Me As A Mom

Today is a happy day at our house.  Today, my RubyCakes turns two.  Or as she would announce to you in a shout-y voice, “I two year ooooooold!”

She is very excited.  And that makes me very excited.  I can’t help it.  I’m her mama.  Plus, I love, love, love that when we ask her about birthday parties she immediately wants cake and a hat.  The teachers at her little school once called her, “A party in a person.” Who wouldn’t want to celebrate a girl like that! 

So today, on her second birthday, our little family will dance and cheer for all the little and big things God has done in the past year of this life.  For talking and ‘zooming’, shoulder dancing and outlasting Rotavirus. For learning her ABC’s, for teaching me to be a little less serious. For making her first friends and then learning to pray for them.  I could go on.

Instead, I thought today would be a sweet day to share a part of something I wrote about bringing Ruby home from the hospital.

Coming Home

When it was time to leave the hospital, I was so ready and at the same time so desperately unprepared, a perfect picture of new motherhood. There had been a lot of medical attentiveness during our stay, but not much else.  I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly.  Perhaps more patience with my questions about nursing or more help with my inconsolable newborn during the harrowing middle-of-the-night hours. I guess I just thought the nurses were going to be a little more, “Oh, honey, how can I help?” and less “Good luck with that.” But I had overlooked the facts; they are nurses, not nannies, after all. 

Although the day had come, I was still slow getting up and a little unsteady on my feet.  But I was very eager to get our little girl home.  I wanted to be in our house, cozy and safe, just the three of us.  I wanted to show her the nursery we had painted La Paloma Grey with the help of some friends.  And the crib that her daddy put together and the framed cross-stitch alphabet my grandma made for me when I was a little girl.  We had done all we could to prepare our space for her, practicing making room for her in our life before she even arrived.  And I wanted her to see it.   

Before we left the hospital, I took a long shower and reminded myself that we could do this and that we wouldn’t be doing any of it alone.  As I carefully got dressed, I could feel my heartbeat quicken.  I was a little nervous, but only a little.  More than being afraid, I was giddy.  While drying my hair, I kept stopping what I was doing to tip toe over to her in the bassinet and look at her.  It was the first time we had really been alone in the room together.  It was the middle of the afternoon and the floor was peacefully quiet and the nurses had stopped checking in on us.  I just stood there with my head tilted to the side smirking.  It was the first moment I was able to reflect.  I had faced labor with courage and had done the hard work of delivering our baby out into the world.  She and I had worked together on our first endeavor and we had succeeded.  And now there we were, just two girls getting to know each other.  I wanted to tell her everything I knew and catalogue the names and stories of all the people that she would be meeting, who had been praying for her and who already love her.  But she wanted to yawn and wriggle and keep on sleeping.  So we compromised: I whispered meaningful secrets to her while she carried on snoozing.  

And then an hour later, with some help from a very kind nurse, we got our Ruby into her car seat, signed our discharge papers and were on our way.  I remember thinking, while being pushed along in the wheel chair with Blaine walking beside me carrying our baby, that we were a couple of lucky assholes.  There are a lot of reasons to be wheeled down the hallway of a hospital and not all of them are nice.  But this day was beyond nice.  It was outrageous in its goodness.  I breathed deeply and slowly as I thanked God for giving us this kind of day.

As we pulled away from the hospital, I wasn’t worried about driving slow or how other people were driving fast, the way some new parents fret.  I wasn’t gulping about being careful or clinching my jaw about getting into an accident.  Instead, I was preoccupied by taking pictures of Ruby on her first adventure.  Every little face she made seemed to deserve another quick shot. I sent more than a few photos to my parents, letting them know how brave and mature we all were, on our way home from the hospital together. And I laughed at how corny I felt already.

I sat there, in the back seat next to my brand new best person, listening to Mumford & Sons and the sound of the windshield wipers.  I ran my hands over the blanket that we had tucked around Ruby and snuggled my nose down under her chin.  Her breathing was slow and steady and her cheeks were rosy and warm. 

I looked out at the grey drizzle and thought, what a beautiful day.

 Happy Birthday, RuppertPie. We love you more than all the stars.

Or

Now That is A Sweater

So, right now, I’m in charge of the laundry at our house. Laundry might be the closest thing I have to an arch nemesis.  It’s a tumultuous love/hate relationship.  For example, I love clean, fresh clothes, while I hate that there is no magic wand to accomplish this for me.

Further, laundry toys with my emotions and self-esteem. I feel on top of the world when I am ahead of our inevitable laundry landslide. It makes me feel sturdy, prepared, accomplished.  Much like I imagine a girl scout might feel after earning a new badge.  But due to my lack of badges, this is purely speculation.  And conversely, when I fall behind, watching clothes and towels and all those horrible socks start piling up, I get very moody about the whole thing. 

When I first got married, my husband was mystified by my attitude toward the laundry.  It took me a while to finally articulate my contempt: It’s never, ever done! You can never cross it off your list, not really.  You can have sorted, washed, dried, hung, and folded Every. Single. Thing. in your home, but you’d know in your heart that the clothes you are wearing are a few simple maneuvers away from starting all over again.  I guess that’s true for a lot of household chores, and even for “life” chores.  There are things we must keep at, must keep revisiting.  They are called chores, after all. 

But laundry is the one that drives me bananas!  And I know, I know, there is beauty in the repetition, grace in the rinse cycle, goodness and character in the mundane serving.  Blah, blah, blah.  I know a woman who just loves the laundry.  Takes it as an opportunity to pray over each and every member of her family while she folds their individual items.  How lovely.  I even tried it. Once.

With the dishes, at least, if you get behind, only your family knows.  And nobody really has to suffer for it.  But with the laundry, if you decide to take a break for a week, people you love and are responsible for run out of clean underpants and have only wrinkled up, stinky shirts to wear.  My 23 month old is depending on me to make sure she isn’t going about in just a diaper and Tiny Toms.  And then there is my husband… He is, um, particular about how his clothes are laundered.  (Which I just love…)  But it’s part of my job right now, and I do it.  I try so hard to do it medium joyfully, and to get it right.

Two weeks ago, I washed a load of his things that have been ‘okayed’ go in the dryer and accidentally ever-so-slightly shrunk a new, expensive grey sweater.  So he took it like a champ (as he has had to learn to do) and asked kindly, if next time I washed it I could stretch it out before it got hung up.  And I agreed.  I was determined to fix that cardigan. 

But somehow, that pesky sweater once again got mixed up in the sorting process and ended up lumped in with the wrong load.  A load that got washed and didn’t quite make it out of the washing machine in a timely fashion and had to be rewashed (as is my trademark move and specialty.) The washing and rewashing happened over the course of several days.  My intentions were good, but my execution, poor indeed.  I think I washed that load 7 times before finally taking it out to throw it in the drier.  The very first thing I pulled out… the grey cardigan.  I gasped.  How did that get in there! It was clean, but that was now suddenly and completely immaterial.  No amount of ‘gentle stretching’ was going to help.  The cardigan was, shall we say, utterly transformed.  I had unwittingly done quite the opposite of restoring its original size.  In fact, I do not believe I could have shrunk it more.  I shrunk it all the way.  From something that fit my husband to something that might fit my one year old.  At first I panicked and wondered if I just threw it away maybe he would never notice.  Out of sight, out of mind, right? But then I noticed that the light grey trim, which in the cardigan’s unaltered state, had lent a polish and sophisticated charm, now shrunken and misshaped, had become a dainty ruffle.  And I lost it.  I laughed till I was crying and then I laughed some more.  I knew Blaine would be disappointed about the sweater only until he saw it.  And I was right.  We were in hysterics.  This was a magnificent feat of laundry, even for me.  There was no point in asking ‘how,’ it was obvious.   I had made a mistake, a very hilarious mistake. We did the only thing left to do: we took pictures.  On behalf of Laundry, who got the best of me.  Again. 

Enjoy!

A normal, proper-sized, men’s grey sweater:

The badly shrunken, baby sized grey sweater with ruffle:

The sweaters, side by side:

I can’t be the only one! What life-task is your arch nemesis and when has it beaten you?! 

(Her birthday is actually, tomorrow, but I hope she’ll look past an early post!)

I am lucky enough to be 31 years old and still have all four of my grandparents alive and well and part of my life. My two sets of grandparents are very different from each other, except that they are all the kind of grandparents that show up.  They have been at every important event, big or small, my whole life.  Graduations, plays, concerts, stuff at church, half-time shows during games I danced at, birthdays, holidays, everything.  I am also lucky, in a funny way, that my dad’s parents only live ten minutes east and that my mom’s parents live about three hours south.  This means that growing up, I had ‘local’ grandparents and ‘out-of-town’ grandparents.  I had the best of both worlds.  Local means meeting up for lunch or dropping by for coffee any old time we choose.  Out of town means longer visits, reunions, and sleepovers.  The way I see it, either way, I win. 

 One thing I always looked forward to when we were visiting my mom’s parents in Decatur, Illinois, was the food.  My grandma Joan, who has lovingly become known as JoJo, thanks to my cousin Ryan, circa 1987, makes some of my favorite comfort foods.  These are the recipes that I have started making for parties, the recipes that I will write down for my daughter, and the recipes I daydream about when I am feeling homesick in any way. 

The list of recipes I still request with a little-girl sparkle in my eye is long. Truthfully, at this point, I should be making food for her.  But it always tastes better when she makes it! Grandpa Jack likes to tease that my grandma never makes food like this unless we are all visiting and the house is full.  As if he is nearly starved unless we are there.  As if.  Some of my favorites are: party potatoes (which are better than dessert), cinnamon buns, banana-split frozen layer dessert, pudding-in-the-pan (which you would have to taste to understand), homemade vanilla ice cream with M&M’s (which they let us help make even when we were so little), dinner rolls, black iced tea in the heavy pewter pitcher, baked mac & cheese, and a recent addition, sausage bread. I’m not sure I would say these foods would help you to lose weight if eaten every day.  Still, they are my favorites.  Besides, I think that’s the point.  Out-of-town gatherings don’t happen every day. So you might as well dig in while you can.

But her chocolate chip oatmeal cookies have always been at the top of my list. No matter what time of year we were visiting, there were always some waiting for us in a round cookie tin on the kitchen counter, right beneath the light switch.  I eventually came to discover that she kept a larger, secondary stockpile in the freezer, from which she would pull reinforcements, as the supply got low.  I personally loved them thawed, but still chilled.  I can’t think of many tastes more satisfying to my soul than those perfect, cold cookies.  During any visit, those cookies happened to make their way into every snack bag that was lovingly packed, to any adventure we tackled, and to any picnic we shared, especially during our summer cousin visits.

This past Christmas, my mom and her respective family stayed home in Chicago, while my aunt and her respective family stayed home in Dallas.  My grandparents too, were staying put.  So, I was extra delighted when I got a text from my cousin, Jackie, in Texas— a photo of my grandma’s grasshopper frozen dessert.  Jackie also sent the text to my sister, my mom and my brother and we all recognized right away what she had made. It was a sweet way of including us, even though we were miles apart. What a fun way to feel close to family that was not nearby for this holiday.  So I followed my cousin’s lead and emailed my grandma to ask for my favorite her chocolate chip oatmeal cookie recipe.  

I was actually a little nervous whether or not my grandma would send it, and even if she did, whether she would send the correct recipe.  JoJo’s spunky like that.  You have to watch out for her.  She might just send you a recipe without one key ingredient, just for fun.  Plus, she is an only child.  Which means she could say something to you like, “I’m not sending it.  You’ll have to hunt around for it after I die.”  And she would be very serious. 

But thankfully, she shared!  And I set out to recreate the tiny treasures.  On paper, the recipe didn’t look so different from most cookie recipes I’ve made before.  But as I started mixing the ingredients, first wet, then dry, my nose told me that I was doing it right.  The way the batter came together was urging me on, “Yes, this is the right recipe.”

All at once I was a little girl remembering the excitement of the last few miles of our three hour journey to JoJo and Papa Jack’s house, leaving the farming towns of central Illinois in our rear view mirror, passing through the little downtown area, seeing the red doors on the church where my parents got married, driving over Lake Decatur.  

The recipe said to put the dough in the fridge for 15 minutes to chill.  I tried.  I really did.  But I only lasted three minutes.  I wanted those cookies now!

As I rolled the dough between my palms I was surprised at how specific and recognizable the aroma of the dough was, even unbaked.  I thought about the hundreds of times I had shoveled these cookies into my mouth, smiling and reaching for more.  I remembered on several occasions sneaking into my grandma’s kitchen while nobody was watching to grab a few, only to find a cousin or a brother or even a dad, with a hand in the cookie tin, doing the exact same thing. 

I slid my first batch into the oven, closed the door, and set the timer for 12 minutes. I distracted myself by washing out mixing bowls and cleaning off the counter.  My husband peered up from a book, “Mmm…. smells good.” I smiled mischieveously.  “Yes, I know.”

Six minutes left.

When the timer sounded, I was both excited and nervous.  What if they tasted weird?  What if the magic in the cookies was connected to my memories only?  What if they only tasted like heaven at my grandma’s house? They did look a little different tonight.  The dough had spread out on the sheet quite a bit more as it baked.  I guess she wasn’t kidding about letting dough chill for the full 15 minutes.

I couldn’t wait for them to fully cool.  Obviously. I grabbed the one that looked most promising—the one with the most chocolate visible—and took a bite.  They might have looked thinner and wider than JoJo’s, but they tasted exactly the same.  Exactly the way I remembered them. With one bite, I tasted late-night card games, boating trips to the lake, picnics at Scovill Park, and one endless road trip to Springfield to take in as much Illinois history as possible. 

My husband, who is not really a ‘sweets guy’ couldn’t stop eating them.  As in, he devoured eight cookies in one sitting.  Even I couldn’t do eight at once.  He told me very earnestly that these cookies were his new favorite.  There may or may not have been excited expletives involved. I can’t blame him.  They were that good. In my heart I was all grins and wishing I could wink at my grandma.

I dropped a dozen off at my mom’s, gave some to friends, and let my husband eat the rest. When I emailed my grandma to let her know that I had made her cookies, she was happy to hear they had been such a success.  And glad to know that something she had worked to make for all of us so many, many times would be passed on.  I reminded her that the recipe wouldn’t simply be passed on, but loved, duplicated, shared and would certainly be staple of memories for generations to come. 

It is a little gift I am grateful to have and oh-so-happy to take with me.

Happy Birthday, JoJo.  I love you a bushel and a peck.

Not long after Ruby was born, a long-time family friend, Pam, was in town visiting.  Pam is calm and beautiful, tranquil and strong.  She is also a doula and a nursing expert.  We had exchanged a few emails during my pregnancy and then again after Ruby was born.  She had been warm and helpful throughout our correspondence and I was very anxious to spend some time with her, given that my start with Ruby had been so rough, what with all the trouble nursing, the relentlessly crying newborn and the relentlessly crying mom.  We needed some help and a little encouragement. 

I had already been to my doctor, who wrongly dismissed my crying and told me I was fine without asking any real or good questions.   I had also already tried the nursing support group (it is as awkward as you are imagining) where most of the women were there because they were bored and wanted friends.  But I was not bored. I was overwhelmed. And I didn’t want new friends whose breasts were hanging out.  I wanted help.  I did not go back. 

So when my mom told me that Pam was going to be in town I thought, “This might be just the thing.  Maybe she can show me what I can’t figure out and tell me the secret that no one else will share.” I looked forward to our time together with childlike anticipation.  I was desperate enough to hope she could save us.

So we went to see Pam the doula— Ruby, my husband, my mom, and myself.  We met at a mutual friend’s house, because who wants to talk about depression or nipple confusion a loud, crowded restaurant?  I was so happy to see her.  She hugged me and held on.  Tears welled up as I exhaled.  When I introduced her to Ruby, Pam was satisfactorily dazzled by her beauty and obvious greatness. 

After a bit of small talk, we settled into an old couch and she asked me questions I was longing to be asked.  It had been so hard to tell people how things were really going except when they would, every now and then, ask specific questions, and I had the courage to tell the truth. That night I told Pam how sad and anxious I had been feeling.  And how overwhelming life seemed to be.  I say ‘seemed’ because I knew that the actual things in my life were not bad, were not crumbling, were not a mess.  But because my hormones had hijacked my body, I wasn’t coping well.  Plus, I had so many questions.  It was all harder than I thought it was going to be, and harder than I suspected it should be.  And I wasn’t sure what to do most of the time.  More nursing? Less nursing?  Should I try to introduce formula again? Even though she mostly refused it? Which sleep philosophy could ever work for us?  Why does ‘crying it out’ seem so scary? Do I set the routine with strong, unshiftable boundaries or do I follow the baby’s lead?  Oh yes, and any tips on how to uncrazy myself?

She listened carefully, which is the best sort of medicine for someone who is scared and feeling edgy.  Being heard makes you feel like maybe you won’t just float away unnoticed after all.  Pam offered some tips, some kind suggestions, some self-care ideas, and then she started to make her final point.  I leaned forward because I thought, Ah yes, this is it.  This is the magic key that she tells her clients, this is what we’ve been waiting for. She looked gently into my eyes and said, “You will learn to trust yourself.  You know so much more than you think.  And you will learn that your instincts are your best instructor.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Heard it.  And…?

And that was it.  That was the big, shiny nugget she was offering me.  I was speechless.  My eyes, wide and wild, must have given me away.  That or my fumbling for words and reddening face.  She smiled and whispered earnestly, “You can do it.”

I wanted to jump across the couch and strangle her.  But there were too many witnesses and she was holding my baby.  Instead, I simply glazed over.  Didn’t this woman know what she was saying to me?  I, who had just spent the last hour listing off important questions and frustrating issues I didn’t know how to handle, did not want to be told to trust my instincts.  That’s the kind of advice that sounds sweet and profound when you are waddling around eight months pregnant with your first baby.  You don’t even know what you don’t know.  And it’s glorious.  Hearing that you already have the instincts to do this epic job in front of you is intoxicating and lovely.  But when you are three months into postpartum depression, not thinking quite straight and cry at the thought of going to the grocery store without help, being told to rely on your gut and to trust yourself is the absolute last thing you want to hear.

Even if it’s true.

It’s like in college when your best friend tells you to break up with your boyfriend because the relationship isn’t good for you.  You are angry and irrational, yelling at your friend with everything you can possibly come with, even though she’s right.  And my friend Pam was right.  She was telling me the truth, even if the timing felt bad.

Though very grateful for our time together, I left that night a bit disheartened. Initially, I thought I was frustrated with Pam’s advice, but really I was frustrated with myself.  If what she said was true, why did I feel so lost?  Why did I feel like the least competent mother to have ever existed? Why did I feel so disconnected from my instincts? Was it the sleepless nights? Was it all because of the depression? Or was there something else? 

As months have passed, I realize Pam could see something I couldn’t yet see. She had the luxury of time and experience, which gave her understanding and wisdom.

Even as I look back, I can see how often I did have a sense of what the best thing was to do.  But I ended up confusing myself with the not knowing how.  I mistook one for the other.  Especially in the haze of PPD, where it’s hard to know how to do anything anymore, I had lost all trust in myself, in my intuition. 

I think you can only see this kind of truth in hindsight. In the moment, it sounds like horseshit.  Stinking, gloppy, mounds of horseshit.  You can’t see that your instincts were leading you the right way until later.  Which is kind of a shame.  It’s one of those things that you get older and say, I wish I would have known. I would have been so much [braver/gentler/happier/less anxious/more patient.] So, I am trying to practice checking in with my gut all the time. Trying to pay attention and discover that a lot of the time (not all of the time) I do know what to do, know what we need, know a good solution, if I could ever get over worrying that I don’t. 

Is it good advice to give to a new mom? The jury is still out.  It might be helpful or it might, like a lot of other advice, make a person feel more crazy and less sure.  But that doesn’t change the fact that if you are paying close attention, doing life in the safety net of wise friends and praying your buns off, that darn advice is actually spot on. I try to let Pam’s annoying but true words encourage me:

“You will learn to trust yourself.  You know so much more then you think.  And you will learn that your instincts are your best instructor. You can do it.”

Once you’ve had a baby, the topic of Momming is always close at hand.  Whether it’s the day-to-day issues (registering for baby gifts, organic baby food, weaning from a pacifier) or the biggies, (parenting philosophies, what kind of family do we want to be, how do I raise confident kids) the conversation is always there.  But recently, and kind of unexpectedly, I have had countless conversations with women who are trying to figure out if and when they should try to have a baby.  Since I’ve taken the plunge, I guess I pass for an expert. (Or more possibly, some women are desperate to discuss very personal decisions with anyone who appears to be listening.)  These women represent the spectrum of potential moms.  Close friends who already have kids, new friends who are thinking about starting families, and a stranger I had the pleasure of dinning beside at a recent wedding.  A woman who has been married 11 years and a few who have barely celebrated a second anniversary. Some who know they might face fertility issues and some who naively still believe that getting pregnant is always as simple as one single, romantic evening.  Some who are desperate to get on with it, but whose husbands aren’t so sure, and then some who feel like the pressure of their age is forcing their hand. 

It’s a complicated issue on so very many levels.  Levels that you don’t necessarily see coming until you are right up close to them.  Nobody tells you when they are reading you Cinderella that your Prince Charming might be shooting blanks, or that your pelvis is tilted, or that you might decide you are more suited to be an aunt than a mom.  There doesn’t seem to be a lot of encouraged daydreaming outside the cultural norm.  So when real life complexities stop us in our tracks, we are somewhat unprepared.  And admitting the truth can feel so ugly.  Admitting that we are angry with our husbands who don’t want kids while our biological clock is picking up steam.  Or admitting that being a mom is so much harder than we thought. Or that fertility all feels so pull-your-hair-out unfair because teenagers get pregnant on accident and desperate women can’t get pregnant to save their lives.  It feels unfair that some women fall right into motherhood with ease while others can’t seem to find their fit. But still, we do it.  We go for it.  We long for it. We make babies or adopt them or foster them or babysit them, making our own version of families as we go.  And it’s hard work, no matter which way you come at it.  There is no easy path.  No easy road.  Entering the beautiful but foggy land of motherhood will bring unparalleled elation and will inevitably force you to face something you had locked away, something you hadn’t prepared for, or something you were sure would never be in your story.  But that’s the gift, I think.  To be given, in the most delicious, tiny, diaper-y package, an opportunity to breathe and pray and jump right in.

So when a woman essentially asks me what I think she should do, masked in a question about how I knew I was ready, I smile and tell the truth: I’m still not ready. I’m fumbling through all the time.  I feel frighteningly unprepared.  I’m so afraid being a mom just shows off how much of a little girl I still am and how much growing up there is left to do. Our rented apartment is too small. We don’t have loads of cash.  We only have one car. But two years ago, after a lot of prayer, my husband and I decided we were ready to face the adventure that adding a person into our family would bring.  It’s probably good that we didn’t know what we didn’t know.  And now I am a mom and it’s changing me in all the essential ways.  And if you decide to try or not, now or later, bravely or with trepidation, getting help from an ovulation kit or a bottle of wine, I pray the process will change you too.