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 has now been replaced by "Dat!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.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Sunday, June 17, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, May 11, 2007
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Everything Old is Still Great
As I lay in bed last night in the dark, I suddenly came to an awareness that I'd been humming "Edelweiss" from "The Sound of Music" over and over for a solid half hour, and meanwhile had been having a thorough inner discussion with myself about something completely different while not missing a beat with the song. This is one of Noah's regular bedtime tunes. I start with something more upbeat like "Old MacDonald Had a Farm", usually inserting "...he had a duck" and "...he had a cat" many times in between just a few other animals, because he knows those words ("guck" and "gat") and delights in saying them when I sing them. Then I sing "Hush Little Baby" because he likes to hear about Daddy getting him things. Then maybe "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or some modern folk song if I can remember the lyrics. Then it's "Edelweiss" and "Edelweiss" and more "Edelweiss", singing and then humming, until it's all over for the night and Noah turns away, sighing into the dark. I've been singing these same songs for nine months now, with little variation, at this same time each evening. Noah wiggles and snuggles up against me because he knows it's time to let go. How blessed are we to have a baby that loves to go to bed.
Some reading I received this week from our "home visitor", a child development specialist who visits us monthly and provides various tools to help us be good parents, discussed how much babies like repetition. They enjoy recognizing things they know, and grow confidence when they can expect and predict what will happen next.
Noah has many books, but Matthew and I both know what his favorites are, even though it's rare that the three of us all sit and read together. In some books, he even has favorite moments that he's made clear to us - he laughs, or points, or looks carefully at certain pages. In Doggies by Sandra Boynton, it's this one: "9 dogs on a moonlit night - Owwwwoooooo!" In The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle it's the page with all the different foods that the caterpillar eats through (one slice of swiss cheese, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, etc.). Noah rushes through the other pages to get to that one. It's easy to tell the books that he's not interested in because he either tosses them aside like yesterday's newspaper, or pushes them out of our hands when we start to read them. Unfortunately, Goodnight Moon is one such book. He's just not interested. Which is just awful to me because I love that book. I keep thinking that maybe he'll enjoy it this time, but whenever I try it he grabs it from my hand and stretches way over so he can drop it off the edge of the bed. How much clearer can he be?
Loving what you love, and being just fine with more of it...Ain't it the truth for all of us? In this world of New and Better, how right Noah is - there are so many things that as an adult I know I can practice or come back to over and over again, to bring me to a place of comfort, solace, relaxation, confidence:
Long showers or baths
Going to the ocean
Movies
A phone call to that dearest friend
Music
A simple meal
My journal or poetry notebook
Ahhh. My favorite things. Just listing them out feels like staking my territory. What are the old standbys that make you feel like you've come home?
Some reading I received this week from our "home visitor", a child development specialist who visits us monthly and provides various tools to help us be good parents, discussed how much babies like repetition. They enjoy recognizing things they know, and grow confidence when they can expect and predict what will happen next.
Noah has many books, but Matthew and I both know what his favorites are, even though it's rare that the three of us all sit and read together. In some books, he even has favorite moments that he's made clear to us - he laughs, or points, or looks carefully at certain pages. In Doggies by Sandra Boynton, it's this one: "9 dogs on a moonlit night - Owwwwoooooo!" In The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle it's the page with all the different foods that the caterpillar eats through (one slice of swiss cheese, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, etc.). Noah rushes through the other pages to get to that one. It's easy to tell the books that he's not interested in because he either tosses them aside like yesterday's newspaper, or pushes them out of our hands when we start to read them. Unfortunately, Goodnight Moon is one such book. He's just not interested. Which is just awful to me because I love that book. I keep thinking that maybe he'll enjoy it this time, but whenever I try it he grabs it from my hand and stretches way over so he can drop it off the edge of the bed. How much clearer can he be?
Loving what you love, and being just fine with more of it...Ain't it the truth for all of us? In this world of New and Better, how right Noah is - there are so many things that as an adult I know I can practice or come back to over and over again, to bring me to a place of comfort, solace, relaxation, confidence:
Long showers or baths
Going to the ocean
Movies
A phone call to that dearest friend
Music
A simple meal
My journal or poetry notebook
Ahhh. My favorite things. Just listing them out feels like staking my territory. What are the old standbys that make you feel like you've come home?
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
This and That, All the Time
Today I feel full of the constant swings involved in parenting. It's a life where beautiful moments are punctuated by blasting vomit.
Noah shifts from laughing outloud at something to crying as heartily as if he's been orphaned and left for dead. When he laughs it comes from his belly, he flaps his arms, wiggles his feet like he's swimming, and smiles with his whole face. His eyes disappear into slits peeking out from above his big cheeks and all his teeth (five now, soon six) show like a Jack O'lantern. Then when he cries, seconds later because he wants to be picked up, his little wide-open mouth turns down and he yells "Waaaaaaah!" and his face turns red and he turns to look at me so I can know just how unhappy or mad he is with whatever the current situation is. In his excitement and joy and his fear and discomfort he is simply the sweetest thing I've ever known.
A week ago today he said Mama for the first time. He said it four times that day. It really sounded like "Mum-Mum" and he said it the first time when he needed help. In the morning he had crawled backwards into the wall, and couldn't go anywhere. He still hadn't learned to go forward, although that milestone came just three days later, this past Saturday. So he was backed up, and I was across the room but sort of out of his sight, and he said "Mum-Mum!" Clear as day. And the tone was "Mama! I need help! Come and get me!" Then later that day a friend was visiting, the woman who married my husband and me, and he was sitting in her lap and turned to me and said it again twice, quietly, as he rubbed his hand back and forth on his ear. This gesture is his shortcut baby sign for Mama. Finally at night, at bedtime when I was reading to him and holding him in my lap, he said it again.
So that is how it happened, but this is how it felt. It felt like no matter how long the war in Iraq goes on, or how badly the earth is being misused to its core, or how domestic violence is never going to go away, or how there's never as much money coming into our lives as we'd wish for, it's all good, because I am Mum-Mum. They are words I never knew I would hear in my life, and certainly couldn't imagine how they would feel, even in recent weeks as I anticipated it happening. I am Mum-Mum. Since that day a week ago, Noah has changed his name for me, and now it is "Na-Na." It still makes a warm feeling spread through my body as if I'd had a sip of wine.
Alongside this blissful development, those teeth I mentioned before have been causing Noah some serious pain, and none of us are sleeping all that well on recent nights. He's nursing more to get through it, which in itself is not a problem - it's the fact that he's started biting me. This too is something that I never knew I would feel in my life, and certainly couldn't imagine how it would feel even as I heard stories from other women about it happening to them. Holy smokes, it's worse than labor in some ways, because at least labor for me had an evolving intensity and one stage led to the next so by the time the most painful part was happening it didn't seem out of the blue or anything. But this, yikes. It's a sharp pain in a delicate place, and it becomes very frustrating for me when he does it over and over again, which has thankfully only happened a few times, but imagine this: He goes to sleep at night by nursing, and he's exhausted and crying because he's so tired, and every time I try to nurse him he bites me because his teeth hurt. This isn't fair for anyone involved. This imagined evening was actually two nights ago and it was a trial. I had to deliver the verbal "Stop - bite" message every time, and then somehow find the courage to start nursing him again to get him off to sleep. He usually goes to bed at 7:00 p.m. and is asleep by 7:30 but on this night he didn't fall asleep until after 9:00.
This was a rough time, but was miraculously followed by a beautifully sunny morning. Noah woke happy, and ate a great breakfast, loved his bath, and played on the floor as if all his toys were new. He went down easily and napped for two hours with the bedroom windows open and our orange gauzy curtains fluttering in the warm breeze. It was breathtaking and I almost cried when I looked in on him because of the light and the air and his gentle breathing. The night before was totally irrelevant and a distant memory.
Last Saturday, as I mentioned, he crawled forward for the first time. He achieved this by digging his little toes into the bedroom carpet, arching his rump up so his body looked like a bridge, and lurching forward. Since then it has evolved quickly so he is up on all fours, going forward on his knees and pulling his feet behind him like a little seal tail. He also is pulling himself to a standing position, most easily by sitting on the floor by his crib and using the rails to pull up. This has caused much cheering and clapping and amazement on the part of his father and me. We have been truly excited for him, and I also have felt proud of us for being present with his current stage of development rather than mourning the loss of our darling bald and toothless baby of just a few months ago.
But today, as he pulled himself up again, this time using the edge of a small maple table in our bedroom, he lost his grip and konked his forehead on the edge. He cried loudly, open-mouthed, with a look of shock and confusion on his face - "Why? Why? Why?" I saw a red mark and goose-egg rising - his first one. I snuggled him in and comforted him and told him I was sorry it happened and that I loved him and that he would be alright, and I did actually believe that. At the same time I felt my own pain rising up. It's beginning - no matter how vigilant I am, this dear baby will be hurt. He's perfect, and it's inevitable. His life is happening at full speed, full of wonders and dangers, and he is discovering them so fast. I know that I need to hope that he discovers the richness of both, because I do believe what they say about deep pain allowing deep joy at the other end of the spectrum, but even small injustices or hurts are not easy things for me to watch in one so young and tender. I know he deserves the world, and sometimes unfortunately, I know he will get it.
Noah shifts from laughing outloud at something to crying as heartily as if he's been orphaned and left for dead. When he laughs it comes from his belly, he flaps his arms, wiggles his feet like he's swimming, and smiles with his whole face. His eyes disappear into slits peeking out from above his big cheeks and all his teeth (five now, soon six) show like a Jack O'lantern. Then when he cries, seconds later because he wants to be picked up, his little wide-open mouth turns down and he yells "Waaaaaaah!" and his face turns red and he turns to look at me so I can know just how unhappy or mad he is with whatever the current situation is. In his excitement and joy and his fear and discomfort he is simply the sweetest thing I've ever known.
A week ago today he said Mama for the first time. He said it four times that day. It really sounded like "Mum-Mum" and he said it the first time when he needed help. In the morning he had crawled backwards into the wall, and couldn't go anywhere. He still hadn't learned to go forward, although that milestone came just three days later, this past Saturday. So he was backed up, and I was across the room but sort of out of his sight, and he said "Mum-Mum!" Clear as day. And the tone was "Mama! I need help! Come and get me!" Then later that day a friend was visiting, the woman who married my husband and me, and he was sitting in her lap and turned to me and said it again twice, quietly, as he rubbed his hand back and forth on his ear. This gesture is his shortcut baby sign for Mama. Finally at night, at bedtime when I was reading to him and holding him in my lap, he said it again.
So that is how it happened, but this is how it felt. It felt like no matter how long the war in Iraq goes on, or how badly the earth is being misused to its core, or how domestic violence is never going to go away, or how there's never as much money coming into our lives as we'd wish for, it's all good, because I am Mum-Mum. They are words I never knew I would hear in my life, and certainly couldn't imagine how they would feel, even in recent weeks as I anticipated it happening. I am Mum-Mum. Since that day a week ago, Noah has changed his name for me, and now it is "Na-Na." It still makes a warm feeling spread through my body as if I'd had a sip of wine.
Alongside this blissful development, those teeth I mentioned before have been causing Noah some serious pain, and none of us are sleeping all that well on recent nights. He's nursing more to get through it, which in itself is not a problem - it's the fact that he's started biting me. This too is something that I never knew I would feel in my life, and certainly couldn't imagine how it would feel even as I heard stories from other women about it happening to them. Holy smokes, it's worse than labor in some ways, because at least labor for me had an evolving intensity and one stage led to the next so by the time the most painful part was happening it didn't seem out of the blue or anything. But this, yikes. It's a sharp pain in a delicate place, and it becomes very frustrating for me when he does it over and over again, which has thankfully only happened a few times, but imagine this: He goes to sleep at night by nursing, and he's exhausted and crying because he's so tired, and every time I try to nurse him he bites me because his teeth hurt. This isn't fair for anyone involved. This imagined evening was actually two nights ago and it was a trial. I had to deliver the verbal "Stop - bite" message every time, and then somehow find the courage to start nursing him again to get him off to sleep. He usually goes to bed at 7:00 p.m. and is asleep by 7:30 but on this night he didn't fall asleep until after 9:00.
This was a rough time, but was miraculously followed by a beautifully sunny morning. Noah woke happy, and ate a great breakfast, loved his bath, and played on the floor as if all his toys were new. He went down easily and napped for two hours with the bedroom windows open and our orange gauzy curtains fluttering in the warm breeze. It was breathtaking and I almost cried when I looked in on him because of the light and the air and his gentle breathing. The night before was totally irrelevant and a distant memory.
Last Saturday, as I mentioned, he crawled forward for the first time. He achieved this by digging his little toes into the bedroom carpet, arching his rump up so his body looked like a bridge, and lurching forward. Since then it has evolved quickly so he is up on all fours, going forward on his knees and pulling his feet behind him like a little seal tail. He also is pulling himself to a standing position, most easily by sitting on the floor by his crib and using the rails to pull up. This has caused much cheering and clapping and amazement on the part of his father and me. We have been truly excited for him, and I also have felt proud of us for being present with his current stage of development rather than mourning the loss of our darling bald and toothless baby of just a few months ago.
But today, as he pulled himself up again, this time using the edge of a small maple table in our bedroom, he lost his grip and konked his forehead on the edge. He cried loudly, open-mouthed, with a look of shock and confusion on his face - "Why? Why? Why?" I saw a red mark and goose-egg rising - his first one. I snuggled him in and comforted him and told him I was sorry it happened and that I loved him and that he would be alright, and I did actually believe that. At the same time I felt my own pain rising up. It's beginning - no matter how vigilant I am, this dear baby will be hurt. He's perfect, and it's inevitable. His life is happening at full speed, full of wonders and dangers, and he is discovering them so fast. I know that I need to hope that he discovers the richness of both, because I do believe what they say about deep pain allowing deep joy at the other end of the spectrum, but even small injustices or hurts are not easy things for me to watch in one so young and tender. I know he deserves the world, and sometimes unfortunately, I know he will get it.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Time Change
How and where does the time go? In one of the free parenting magazines I receive I read a line recently that I can half identify with. "As a parent, the days go by slowly but the years go by quickly." In my world, the days go quickly as well. Noah has happily found his own routine without us pushing one on him, and if I pay attention and stick to it, then a typical day looks like this:
1. Wake up. If we're all lucky.
2. Noah fills his diaper in a massive way like clockwork between 6:30 and 7 a.m. This requires a complete change of outfit.
3. Go downstairs for breakfast. Noah sucks on organic Cheerios while I make myself something and warm up some real food for him.
4. Go upstairs and give Noah a bath and get him dressed.
5. Play for a little bit until Noah wants to have milk and lie down.
6. Noah naps. I shower and get dressed, and if Noah continues to sleep than I go online and check e-mail or write or clean the house or pay bills or do any number of other pleasurable possibilities.
7. We play for a while together, or he plays with his toys and I continue above mentioned possibilities nearby. As long as he doesn't try to eat the dirt out of the plants, he is usually fine on the living room floor on his quilt with all his toys.
8. We have lunch. Noah now loves yogurt, like his Dad. Matthew panics if we only have one tub of Stonyfield Banilla left in the refrigerator.
9. We play for a while, often upstairs since he has another play area on the floor of our bedroom.
10. Noah naps again. If I have energy, I do a little work for my job, or I do paperwork, or phone a friend. If my energy is flagging, I watch television and let my brain rest.
11. Matthew comes home from work and we make dinner.
12. The bedtime routine: We get Noah's pjs on, Daddy reads him books, and then Noah goes down with me at 7 p.m.
13. The day usually ends for all intents and purposes there. It's rare that I have energy left for much else after Noah goes to sleep. We'll read or watch a little television but if we are up still at 8:30 it's unusual.
With only slight deviations if Noah gets up early or sleeps in, or if it is a weekend and Matthew is home all day, that is what my time looks like. On days that we run errands, or the two days a week that I go to work with Noah, I plug in said errands or time in the office between steps 6 and 11.
So 9 months' worth of days have slid by, and my being has become so attuned to this routine that I often don't look at the clock all day. I no longer wear a watch (the last time I wore one was when I was in labor), and when I do check the time it seems like it is always bedtime. I cannot believe the number of times the clock has read 6:00 p.m. when I glance at it - time to wind down for the night.
This is not how I used to approach time. The current culture, my job, and I'll admit my natural tendencies too, have made me a multitasker. While I of course still do some things at once (do the laundry while playing with Noah, make a phone call while walking him in the stroller around the 1st floor of our house), I no longer approach every 15-minute segment of time as if it is a meaningful unit in which I can accomplish 3 errands or 10 e-mails or other larger projects. My oldest sister who is also a mother said on the phone recently that it was hard for her to contemplate going out to run even a quick errand when my niece was a baby because of everything that had to happen for that to be accomplished (for us today: get dressed for the outdoors, get Noah dressed for the outdoors, stock the diaper bag and add car toys and another couple toys for my pocket, pack water and a snack for both of us, find my glasses, lock the house, turn the heat down, check the stove to make sure it's off so I don't burn the house down (a nod to my mother)...). It's not bad, but it's light years away from when I would shower, grab my list, and go knock off 15 errands in three hours.
Was my quality of life worse then? Certainly Noah adds a dimension to my experience that is wonderfully unlike anything I've ever known, but things were also pretty great before he came into my life. I prided myself on how much I could get done. Another thing I have read in many of the magazines is that once you become a parent, you should never expect to get anything done again. Don't expect to take a shower before 4 p.m., to do anything on that TO DO list that is on the fridge, etc. I really hated reading this, largely because it makes it sound like active parenting isn't doing anything or should be seen in competition with other more meaning things I might be doing, but thankfully it is really only sort of true even in the best way they might mean it - don't expect to be able to do things for yourself.
I have been able to shower every morning since Noah was born, which is good because that's how I wake up to full consciousness. I grew up in a house without running water, so after 20+ years now of living with plumbing I still appreciate a hot shower a lot. While it's true that I am not accomplishing things quickly on the schedule or personal lists that I had before he was born, I can see (most days) that the point is that the list has changed. When Matthew and I decided to have a baby, Noah became the top thing we were doing. And from Noah's perspective, when I can tune in to it, it's amazing how much we do every day - the multiple costume changes, playing with rubber ducks in the kitchen sink and soaking everything, reading stacks of books, discovering sparkly Mardi Gras beads, rolling balls, crawling around, dumping out every container with balls or dominoes or anything within reach, nursing, napping... It's a lot, every day, all the time for him. It's his new life.
So do I miss being Little Miss Do-It-All? Only sometimes, and interestingly, it never takes a day or even an hour of multitasking at my old speed to right the balance. It takes doing one small thing that I feel is important, and noticing that it is done and I did it. That's it. This is one of the gifts that Noah has given me, one way in which being a parent is covering over an old open manhole in my heart. One feeling I was often plagued with in the Time Before Noah and do not experience nearly as often today is this - that feeling that it's never enough, never enough, no matter how I work to make every minute productive and helpful to others, it's never enough. One of the rewards of being Noah's mother is that he tells me every day what enough really is - for him, for others, and for me. And I no longer wish for more hours in the day to get more than that done.
1. Wake up. If we're all lucky.
2. Noah fills his diaper in a massive way like clockwork between 6:30 and 7 a.m. This requires a complete change of outfit.
3. Go downstairs for breakfast. Noah sucks on organic Cheerios while I make myself something and warm up some real food for him.
4. Go upstairs and give Noah a bath and get him dressed.
5. Play for a little bit until Noah wants to have milk and lie down.
6. Noah naps. I shower and get dressed, and if Noah continues to sleep than I go online and check e-mail or write or clean the house or pay bills or do any number of other pleasurable possibilities.
7. We play for a while together, or he plays with his toys and I continue above mentioned possibilities nearby. As long as he doesn't try to eat the dirt out of the plants, he is usually fine on the living room floor on his quilt with all his toys.
8. We have lunch. Noah now loves yogurt, like his Dad. Matthew panics if we only have one tub of Stonyfield Banilla left in the refrigerator.
9. We play for a while, often upstairs since he has another play area on the floor of our bedroom.
10. Noah naps again. If I have energy, I do a little work for my job, or I do paperwork, or phone a friend. If my energy is flagging, I watch television and let my brain rest.
11. Matthew comes home from work and we make dinner.
12. The bedtime routine: We get Noah's pjs on, Daddy reads him books, and then Noah goes down with me at 7 p.m.
13. The day usually ends for all intents and purposes there. It's rare that I have energy left for much else after Noah goes to sleep. We'll read or watch a little television but if we are up still at 8:30 it's unusual.
With only slight deviations if Noah gets up early or sleeps in, or if it is a weekend and Matthew is home all day, that is what my time looks like. On days that we run errands, or the two days a week that I go to work with Noah, I plug in said errands or time in the office between steps 6 and 11.
So 9 months' worth of days have slid by, and my being has become so attuned to this routine that I often don't look at the clock all day. I no longer wear a watch (the last time I wore one was when I was in labor), and when I do check the time it seems like it is always bedtime. I cannot believe the number of times the clock has read 6:00 p.m. when I glance at it - time to wind down for the night.
This is not how I used to approach time. The current culture, my job, and I'll admit my natural tendencies too, have made me a multitasker. While I of course still do some things at once (do the laundry while playing with Noah, make a phone call while walking him in the stroller around the 1st floor of our house), I no longer approach every 15-minute segment of time as if it is a meaningful unit in which I can accomplish 3 errands or 10 e-mails or other larger projects. My oldest sister who is also a mother said on the phone recently that it was hard for her to contemplate going out to run even a quick errand when my niece was a baby because of everything that had to happen for that to be accomplished (for us today: get dressed for the outdoors, get Noah dressed for the outdoors, stock the diaper bag and add car toys and another couple toys for my pocket, pack water and a snack for both of us, find my glasses, lock the house, turn the heat down, check the stove to make sure it's off so I don't burn the house down (a nod to my mother)...). It's not bad, but it's light years away from when I would shower, grab my list, and go knock off 15 errands in three hours.
Was my quality of life worse then? Certainly Noah adds a dimension to my experience that is wonderfully unlike anything I've ever known, but things were also pretty great before he came into my life. I prided myself on how much I could get done. Another thing I have read in many of the magazines is that once you become a parent, you should never expect to get anything done again. Don't expect to take a shower before 4 p.m., to do anything on that TO DO list that is on the fridge, etc. I really hated reading this, largely because it makes it sound like active parenting isn't doing anything or should be seen in competition with other more meaning things I might be doing, but thankfully it is really only sort of true even in the best way they might mean it - don't expect to be able to do things for yourself.
I have been able to shower every morning since Noah was born, which is good because that's how I wake up to full consciousness. I grew up in a house without running water, so after 20+ years now of living with plumbing I still appreciate a hot shower a lot. While it's true that I am not accomplishing things quickly on the schedule or personal lists that I had before he was born, I can see (most days) that the point is that the list has changed. When Matthew and I decided to have a baby, Noah became the top thing we were doing. And from Noah's perspective, when I can tune in to it, it's amazing how much we do every day - the multiple costume changes, playing with rubber ducks in the kitchen sink and soaking everything, reading stacks of books, discovering sparkly Mardi Gras beads, rolling balls, crawling around, dumping out every container with balls or dominoes or anything within reach, nursing, napping... It's a lot, every day, all the time for him. It's his new life.
So do I miss being Little Miss Do-It-All? Only sometimes, and interestingly, it never takes a day or even an hour of multitasking at my old speed to right the balance. It takes doing one small thing that I feel is important, and noticing that it is done and I did it. That's it. This is one of the gifts that Noah has given me, one way in which being a parent is covering over an old open manhole in my heart. One feeling I was often plagued with in the Time Before Noah and do not experience nearly as often today is this - that feeling that it's never enough, never enough, no matter how I work to make every minute productive and helpful to others, it's never enough. One of the rewards of being Noah's mother is that he tells me every day what enough really is - for him, for others, and for me. And I no longer wish for more hours in the day to get more than that done.
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