Words

I am a big fan of words. I use them about every day, I say them and write them and generally think in them, and I went to school (still go, actually...) to learn to get good at them. Words are pretty cool, most of the time.

So I am REALLY excited about Owen starting to use them.

His first word was "Hi" and that was pretty cool. It proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, as if we had any, that he was a super social baby. But other than "mommy-daddy-baba-yeah-bye bye"he hasn't said much yet. Except for the times he blurts out something insane after I say it, like "umbrella" or "aww jeez."

I want him to talk to me. I want him to tell me what he sees, and how he feels, and what he thinks is fun and what he thinks is lame. I want him to tell me why he doesn't like grilled cheese or blueberry muffins, but he does like mashed peas and fish. I want him to tell me the best way to do things like wash his face without getting soap in his eyes, or how to tie his shoes so they aren't too tight. I want him to say, "I love you, too, Momma!"

Of course, I want him to say that.

Sickies

O has the sickies.

Not the nice, gentle sickies where you sort of have a teensy fever and you feel a little sleepy and your nose runs a bit, or you have a lazy cough. No, no.

He has the 102 degree fever, vomiting, no appetite, can't stay awake, super cranky, totally weepy, snot gushing, diarrhea sickies. And he's had it for two days. And it makes me want to cry.

He doesn't understand things like "virus running its course" or "it will pass soon." He doesn't understand why a snuggle hug from Mommy doesn't fix it. He doesn't understand why all of his orifices are leaking/exploding/dripping. He just understands that he's hot as an oven and his whole body hates him.

These are the moments that I struggle with the most. The moments when my baby, my sweet, gentle boy, is looking at me with wet, red eyes, and all I can do is kiss his forehead and tell him I love him. The moments when I am utterly helpless, and fighting the good fight against a nasty virus means doling out Ibuprofen when the fever gets too high and giving him juice-water and electrolyte popsicles. I hate this. I know I have said it before, and I am willing to bet I will say it again, but I hate it. It's horrible.

Not to mention I almost can't stomach the smell of vomit.

:(

Should I stay or should I go, now?

So, I have begun the arduous and angst producing process of job hunting recently. We are sick of being perpetually broke, going in the red every month and depending on my student loans to clear our debt every semester. It sucks, and it's wearing us down emotionally as well as financially. This is definitely not the best way to manage our financial future.

But since I lost my job right after Owen was born, and Aron was lucky enough (thank you God/Allah/Universe/Ganesh) to find a job that almost made up for my lost income, we decided it was a great opportunity for me after all. I would get to stay home with Owen, be the always-there Mom that so many women wish feverishly for the chance to be, and Aron would be the breadwinner. It was going to be just like the Cleavers (only I had no intention of wearing my hair that way, sorry June.)

Here's the thing, folks. Being a stay at home mom, at least for me, has been nothing like the Cleavers.

Now before I start ranting, let's be totally clear: I love my kid. I love him with a ferocity that astounds me. I love him like whales love their blubber on a cold night. He is the most wonderful part of my whole life, and I would never ever trade the experience of being his mom for anything.

But damn, that baby wears me out!

He is a very active kid. Even in the womb he was doing summersaults and using my bladder as a trampoline. He came out headfirst and reading to go, wide awake and alert. From the minute we got home he was checking out all the crazy people who visited and making faces at the smell of old-lady-dog farts and my burnt pork chops. He was wide open from day one, and he has not slowed down. And this is a good thing, really! He's got a zest for life, a curious mind, and a passion for experience that will ensure his life is interesting and fun. He's not afraid of anything, and even though his fearlessness can terrify me, it's a great quality.

But it still terrifies me. And along with feeling things like terror and boundless love on a daily basis, I feel things like uncertainty, exhaustion, frustration, awe, loneliness, amazement, pride, boredom, and resentment. A number of those I did not anticipate. And quite frankly, I am tired of a few of them.

I am glad I have been here so far. I got to see all of his first things happen; his first playdate with Ezra (who is the delightfully calm and cherubic baby I dreamt about having!), his first yucky face when eating mushed peas, his first sneeze, and his first sneaky attempt to crawl up the stairs (good thing I caught that quickly!) I have been able to comfort him when he was sick with his first cold, and cheer him on when he took his first steps. I have snuggled and burped and kissed and nursed and changed and cooed. And it's great that I was there for that, especially in those first months when bonding with your baby is so vital to your relationship. It sets the tone, I think, for how you will relate to each other for life, and I got to set a pretty good tone.

But it's been hard on me, in a lot of ways. I have desperately missed using my brain for something other than calculating the perfect ratio of breastmilk-rice cereal to entice him to eat. And I have craved adult conversation and company, especially since my hard-working husband is often gone for work for four days a week. I have been bored in a way that only another ADHD SAHM would understand. I have been overwhelmed with exhaustion, and I have to express my deep gratitude for the few hours a week we had a nanny help me during those first several months so I could get some sleep or go to the grocery store alone, because those precious hours are probably what kept me from a true postpartum episode of insanity.

The thing is, I have put off looking for work partly because I felt like it means I am a failure, or a bad mom. I mean, if we were a little more careful with our budget, we could probably make it ok for a while longer. And then I could stay home with O. I know mothers who would kill to stay home with their kids, so what does it say about me that I am dying to get a few hours a week away?

I realized recently that it means I am a healthy human being who understands her limitations and is trying to take care of her needs. I need to be able to go to work a couple of times a week and get out of the house, away from the constant energy drain of raising a toddler who never slows down. I need to feel like I am contributing something financially to this family, and take a small part of the stress and burden off of my husband. I need the fulfillment and satisfaction of doing a job and doing it well, even if that job is waiting tables at Olive Garden or managing a Gymboree store in the mall. And I think my son has needs too, that would be well met by me getting out of the way.

My little Monkey is a wild child, in the best ways possible. He's super duper social to an extent that I don't think I ever was. He loves to play with other kids and meet new people. He loves to make friends. And being at home with me all day, even if that includes an hour at the mall's indoor playground or a playdate with some local SAHMs and their toddlers, is not enough stimulation and social engagement for him. He is happiest and most at peace when there are 17 kids in the room, all talking and running and laughing and drooling. He needs a social environment like day care to keep him growing and evolving. He needs other toddlers to help him fine tune his skills, like sitting quietly in a chair for lunch time, or what to do when an adult says "No." He needs the variety of activities and experiences that some part-time day care would provide him.

So now we can both get what we need. I can get out of the house and remind myself that I am a grown-up person with a pretty smart brain and some useful skills, and he can get out of the house and enjoy a few hours of the organized insanity of institutionalized child care.

Life is about balance. And in some ways, parenting emphasizes that even more. Children whose homes feel balanced and well rounded are certainly more likely to feel that way as individuals. And parents who don't always feel like they are teetering on the brink are probably better parents. So here's to the balance of being a part-time mom and part-time worker bee. Cheers!

Changes

Being a Mom changes a lot of things.

You don't sleep much anymore. There are days you don't shower at all, and sometimes there are more of them in a week than there are days you do shower. You get sneezed/drooled/barfed/peed on at least once a day. Half of your trash is dirty diapers. You hardly ever talk on the phone for more then 8 minutes at a time. And you buy a lot of pureed food.

These are the kinds of things you expect. The sort of 'oh yeah, sure' changes that make sense. But there are other things that you probably didn't think about until you actually had your little poop machine.

For example;

Your purse now carries unsexy things like extra pacifiers, baby fruit snacks, and snotty tissues, but no longer carries sexy things like a spare condom, sparkly lip gloss, or some hot guy's phone number given to you at a bar at 1am (bar? 1am? pshaw.)

Your wardrobe cannot contain items of clothing with things like sequins, ribbons, beads, or other dangly/shiny objects, because as soon as you pick up your kid s/he will immediately try to eat them off of your outfit. Hello, choking hazards.

Your haircut can't be one that requires 'styling' on a daily basis, because the whole not-showering thing makes it difficult to do anything more complicated than run your fingers through it, possibly pin it back with a bobby pin, or swoosh it into some kind of ponytail or bun. The process of combing-leave-in-conditioning-blow-drying-brushing-defrizzing-spraying-straightening leaves way too much time for mini-you to try and drown him/herself in the toilet or eat the snotty tissues out of your purse.

Really fun errands, like getting your tires rotated, voting in a midterm election, or having a pap smear, now have to be coordinated carefully to include the presence of a child caregiver or the lack of child altogether, because these are definitely NOT really fun errands for your toddler, and they are decidedly less fun for you when your toddler comes along.

Making friends is a whole new ball game. People your age without kids will look at you and think, "She has a kid, and she's probably going to want to bring it with her if we hang out, and she's probably going to want me to like her kid and hold her kid and maybe even change a diaper while she's peeing in the stall somewhere, and I am not totally sure that's going to work well for me." and people with kids will look at you and think, "Oh my God, not another friend with a kid...I just want to have some friends who can talk to me about something other than how their infant was lactose intolerant for 6 months."

There are other things, too, but there are the ones I have been noticing the most lately. Like today, when he tried to eat the sequins off my tank top. And last week when I got my hair cut "shorter, this time, ok? I need to not have to do anything to it at all!" And last month when I got new tires and it took 4 hours and Owen tried to eat the whole waiting room.

But I love him! And I love being a Mom!

:)

Lonely and Bored

My Monkey needs a monkey to play with. Or at least a toddler. And it is becoming more and more apparent every day.

A typical day for us goes like this:

We get up. Usually too early for my taste (too early being any time before 9:30).
He has his milk, and the unfortunately common dose of antibiotics or Advil that comes with raging ear infections and multiple teething breaking through.
He runs around the living room/kitchen/his bedroom for a while, and I try to eat something, check emails, and call Daddy to say good morning.
He has breakfast (by which I mean I try to feed him breakfast, he laughs in my face and throws it on the floor, I give up, and he goes back to playing).
At some point he gets cranky and takes a morning nap.

So far, not so bad. He has played with the vast majority of his toys with some level of interest, I have probably read him "Violet's House" at least 3 times, and he has successfully climbed on to at least 2 pieces of furniture. He has been pretty entertained. But it won't last. By the time he gets up from his nap, laughs at me when I try to give him lunch, and I put him in his clothes for the day, he's ready for some action. And I don't mean watching "Die Hard." I mean he wants KIDS to PLAY WITH and he wants them NOW.

Unfortunately, we still only have the Fillmore kids as our Columbia kid friends. The two mommy meetup groups I tried to join were populated by wealthy moms on the Northeast side, and it didn't work out so well. We go to the zoo or the park and sometimes he will get a few minutes here and there with a kid who happens to be there, too. But usually the whole day is just us. Just me and my little boy. And man, oh man, does he get sick of that.

I have figured this out because of this trend I have noticed...he will be cranky and crying and throwing things and having a meltdown, and as soon as we pull up to the Fillmores for whatever planned social time we have scheduled, he is happy as a clam. He's smiling, he's frolicking, he's ready to go. And he will stay that way the whole time.

He's not crabby because he's ill tempered, or because he's feeling icky or needs another nap. He's crabby because he craves the stimulation and energy of playing with two other little boys. And can I blame him?

So it's been a struggle, now that I have realized he is lonely and bored all the time. I have a kid who needs social interaction, but I can't afford daycare and it's been hard to make friends. We tried getting pregnant again, unsuccessfully so far, but even another baby won't solve the playmate problem for quite some time. We have been talking about being foster parents and possibly adopting a toddler-aged kid, but that will also take time, and it's a big, complicated step.

I want my Monkey to be happy, and I wish I knew how to get more kids in his daily life. Without having to, like, steal them or something. :)