a teeny blurb about me

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I am a 32 year old first time mom who is continually shocked at how much those baby books and doulas and midwives don't tell you about having and raising kids...let me tell you, it's a lot!

1.27.2012

Love and Like are NOT the same...

I love my child. I think I may have mentioned this once or twice. A day. For the last 17 months.

But I do not always like him. (It is possible I have mentioned this already, too. But I am allowed to repeat myself! So there!)

He has lately been a sinking ship of emotional insanity. And it's not only quite ridiculous, it's making our time together much less enjoyable.

I refill his sippy cup? He sobs hysterically. I put on his socks? He weeps. I take away a knife he managed to grab off the counter while I was chopping and he was on his tippy toes? He throws himself on the floor and wails. I shut the door to the bathroom? He beats it with his tiny fat fists and cries his eyes out. He drops something soft and not at all painful on his foot? He sheds massive crocodile tears and moans.

EVERYthing is making him cry. Or yell. Or both. Usually, lately, it has been both. He is becoming prone to fits of hysteria, and I don't understand it at all. He can't have PMS, he's a boy. And he can't be depressed, he's never even been in love. He hasn't lost a job, no one has died, and his best friend most certainly has not been spreading awful rumors about him at school.

So what gives?!

It's too early for the terrible twos. He's too young for hormones. And I am too tired to accept that this is the way it's just going to be forever.

Sigh.

I have to remind myself that he's little, and being little is frustrating and hard, especially when you don't know enough words to ask for what you want or understand why you can't have it. Imagine being just over 2 feet tall in a foreign country and speaking 4 words of the language. Yuck, right?

Right.

So I love him, and I feel bad for him, but I am also not enjoying him right now.

1.15.2012

Hmmm. And Damnit!

Nobody ever bothered to mention to me that a consequence of nursing my baby would be that my breasts, which used to be pretty much the best part of my sex life, would be essentially numbed and useless. Yeah, I heard all about how they sag, and they change shape, and they never look the same again. And whatever about all that. Who cares? It's totally worth it. And it doesn't really make that huge of a difference to my sex life.

But the numbness. That sucks. No pun intended.

I would have nursed him anyway, even if I would have known. But it would have been nice to have a head's up. Some warning would have been appreciated.

As it is, I have been pretty pissed about this particular change, and after a conversation with another woman who had the same problem, I have decided to pierce my nipples and see if that changes anything. Piercing them generally increases sensitivity, and can repair inverted nipples, and so I am going to give it a shot. I did some research and even the La Leche League says that there's no evidence piercing would interfere with future nursing of future babies :)

Wish me luck.

1.02.2012

Monkey See, Monkey Do

It's started. Monkey is a mimic.

I don't know why I didn't notice it sooner, but it became totally obvious yesterday when Aron was fervently licking his sticky man-fingers at lunch and Owen was just as noisily licking his little cute baby-fingers and staring at his Daddy with rapt attention.

Of course the little fella has been trying to imitate us for ages. He thinks he can just take a step like a big boy and walk down the stairs the way we do (although he falls on his face every time). He tries to hold a spoon and eat like we do (although the vast majority of his food ends up on his chin that way). He tries to brush his hair (except he prefers to use the big brush that goes with the dust pan) and hold a pen (yeah...no thank you, Mr. Baby!) and talk on the phone (even if the 'phone' is a remote control, or a mega block, or his own hand).

It's cute now, of course. He tries to do things and messes them up somehow, or does them in a really fumbling and adorable way. But the things he has been trying to do are mostly things that are ok, like knocking on the door or taking off his shoes. But one of these days he's going to pick up on the not-so-great things we do, and start doing them, too.

Now is the time, I have realized, for us to start really adopting some better habits. Saying 'please' and 'thank you' more consistently. Looking both ways before we walk in to the parking lot of the apartment complex. Eating all our veggies. Stuff like that, stuff we're going to want him to do. And we have to stop doing things we don't want him to do, like barging in the bathroom when someone is in there, or yelling through the apartment instead of walking to the other room to ask a question.

Being a parent is complicated if you want to raise a well-mannered kid!!