No Judgment

Before I became a mom I would sit up on my high horse thinking of all the ways I would do it better. Those hypercritical thoughts like: Why are they having a meltdown in the supermarket? I would never leave the house without pants and then there’s the list of the stuff you would never let your children do. It is just so easy to pass judgment on other moms, until you have walked a mile in her yoga pants.

She won’t get into that.

We have an entire playroom and nursery for our one child. I baby proof both of them and our house in some for daily. I remember watching other moms constantly tell their babies, "No, don’t do that, don’t get into that." Why don’t they just put them in a place that is safe and baby proof? Charlotte, God love her, wants to be wherever I am. I naively thought I could look on while she entertains herself quietly in the playroom so I cook could dinner. It took less than one month for that bubble to burst and for me to realize motherhood was not a Lifetime TV movie of the week. She cries at every baby gate because she just wants to be near me. Isn’t that adorable?

 Patience is a virtue.

I was a special education teacher for 5 years and I thought I had patience. I once had a student run off campus and climb a tree only to be rescued by the fire department, while a parent confused our parent-teacher conference as a private therapy session, and I finished out the day with a 2 hour staff development meeting about how to better manage our time (seriously); and I kept it together. Turns out we all have our limits and I reach mine roughly once a week. I thought my patience would overflowth for my own child. Ha. It’s a good thing there are no trees strong enough in our back yard for me to climb.

PJs in public.

Dressing Charlotte is like a boxing match. It happens in rounds and ding, ding, ding it always goes to her. While I was pregnant, I’d rub my belly and lovingly hang up all her outfits by color and imagine dressing her while we sang nursery songs. The reality, I will not change Charlotte more times than I have to. On mornings when we leave the house early, you better believe I’m not wasting an outfit on being in public, when her morning load is guaranteed to explode through and I only have the physical energy in me for 3 rounds a day.

Is that food on her face?

I worked at a restaurant in college. I’d see moms with children in footed onesies and what I could only hope was peas or broccoli on their face and I'd wonder how hard it was to take a wet wipe to their face? Uh, and why is she changing her kid on the ground? Personal hygiene for babies is about as much fun as personal hygiene for teenage boys and I would know, I taught Junior High. We would call the health teacher daily, begging her to mandate deodorant usage in the Spring. Face wiping and changing should be as purposeful and distraction filled as possible, with none of this I think she may be wet, so I’ll just change her any ways nonsense. For sanity purposes, I attempt to limit the waterworks to the necessary evils, like: shots, bedtime, and I’m sorry you cannot put the dog’s tail in your mouth.

Let’s go easy on each other and more importantly go easy on ourselves. Motherhood is tricky enough as it is. So the next time you pass a fellow mom with a half-naked toddler tantruming because it turns out the Hokie-Pokie is not what it’s all about,  give her a sincere thumbs up or knowing smile and she’ll probably look at you like you’ve lost your mind and wonder why your yoga pants are not Lululemon. 

Baby gates are good for one thing: guilt. 

Mommyhood Amnesia

April 15, 2014

 I wrote this in the thick of it. I offer no advice for fellow mom's going through "witching hour" woes. But I offer my support and solidarity. It gets better as they get older, sort of. 

My daughter cries every night from roughly 6:30pm until about 9:30pm. This was known to everyone but me as the “witching hour”. Technically this is 3 hours, plural, Charlotte; always the over-achiever (like her mom). She will pause, slip in a smile every 10 minutes or so and then go right back into grunts, wails, and full blown screaming-tandem-festivals (I refer to them as festivals because it sounds better than her scream crying for 10 minutes and then me scream crying in the guest room for 10 minutes and so on and so forth).  In case you didn’t do the math this is about 170 minutes worth of the rough stuff.

The doctor said and I quote, “I am tempted to give her a colic diagnosis” but then based on the gas she was able to emit during her 2 month appointment the results are still inconclusive. It all seems highly scientific, until we asked the doctor how to help her pass gas, and she showed us by pressing lightly on her stomach. Our daughter finds farting quite enjoyable and hilarious, which gives my husband and I the peace of mind of knowing that she is in fact our child. As her mom, I somehow took personal offense to the idea that I could have a “colicky baby” and quickly dismissed this as a possibility. To me “colicky baby” coming from the doctor sounds like you are a bad mother and CPS has been notified. I especially reject this diagnosis because doctors seriously have no idea how to treat colic and it appears that many of the “treatments” should be called "basic parenting 101". When "treatment #1” is to “hold your baby” you begin to wonder if perhaps it’s coming from the same genius MD who suggested getting plenty of rest when you have a cold. "Treatment #2" is to "gently pat your baby on the back". Seriously, you can't make this stuff up. 

6:30pm is about when my husband gets home from work. Being an engineer he did the math and realized that about 90% of his time with her is when she is crying. I remember when she was about a month old he asked me how in the world I could stay home with her every day. The truth is, Charlotte is the perfect baby during the day. She is wonderfully predictable. I have never seen a happier child. But I witness her transform just as my husband is pulling into the driveway; it looks something similar to a gremlin when it gets wet. I have had people without kids ask me how my husband and I survive this night after night and I am reminded of the fact that moms still decide to get pregnant again even after nine months of morning sickness or 39 hours of labor. There is some sort of motherhood amnesia that we undergo because every morning I wake up and Charlotte smiles at me, while we do the big diaper reveal, and I cross my fingers that I won’t uncover what my husband has coined “a poo-pocalypse”, and all the events of the past evening are forgiven and quite literally wiped clean.

Epic pouty face

Baby Etiquette

There is a range of socially acceptable comments you can make about babies you do not know. Here are just a few: "What a beautiful baby!" "How precious!" "Look how happy she is!" Pick one! However, it is a universal truth, that if I come within 10 feet of a woman over the age of 75, they are guaranteed to say or do one of the following:  

1.       They will find a way to relate my baby back to their great grandchildren.

In reality you have no desire to talk about my baby. Your great grandchild is now teething and Charlotte has presented you with an opportunity to gush about little James moving onto solid foods. “She reminds me of my great grandchildren, fat and bald!” This transitions us nicely into #2. 

2.       Your baby is chubby.

This one is a pet peeve of mine because I cannot stand when people insist on pointing out the obvious [please refer back to Tired is the New Black]. I am 6’1 and everyday at least one person must point this out to me. Did you play basketball? Are your parents tall?  When someone says, “Looks like she never skips a meal!” or “She’s a chunky little thing!” I should be thrilled since it is my milk that I have successfully produced that is making her so “chunky”. So let’s just go ahead and replace that horribly inappropriate word with the word “healthy” and it’s actually a compliment.

3.       God bless her.  

This one I don’t really mind because it is sweet and harmless. But usually they alternate between "God bless her" and "bless her heart" at least eight or nine times rapid-fire, so I never know when they are done or what I should say. Yes? Thank you?  I usually end up accidentally interrupting them and now whose being rude and inappropriate? 

4.       How old is he?

There is always gender confusion, apparently little girls cannot wear blue in public. “Oh how old is he, 2 months? Look at him crawling along.” I recognize that not everyone has an app for development milestones on their phone, but can you imagine a 2 month old crawling? We were still working on neck control, so crawling would have been really something.

5.       Lastly, and this is the kicker ladies and gentlemen, the INCESSANT touching.

If I am lucky, it is just the top of the head, but I am never lucky. It is always the cheek and this is generally after some sort of wet, guttural cough. My personal favorite is when a crusty Kleenex is actually tucked behind their gnarled fingers while they gently stroke my baby’s face. 

I recognize that, of course, their heart is always in the right place. Generally speaking I enjoy the banter and welcome the hilarity of it all. But if it is on a day that I have had less than 4 hours of sleep and not enough coffee, I’ll channel my inner half marathon runner and we will be on the other side of the street faster than you reach your hand out and cough, “God bless your fat two month old baby, he reminds me of my great grandson.”

Who are you calling chunky?