Helloooo Out There...

I have been lamenting lately that I don't know any women or men with children my age whom I am really close with who are staying home with their children. Lamenting is maybe putting it too strongly, it's more like noticing. I am blessed with great friends, and am not necessarily looking (or even able to make room) for more close friends, but do notice that I don't have that commonality with those in my close circle around being a new mom and most recently, an at-home mom too. I have gotten out to one library story hour, but have yet to attend a play group, mostly because the people energy I have goes towards maintaining my existing friendships and family relationships. So there it is. I can't even clearly measure how important my need is to have additional connections, I only know that the isolation that I feel around being Noah's primary caregiver goes beyond what I can talk about easily with most people in my life right now.

Saying "I feel isolated," just doesn't seem to carry the emotion I have about it. "I feel massively responsible," gets closer. "I feel alone in this full-time mission to keep him not just alive, but happy, healthy, and thriving, while being a full-time witness to his early life" might sum up the whole kitten kaboodle, but still isn't specific enough. It's that it's tough luck if I don't feel like putting him to bed on a night when it takes an hour instead of ten minutes. Or how annoying it is wiping slung food particles off the kitchen tile after every meal, trying to focus on how exciting it is that Noah is learning to eat and sometimes even with a fork. Or how when Noah gives a glowing smile after walking, or stacking a block tower seven blocks high, there is no other adult for me to turn to and say - "How amazing is this?" Or when my husband is at work, how it is just me and Noah here. For many days in a row.

There is nothing like it, and I know the answer is not to whine for a long time but to go out and ask the universe for what I want. So my goal is to start engaging a bit more in the blogosphere to find some similarly situated bloggers - perhaps cyberspace is the new YWCA group for a mom like me? Where I can connect without taking on more than I can handle? Here I go - I hope to see you in the ether.

My Recent Experiences as a Clothes Horse: Bad Luck or a Reminder from the Universe?

The past few days I have had many thoughts of clothes. Yes, clothes. We've had an influx of clothes for Noah lately - from his birthday, my husband's finds in Uncle Henry's (the local swap-and-sell guide), and a friend who gave us bags of hand-me-down boys clothes when she found out that her baby-to-be is a girl. So I've been washing and folding, sorting and refolding tiny little rompers, Hawaiian shirts, sweaters, bucket hats, and many other wonderful and precious pieces that he'll be able to wear in the coming couple of years.

I used to think I would keep all his outfits, because they were all so sweet and tiny and wonderful. Now as they overflow his bureaus and lie in piles on the twin bed we set up in his bedroom, it is becoming more of a blur in which just a few pieces stand out as being favorites. And even these just pale in comparison to the adorableness of the boy himself, so I've found myself wondering how long we'll hang on to these things. These precious things.

Some of my ability to anticipate letting go of probably most of his baby clothes has come from my own recent experiences with precious frocks. After Noah was born, I packed up my maternity clothes into a large trash bag and stowed it in the trunk of my car to loan to a friend who was pregnant. That weekend, my husband and stepson went to the transfer station (the dump) in my car and mistook the bag for trash, throwing it into the hopper along with the scraps from the previous night's meal. I looked in my car a few days later and noticed the bag was gone, but assumed Matthew had taken it out of my trunk. I asked him that night, and cried when it became clear what had happened. He was mortified, so I ended up feeling badly for him and moving on quickly to the mindset that it was just clothing. Just clothing. I had that special time, and have pictures of it, and now of course the baby. It's just clothing.

Then this spring when I was cleaning out my closet, I slid my wedding dress out and unzipped the garment bag to take a look. To my horror, I discovered that the bag had stained my dress. I took it to the dry cleaner immediately and their best efforts could not remove the stains, and made the silk dangerously weak in spots. The dress was ruined. I am pursuing a complaint against the store that sold me the garment bag, but am not hopeful this will yield satisfaction. Even if by some miracle I could squeeze some money out of this huge corporation, I couldn't replace the dress. So what could I do? Be sad, but again, tell myself, it's just clothing. Just clothing. I had the wedding, and have the pictures, and the husband. It's just clothing.

Dave Ramsey, author of the book The Total Money Makeover, talks about "stuffitis" and how it can lead to financial woes when we think buying things will make us happier, more peaceful, more satisfied with life, and we end up broke and stressed out instead. I think it also leads to more general emotional and spiritual woe, when objects and stuff start to take the place of actual experiences, moments in time that come and go, and need to be replaced by next moments. While heirlooms seem a different sort of category than perhaps other sorts of things that accumulate uncomfortably, I still think that my wedding dress, and maternity clothes, and Noah's precious newborn onesies can only speak hearsay about those special fleeting times. They don't hold something better than what is inside me or Noah for having lived through those moments so prettily dressed.

Dumber, But Still as Stubborn

All day today I've been thinking about my 20th high school reunion, which is tonight. I've been trying to decide what I will wear (how to look hip and still be able to breastfeed at a moment's notice), whether I'll put my hair up or leave it down (neither mattering to me as much as the fact that I have a lot of gray), and what it will be like to see friends, especially my closest high school poet friend Amy whom I haven't heard from almost since we graduated. I'm excited to bring Noah, who just turned 1 last week, and Matthew my husband, and hope that other folks have found as much joy in their lives as I have. All in all, I've got a mix of positive anticipation, and dread. My usual emotions before going to an event with lots of people, ramped up by the fact that this is revisiting the past and who knows what these lots of people will be like now.

So a few hours ago I went online to see who else had signed up to come to the reunion, and saw that it is actually next Saturday, not tonight. I looked at the screen and re-read the webpage several times, not believing that I had the date wrong. I then went and checked the flyer, still thinking that I was right about it being tonight and the website had a serious typo. The flyer said it is next week too. I think I went into shock briefly. I walked into the living room and said to Matthew, "The reunion. It's not tonight. It's next week. I don't know what the hell is going on with me." He commented that the way I was driving earlier in the day was pretty bad too - I couldn't remember where the highway exit was, even though I've driven by it every day for the last two years. I guess I was relieved enough that I didn't have to go tonight that I found this more humorous than insulting. On another day I might have unleashed the hounds on him.

The last couple of months I have referred to myself as having "Mommy Brain", but this is the first time I've gotten mixed up about something of any real importance to me. Usually it's just not remembering the name of something or someone while in a conversation. But this afternoon if I hadn't gone online, we would have gotten dressed up and gone over there only to find ourselves all alone in the parking lot of a country club of which we are not members.

So does being a mother mean that whole brain cells become co-opted or flat out call it quits? My dad said to me recently that even though I was feeling like I had half a brain, that half still probably works better than many other people's. He's my dad, so he has to say that, but it still felt good to hear. I'm fortunate that others in my life have also offered me validation that I still can be rational, even while in a swirl of parenting a baby. On my last day of work a few weeks ago, the Office Manager who is famous for re-writing well known songs with personalized lyrics sang me a tune from The Wizard of Oz that went "If I only had a brain...like Kate's." That is not to say that I think I'm all that, but I do greatly enjoy and constantly practice organizing things, schedules, systems, spaces, and people. I would hate to see this go. It brings me peace to sort a junk drawer, or to spell out my schedule a month in advance. It feels right. Which is why getting a date wrong rocks my boat. One mistake like this can only lead to others, and to chaos.

And so my by brain, quickly accelerating to avoid this possibility, jumped from shock at our need to change our plans into the thought, "This happened so that you would have something to blog about, you've been neglecting your blog for the past several weeks, and this would be a compact story, sort of humorous, sort of insightful, sort of stupid, kind of like where you're at right now. Share the wealth!" Ahhh, lemons into pleasing tarts, lined up in rows. Makes things right again. Have a bite with me?

The Morning Toilet Slam and other Chart-Toppers

Many times before I became a mother I heard or read that I would never be able to use the bathroom alone once I had a child. No one mentioned that when I went to use the bathroom, my 11-month-old would put his head down and crawl as fast as he could after me, pull himself up on my legs, grab the toilet seat, and slam it back and forth against my spine several times as I sat trying to do what I was there for.

This is just one of the more hilarious things that Noah is doing these days. Everything seems like a small science experiment to him now, to be figured out, repeated many times and preferably loudly, until it is well understood. His endless repetition of "Guck!" for "Duck!" has now been replaced by "Dat! Dat! Dat!" ("What's that? I want that! Look at that!") He can turn light switches off and on, he can hit the garage door opener, he is mesmerized by the ceiling fans in our house. It is not just electronics and machinery that catch his interest though. We must, every time we go out for a walk, stop in across the street at the neighbor's so Noah can see the 5 rescue chickens who live there now - Marie Antoinette, Bertha, Betty, and two others who also have names but I can't remember them. We stop there on the way out for our walk ("Dat! Dat! Dat!"), and again on the way back ("Dat! Dat! Dat!"). Now that Noah can stand on his tip-toes and see out our living room windows, he points to our neighbor's house and tells us ("Dat! Dat! Dat!") that he is thinking about the chickens and needs us to get off of our rear ends and get him over there to commune with them. We visit the chickens on average 5-6 times a day now. And did I mention that he cries EVERY time we leave the chicken lady's driveway? He loves those chickens.

In the spirit of late-night television master Dave Letterman, but in the length a tired mother can muster, here are the top five most funny things that the off-and-running Noah has brought to our lives recently. In some cases, these are things that we have brought upon ourselves, because let's face it, parents have to have fun too...

5. Meet "Nigel", one of Noah's alter-egos - a fluffy-coiffed Brit with sideburns who emerges when Noah wakes from his morning nap after going to bed with wet hair from his post-breakfast tubby. Cheerio!

4. The Pope wave. At least, Matthew says it's the Pope - I only recognize it from Italian mafia movies. When Noah waves, it's underhand and out in front. A joy to behold, especially if there is a slight delay so that the person who waved at him first is long gone before Noah gets his own mitt up.

3. Noah sitting up trying to find his bee-bo amidst his tummy rolls and almost rolling over on his head. Thank you Sandra Boynton for introducing us to a shorter and much funnier way to say "belly button."

2. Shrieking and shaking all over with excitement when he sees our cat Sidney, who looks back with all the interest of a meatloaf. Day in and day out, this dynamic remains. Noah the hysterical fan and and Sid the aloof rock star. Until, earlier this week Noah woke early, crawled to the end of our bed where Sidney was sleeping, quietly sat next to him, and leaned over and kissed him while we watched. Then he did it again, and again, and again. We thought, success! Noah has learned to be gentle with the cat! That afternoon he was back, going after Sidney on the windowsill with one of his best screech voices.

And the number one (1.) things that Noah is doing that currently floats my boat? Can anything top the morning toilet slam?

Chasing Noah in his Tot Rider II. He sits in it and is off faster than the Road Runner, going around the loop on the first floor of our house. He finds me, hiding behind the front door with just a foot or hand sticking out, and when he does he screams and races forward, laughing wildly, until he runs the Tot Rider II into the wall or a chair. I run by him, mock screaming and waving my arms, to hide behind the wall in the kitchen, and then to crouch by the island in kitchen and then back around to the front door again, wherever he knows I will be next. This is the game we now play daily and it gets both our heartrates up, if not from running around, then from all out laughing.

This is the goods. Laughter makes these memories great.

Paper Trail

Eight years
of trainings and task forces,
creating curricula,
selling ideas
and myself
now boils down
to this -

shelves of 3-ring binders,
final reports,
quality improvement plans
and meeting minutes.
Suddenly it's all just history.

It feels both grinchly and sad to take it with me.
I know it will not benefit others if I keep it
and know as surely that it will be thrown away
if I leave it behind.
The next person will have her own vision.
Things in her office will need her handwriting on them.
I sort through all the drawers
and understand that "the work" as we all label it,
the passion we all share,
the movement to which we all belong,
doesn't live in these folders and files.
They are dead
and I am gone.

I relegate the boxes to a table and file cabinet
in my basement
and pray that it all meant something more than this.
Please let it be more, with a now
and a future.
Let it be the setting sun on the Atlantic
that plays with the waves until its last beams can't reach
and then still is only moving on to brighten other places.
Let it be something that lasts,
a few of the cobblestones
laid down on the road
that leads women out of darkness and danger
and into the light.

Endings

Recently as I was walking on my street with Noah in his stroller, I asked myself if I was overstaying at my job. The last time I remember asking myself an overstaying question was with my ex-fiance ten years ago. I mused in a journal entry in the messy middle of things if I would one day look back at the experience and see clearly how right it was to end the relationship. In fact I did, and it was. Just that small remembering is enough to help me already be bouncing back from the sad news I received last week that the flexibility I have enjoyed at work in bringing my baby with me has bottomed out.

The universe seems to have answered my current overstaying question in the affirmative, because my recent proposal to begin working from home for the bulk of my part-time job was rejected by the Executive Director of my organization. This proposal was based on the fact that in the past several months that I've been back at work since maternity leave, much of my work could have been done from home, and also that my son is getting increasingly mobile and in general less comfortable in the office. It was also based on the fact that I still feel passion for the work and think I still have a meaningful contribution to make.

I've worked at a domestic violence organization for coming up on 8 years now, and it would not be an understatement to say that I've poured myself into the job from the time I came on board. I think it's also fair to say that I have grown up at the job, both professionally and personally. Being a part of a social movement, one that has allowed me to blend passion and profession, has made for an exciting career so far. When I was in college and law school, I didn't know there was such a thing as a domestic violence community educator out there in the world. It's been a powerful fit for me. I don't want to stop doing it, working as part of this organization, being a part of this team of individuals.

Except, maybe I do? My history frustrates me in that I know the two truths. I've had those experiences where there were lots of indicators saying move on and find the next thing, but other parts of me clinging, clinging, clinging to the current reality.

Becoming a mother has changed everything, and now I face the decisions that working mothers everywhere have had to consider. Who am I working for? I work for the man - the little man, that is. Little Noah. He needs my best contributions. And with what I have left over to think about working outside the home, in the years that I have worked at the Family Violence Project in Maine, I have grown the program and grown myself and there hopefully is enough stability in both to find the next iteration of the work. I do feel confident that whether it be consulting, or creating some new organization, I will find some other way to continue to give to this movement that I care so much about.

I also have thought a couple of times in the past few days about the actress who plays Susan on the television show "ER." This actress was in the original cast for several years, and left during the show's initial wild popularity. She said she needed to spend time with her family and ground her life again. I don't remember seeing her act in anything else for several years. She then returned to the cast of "ER" and brought the same talent and warmth to her acting and character as she had in the earlier episodes. This helps me take heart that even if I totally "opt out" as the pundits are now calling it when a mother does not hold a jobby job, "opting in" later will work out if I want it to.

I can even quietly admit, that since hearing from my supervisor last week and navigating that first weepy day, a strange peace has come over me. I remember when I worked for years at a bank in my early 20s - when I went to law school I kept working on weekends, but it was less and less, and when I finally left altogether I had a good feeling thinking about the things I would no longer need to do because I was not a teller anymore - no more having to try and sell bank cards to older folks who preferred passbooks, is just one example. So even in these moments of getting a handle on this big change, and worrying a bit about our finances, I am also having moments when I consider the things at work that I won't mind seeing go out of my life. I don't need to list those things here, because I'm sure most people have certain things about their jobs that don't fit on their personal favorites list. But I will say, that I won't miss them, and that is an interesting thing to recognize.

So, into a new kind of freedom I leap, as I prepare to give my resignation in two days. The next part of the road is not yet laid in front of me. I am lucky, though, that I can look back and feel proud of the well-cobbled path I have carefully worked on to this place where I now stand.

Fall From Grace

In the past 72 hours, I have heard many scary stories. Heart-stopping moments for mothers. A young son who became trapped under a capsized canoe. A girl who lifted her baby brother from the ladder of a jungle gym and he went face forward into the wood. A daughter who toddled toward traffic-laden Route One from her quiet yard. A little one who sat with a friend and they painted their teeth with White-Out. A tiny girl who lifted her baby sister from a crib and carried her down the stairs by herself, to the adults' horror below in the living room. (That last "baby sister" was me.)

And now I have my own first scary story. Noah is fine. But he might not have been. He took a major tumble on our cellar steps late Monday afternoon and miraculously has only a tiny bruise on his left cheek to show for it. His parents however, Matthew and I, suffered psychic damage that I now undertand time will likely alternately repair and keep rubbing raw as life continues to happen to this baby boy.

Noah began crawling just a few weeks ago. It's a miraculous and wonderful thing to see his big round bottom wiggling along as he puts one knee in front of the other. He is fast, and so proud of himself to be able to move toward things he is interested in. He can also pull himself to a standing position, and cares less about his toys because he wants to be up, up, up. He has a curious mind and is adamant about doing things. Days after the safety locks went on the under-sink cabinets in our bathroom upstairs, he continues to go back and check to see if the doors will open the way he remembers they used to. And today if that cellar door were open just a crack, he would still go for it. He has no memory or fear even though those stairs could have done him in.

I have read so many articles and magazine blurbs about babyproofing a home. Safety latches, baby gates, outlet covers, poisons, cupboards, electrical cords, crib bars, houseplants, and on and on and on. But I haven't seen a single piece of writing on how to handle the emotions around the first big fall, even though I am gathering that every baby has one, and then some. Nor did any mother share details about this side of parenting with me during my pregnancy, though I heard many labor stories and other exciting and sometimes wrenching things.

If I consider my own injury list as a little person, I can rattle off many, many incidents: pulling a pottery lamp down on my head, requiring stitches; breaking my leg by falling off my bicycle; doing somersaults on my bed and cutting my head when I came up into the chimney that went through my bedroom; sustaining huge scrapes on my hands and knees from running full speed down the road we lived on and falling into the pavement, etc. But in raising this sweet baby for the past 10 months, it never occurred to me what it would be like to be on the other side of this equation. I think I was assuming Noah would never really have anything bad happen - not my baby. That first bump Noah incurred that I mentioned several posts ago seems now like a romantic token little incident. We are in the big time now.

So those emotions I mentioned, so exploding they were physically impossible to ignore, made breathing difficult, caused panic in my body in the form of shaking legs, became a voice in my head screaming, "This is it. I had my chance. He's broken his neck. He's dead." I remember yelling outloud, "Nooooooooo!" Feeling that I needed to be calm for little Noah as I picked him up and felt him all over. This was the stuff of pure trauma and days later my stomach still flips over when I think of it.

After the ER visit and assurances from the doctor and several nurses that Noah had absolutely nothing wrong with him, we went home and he was sleeping peacefully by 9 p.m. And by the next day, Noah had moved on. (He actually seemed to have moved on way sooner than that.) He was maybe a bit more clingy than usual, or maybe it was us that was clingy with him. Really he was his usual rambunctious, sweet self. And he wanted us to go there with him, back into life. Matthew and I were both feeling fragile, our nerves shot. But we absolutely had to take that big breath and go on with the day. His day, our days. What else was there to do? Noah was smiling and wanted us to play with him, and read to him, and give him his bath, and go for walks. He did not want to sit in our laps and be hugged and stared at with big grateful doe-eyes all day.

So here we go, a few days later gingerly stepping along the path with him again. My stepfather offered me a pearl this week when he e-mailed me and said (I paraphrase, and probably poorly, because unfortunately I already deleted the e-mail so I can't quote him directly), "Once you become scared/scarred as a parent, it becomes even more important to stay present and enjoy every second, and also simultaneously more difficult to do so." I cannot imagine it ever getting easy to know that my boy is at risk for something terrible, though already in these past few days I've started to accept it as reality. That first step, from where we were just a weekend ago, is a doozy.