sam is bringing me Cheerios from the floor in the living room. When I go in to see where he is getting them I find Cheerios spread randomly over the whole room. I happen to notice that there are even more covering our patio outside. I think back to the noise this morning and put on my thinking cap to solve this odd Cheerio mystery. Sam is still in the background, “O, O, O,” as he continues to find cereal on the floor. When I go back to the kitchen I see the cereal container has been left open on the counter and our couch blanket has been stuffed into the hamper. I don’t want to pull it out to see why for fear that it is just more cat vomit for me to clean up. I try to figure out what would posess my husband to throw Cheerios all over the patio and spill them in our living room without cleaning them up. Was he trying to attract squirrels to the deck for Sam to see when he woke up? Did he just have an accident in his rush and didn’t have to time to clean it up? But then why the cereal outside? I come to the logical conclusion: there was some sort of animal out on the patio, like a raccoon (we live on the 2nd floor, by the way. How a raccoon would get up there I have no idea but that’s what made sense to me at the time), Hubby called some sort of animal rescue line (the phone call I heard) to come out and get it and then for some reason decided to throw Cheerios at it while he waited and also ran back and forth down the hall a few times trying to decide if he should wake me up to show me. Eventually it left on his own, he called the animal rescue to say they didn’t need to come, and left for work late as a result of the drama. This is the story I concocted this morning. That’s how it could have happened…

Hubby and I played phone tag for about an hour this morning as I waited to impress him with my fine mystery solving skills. When I finally got him on the phone I told him my theory as he laughed at me.

In reality, Hubby woke up in the dark and without his glasses. In the living room, the cats were running around going crazy and as Hubby looked up he saw there was something flying around in circles on the ceiling. Please understand this is actually not that odd for him because he has this weird recurring thing where when he’s still half asleep he imagines he sees things flying around on the ceiling…seriously. It’s like he’s been having visions preparing him for this day. This morning it was not his imagination, however. There was, indeed, a bat flying around our living room. And as he’s explaining this to me I’m wondering how the hell a bat got into our apartment and then I have one of those flashback moments that movie characters have where they go back and see that integral moment that has brought them to this crucial point in time. For me, I go back to yesterday afternoon when Sam and I were playing out on the patio because it was such a nice afternoon. I see myself run in to get a jacket as I leave the door open. Then I do the same thing when I go in to get Sam his cup of milk. Again to get the camera. Then as we come in one of the cats gets out so I have to chase it around on the porch trying to corral it back inside. The screen door was open the whole time…”Oh. Whoops!” I say. “Yeah, whoops,” he says.

So imagine, if you will, Hubby wakes up in his sleepy haze and finds a bat, according to him a “big one,” flying around our living room as the cats freak out. He runs down the hall to shut the doors to the other rooms. He runs back and tries to shield himself with the blanket from the couch as he yells in fear. He tries to get the bat to fly out into the hallway (so that it can attack our neighbors?) and this doesn’t work. He tries to shoo it outside through the patio door using the blanket. He yells some more (I told you when he talks on the phone he’s REALLY loud - it could easily have been mistaken for a phone call…from his employer). He remembers that bats eat bugs while they fly around so he decides to try and lure it outside by throwing Cheerios into the air outside the door in hopes of it following. Yeah. So he’s wrapped in a blanket throwing Cheerios out the door while shielding himself from the bat using a blanket and whimpering every time it comes near him. In retrospect I’m shocked that this didn’t make a lot more noise than it did. Eventually, it flew out on its own after circling nearer and nearer to the door. I couldn’t have made up a story so good.

The question is, where was this thing all night? The door was shut for the last time around 5:30 last night. The bat left around 7:00 this morning. Where the hell was it all night…while we slept…in our bed…? I’ve searched the place for bat poo and can’t find anything. For all I know we have a whole family camped out somewhere in here.

Labels: Absolute Favorite Posts, Hubby, Tales

So, I went to a fitness class for moms yesterday. It is a class where you bring your child(ren) and a stroller and you work out with your baby. The cardio portion of the class is predominantly pushing the stroller, and then every so often the group stops to do some strengthening exercises, ending the one hour session with work on mats on the grass, using our babies as resistance. In Chicago I had always wished there was a way to work out with Sam, and I never felt I could really get any exercise in if I was taking care of him. I tried to go to one mom and baby yoga class and I got to do all of two poses. So this class sounded ideal when I first discovered it.

As with any new class/exercise/meeting/social situation, there is always that doubt when it comes time to actually participate in the activity, at least, this is true with me, particularly with exercise…and meeting new people…and being social…ok, with everything new. It always sounds good until I actually have to motivate to do it. Class was going to be at 5:00 and I found from the time I woke up that I was trying to devise a good reason to not go. This is a difficult task seeing as I would first have to convince myself it was ok to stay home, and then convince Hubby, who I knew would give me an earful of guilt since I have been yammering about how I need things to do with Sam, need to make friends, need to find ways to exercise, etc. So I knew it would have to be something pretty good to get me out of this successfully. I checked the weather and saw that they were predicting an isolated thunderstorm sometime in the afternoon. I thought, that’s it, I’m totally set, but as the day wore on it just got sunnier and clearer. In the morning I started planting the idea into Hubby’s head that it might just be too hot to exercise outside. It’s hot here, you know. And muggy, so muggy. And it’s hard for someone who’s not used to exercising in the heat to all of a sudden begin. It could be dangerous. Oh, and what about Sam? What about my son the big sweaty head who keeps getting heat rash. Surely I can’t take him out for a whole hour if it is hot and humid. But of course, the temp did not go beyond 84 degrees. It was a beautiful, cloudless, sunny day with a nice cooling breeze. But what if this is a running class? I can’t run. I hate running (Yes, I HATE running. It makes me feel like my face is going to bounce off and my eyes are going to fall out. It makes me want to puke. It is so jarring and unpleasant. I can’t even look at a jogger without getting uncomfortable.) And there’s no way I can run with a stroller, and with these enormous nummies! No way. “Well, does it say it’s a running class?” “No, it doesn’t.” “In the pictures are the women running?” “No, they aren’t. But they are ridiculously thin and buff. They are clearly work out women, which I am not. I’ll be the fattest one there.” “Honey, they just post pictures like that to make the program look good, the women there will be regular women who have also given birth. And you’re NOT FAT.” I had nothing.

And so, when the time came, instead of trying my usual excuses, I just went and got dressed in my “workout attire.” Please note, I made a half hearted attempt at, “I have nothing to wear,” to which Hubby promptly reminded me of the trip I took to Target not so long ago for the sole purpose of purchasing workout clothes for an aerobics class. “But that was indoor and this is outdoor.” “But you bought shorts.” Fine. I was going. I had no excuse and truthfully I knew I’d never forgive myself if I chickened out. I drove off with Sam and my map to the place where this group meets, the new Dixie Chicks improving my confidence slightly. I find the place easily and am on time despite my subconscious attempts at delaying us. Park, gear up the stroller, add baby, and make sure I have everything:
Water – check
Yoga mat – check
Total mom haircut - check
Humungous and heavy non-jogging stroller - check
Equally humungous and heavy breastfeeding nummies – check
Inner thigh flab that will rub together whenever engaging in a quick pace – check
Previously mentioned Target shorts that will ride up to crotch with the help of aforementioned thighs - check

And with that we walk down to the meeting point at the end of the trail. I knew it was them before I even got to the group. They weren’t exactly the ones from the pictures on the website, but they might as well have been. They were the buff women, the work out women, the serious women. How do I know?
Uber hip jogging strollers – check
Ponytails – check
Spandex biker shorts - check
Apple shaped protruding calves – check
Breasts – … nada

And I know I’m being harsh on women who exercise here, but it’s only because I’m jealous. I think it’s great. But c’mon, noone wants to be the fat girl, right? And I’m looking at a woman who gave birth 3 months ago who is thinner than I have ever been in my entire life. Furthermore, as soon as I saw how fit these people were I was back to wondering what exactly we’d be doing in this class. I’m thinking at this point it’s not just a walk in the park.

The instructor curtly welcomes me, asks if I can register after class so that we can go ahead and get going…um, yes. We tell each other our names, and she begins with,
“Ok, we’re going to warm up by walking at a fast pace in a single file line. The person in back will then run up to the front of the line and so on.” Oh crap…

I found out later from Hubby that this exercise is called an Indian Sprint. Please ignore the offensive part and focus on SPRINT. And I think to myself: Would these women laugh at me if I just turned around and walked away right now? Yes, yes they would. They’d probably talk about it for the duration of the class.

The beginning of the trail is uphill. And let me say that the fast pace was FAST. I am short. I have short legs. People who have short legs have to take more steps to cover the same distance as people with long legs, see? I was practically running just to stay in the line, so when it kept being my turn to run up to the front I was totally haulin’ it. And my stroller is completely bouncing so while the other women are literally pushing theirs with one hand using like 2 fingers I’m trying to keep Sam out of the ditch. So I’m running up this hill thinking, “I have to get back to the car. I have to get out of here. Would anyone notice if I just didn’t run up to the front of the line? But if they turn around and see me, I know they can outrun me. They’ll come and catch me. Then I’ll have to run faster than I am now. They’ll trap me with their smooth riding three wheeled strollers. But if this is just the warm up, what is the real class like? I’m going to die out here and she didn’t let me register so she doesn’t even have my emergency contact’s information. Hubby will have to come searching for me in the ditch…” and then she says we will be continuing with this for 3 more minutes. I press on and we pull over to do push ups on a fence. When we begin again it is clear we will just do the fast paced walk. And this is how it continues. We walk fast, we pull over to do exercises. We head further and further into the park. I try desperately to think up an excuse to get out of there. Unfortunately Sam is not cooperating. Normally if there is something I really want to do I can depend on him to be fussy and thwart my attempts at having a life. Not today. No, he loves this. Mommy is on her 3rd set of 20 squat side kick things and he’s yuckin it up with the 8 month old next to him.

I try at one point to insert myself into the conversation 2 women are having. One is telling the other that she has been looking for activities like this to do with her kids. I ask, “Oh, did you just move here?” Pause…blank stare… “No.”… “Oh.” Silence. After about 15 seconds the other woman looks at me and asks if I just moved here, asks where from, etc. It ends. At this point I decide I need to just do my own thing. I need to enjoy the scenery, enjoy Sam, and just forget about what these women think of my shorts wedged up in my crotch.

The class seems to improve from here on out (especially when we turned around and started heading back). I fall a bit behind a few times, especially when I get off to a slightly late start due to giving Sam some of my water, but somehow I make it through. I end up talking again to that second woman and even a bit to the blank starer. We get to the last part where we set up our mats on the grass and take the kids out to play. Sam loved being used as my weight. He laughed as I lifted him up and down and bit and slapped my butt as I held my plank pose. And the women were a little warmer for this part too. I made 2 successful jokes and by the end found myself telling the instructor I’d be back next week. How did that happen?

As I walked to the car with the blank starer, I asked her about her super cool stroller. It was a single that could convert into a double with a place underneath for a second child. I thought that might actually be worth investing in if it could be used with a potential next child. So she told me the company and to look online. I did look it up later: $469.99.
Horror stricken face – check.

Told you they were serious.

Labels: Absolute Favorite Posts, Mommyhood, Tales, Toddler

In lieu of presents for his birthday (the move and all) I decided to collect wishes for Sam from our family and friends. I knew I was going to do this at some point ever since he was born, although I have not yet worked out the details of what we will do with his “wish box.” I’m not sure if we will read his wishes to him each year on his Birthday once he is old enough. Or maybe we will save wishes for him every year and then give them all to him at some significant age, like when he leaves for college or turns 16. Maybe I will add a new wish to the box for him each year from Hubby and me, along with a bit about what he did that year. Or maybe I will have Sam write his birthday wish each year and add it to the box with the ones we have collected. We have some time to figure it out I think, but I love the wishes we received from our friends today at his party.

It almost intimidates me, some of the things they wrote, because now it is time for me to write my wish for my son. Perhaps I am a little lost since I don’t know what exactly we are doing with these, or perhaps I am just overwhelmed with the fact that my baby is one year old today and I have so much that I want for him in his life that I have no idea how to narrow it down to words.

What do all parents wish for their children? Happiness, right? For them to be healthy and enjoy life. For them to feel love, and sorrow, hope, joy, excitement, and fear. For them to live their lives to the fullest and appreciate what is happening to them as they do so. For them to feel fulfilled emotionally, spiritually, mentally. But now these words are too big to understand – they become meaningless, non-specific. What do I want for him and what I am I really saying? It’s too much.

Whenever Hubby and I discussed having children it always turned to the happiness we felt as children growing up. We wanted that joy, wonder, and excitement for our kids, and we wanted to be a part of that again, to help create it. I’ve also been thinking a lot about my childhood this week in response to Rachelle’s writing assignment for “My Life Monday.” Over the week I was asked to recall my most memorable childhood experience, but for me I was only flooded with images of delight; there was not one specific memory that took the cake (Birthday pun for ya). I just loved childhood - all of it. And that was what Hubby and I looked forward to the most: to have a child who got to feel those wonderful things we took with us, for the first time.

Today, my wish for Sam is that he stay a child as long as possible. Ironically, I don’t mean that because he is my baby and I don’t want him to grow up. I mean that I want him to feel that awe and curiosity and innocence for as long as he can hang on to it. I want him to feel the thrill of turning around on his bicycle to see that the parent who was holding him up is 25 yards back, yet he is still moving forward. To feel the disappointment on Christmas Eve when his mom comes in after he has worked so hard to stay awake, to tell him that she saw on the news that Santa is running late and is still a few thousand miles away, and he realizes that he won’t be able to stay awake long enough, no matter what he does. To feel the fear of finding a slug (which he has never seen before – what is it?!) on the ladder of his tree house and the relief when he finally gathers the courage to return 4 days later and it is gone. To feel the wonder of sitting in that tree house as the sun goes down and hear the change in the noises of the woods and feel the sudden chill in the air on his sun warmed arms. To jump on mattresses, to build forts out of boxes, to dance before he cares what he looks like, to lick the batter off the spoon, to fall asleep on the way home from fireworks on the Fourth of July, to ride his first roller coaster, get his first pet, make his first best friend…

I have no idea what I’ll actually write for Sam’s wish. But today, I wish for myself to help give him all of these things and more. Hubby and I wanted a child so that we could share with him his childhood, and I wish that it could last forever.

Young, by Anne Sexton
A thousand doors ago
when I was a lonely kid
in a big house with four
garages and it was summer
as long as I could remember,
I lay on the lawn at night,
clover wrinkling over me,
the wise stars bedding over me,
my mother’s window a funnel
of yellow heat running out,
my father’s window, half shut,
an eye where sleepers pass,
and the boards of the house
were smooth and white as wax
and probably a million leaves
sailed on their strange stalks
as the crickets ticked together
and I, in my brand new body,
which was not a woman’s yet,
told the stars my questions
and thought God could really see
the heat and the painted light,
elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.

Labels: Absolute Favorite Posts, Birthdays

I have decided since becoming a mom that the world owes me something. I don’t mean that obnoxiously, like I earned a free ride because I gave birth, but I have to admit that I’ve been feeling rather indignant lately. This mostly occurs when I am shopping somewhere, something becomes inconvenient, and I feel I’ve been shafted because I have a baby and stores should make my shopping experience as easy as possible. In many ways this is not completely off the mark since moms are such a huge target audience for said stores. Here, some examples of places that should be nice to me because I give them my money and am hindered by an infant:

In the past month both my Target and my grocery store have decided to remodel. This is extremely inconvenient since they are moving around absolutely everything, none of it makes any logical sense, and none of the employees can help because they don’t know where anything is yet either. What used to be a fairly easy trip through these stores has turned into an infuriating, backtracking, maze solving quest to find the cue tips or the bread (yes, they temporarily hid the bread in the greeting cards aisle behind a huge metal pillar – TWICE I came home with no bread and my husband did it once as well).

To make matters worse, I believe both of these places specifically set out to make “the mom’s” life more difficult (please understand I am writing this tongue-in-cheek…sort of…I mean listen to this!). Target, in their reorganization, decided to move the entire baby section to a strange island in the middle of the store. The result: baby aisles that are half the width of regular aisles. That means that if you want to buy diapers you must literally wait in line to get into the aisle with your cart because there is not enough room to pass each other. Once there, you have to hope that the people who flank you know what they want because otherwise you are trapped while they read the difference in weight ranges between the number 2’s and the number 3’s or contemplate the benefits of the “Gigglastic” waistband. Now I ask you, are the people you want to do this to the ones that are there to buy DIAPERS? And at Dominick’s, my grocery store, they have placed the baby food section behind one of the previously mentioned metal pillars. In order to reach 1/3 of the baby food I am contorting the top half of my body around a huge metal barricade that rests approximately 8 inches from the shelf. I painfully stick my head back there to see what I am doing or I can blindly reach behind the pillar and hope I grab the right thing. Again, the people you want to mess with are the ones that require baby food in their homes? It just seems to me that perhaps the people that need these types of things should be cut some slack. Obviously I am biased, but I’m not sure I am totally wrong either.

But the worst obstacle of them all is not the asinine layout or the physical obstruction; it is the Scammer Salesguy. This is the sales guy that knows you are a mom and uses it against you in the worst way, in the take your money for cute things that you don’t really need way. He insinuates, either subtly or blatantly, that you owe it to your kid to spend because your kid is special. Now, I know we all know this guy when we see him, and we are not fooled; they are just not that clever. But recently I encountered a Scammer Salesguy of a new breed.

I was shopping at Gymboree - - ok, really I was returning something in the store next to Gymboree and happened to find myself in there perhaps checking to see if there might be something wonderful for Sam to sport at his upcoming Birthday party. I know this store is too expensive for us, but I was thinking maybe he should have something special for the big day. And you never know, there could always be a sale or something so perfect that you just have to spring for it (he must have just looked at me and known I was the prefect prey). Anyway, Scammer Salesguy approaches, offering his friendly services. I explain my reason for stepping in and he proceeds to show me some Tiki/Island themed options. Not really my style, and he notices me checking the price tag. He then points out a sale they are having on shorts and T-shirts in this one area. This sale makes the prices much more reasonable and I tell him so with a big smile on my face. Together we create a little plaid shorts, matching shirt, floppy sun hat combo. It is quite adorable and I can just see Sam happily mushing cake into it while crawling around the park. At this point I say, and I quote, “So both of these are part of the sale then, right?”
“Yes, both are on sale.” I proceed to the register, we pay, we leave, I smile more.

It is not until I arrive at the car 3 blocks away that I add up the prices in my head and wonder how I just paid $50 for this cute little outfit that will last approximately 1 hour before its demise. I have no clue how the total could have been so high and on checking the receipt learn that those cute little plaid shorts were, in reality, TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS. They are the size of a washcloth.

I promptly return to the store, and I realize that this is getting long but this next part just blows my mind. Scammer Salesguy is there again to greet me. I explain my confusion at which point he explains why the plaid shorts are not part of the sale (because they are not pull-ups…uh, ok…) to which I say, “But that is why I specifically asked you if both items were on sale, to which you said, ‘Yes.’” And he tells me again that only the pull-up shorts are on sale and that is why he was “pushing me toward the Tiki outfit.” Yeah, yeah Scammer Salesguy, you were really watching my back there. Thank YOU. Even as he was doing the return he was acting like he had tried to steer me toward the less expensive outfit and to each remark I respond with, “but that is why I asked you if they were both on sale, to which you said, ‘Yes.’” And he ignores me every time I say this, as though he doesn’t hear me. What, you’re not even going to tell me you must have made a mistake, Scammer Salesguy? And then, after trying to just void the transaction, which will leave me with no receipt showing the return of my fifty bucks (um, no!), he actually has the audacity to say, “I still thought the Tiki outfit was cool.”

That’s it! I call you out Scammer Salesguy! After school, on the playground! I call you out on behalf of every mom you have tried to swindle out of an extra fifteen bucks because you knew she didn’t have the time or energy to come all the way back once she realized what you did. I call you out for saying things like, “He should really look special on his birthday – we need to find him something really cute.” I call you out, we’re throwin’ down, and bring your Tiki torch with ya so I can show ya where to stick it.

Labels: Absolute Favorite Posts, Mommyhood, Tales

Somehow today my husband had 3 of his old college friends in the same city, in the same house (ours), at the same time. Between friends moving around from place to place and our new addition, which has pretty much left us completely out of contact with our “before Sam” friends, it has been a long time for Hubby and all these guys to get together and go to the park to throw the frisbee around. As these 4 men, and I went to college with these GUYS too so it is hard to refer to them as men, ascended our steps with their greasy paper bags of hamburgers and fries, I took a good look.

One, an aspiring actor and artist, almost as greasy as the bag he was holding. He attributed this oily hair look to being on the road for so long with his touring improv group. Next was the career waiter on his way to his next shift. He’s always rethinking his life plan, his situation, his choices, his girlfriends. And up the stairs comes the graduate student, working on his degree in Public Policy. Our college was calling to this very person when it sent us posters that said, “Think one person can change the world? So do we.” And most importantly, my Hubby, about to graduate from law school in just 2 short weeks, amazing, considerate, funny, clever, thoughtful, the whole she-bang. But I digress.

As I looked around at these men/guys/friends I thought about Sam as an adult. Have you ever thought about what your baby will be like beyond pre-school? High school? Beyond the living with you age? It is rare that I envision Sam beyond the I-can-lift-him age. But it is true. One day my little baby is going to be a big boy, a GUY, A MAN! He’s going to work odd jobs and move from place to place. He’ll eat greasy hamburgers at his old friends’ houses. He’ll rethink his choices about his life, his girlfriends (dear God!). I cannot even wrap my head around this. Who is he? Who is he going to be?

I know he loves his daddy and me, and trucks, cars, office chairs, anything with wheels. And the cats, LOVES the cats. He is ticklish in his armpits and cracks up when his dad makes faces at him when they get really close to each other. He only wants pureed foods or crunchy finger foods. If he gets a mushy finger food he gags – more to follow on this topic as I try to figure how I will get him to eat his first Birthday cake in a few weeks. When he crawls on the wood part of the floor he uses one knee and the other foot, gimping around hunchback style. When he crawls on the rug he is normal. He hates: having his diaper changed, being cleaned up after meals, waking up alone in his bed, when he can’t figure out how to get his wheeled object back on its wheels after throwing it around a few times, the weird flying circus tent that comes out of the sky in Teletubbies (the one with the tap dancing bear in it. Sam cries every time that thing begins its descent), and strangers. He is impatient when it comes to problem solving. Now that he has learned how to put objects in containers he does so at lightning speed, except for when the book doesn’t fit in the bucket. I think he is shy. He is increasingly affectionate, especially with me. His laugh is beautiful, as is his smile, which has changed a bit over the past few weeks. He smiles with a bit of an underbite now, jutting out his chin. It’s the same face he makes when he is whining but for that he wrinkles his eyes and his eyebrows make upside down V’s like you see on evil characters in cartoons. But all of this is nothing. It is nothing yet it is everything. It is everything to me right now. These details fill my days (and nights) and hold my total attention. They are everything I have to go on but they tell me very little.

I spend every moment of my life with this little person and I can tell you nothing about who he will become. I can make somewhat educated guesses, wondering if he will be more like Hubby or me, or neither. I can speculate what he might be when he grows up, what activities he might enjoy in high school, if any. I can try and see him in my mind’s eye, what he will look like at six years old, twelve, eighteen, thirty-one, forty-six. One day my son will be forty-six years old. He’ll probably have a family and grey hair (balding does not seem to run in either of our families. I’m pretty confident on this one). I can hypothesize all I want and will still know nothing, not until these days come.

It’s surreal to think about the fact that for the rest of my life I will have Sam. I will never have a day again without him in the forefront of my mind. I will worry about him every day, fixate on him, obsess about him, watch him, ponder him, and learn about him. I’ll get to learn who he is in real time, so to speak, always wondering what he will do and who he will become tomorrow.

Labels: Absolute Favorite Posts, Mommyhood, Pictures

Since becoming a mom I have experienced more feelings that remind me of my middle school days than I have in a very long time. And I don’t mean the passionate, tear gushing crushes or the general rebelliousness I felt against every adult in my life. I mean the need to be accepted by “the group.” I thought this insecurity had been dead and buried along with my Deb hairspray, Sun-In, and Def Leppard tapes, but apparently not. I’ve felt that jealousy over and over again for the past 11 months and am trying to figure out why.

I noticed it the first time when I tried to take Sam to a new mom’s group at the hospital where I had him. I went only twice, mainly because he was so amazingly fussy that it was not worth the effort of the drive, dealing with him for the hour and a half, and the drive home. But there were reasons I felt it was not worth it to me to make it a priority. I felt, for the first time since childhood, like the new kid at school. All the moms already knew each other, which I expected. But I also expected them to talk to me since I was new. And they didn’t. So I tried to be outgoing while holding my cranky baby face down on his belly and jiggling him to keep him satisfied, but I was always the one to initiate the conversation and frankly they just didn’t seem interested. It was like they just didn’t want anymore friends; they were set. And I was left wondering how they had decided before they’d even met me what they didn’t like. Had I not yet lost enough baby weight? Did I seem as tired as I felt? Did I smell? (Seriously, I really smelled that first summer I had him. Something to do with breastfeeding and hormones I think.) I couldn’t believe the things that were going through my head. When was the last time I was seriously concerned over the possibility that I had no friends because of B.O.? Middle School.

My insecurity reared its ugly head every time I walked by another new mom who avoided eye contact and did not say hello. I yelled at them in my head for the rest of the block, “We are both new moms! I can see your baby in your front carrier and I know she’s not much older than Sam. I know you know what I am going through. Can you not even smile an empathetic, exhausted smile? Is it because I have the $30 Snugli instead of the $100 Bjorn?” Amazing. It was like I wanted to go out and get myself that hideously ugly and ridiculously expensive pair of Z. Cavarricis.

I read this article, Mom Cliques: Where Do You Fit In?, in a recent issue of Parenting magazine that was all about the roles women take on in “Mom Cliques.” In fact it was written by the woman who wrote the book on which the movie “Mean Girls” was based, Rosalind Wiseman. The roles I had to choose from included things like The Queen Bee Mom, Torn Wannabes and Desperate Wannabes, Sidekicks, and Outcasts. Are you kidding me? Almost every single “type” was negative in both connotation and description. I was horrified and offended as a mom, a woman, and a person above the age of 12. I’d like to think that I and we are better than that. I thought the article was so discouraging since it stated these types as fact and offered very little in the way of solving this problem if it truly exists. And I guess I was a little scared (hence my violent reaction). I had experienced some of the same feelings already and was not even in a “Playgroup” yet. What if this was just the beginning?

For the most part I did not find much good in this article because it felt like it was giving moms a bad name. But this part: “Cliques form when we feel pressured to bond to survive a stressful experience — and there’s not much that’s more stressful than parenting,” I get that. I feel like I am in middle school again because I don’t know what I am doing. I am insecure about my ability to parent my child and that fear pervades everything else in my life, just like the fear of learning who I was way back then made me an obnoxious, petrified, zit covered little monster (I was a middle school teacher for a few years and intend to be so again when Sam is a bit older so don’t get me wrong – I love the little monsters specifically because I remember what that felt like). So I see the connection here, but we are older and wiser now, so let’s move on from this clique thing.

Don’t we have something in common simply by being moms? And I’m not saying we should all be BFF and get those broken heart necklaces that fit together to prove our eternal loyalty, but is a “hello” too much? A smile? Eye contact? Isn’t the shared experience of birth and mothering a major connection between 2 people since it is currently the common focal point of our entire lives? My best friends in middle school were made through a common interest in the color black. I feel like we should be able to stop and look at each other’s babies when we walk by on the street and not have to wonder if the other woman thinks we aren’t dressed like a hip enough mom for her to be seen with us.

Labels: Absolute Favorite Posts, Bloggy Stuff - Memes/Links/Business, Mommy friends, Mommyhood

For all of Easter Sunday it rained in Chicago. And I don’t mean just rain, but thunder, lightning, sheets of slanting water pounding our apartment. Every hour or so I looked out the window and felt so sorry for the disappointed kids who had looked forward to hunting Easter eggs in the grass in the sun. So many parents coming up with back up plans most likely involving an egg hunt in their homes.

That’s what we did. Of course, Sam really didn’t know the difference anyway. He enjoyed finding his plastic eggs placed out in plain view on top of the couch or a shelf and, when cracked open, produced his favorite finger foods like Cheerios and pretzels. Not quite the candy craze of a regular Easter basket, but he did get a little squishy basketball and his first pair of shoes – Robeez, those leather moccasin looking things that won’t hinder his learning to walk. Yup, the day was just fine for us even though we were trapped inside.

I had also decided to roast my first chicken for a special Easter dinner. One may wonder how I made it so far in my life without ever doing this before. I was a vegetarian for most of middle school, high school, and college. I just never really learned how to cook meat. In the past few years I have certainly improved, learning for the first time how to do steaks, hamburgers, chicken parmesan, and several fish dishes. The roasted chicken was a big one though seeing as I am still pretty freaked out by anything resembling an entire animal. When the recipe informed me I would be “pulling out the giblets,” I had no idea what to expect and I was not looking forward to finding out. Much to my relief the “giblets,” disgusting looking bloody mush carcass, were enclosed happily in a little plastic bag and did not even require direct contact with my trembling hand. The next step was to “rinse the giblets and set aside…” I skipped that step, as well as the one involving the liver, which I can only assume was the skin flap looking thing wrapped up like a band-aid. So gross.

It was around this time that our day really took a turn. I don’t know how it all happened and I don’t care to recall the details, but the chicken roasting did not go well. It took longer than I had expected, probably because I had taken so long getting started due to the liver, slimy flesh bits, and washing my hands eight million times. So it was done much later than I had planned and we were well into our evening ritual for Sam’s bedtime before it was done. Then it was time to carve. I was so pissed from my tardiness and the 100 degree kitchen at this point that I had no patience and passed this duty onto Hubby. I quickly learned this was also his first experience with a roasted chicken. I left the room soon after he had pierced a hole into the disposable roasting pan, leaking “the basting juices” all over my counters and floor. By the time he came in with our plates, several….several minutes later, he was just as pissed as me. We ate our stupid chicken, which may have tasted decent but was so not worth the effort that had gone into it – it’s just chicken, after all. Sam watched his Baby Einstein video most likely wondering how he had managed to stay up so late without us noticing.

Finally, it was time to get him to bed and for one of us to deal with the kitchen. Poo diaper was changed, chicken juices cleaned, half of the dishes fit into the washer. We’re running about 30 minutes behind for Sam’s bed time now. Yet we had only just begun…

When Hubby went in to get our bed ready for reading time he discovered something dreadful. Please recall my emphasis on the rain earlier and let me apprise any reader of this blog (all 2 of you) of some dialogue that had taken place throughout the day.

2:29pm –
Beth: “You know hon, I think that place where the window meets the AC unit might start leaking if it keeps raining like this. It sounds like water is coming in.”
Hubby: “No, it won’t. I sealed it pretty well when I installed it. It’s not coming in.”
4:12pm –
Beth: “Hon, there’s some water dripping in the window onto the sill.”
Hubby: “Let’s put some paper towels down.”
4:40pm –
Beth: “Yeah Hon, the tapestry over the window is dripping burgundy water onto the window sill and the paper towels are soaked.”
Hubby: “Maybe I’ll take the AC out when it stops raining.”
5:30pm –
Beth: “It stopped raining.”
Hubby: “…”
7:30pm –
Beth: “Hon, if the AC is going to be taken out before Sam goes to bed it needs to happen now.”
Hubby: “I’ll do it in a few minutes.”

Insert chicken carving incident and subsequent activities here

8:30pm –
Hubby: “Oh Crap! The water got in! The bed is soaked, and the box spring. It’s all over the floor. Can I get some help in here?!”
Beth: “…”

Beth enters, avoiding eye contact. She runs to get a towel and roll of paper towels and proceeds to wipe water off the floor and window sill, resulting in all of the paint rubbing off of the sill to reveal the wood underneath. She envisions Sam enjoying his paint flake snack.

Hubby: “Just dab it don’t rub it!”
Beth: “Are you criticizing me?”

You can probably figure out the rest of that conversation.

9:00pm –
Sam finally makes it to bed in a room where our mattress is hanging off the box spring in order to allow them both to supposedly dry. The AC is on the floor, which is covered in sopping towels.

Happy Easter everyone!

Labels: Absolute Favorite Posts, Holidays, Tales