Something to work toward

I remember summer vacations as a child. They were boring as hell. I used to set myself a schedule just to give myself something to do.

8:00 Get up (yes, I set an alarm on summer vacation)
8:30 Eat
9:00 Shower

I would schedule which game shows to watch, riding my bike to the post office to get the mail, lunch with a similarly bored friend, things like that. Nothing pressing, enriching, lasting. Just killing time.

I loved being free of the rigid schedule of the school year, but I needed something to look forward to. Three months of nothingness wore on me.

It took me a ridiculously long time to realize that what I need is not structure, but goals. Something to work toward. Which is nice, because there is no end to the things I would like to do in this life. I will never run out of goals. How cool is that?

I used to avoid trying things I thought were beyond me, until I realized that I gain far more satisfaction from improving at something I formerly sucked at than maintaining a stellar track record at something that comes easily to me.

In that vein, here are some things I would like to accomplish. No time limits; I'll do them when I do them. The fun is in the trying.

- Learn to draw
- Jog a mile
- Do a proper cobra pose (I could before the c-sections, but no longer)
- Learn to play drums
- Visit more national landmarks (Mt Rushmore, Yellowstone, the Liberty Bell, etc.)
- Shop local farmer's markets
- Own my own home
- Get a bike; use it

See? I do think about things other than my kids sometimes.

The people of Quora want to know about my c-sections

I posted about my first c-section on Quora. But this post has been percolating since I had Kai. I figured I would spare them the rant and go straight to my own page with it. Because as it turns out, I have more to say about c-sections.

The first Cesarean was terrifyingly fast. In the space of an hour, I went from being numb and artificially contracting, surrounded by a room full of people making uncomfortable small talk while they waited for me to pop out a kid, to peering over my outstretched, IVed arm at my baby, who was howling indignantly across a bright, frigid room while the medical staff tossed my guts back in and stitched me up. If I'd had time to think about it, I'd have had a panic attack. But there was no time to think. Until later, that is, when I would laugh at the question, "When are you having another baby?" When they perfect that technique from Eternal Sunshine, sweetheart, I would think. I never want to go through that again.

Three years later, I'd forgotten enough to decide to try again.

I kept my cool until I was actually on the operating table, shivering in a hospital gown that, despite my hugely pregnant size, I was swimming in. They had me straddle the operating table to give me the anesthetic, and I just lost it. Shaking and crying uncontrollably. Because I knew, this time, what to expect. Having a needle jabbed in my spine. Being cut open, insides shoved aside, a baby removed, everything tossed back in like packing to return home after a 2-week vacation in paradise.

I knew what lay ahead: Weeks of pain, weakness, bleeding. Healing at the speed of frozen molasses. And I wanted more than anything to have an unmedicated vaginal birth. Sure, I'd heard horror stories about those, but I'd never had one. Sometimes the devil you know is scarier than the devil you don't.

The nursing staff was great. They took a moment to calm me down, and kept their patience even though I'd turned into a huge, whiny baby. Finally, I was numbed and stretched out, R was brought in, and the hacking...ahem, surgical procedure commenced.

I don't really remember much about the procedure. I remember fighting the anesthesiologist about the oxygen mask, because I felt like it was suffocating me.* I remember telling R that I loved him, but we were never doing this again.

And then I heard my son's first tears.

Just like that, it was bearable. All of it. I'd do it all again, just to hear those tears.

I hate that it takes so long to touch the baby when having a c-section. I hear some hospitals bring the baby close, so the mom can see him or her while she is being stitched up. Mine didn't. It'd have been easier for me if they had.

I tend to have a hard time recovering from c-sections. The first time, I was in agonizing pain for weeks.** The second time, I did much better; I shunned the compression wrap, so maybe that helped. But now I'm having pains that I can only assume are due to adhesions (because I am not letting them cut me back open to confirm, thankyouverymuch). It's the only reason I can think of that doing cobra pose would cause a bolt of pain to shoot up just one side of my abdomen. I'm also having considerable sacroiliac joint pain. Which is probably from the pregnancy, not the Cesarean, but either way puts a damper on my yoga practice.

Despite all that, deep down I know I'd jump at the chance to do it all again if I were just a little younger. I like the age gap between Anya and Kai, but by the time Kai is 3 I will be nearly 44. Which is pushing it in terms of having children. So, reluctantly, I am done having babies.

Would I recommend an elective c-section? Oh my god, no. Hell no. Never in life. If the baby will come out the hole the baby was meant to come out of, let it. But if you need the procedure to protect your health, the baby's health, or simply to get the baby out, by all means have it. It's not as bad as you think. (Neither is formula, but that is a post for another time.) It will be awful, but you will forget in time just how awful. And when it's all over, you get a cute baby.

And that is my c-section story.

*I am terrified of suffocating when I am pregnant. An oddly specific fear, I know.
**Yes, I took my all my medicine. Women who don't boggle my mind. I was not in the least too doped up to enjoy my baby, and they just filleted you like a fish, for heaven's sake. Take the drugs!

Lies I tell my son

My son and I meditate together.

I downloaded the Calm app from Google Play, hoping to incorporate some meditation into my daily routine. I need some calm in my life. And the app does help. Meditation is not a daily habit yet, but I am working on it.

Kai loves the app. Loves the background noises (both music and water, though he likes the rain best), loves the app wallpapers, loves the soothing narration. We meditate sometimes while nursing. He often falls asleep. As do I. It's lovely.

Even when we are not listening to the app, I try to incorporate some of that peace into our nursing sessions. I cradle him close, gently rock him, and tell him that we have all the time in the world. I tell him that we have nothing else to do. Nowhere else to be. Nothing to worry about.

He believes me, because he is 5 months old. In his eyes, there is nothing I don't know.

I want to believe me. I run and run and do and do, every waking minute. I want to believe I can take this time to enjoy him, my last baby. My precious boy.

The nice thing about these lies is that the more I tell them, the more true they become.

And then, you remembered

The voice in my head sounds an awful lot like Dr. Moon* since I became a mother.

Me: [shampooing hair] Oh, crap -- I forgot to get the leftover cash and ride tickets out of the pocket of my shorts.

Dr. Moon: And then, you remembered.

Me: I will get them out just as soon as I get out of the shower.

Of course, by the time I have finished showering, I have completely forgotten.

Several days later, I enter the kitchen and see a wadded-up dollar bill on the kitchen table.

Me: That's from my pocket, isn't it? That's the money I was going to get out before we did laundry.

Dr. Moon: And then, you forgot.

Me: So where's the rest of it? [go to the basket of clean clothes, discover the extra bills mixed in with the laundry -- but not the ride tickets] I don't see yellow paper shreds on everything. Where are the tickets?

Dr. Moon: And then, you remembered.

Me: [locate tickets in watch pocket of said shorts -- curled, and crisp, but still intact]

Snuck the cash into her treasure box,
but these are mine.

This kind of thing happens all the time. I've taken to creating multiple to-do lists on my phone, with reminders that pop up throughout the day. Not just stuff to buy or appointments, but things like "clean out the fridge" and "trim the kids' nails." Because if I don't do that, I end up with a fridge full of rotting food and a face full of scratches. (No, that is not a zit on my chin. The baby is in a grabby phase.)

So if you see me bent over my phone, don't automatically assume that I am playing Candy Crush.** Most likely I am looking at my list, trying to remember what it is I am forgetting.

*Obligatory Doctor Who reference.
**Like I have time for that stuff. If I manage to game, it's gonna involve a Sim or a REALLY big sword.

One small scoot changes everything

The other night, I set Kai in the middle of the living room floor so I could check on the homemade breast milk/banana custard* I was baking for him. When I returned to the living room, he'd scooted four feet and was under the end table. In less than a minute.

The next night, I let him have an extended tummy-time session while his sister and I played Wii Fit. And he finally managed to get up on all fours and crawl a bit. It's still a challenge, but if past milestones are any indication, it's a challenge he will master in a matter of days.

Time to babyproof everything. Again. It'll be even more challenging this time around, as we have Anya's teensy tiny toys to contend with.

And my teensy tiny baby is no longer so teensy. Which means I will no longer have teensies in the house until my kids start bringing them home.

I'm both excited and sad about this new stage. I can't wait to go through the discovery stages with Kai; to me, that's one of the most fun parts of motherhood, watching him experience everything for the first time. But he has been such a joy that I'm sad to see his tiny baby days leave. Especially since he is the last; I'm too old, and too squeamish about having another c-section, to contemplate more children.

I've always been resistant to change, though. So I will try to accept this new stage, and all of the ones to come, a bit more gracefully than I have in the past.

As I was typing this up, my daughter came in, kissed Kai on the head, and grinned. "Hi, Blue Eyes!" she chirped. He beamed back at her. Despite the snags and bumps, they really do love each other. A timely reminder that as these treasured days pass, even better ones are around the corner.

*Yes, I feel all crunchy granola mom just typing that. Even though the only reason I baked it is because I made more milk than he wanted the other day and he refuses to drink from a bottle. The custard was, by the way, a complete failure. More milk soup with banana mashed in it than custard. I have never made custard before, so I don't know what went wrong. Perhaps my milk is not fatty enough? Or the recipe was wrong? More experimentation is needed.

Cry me a river

One side effect of motherhood that I did not expect is how emotional it's made me. I have always been a bit on the stoic side. I hate the vulnerability I feel when others see my emotions, so I learned over the years to stuff them down. Eventually, I stopped feeling them quite so much -- with a few exceptions, of course. (Obviously, loss hurts me...I'm not Spock, for pete's sake.) But since I had kids, I am overwhelmed by emotion.

Towards my children, it makes sense. Regarding issues that affect children in general, I understand. That I bawled my eyes out at Sarah's Key is not shocking; it's a beautifully written piece about a horrific period in history, specifically centering on tragedy involving small children, which I read while the severely sleep-deprived mother of a newborn. (It's a wonder I was able to finish the book, to be honest. I've put books down for less since then.)

But it's more than that. I cry at NCIS episodes. Stupid memes on Facebook. The thought of bad things happening to anyone, ever. Stuff that made me cry before I had kids -- Six Feet Under, say, or Hearts in Atlantis*? I can't even.

A friend of mine described having a child as having her heart outside of her body, walking and talking and vulnerable. And she is not wrong. But that's not the whole of it. I feel like a pulsing wound sometimes, and every bit of grit or puff of air is more than I can bear.

Some of it, I'm sure, is hormonal. It doesn't take a PhD to see the effect having two children has had on me hormonally. (For good or ill...and some of it is extremely good. The lack of endometriosis symptoms is enough to keep me breastfeeding until Kai decides to stop.) But I don't think it's all hormonal.

I can't say I am 100% comfortable with this new aspect of myself, but perhaps it will serve me in the long run. I imagine an emotional mother is a better parent than a stoic one.

Not all emotions are bad.

*The book, of course.

Co-parenting

I always thought co-parenting was something that separated parents did. But now I see that it is very much a part of every parenting experience. Some parents just do it better than others.

We are all individuals. We come from different parenting environments. And we bring all that -- all our hopes and dreams for our kids, our own values and hangups and flaws, and all of our parents' strengths and quirks -- to the parenting table. Where they mesh or butt heads with those qualities in the other parent. And if other adults spend a great deal of time with the child, it gets even more muddled.

It's no wonder our kids are confused. They are being raised by a cacophony.

Co-parenting, I see now, is an attempt to boil the cacophony down and provide a unified voice for the children. It is the opposite of "Go ask your mother." It is saying, "This is what we do, and this is who we are, and this is what we value." And it is unbelievably frickin' hard sometimes.

For instance, R thinks I am ridiculous for banning the word "retarded." He thinks it is a harmless synonym for "stupid." I find it ugly and hurtful. I chastise him (gently) when he uses it. He rolls his eyes -- but has at least stopped using it so often.

And that is a small issue. There are hundreds -- thousands -- of little things like this that come up in the course of a day. What do we enforce? What do we let slide? What behavior do we model? What behavior do we model that we really wish they wouldn't pick up? Do we follow the pediatrician's advice or our own instincts? What is the end result we are hoping for from our children, and how do we think we can attain that outcome?

R and I approach parenting differently. He relies on instinct; when in doubt, he does what his parents did. I am learning to trust my instincts, which is why we co-sleep, and why we started solids a month early. But if I am unsure, I kneel before the altar of Google and read for an hour before deciding. (I also have my pediatrician and Poison Control on speed dial.) So we can, and do, project mixed messages. But now, five months into Kid 2, we are starting to work as a single unit. We recognize our strengths and weaknesses, and each other's. And often without saying a word, we pick up each other's slack. The end goal: A unified front, a reliable safety net, and a consistent parental presence.

That's co-parenting.

Part of our co-parenting approach is to do what we can to keep the kids home with us, instead of foisting them on my parents or sending them to daycare. Which means R has had to work jobs with hours that complement mine, as I am the breadwinner. Those jobs are often low paying, and all too frequently nonexistent. He currently has a job that serves all our needs: It pays well, and offers him full-time hours in a condensed schedule -- 12-hour days Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. But it's taken him four years to find such a gig. And, being a temp job, it could disappear at a moment's notice.

I won't say it's been easy, but we've made it work. Because it is important to us that we be the ones who raise our children.

What amazes (and infuriates) me is the way some people act when they learn of our arrangement. Like he is mooching off of me, or slacking off. Even people who have stayed at home with their own children. (Have you spent your every waking moment with a rambunctious 3-year-old? Trust me, it's more than a full-time job. I am jealous of SAHMs, but also beyond relieved that I am not one.) If he had a high-paying job, our roles would be reversed; but because I am a woman, no one would bat an eye -- though some might judge me for giving up my job to raise our kids.

Being a SAHD is a man's job. A man takes care of his children. In whatever way is most needed by his family.