I Am Not Dealing With This Very Well

I've had a lot of death in my life - one parent, three grandparents (the fourth died before I was born), 2 childhood friends, a pet, a miscarriage (not sure if that really counts, but hey.)

But still, I have no idea what to say. I am not coping well with the shaky handwriting on the card, the feebleness, the realisation that this may the last birthday that she'll be here, the last holiday...

I am irritated that my mother is going out of town for three weeks. I think it's a monumentally bad idea. But on the other hand if she stays, it will upset my aunt because she will know it's because we think she doesn't have much time. Crap, this stuff is so hard. But I guess I should just suck it up, because right now it's not really about me.

Sunday Night Blues

Blah.

One of my best friend's booked a trip here without telling me beforehand and I'm not even going to be in town (or wasn't planning to be.) I thought it was a trip at least in part to see me, but I guess it was more to hang out with her other friend who lives here. Shitty. She was a bridesmaid, so I consider her a great pal, and I'm more than a little pissed off about it.

Blah.

I missed an invite to go out for dinner tonight because LM got a fever that spiked to 103... and I decided I better stay home and ensure he's okay especially since he had one scarily dry diaper. He seems to be getting all these horrid little fevers lately and I'm not sure what it's all about.

Blah.

I am having no luck finding someone to nanny-share with. One measly reply to my Craig's List posting. My new strategy will be advertising on bulletin boards in my new 'hood, but I am starting to panic a wee bit.

Blah.

I haven't exercised in week.

Blah.

The weekend is over and I didn't even unpack one stupid box or paint one single wall.

20-Year Meme

Ooh, fun, Shelley tagged me for a meme... I never get tagged.

20 years ago I:

• was 10 years old
• lived in a small town in Ontario
• had a 5th grade teacher who was obsessed with nuclear armageddon
• bit my friend's brother on the ear until it bled
• read Wuthering Heights and decided it was my favourite book
  

10 years ago I

• was 20
• dropped out for a semester, then switched my major from political science to journalism
• backpacked through Borneo
• was in counselling for fairly severe depression
• worked in the cafeteria of a law school and thought law students were potentially the most snooty people on the planet
  

5 years ago I

• was 25
• met D and moved in with him
• worked as a program officer for the government and hated it
  
• wrote my LSAT
• went to Burning Man for the second time
  
• shaved my head
  

3 years ago I

• finished my first year of law school
• got engaged
• bought our first condo
• went on anti-anxiety medications for six months
  
• spent a heavenly week in Provence
  

So far this year I

• turned 30
• sold our condo and bought a house
• continued to be in remission from my depression/anxiety
• fell even more in love with my baby and my husband
  
• ran a half-marathon
  

Yesterday I

• met friends for dinner at a sort of fancy restaurant for dinner with LM
  
• spent naptime in the backyard reading instead of unpacking
• climbed through a small hole in 5-foot fence in a cemetery and lifted the stroller over it
• talked about post-baby body image issues with a group of women at a new mom support group
• watched LM learn how to clap
  

Today I

• read part of Late Nights on Air
  
• am bummed to be stuck in the house waiting around for appliance delivery people
• mopped the kitchen floor
• got the first two discs of The Wire: Season 4 in the mail
• cursed Stephen Harper and his moronic excuses for not doing anything to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
  

Tomorrow I will

• go to music class with LM
• attempt to get my nap in before said music class
  
• watch an episode of The Wire
• go to the park
• try to savour these lazy summer days as my maternity leave winds down

In the next year I will

• learn to juggle working full-time with motherhood
  
• go to Mexico for a wedding
• finish my articles and become a lawyer
• contemplate getting pregnant again the following year
  
• be amazed and appreciative for all my many, many blessings
  

I tag: Kaitlyn, Michelle and Lindsay.

From the Mouths of Babes

The other day I was happily bouncing my two-year old niece on my knee while we sang "Walk Old Joe" when she looks over and grazes my chest with her hands. She looks up at me with her big blue eyes and says: "That's where LM eats."

"Um, yes"

"Eats milk," she says. "Only milk."

"Well, he eats some other things too."

"No, only milk."

Ah... you know you're a mother when the only comments that are made about your chest have to do with milk production.

Anyway, we are indeed homeowners, registered and all, with possession tomorrow. Our Internet access is getting shut off in the wee hours and the stupid ISP can't flick the switch to turn it back on for a few days. Between then and now I'll be celebrating a rather momentous birthday, so think of me as I cross the threshold from sweet young thing to, er, not so young anymore (though, I guess given my niece's comments, that threshold is likely already passed.)

Not Packing

I should be packing right now, since we are moving in less than a week! Egads. I did a few boxes of books today, but other than that everything is still completely in its place - all the knick-knacks, dishes, clothes, and other tchotkes. But I hate having my place in a mess, and so I guess I'd rather have a couple of days of packing hell rather than a week or more of boxing messiness. I unpack really quickly too - although with LM it will be more of a challenge.

D is out tonight at a stag party so I am watching Sex and the City. I love the show and all the subplots. But I just cannot get excited about Mr. Big. The scenes where Carrie is pining over him and having public temper tantrums because he is dating someone else - ugh - painful. I mean the guy is a complete ass. I guess that's the point, but somehow it's just not as entertaining anymore. I think I related to this show more five years ago (and maybe, just maybe had a tantrum or two myself.) But we all have our guilty pleasures, right?

Judgy McJudgermom

I decided I need to cut back on night feedings - no more than every five hours, at least until he starts sleeping some longer stretches. It is, I postulate, the only way I am ever going to get some sleep. My baby loves to nurse, and does not seem to think he can get to sleep any other way. The breaking point was when we had several nights in a row where he was up every single hour. I can no longer function like that.

So I have decided to stop trying to stop worrying about whether I am the perfect parent, or what the books say I should do. I know I am a good and extremely loving mother. I also know that what I'm doing is motivated in self-interest - LM is happy and thriving having a little nosh every hour and waking me to do it. But he is six months and nearing 20 lbs and I don't think it's unreasonable for me to put my own need for a few straight hours of sleep before his hourly need for comfort.

So the past few nights have involved a lot of crying. Some his, some mine. He is still in our room, and we do what we can to comfort him, whether it's picking him up, patting him, or simply being there. It doesn't always work, but it makes me feel better about it. I'm not following any particular method, I'm just doing what feels right.

My goals are not particularly lofty - I'd just like him to get some consistent three-hour stretches. Hopefully once he gets used to sleeping longer stretches we can go back to feeding on demand as we face the challenges of teething, colds and so on. I have to admit I've really grown to love having him in the bed, despite the fact that I sort of pretend that it's an inconvenience. But I don't see how he will ever stop eating so much while he's in there and so close to the "fridge" as D lovingly calls it, so for now, he is in his crib.

It's funny, I'm very confident in my parenting skills and I have a lot of faith in my instincts. I can't picture anyone else doing a better job with my little man. But I'm so self-conscious about parenting too. I want to be a certain type of parent - the kind they feature in La Leche League magazine or in the Teresa Pitman articles in the magazines at my doctor's office. I want to be, as Dooce would say, the valedictorian of parenting. I hated to admit in my last post that I let my kid cry for 10 minutes even though I think (I KNOW) in the circumstances it was completely understandable and did absolutely zero lasting harm.

It's so weird, I don't think I've ever been like this about anything else... I'm a leftist, but I don't agree with all leftist ideology; I'm a feminist, but I sympathise with both liberal and radical schools; I've never been in the "cool" group at school, but sometimes I was friends with them. I have no idea why I'm so hung-up on fitting into some book's idea of the perfect parent when I myself don't even think that the same parenting style is going to work for every parent or every baby. I guess it's because there's so much guilt involved in parenting, and so much judgment and I've always hated being judged. And maybe it's because I can be judgmental about parenting too, even though I'm usually not a particularly judgy person.

Anyhow, somehow this post about LM's sleep turned into a post about me. But I'm sure you're fine with that as y'all know you are going to be getting more sleep posts in the future! Betcha can't wait!

Realisation

It's funny, when I see the girls I've known since high school, I don't really feel like we're getting any older. When I think back to our high school days, I picture us looking the same way we do now. I know intellectually that it's not true, and I certainly know that when I look at a picture of us 15 years ago. But in a lot of ways, I don't feel any older than I was back then. It's strange to think I am now so much older than my older brother was back then, because I think I'd still be kind of cowed by the person he was then.

Today I was browsing someone's online photo album and I came across a picture of a mutual acquaintance, someone who I haven't seen since those olden, golden days. This acquaintance has two kids now, one of whom is probably similar in age to LM. (I still remember her getting all pissy with me because the guy she liked gave me a massage on the beach. He was a cutie too!) She looks so much older than I would have thought. She's still very attractive, and bright-eyed, but she looks like a mom. And then I remind myself, shit, I probably do too! How can that be? I still feel like such a child.

Out of the Fog

It's funny, I feel like I'm emerging from the haze of motherhood a little these days. Something about it has gotten easier. And the other day, I woke up and wondered: "Hey, whatever happened on that litigation matter I was working on?" I remember the partner I was doing the work for saying that when she had her kid, she stopped caring completely about work for a little while, didn't follow what happened on any of her cases. I couldn't imagine it at the time, but it obviously happened to me since that case did not even cross my mind for four months, despite having worked on it for two summers. I did a search and it doesn't look like the decision has come down yet.

Then the other day I was out for an afternoon, and I didn't spend half the time thinking about him. In fact, he barely even crossed my mind. It was kind of freeing, not because I don't love him, and love spending loads of time with him, but it felt like I was getting a bit of myself back, a part of me that I didn't even realise had been on hiatus. I was just me, not mummy. And it felt kind of nice. And it felt just as nice to come home to a big old toothless grin.

Flux

Well after my awesome (and long!) sleep post the other day I had a horrendous night last night - every two hours. Lots of dairy + cold + teeth possibly = very bad night. Anyway, I remain optimistic about tonight and am now back off the dairy.

When I was in law school I was so active in all this law-related volunteer stuff. Gave legal advice to low income folks, attended lectures on cases, participated in a women's law group. Now I get e-mails on this stuff and I just DO NOT care at all even one tiny little bit. It all seems so abstract and divorced from reality. It irritates me when it arrives in my inbox. Hoping that feeling fades.

To follow up on my earlier post I will say that I do remain optimistic that the perfect career is out there for me. I hope it's not super-far-removed from where I am right now, but I am going to try to stop stressing about it and trust that if I don't love what I'm doing once I start doing it again, I have the power to change it. I may surprise myself.

D worked a god-awful number of hours last week and barely saw LM (or moi.) Was quite bad. And I am tired of microwave dinners alone. He was planning to go down to four days a week after I go back to work, but now we're wondering if he should do it now. It would mean 20% less pay, which is scary. But you can't buy back this time either. I don't know, I don't know. It will be his decision.

His place of employ is staffed mainly by men. The partners don't see their families all week and are often away on weekends. When they do have a night off they play rugby with the guys from work... it's hard in that environment to request more family time - it's like an implicit insult to the choices they've made. But I just wonder what their wives get out of a relationship like that? The big house in the right part of town, the 2.4 kids in private school, the vacations to Dominican, but no time with your husband? I want more from my marriage - I want my husband. And I don't want to give up that kind of time either.

Musings...

We were talking in our yoga class about being more authentic. Truer to ourselves. Sometimes I find I really mute myself. I have strong beliefs and a fair amount of confidence but I don't articulate it for fear of offending someone. I am so fucking agreeable. Is that being inauthentic? Then I thought, well maybe being that way IS being authentic because part of my personality is a desire to make people feel comfortable. And sometimes I think I do a pretty good job of it. Lots of people used to confide in me - really personal things. But I don't get out much anymore, so that doesn't happen a whole lot. So I'm trying to find that balance between being authentic about my beliefs while still trying to put people at ease.

Anyhow - career. I remember before I had the baby I said, if I won the lottery, I'd keep on doing what I plan to do - article, work at the same place as I work at now. I'd just buy nicer clothes. But if I won the lottery today I don't think I would do that. I've had such a mental shift - I love being home, I love seeing the baby every day, I love being able to get outdoors and meeting lots of different kinds of people all going through the same universal experience. I love that 40-ish hipster baristas, or strung-out skinny east-siders, or trendy shop girls all say "Hey, I remember when they were that age." I want lots and lots of babies.

I wouldn't say I'm married to a work-a-holic, but I am married to someone who puts a lot of pressure on himself to work and succeed and who's willing to sacrifice a lot for his work. I'm not the same - I want my work to facilitate my life, and express it. Not the other way around. My success at work and school does not impact on my self-esteem the same way it does for him, although I did extremely well in law school and excelled in the work environment I was in before that. Normally I would try and mute that with some self-deprecating side-stepping, but I'm striving for authenticity here and I know that to be true.

Sometimes I think I chose law school because I'm risk averse. Because it seemed like a sensible thing to do. Because my mother said "Why don't you go to law school? You'd be so good at that." And I loved it. I know I could do well if I kept on trekking down the road I'm on. But more and more I'm thinking I want the road less travelled - not the short-cut, not the easy route. But some different path that will be more challenging and more rewarding for me. I want to take some risks. I just haven't found the right-turn off yet.

I will definitely remain on the path I'm on in the short-term. But bigger picture - I'd like to do something more authentic to me, something that taps into things I care about and love. I'm just throwing out ideas - they are random and unconnected. I'd love to start a business and do something entrepreneurial. I'd love to work with mothers and babies. I'd love to be with people as they go through some meaningful event. I worked with special needs kids for a semester and it was the only job I've ever consistently been thrilled to go to, even though it meant waking at six at a time when I was often out until four. I'd like to work in an area that furthers our quality of life somehow. I want to consume less and live more healthily. I'm willing to work a lot of hours, but I want to be able to set them. I want to live in the country. I want to be financially comfortable. I want to do something that makes a direct difference in the community I'm in.