Help me, he's teething
Any & all tips,suggestions and sympathy would be appreciated right about now, Internet. The kid has become a little monster, gnawing and chomping on everything.
OH, and people, what in the world do you do to explain to a 6 month old who doesn't understand language, that BOOBS ARE NOT FOR BITING????
Super Bean
My little man spends most of his day doing this. He's OBSESSED with being on his tummy, and has now started pulling his feet up under his belly and scooting forward. Often he accompanies the pose pictured with a lovely roar.
This is all very exciting, but does he have to do it ALL THE TIME? Even when he's exhausted and ready for a nap? I guess this is what they call "milestone wake ups" right? The poor kid pisses himself off though, rolling onto his tummy jussssst when he's nearly drifted off. He gets so mad.
This isn't going to get easier when he starts crawling, is it?
The way we operate
We went on a run tonight, along the lake, as we do most nights. A little over 4 miles in all, our route takes us past the busy city center, and then down along the waterfront bike path where old train cars sit abandoned on rusted tracks, painted with fantastic graffiti art. The path is mostly paved and mostly flat after we get to the water down a steep hill. We run side by side, pushing Bean in his Chariot stroller, through the evening air. Tonight we talked about building a house as we ran. We've started the process of dreaming. Of driving through the countryside near here, looking for renovated farmhouses or land where we can build a timber frame.
But somehow, recently, this process of trying to visualize our future home, has created a lot discord for us. Our ways of imagining our future are is very different. Perhaps stereotypically so--the whole men are from Mars, women from Venus bit.
DH is an idealist, perhaps with a twinge of OCD. When he finds something he loves, he becomes obsessed with it: bikes, coffee roasting, stereo equipment, and now timber frames, he pursues his obsessions relentlessly. Searching the internet, ordering brochures, becoming increasingly knowledgeable and simultaneously increasingly adamant. His optimism knows no bounds.
By comparison, I'm slow to warm to a new idea. I come from a childhood with little money, and parents who regretted much. My mother and I talk often now, and I still here the regret in her voice about choices she and my father made. "I never wanted any of the houses we lived in," she has said. She has also said, "Money is an odd, strange thing." And she has said, "I told you so" when things don't work out more times than I care to remember, though perhaps not quite in those words.
So when it comes to imagining something new, I like to think of the worst case scenarios first, and gradually eliminate them with hard evidence as the plan grows firm. It frustrates DH to no end that I navigate this way: with fear and worry first, optimism last. But I can't help it. Pessimism and angst seem to be written deeply into my genetic code---an unwanted inheritance from my mother, that I'd like to be rid of, but can't simply shake.
So tonight, running under chokecherries and quaking aspens, we argued about the costs of building versus buying a house already built, established on land already cleared, with fields already mowed. Somehow, it seems to be a fundamental error code between men and women: that when a woman states her fears, her worries, her deepest insecurities, she DOESN'T WANT THE MAN IN HER LIFE TO FIX THEM. She just wants TO BE HEARD. Or at least, that's how it works for me.
I don't want him to hear me say I'm afraid that the costs of building might spiral out of control, and then argue why I'm wrong.
I don't want to be convinced, right off the bat that my fears are irrational. I know they probably are. They are fears after all. That's the nature of fear. Instead, I want to be heard. Simply that. I want him to say, "Hmm, I hear you saying that your afraid that the costs are going to spiral out of control if we build. That's a reasonable fear, as far as fears go." And then say nothing else.
Because, oddly, in just hearing my fears. In letting me put them out in front of me---sharp and jagged the way they are---it makes it possible for me to gradually let go of them. Over time, I'll come around to almost anything, if I get enough facts, and if the facts are backed up.
I'm spontaneous mostly---especially in friendship and affection---but when it comes to big decisions that involve our family's future, I can't help but feel terrified first and excited second.
So tonight, running, after he'd interrupted me and made me feel stupid because of my fears, I completely kicked his ass on the run. Kept less than a 8 minute mile pace the whole way. And it felt good. Good to run fast. To feel my muscles warm to the pounding of my blood, to sprint. And it felt good to hear him panting hard beside me. Harder than me.
And at the end of our run, I loved him so much again.
Taking risks
I sat down to write tonight, not for this blog, but for the bigger writing I'm doing in my life--for a writing workshop I've become a part of---and eventually, possibly, for a book. Last week, after barely making the deadline, I submitted a dozen pages describing my father's death. Of what I learned from being there with him in the weeks before he died and during those strange, miraculous moments where worlds rush together and spirit is tangible in the room.
It was a good piece, and I was grateful for being told that, as there are many dark moments during the process of writing where it is irritating and fruitless and frustrating. But they had a lot of questions about the information I didn't include. About my relationship to my sisters, to my mother: who often told me growing up, "If you had just come at a different time, everything would be different between me and your father," and about my beliefs, and the beliefs of my dad. I left the workshop, my head spinning, and watched the sun set into the lake as I drove home.
Since then I've been struggling with the realization that if I really want to write, it will be longer than a dozen pages. Longer than several dozen. And this terrifies me, because of the commitment, the challenge, and the vulnerability of writing so much. And yet, tonight, doing art, I realized that it is like all the other things I do. I can't know where it will lead, until I begin it. And so, reluctantly, I do.
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manor of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. "
--Goethe
Can we talk about moth balls for a minute? Seriously, Internet, who uses moth balls, really?
Who? You might ponder? My UPSTAIRS NEIGHBOR'S MOTHER, that's who. But she doesn't use them in airtight containers to kill larval moths that might be munching through her cashmere, which I suppose would be a perfectly acceptable use for known carcinogens, nooo, our neighbor's fucking mother was using mothballs to KILL SQUIRRELS.
That's right. She put mothball flakes in a trail all along the outer edge of their porch, "because the squirrels won't leave our deck furniture alone."
Of course, their porch is directly above our kitchen, and when the mothball flakes fell, they came right down onto the basil plants we had in our open window. But worse than that, was the sudden and horrifying smell that permeated our house gave both of us headaches. And, oh yeah, by the way, we have a 6 month old baby. Who does stuff like that, really?!
When I accosted her, she said the City told her to use mothballs to deter the squirrels. What??? Her poor daughter, who is very nice, and who makes exquisite baklava and has an adorable smile and a bumper sticker on her blue VW Bug that reads "Support Organic Farmers" was of course, mortified when we knocked on her door.
I printed out information about how toxic mothball fumes can be and couldn't help shoving them into her hands, despite the fact that she was already groveling with apologies. "If I don't keep an eye on her, I have know idea what she'll do next," she said, eyes rolling. "I'm sooo sorry! I would never put chemicals like that into the earth."
Can I just say that her mother DOESN'T EVEN LIVE HERE DAMN IT! But she's here all the time, arriving with carloads of stuff, and moving furniture around in the middle of the night. And, worst of all people, she listened to Vanilla Ice ON REPEAT at 3 am. For an hour. I hate this lady.
Overload
The inlaws, they left. Thank god. I love them. I do. I love their unswerving support and enthusiasm for everything we do. But sometimes I get overwhelmed. This visit was one of those times. Did I ever mention we have a 2 bedroom apartment? It has five rooms total, not including the bathroom or pantry. Yeah, that small. And five people in a five room shelter is just too much co2, I think. When they left, Bean fell apart. I mean, started wailing with exhaustion. His nap schedule was WAY OFF. All the way off. Like, he didn't get any naps today (except for maybe a 20 minute stint once or twice), and yesterday his nap times were short and scattered as well. A Bean with no naps is a very sad, very distraught little bean. He breaks my heart when he's like that--sort of pathetic and inconsolable and huge-eyed.
After crying a lot I finally managed to rock him to sleep. And he slept and then nursed and then slept and then nursed and finally woke up, with a little wan smile on his face. DH put him in the Bjorn, as he does every morning when they do guy things--like make espresso and take out the trash--and we went for a walk downtown. By the time we got back Bean seemed more like his usual happy self. And when we put him down on a blanket on the floor with his rattle he was THRILLED to play there all by himself. Without anyone singing songs at him, or banging his toys, or cooing at him, or telling him to look or roll over, or picking him up.
And after about a half hour of delighted squirming--during which he had an extended babble conversation with our cat and we cleaned all of the crap that had gotten spread about our apartment (books everywhere, and magazines, and clothes, and newspapers, and dishes. Holy cow people, how on earth did it get to be like this??) he took a major poop. YAY. We love poop. This is poop number 2. In two days. A record of sorts, seeing as he's been on this whole anti-pooping stint of late.
And tonight, after we had him all cleaned up, he looked so sweet and fragile in his new stripped pjs... and after nursing and rocking he ZONKED OUT, his little arms thrown up above his head like a conductor.
Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, by Catherine Newman
Before I knew about blogs (holy moly, was there really such a time?) I eagerly devoured Newman’s weekly installments on babycenter.com which were later compiled into this book. When I was gigantically pregnant and my stomach looked like a huge gibbous moon, I'd read excerpts from her weekly post to my husband over dinner. He thought she was making the stuff up. "Three year olds say stuff like THAT?"
But hearing the stuff that I read also made the whole "We are having a baby" bit a tad more real. And later, when the book hit stores during sometime during the gloomy early months of spring when Bean was just bean-sized and mostly just a pooping, wailing little wobbly thing, it helped me keep my sense of humor.
Newman's writing is hilarious, but also self-reflective and filled with little gems that linger in your mind for days: making you want to be that kind of parent. Patient, forgiving, silly, and joyous. Perhaps my favorite quote of all:
"I'm a mean guy!" [Ben] snarled at his reflection, "Because my booty is itchy!" "Maybe that's why the Grinch was so mean," Michael offered---we'd just watched the classic cartoon together---but Ben said, "No, I don't think so," and screwed up his face. "The Grinch was mean because his penis was three sizes too small!" According to Dr. Seuss, the size problem was, of course, with the Grinch's heart, but you can't help wondering if Ben might be onto something ...
Self portrait
I did a 20 mile ride today (averaging just over 17 mph) through rolling farmland, up steep hills under shady maples and beeches. Past meadows of cornflowers, clover and alfalfa. I saw two tough farm boys, about twelve years old, tossing rectangular hay bails onto the bail elevator. Zipped past a field of black and white cows, lying down, flie on their backs, chewing cud. And felt the incredible gleeful surge of adrenaline in my legs. They're feeling stronger now, than ever before. I've been running daily, and am inspired by this lady to start training for a triathlon. I've always wanted to, and could, I think. If I dared. It's the end of the season though, and the only race I could find near where I live, happens on August 27 which seems too soon. I'd be all jittery and anxious, crashing into the water with so many other people. But when I told DH of my dream, he said "Beanie & I will be your pit crew. Let's go this week and time you on the course." Just like that. Such a major vote of confidence. I love that.
Half a year
My little man,You are SO BIG, suddenly. You are six months old today and you do things like sit up and rock back and forth like a drunk little Buddha. You eat mashed bananas and peaches and watermelon now, and reach out for more saying "mmm, mmmm, mmm." You also tried rice cereal, but it seems to have spent more time on your little moon cheeks than in your mouth. You loved it though. And every time you try a new taste (like garlic mashed potatoes or lemonade—which I put on the tip of my finger for you to try) you make the funniest faces in the whole world.
When you're 16 you'll accuse me of doing this for my own entertainment, and it's ENTIRELY TRUE. You're hysterically funny to watch: the way you pucker up your lips and furrow your eyebrows. But man, do we love you! And really, since your diapers are clearly NOT for my entertainment, something has to be. And by the time you're 16 I'm sure I'l have a whole list of things that you do that are for YOUR entertainment at my expense, so I'm living it up while I can.
I didn't write you monthly letters when you were very little because I was still so stunned that you were here, and I was just getting the hang of the whole co-sleeping, boob-feeding way of life.
When you were teeny tiny, just two and three months old, you impressed us because you could hold your head up just a little bit, and occasionally you'd roll over, tummy to back, though always looked confused when it happened. Then, you were fascinated with your mobile, and we lived for your smiles which made your crying jags and your night time wake-ups worth it.
When you were small and fragile like that it was rainy and springtime, and we had to bundle you up to take you outdoors, and we were anxious about selling our house, and antsy because the dog next door would yip for hours in the middle of the night so we couldn't sleep deeply---even when you let us sleep.
But now it is summer and we are in our new apartment, and every day we go walking along the big lake, where we can see mountains that look like old dinosaurs napping, slung low along the lake's edge. They are soft shades of blue, like an impressionist painting, and gently rolling, and we never get tired of the view. We're happy to be here, where people are kind, and where we can play at the beach and it’s only a walk away from our house. And we're happy that we at this point in our lives: where we can't imagine life without your grins, your delighted giggles, your smell, your softness.
Yesterday, your grandparents drove all the way up from New Jersey to visit. They miss you so much, and you thrill when you're Poppy makes piggy noises, or chicken noises, or cat noises. You giggle until we're all giggling.
You're long now: longer than most babies, I think. And you've outgrown all your 3-6 month pants even though your jusssst 6 months old. You've discovered that you like eating your hat, or throwing it out of your stroller, and we've lost many hats this way. You little bugger. They're for your own good.
You are trying to crawl. You do push ups and scoot your knees underneath you but then crumple up and face plant when you try to move forward. You're still not coordinated enough, though each day you practice, and we're sure you'll be an early crawler because you seem so determined.
You have also discovered our cats. You can't get enough of them. You smile at them from across the room, and roar loudly with glee whenever they approach. Of course, they have also discovered you, and are none-too-pleased, knowing their days of lounging on the floor are numbered. When Momo, our boy cat, comes to purr next to you on the bed, you grab his WHOLE FACE in your hand, fiercely, and don't let go. He meows pitifully but doesn't claw you, as he waits for me to unclamp your little fists.
This month I feel like you're on the verge of so much. You've started looking like a little boy to me--rather than a baby. You look so mature with your little baseball hat on. And you're so dexterous and purposeful with how you handle objects now. You switch them easily from hand to hand, and have just discovered the joys of POUNDING THINGS ON THE FLOOR.
One thing though, that makes me completely crazy, is that you're DRIVEN TO ROLL OVER onto your tummy. You do this all the time now, with perfect ease. And although you've rolled from tummy to back dozens of times before, you seem to have FORGOTTEN HOW, and it's driving me nuts because you get stuck on your tummy. A lot. And when you're napping, you wake yourself up by rolling onto your tummy and you muffle into your sheepskin and huff and wail until I turn you over again. And then you roll over AGAIN. And again. And again. Stop please. Or at least, remember how to roll back over onto your back.
Oh, and you're still not pooping regularly--which is something that I'm sure you'll be delighted to know about when you're 17 and I'm sharing this information with your prom date. (Which I will! I promise! Along with the photos we took of you with infant acne.) But really, bud, what's with that? It would be nice if things were a little more consistent, because that's how the rest of the world operates, and we just can't quite get used to your poop sabbaticals.
But mostly, we love you so much! My heart has never felt so big, so gleeful, so proud, as when I am looking at you're face. I love watching you learn. Love being home with you to watch these small miraculous discoveries occur. And I'm so happy you're here.
Love, Mama
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White Oleander, Janet Fitch
I' not quite sure how to describe this book. Fierce, maybe, or passionate, or frightening. I read it first before the movie came out, and have never watched the movie--so the images in my mind, indelible and searing, are the product of my imagination and Fitch's sharp, beautiful writing. The story follows the daughter of brilliant poet, imprisoned for murdering her lover, through the foster care system in L.A. Fitch portrays the complicated relationship between a mother and daughter that tangles with the universal question women invariably struggle with when confronted with making choices between their life and work, and their children. Icy, independent, obsessed with the aesthetic, and with outcomes of her poetry, the mother compromises nothing in her life for those she loves, and consequently her daughter is left to navigate through the bizarre world of foster homes, discovering herself gradually through her own art. Bittersweet, and haunting, images from this story have lingered with me for years.
New directions
Re-reading previous posts I caught a glimpse of my own inner static. I've been restless the past two nights, feeling on the brink of things. Wishing I could feel like I've already rrived, but instead feeling very much like I'm still in the process.
I feel like I'm spiraling towards creative potential that I've only just recently encountered and this process sometimes leaves me zinging and uncertain.
When I first had my baby boy, I was still in work mode, anxious, over-zealous, stressed beyond belief. I worked up until two days before he was born, full time, as a second grade teacher to a class of urban, highly needy and very diverse kids. They sucked me dry. Each day, taking the train home, with my hands cupping the dome of my stomach, I would wonder how I could continue to spread myself so thin, and continue to be happy.
I felt deeply exhausted throughout the winter. My last trimester was spent inadvertently skating across parking lot ice, wiping runny noses, trying to be present in my daily life. I felt scattered, taking the concept of multitasking to a new level: I never had a moment throughout my day when someone didn't need me, or rather, when six people didn't need me.
To some extent, I have always been like this: throwing myself full-force into life. I give, and give, and give to people---and especially to the kids I teach. It has often been hard for me to gauge how much energy I was giving out, and harder to keep enough in reserve for myself.
And had I not gotten pregnant, and instead continued teaching, I am fairly certain that I would have gradually drained myself on some deep, irretrievable level. I would have become someone different as a result. Someone slightly jaded, with a layer of gray sorrow washed over the fiery gusto I have for life.
Yet, I did get pregnant, and because of it, a new sequence of events unfolded, bringing me here. Because of my son, we moved to this city that I love, on the lake with the rolling blue mountains bordering another country. Because of him, I have learned how to be patient again, in a new way.
I have started to learn how to simply BE. Because this is how he is: totally present, in the moment, needing my attention. My body is still his geography. His tiny hands snatch at my hair as he nurses, grunting with satisfaction and I cannot rush him. I cannot be in two places at once in my mind. When he is awake and in my arms, he demands me to be wholly there with him.
And though I'm sometimes totally overwhelmed by the end of the day. (Sometimes I can't take any more hair pulling, or shrieking, or spit up, or flailing, and pass Bean off to DH unceremoniously in the midst of putting him to bed, and rush to hide in the bathroom or at Starbucks for a few moments: just to have some space to myself.) I have also benefited from the SLOWING DOWN OF THINGS in my life.
I have begun to allow myself to be creative in new ways, and am opening myself quietly, daily, and with intent to the possibility of new directions. In a way it seems I am learning to navigate with a new inner compass.
i love rhinos
This was bolted to a parking sign on the way to the waterfront in the city where I live. I don't know who painted it, but I was delighted and inspired. There were several other installments on other signs--done aparently on wood with permanent marker and paint.
Stuck spinning
In college I took several classes with an English professor who is a fairly well published writer. She was off-beat and funny and sincere. A lesbian and a recovering alcoholic who'd grown up in the red-neck south, she could make swearing sound like praying, with her soft drawl. She could make any story sound good just by reading it aloud. And she had a way of saying things that were totally apt. One day she came to class a little late, a stack of papers sort of falling out of her bag, a giant to-go mug in hand. As she sat down she said, with a slow grin,
"Y'all know what a tractor looks like when it's been tipped over and it's wheels are just spinning and spinning around and the mud is kind of getting everywhere? Well, that's how I feel right about now."
That's EXACTLY how I feel tonight.
What will it be?
I spent my day writing lists that didn't get accomplished. I napped early with my baby, because of a restless night (I think he's teething) but it was a fitful nap, due to caffeine and the fact that my brain wouldn't turn off. I felt anxious and fruitless today, filled with worry that in becoming a stay-at-home mom, for now, I am giving up some part of myself irrevocably. And then I remembered that I wanted to take this year to write, and to make something of my writing. Which resulted in a new wave of terror and guilt.
I'm not sure if I'm scared of writing something that is actually successful, or never doing so. And I wonder if I'll never find the time. (It took me the span of four hours to read that article in Vanity Fair about Aniston that the media is quote happy about, because of all the damn interruptions that inevitably occurred). But I know one thing. My mother is almost 60 and because she raised three kids, she now has no career, no professional skills, no "calling" and she wishes she did, and I couldn't bear that.
But today I wonder if I will I somehow slip down a rabbit hole and become that nobody, if I stay at home? Or can I, like I dream on better days, do both?
Bean's version of my 'read every day' category
No book review today. Though this IS my copy of Pam Houston's A LITTLE MORE ABOUT ME, which I've been intending to finish reading for over a month now. It doesn't hold me like her other book, which was fast paced, silly and apt. But then agian, haven't had much time to really sink my teeth into it, although Bean clearly has. That is, if he had teeth.
Connections
When I started blogging, I wanted the discipline of trying to write daily. I wanted to make myself sift through my experiences: putting words to them, to sustain the deep undertow of creativity that has always been a cross current in my life. Being a very visually oriented person I wanted to create some kind of record that allowed me to capture shreds of my life, and come back to them again, re-realizing their significance. Like no other medium, blogging is strangely non-dimensional. Yet because of this it can also be multi-dimensional, and this excited me.
But perhaps the more urgent reason behind my drive to figure out css files and web rings, was that I found myself suddenly submerged the remarkably alien world of first-time parenting.
Nothing prepared me for this.
Nothing, until I was in the middle of it. Until I'd hoisted my big pregnant belly around for ten months (yes it's really ten, not nine. Where do people even come up with the nine bit?), and then went into labor after two nights of the worst stomach flu I have ever had.
All of a sudden my little Bean was here, on this planet, in my arms. A small squirming bundle that came out and cried once, and then stared right at our faces, looking terribly confused with big huge eyes and the longest eyelashes I've ever seen.
It's probably a safe bet to assume that both of us were experiencing a decent amount of disbelief when we first locked eyes with one another. Though I fell quick and hard for the smell of his downy head, and his teeny tiny wrinkled hands, I remember thinking that despite my love for children, despite the fact that my career was teaching children, I knew next to nothing about raising one.
And then, during the first weeks after Bean arrived I remember changing diapers in the middle of the night, unbelievably hot and pestered and delirious from lack of sleep and hormones, and thinking to myself, how in the hell are there so many damn babies in the world?? How did we all possibly get here? It seemed ridiculous and incredulous that every person I've ever encountered was once a baby, AND THEIR PARENTS TOOK CARE OF THEM, at least to some degree, and they survived.
So, because I was too decrepit and distracted and disheveled to do anything else, I found myself up late at night, between crying jags and diapers, addictively reading posts from other moms (and a few dads) who'd actually gone through this ahead of me.
Before I had Bean I didn't get what people meant when they said, "Everything changes when you have a baby," and frankly, it annoyed the shit out of me. But EVERYTHING DOES FREAKIN CHANGE. And I'm so grateful for the survival guide that exists out there, in Internetland, in the form of really great blogs.
And I got to thinking today---about how I'm connected through this blog to all sorts of other people all over the world who share something in common with me. Sometimes it's art, or a love for words or books. And many times it's other moms with deep and meaningful things to say about the relentless, heart-wrenching, incredible process of parenting.
Even as people the world over are becoming individuated and insular; even as local community centers and neighborhoods are fragmenting as the result of outsourcing, suburbia, and malls, a new form of community is linking together across the globe, creating a new context for raising the next generation of children. And this is good. This is very, very good.