Baby Poop and Business Suits

SAHWM/WSAHM

You know when you're at a party, or a gathering, and someone asks, "So, what do YOU do?

I always end up giving this long drawn out answer, like,

"Well, er, I own my own business doing marketing and graphic design and consulting, but I have two little kids, and I work three days a week, and my son goes to daycare two days a week and my mom watches him one day and my daughter's in first grade so I run her to school and some days she takes the bus, but then I have meetings and on my days off I still answer the phone and send emails and work on projects when my son naps when I'm not doing dishes or vaccumming, and some times I try to jog or file my nails, and yeah, no, well, I don't make a TON of money, but..."

I'm not a stay at home mom (SAHM)... I'm not a working mom (WM)... I'm a working stay at home mom (WSAHM) or, I guess I could say, a stay at home working mom (SAHWM)?

I can't keep up with the men, but can't keep up with the women, either.

Can I create a new category?

Can I just BE?

The Boy

Was just walking past the new skate park that is currently under construction with Niko. The kid claims he wants to be a "skater dude". I just tell him, "Cool man, but, you know, you ARE only THREE."

On top of the skate park excitement, he was in absolute and complete awe of the bulldozers and forklifts, cement whatnots, (and whatnot). Now I FINALLY get what people say when they talk about a boy being, well, a BOY. He watched the dirt getting pushed around, dirt being picked up, dumped out, and all that other manly-testosterone-hai on your chest stuff and screetched with delight (and I won't mention the fact that he was literally grabbing his pelvic regions while screetching)... Mommy just doesn't get it, this boy stuff. After a half hour I had to threaten his life and peel him away from the orange construction fence and out of view from the industrial equipment because he just couldn't get enough.

This mothering of a boy thing... I'm truly still learning.

xo,

G.

The Sweet Scent of Windex on Polished Glass

It seems in my home there is always something to clean. Never, ever, ever ever ever is our living space TOTALLY the way I want it to be. If there aren't dishes to be taken care of there is laundry to be folded. When the laundry is folded there are toys to be picked up. When the toys are picked up there are beds to be made. And so on, and so forth, and once all the so-ons and so-fourths are done, then I should probably sort out my underwear drawer because MY GOD, what if I was struck by lightening or died suddenly or something and people had to sort through my belongings - I envision everyone I know sitting at my funeral whispering to each other about those gigantic maternity undies with elastic threads hanging from them or the thongs with a hole in the front-crotch-area. That's just not how I'd like to be remembered.

I know, I know, I'm not alone when it comes to these thoughts. Or am I? There are hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of other somewhat-obsessive compulsive perfectionist working mom types with giant panties out there that feel the same way as me...

So my mom picked my kids up this morning to give me some alone time. And do you think I savored truffles while reclining in a bubble bath listening to something that wasn't named Baby Something or Something Rhymes? No I certainly did not. I worked from home for two hours, gathered up peed-on sheets along with other heaps of dirty laundry, sorted them, and THEN...

... I windexed all the mini-hand prints and smudges off the glass doors, and just admired them for a few moments. Clean glass. Smudge-less windows.

A small dose of perfection.

I continued about my business of tidying this and that. But then I'd stop, quickly run over to the glass windows, and admire them some more. A little piece of heaven, right there. But only for a short time - the children would be home soon.

God bless the little darlings. We all know I love them. But a few hours of silence and (ahem) "ME" time allowing me to sniff cleaning products and admire shiny things seems to be one of life's greatest simple pleasures.

Well, I'd better go - I've got fifteen minutes until the kids come home and a hot date with a perfectly tucked in sofa cover.

Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With

There's something about taking a vacation where showering is optional that is good for the soul. Somehow, getting back in touch with your body odor and staying in a cabin where you're constantly surrounding by 100 spiders at any given time puts life into perspective.

Now that we're home, I feel that my head is above water again. I'm starting to feel in control a bit more - like I'm running my life instead of my life running me... I've concluded that this "control" feeling seems to be directly affected to the cleanliness of my house. When the piles of laundry sit folded, but not put away, or the stack of mail and papers on the kitchen table keeps growing, but there's no time to sort though it, or that damn yellow ring appears in the toilet bowl, but day after day after day after DAY I just can't seem to get to it - I start to feel like I'm drowning. Like I just can't do it all. I know that when you have little kids it's impossible to have everything perfect, but I feel like I at least have to try. Damn you people who send me Pottery Barn catalogs!!! Damn you!!!

And so I try and I try from morning till' night day after day and just when things get finished, it feels as though I wake up the next morning and it all has to be done over again.

Maybe we should all stop peeing in the toilets and wearing clothes to avoid the yellow ring and un-put-away laundry. But then we may get some funny looks walking down the street naked with pee running down our legs. Eeew.

I guess there's always adult diapers.

Kyra has a piece of painted furniture in her room with a saying: "Happy with what you have to be happy with." I read that and tell myself that I need to chill out and stop wishing everything was perfect and just be happy about elbow dimples:

Or big sisters...

Or baths in the sink of the cabin...

Nikolai looks so unimpressed with all of us in these bath photos. If he could speak words I'm sure he would yell, "You guys are all a bunch of jerks! Jerks I say! Why don't you just stick a boob in my mouth already and leave me alone! No one else is bathing around here, so why should I!??"

Since I'm sure anyone reading this is sick of hearing me whine and lament about the pros and cons of going back to work, I won't say any more about it other than I am thinking about it. A lot. Tuesday morning at Niko's doctor checkup, the doc asked me, "So. How do you feel about returning to work? Are you dreading it or kind of excited to get back?"

I paused, then replied,

"I'm, um..."

"Well, I'm..."

"I'm kind of..."

It was one of those terribly, remarkably, rare moments in my life when I didn't even know what to say.

Awesome, and Arg.

It's fascinating to me how life with new baby can be the most spectacular, wonderful, miraculous experience... and horrifying at the same time.

There are those moments when you look at your very own baby's little legs curled up to his body in the fetal position at seven weeks of age and think - my god - I STILL can't believe this little person was inside my body... Or when you think babies can't really see anything but you look into their eyes while holding them close and say, "Hi there little mister! Aren't you handsome? Oh yes you are! Oh yes you are!" in that retarded high pitched voice we all talk to babies in, and then they grin from ear to ear only for you because, yes, they can see you, and, yes, they know you are their parent. Amazing.

But then there are the nights when you drop into the bed like a log because you're so exhausted from not sleeping much the night before - and just as you drift off the baby wakes up - so you get up and nurse him and rock him, and just as he falls back to sleep, the three year old wakes up because she's peed the bed for the fourth night in a row... and as you rip the pee pee sheets off the bed you want to scream at the kid because you're so tired you feel sick to your stomach - and WHY IS SHE DOING THIS EVERY NIGHT!?, but then you look into those sweet, wide eyes and hear that little voice say, "It was just an accident..." and know that you could never really be mad at her, and no matter how hard it gets, those children are yours. Your very own. And you must just gently change their diapers at 3 a.m. and peel their wet, peed on pajamas off them and put fresh ones one, hug them, and tell them it's okay, and remind them how much you love them.

So if you couldn't tell, it's been interesting around here lately. A little rough, but a lot of great. Niko's growing like a weed - two weeks ago at a doctor's appointment he already weighed 12 lbs., 6 oz., so I'm guessing he's up to 13 or 14 by now. I think I've found my superpower: breastfeeding. Forget flying, breathing ice, or growing gills and swimming underwater - gimme a dozen babies and I'll feed em' all. No problemo. Before you know it they'd all get chubby little thighs and spare tires around their wrists... Maybe I should join the Peace Corps and move to a country where there are starving babies. I'd fix em' in a jif.

Speaking of breastfeeding, I am so sick of feeling embarrassed to nurse in public. I refuse to care anymore. Yes, I still whip a blanket over me if I have to feed him in the mall or something, but the burning question is WHY SHOULD MOMS EVEN FEEL THIS WAY TO BEGIN WITH? That's what boobs are for! To feed babies! I'm sorry, they are not for accessorizing with an outfit, which, sadly, most everyone is lead to believe.

I just find it strange that when you're in the hospital or preparing to give birth, mothers are constantly told Breast is Best, Breast is Best. Be a good mom, breastfeed. It's the right thing to do. Okay, so we all agree on that - so, if it's a commonly known fact that babies should be nursed, why is a person like me still worried that I'm being vulgar when nursing in front of others? Why does this thought even cross my mind? Something is seriously wrong with our culture. And I love it when people freak out at the thought of accidentally pouring expressed breast milk into their coffee or something... "Eeeeeeeew!!! Grosssss!!!! #@$%@#$@!!!".

So, let's clarify: It'd be disgusting to drink MY breast milk, but it's okay to pour the milk of some random feces-covered, antibiotic injected, stinking cow into your cereal? You'd take the cow over ME? Fine then.

(Okay, I have to admit: there IS something odd about the thought of putting my own breast milk on my raisin bran.)

Enough milk talk. This is getting too odd. Moving on...

Kyra's still adjusting to life as big sister. On one hand, she seems to want to be a baby herself these days, but on the other, she's a great help and will entertain him while I shower and things, although, sometimes she bends a little arm back to far or smacks him because she doesn't realize that he's, well, a baby.

We were at a party yesterday evening and Niko frightened one of the attendees due to the fact that he's a baby but has the appearance of an old man. It's the receding hairline. You see, he DID have hair up front when he was born, then it fell out, and now it's growing back. And so, he looks like an older fellow in a teeny tiny little body that sits on my lap at parties and scares partygoers.

...making fun of my baby. Hmph. Although, she did have a point.

At that same party, my girlfriend who is engaged but has not yet reproduced said to me, "Ya know, you and Jeremy really haven't changed. You're still the same, but with kids!"

"And now we go to bed at 9:30 p.m.", I added.

So, as I said in my last post, I'm going back to work, half days, Monday thru Friday, starting in September. It appears I will be paying the day care provider more than I will bring home each week.

Not sure how I feel about this.

And finally, I'd like to say, SCREW YOU, VOGUE. A week or so ago, as I was sitting at the salon getting a desperately needed highlight applied to my inch of dark roots, I was flipping through Vogue. Now, any of us who pay attention to celebrities lives, watch VH1, or stand in line at the supermarket checkout, know that "Babies" are the latest fashion accessory. Last year it was small dogs. The year before, it was large sunglasses. This year, it's babies.

God I'm so cool and hip and with it.

So I flipped to a spread featuring a fashionista mommy out with her chubby little baby - each page showing the mum with her teeeny eeeeeny little waist in a fabulous little dress...

"That bitch is way to skinny to have just given birth." I said to my stylist. "Now REAL women are going to look at this and think they're supposed to look like that. Those bastards (Vogue people.)"

and then I flipped the page, which showed the fabulously dressed, itsy bitsy waisted mummy eating a gigantic double cheeseburger and feeding the chubby ubby baby a fry from her ten pounds of fries on her plate.

Um yeah. THIS woman eats this. Sure. Right. Possible. Real life.

No wonder so many women are anorexic and bulimic. I just finally buttoned a pair of my pre-preg jeans. Note that I said "buttoned." NOT "Wear in public." And that's why Vogue can screw itself.

 

Now, please excuse me. I've got starving babies to feed.

All Of Those Sweet Little Faces

Maybe it's the pregnancy hormones. Maybe it's my frustration with our government and my disgust with this war coming to a head - but, yesterday morning, as I stood in the bathroom mirror getting ready for work and putting on eyeshadow, our local NPR station played this addition to the StoryCorps project.

I completely broke down. My freshly applied eye makeup slid down my face. I recomposed myself and started the makeup application process over, looked down at my daughter's big, blue eyes staring up at me, and rubbed the side of her soft cheek with the back of my hand...

I couldn't help but think: That angelic-looking German soldier in this story was somebodies baby too; I thought of the thousands of mothers in the past, today, and in the future that have their own sweet, wispy haired, soft skinned babies, and like me, they love them so dearly... They raise them gently and nurture them with all the care they can muster only to have them violently ripped away by war.

It seems like such a horrible waste.

The closest thing I have to experiencing war is reading books, watching movies, and listening to our current mass media's screened reporting of it. I've never actually experienced it. I have no idea what it's really like. For some reason, though, this short audio clip summed it all up for me yesterday as I stood in the bathroom:

War is horrendous. If it doesn't kill a person, it will change them and those that love them forever.

And I hate it.

I'm A Twenty-Seven Year Old Two Year Old. And I Like It.

One of the perks for me about having a kid is the fact that I GET TO BE A KID AGAIN.

I'm re-living so many things that in this boring adult world of desk jobs, oil changes, pumicing calluses off of heels, and lawn maintenance I would have otherwise completely forgotten about.

One example of re-living kid fun would be bubble baths. Holy LORD had I forgotten how fantastic bubble baths are! And I'm not talkin' ADULT bubble baths with scented oils, dissolving salts and fancy stuff - I'm talkin' kid-style bubble baths with good ol' fashioned kid bubbles and one hundred and eighty five toys thrown in the tub. Bath toys are great. I think adults should play with rubber duckies and have conversations with washcloth-bath-puppets too. I bet if more adults played with bath toys there would be less wars on the planet. (Oh, wait. That just gave me the visual of Dubya sitting in a bath tub overflowing with sudsy bubbles with on his left hand talking to a puppet on his right, while rubber duckies float around. I'm guessing that he does in fact play with bath toys. He and Tony Blair probably take baths together and put on puppet shows. I'd also bet that Dubya makes Blair pumice his calluses, and Blair does it without batting an eye. So, forget the bath-toy/less-war comment. I take that back.)

Lately Kyra throws a Level 4 (get it? like a hurricane? ha.) tantrum when Jeremy takes her upstairs for her bath and pre-bedtime ritual instead of me. She starts flailing and screaming, "NO!!!!! MOMMY TAKE UP! MOMMY TAKE UP! MOMMY TAKE UUUUUUUUUUP!" as if he were a member of the gestapo hauling her off to the gas chambers. (Sorry, Jewish friends. That wasn't funny.)

I have just been stumped on why she hates Jeremy so much at bedtime... So, last night, I said, "Let's both take up. Tonight, mommy and daddy with both bring you upstairs. (I said this, yes, because I wanted her to stop screaming, but, my real motive was so that I could pluck my eyebrows in the bathroom mirror while Jeremy bathed her.)

So, as Jeremy stripped her clothes off, I filled the tub and he plopped her in. As I plucked, I watched his bath methods out of the corner of my eye: He sat her down and IMMEDIATELY began dumping water over her head to wash her hair.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, WAIT. A. MINUTE, here. What are you doing!?" I asked him.

"Washing her hair." he said, in his "What now, you insane BITCH?" voice.

"You start out the bath by washing her hair?" I accused. "No wonder she hates you at bath time! You're no FUN! You're ALL BUSINESS! Don't you play with the bath puppets? Don't you sing bath songs or give yourself a bubble beard?"

"Bath songs? No. She's usually screaming too loud." he replied, calmly.

"Well, she's screaming because you don't give good baths! Try singing! Geeze!"

So, while I continued to pluck, poor Jeremy forced a puppet show against his will. If you know Jeremy, you might find some humour in this. He's just not a puppet-show-sing-in-the-bath-kinda-guy. Puppet shows are just more, well, up my alley. Jeremy is a fabulous person, just in a different way, like, um, being reliable and responsible, and kind, and good-hearted. Or, holding a good paying, steady job and not complaining about it. Or, paying bills on time, or taking out the trash on Tuesday mornings.

These are all things I suck at. We just balance each other out.

Enough about the bath. I'm also going GAGA over the great videos that Kyra is watching, that I get to watch again. First, there is The Muppet Show. Love it. Need I say more? Then, she discovered Bambi. Oh, Bambi...

Then, there is Macaroni and Cheese. This one snuck up on me - I had consciously tried to avoid the boxed stuff, cause, that's just so, cliche to feed your child macaroni and cheese... ALL kids love Mac & Cheese, it's just a fact. And we all know Kraft Mac & Cheese has about as much nutritional value as the cardboard box it comes in. Might as well eat the box. So, I refused to even purchase the stuff. Hey, if she doesn't know what it is, she won't want it, right? When Macaroni & Cheese seems appropriate, I boil up my own egg noodles and make a real cheese concoction with cheese and milk and butter. No powder involved. So, my plans went along just fine until just last week, when Kyra and I were home making some lunch, and she pointed up to the cupboard. "Macawoni and cheese!" she declared.

Wha-Wha-WHAT? Where did this come from!?  How does she know what it is and how did it get here? I certainly didn't buy it... Jeremy. It must have been Jeremy -  He-who-shops-and-brings-home-cookies-and-candy-and-ice cream-and-other-oh-so-bad-for-you-but-oh-so-goooooood-delectables...

It had been so long since I'd made the real Mac & Cheese from the box. Yum. I could almost taste it.

"Macawoni and CHEEEESE!" she pointed and yelled again... So I tore open the box with my teeth like a wild, starving animal, boiled up the pasta and mixed in the powder. Mmmmmm. The best thing about making kid-food like that is that I get to eat the leftovers.

Let me just finish by saying, we've had boxed Mac & Cheese every other day since. (I do put some green beans on her plate, too.) If you think I'm a bad mom, please refer to my last post. There is NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECT MOTHER. And I'll admit I'm not even close to one. Now, pardon me. There is left-over Mac & Cheese to eat and The Muppets to be watched.

***BREAKING NEWS*** THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECT MOTHER!

The responses to my completely non-scientific "survey" in my previous post have been awesome. And thank you to all the ladies (and men) who responded. And if you still want to respond, the more the merrier. Please, don't worry about being too wordy. I am the QUEEN of wordy. (That's why I started a blog. I don't know when to shut up.) Long comments are welcome, and much appreciated.

After reading all of these responses, my half-ass conclusion is this:

Any mother who claims she's got it ALL GOING ON (including myself) and who is flawless in all categories of perfect mother, perfect wife, perfect sex goddess, perfect body, perfect cook, perfect hobbiest, perfect house-cleaner, perfect gardener, YOU NAME IT, is a liar. We cannot be perfect at everything, it simply is not possible. We do what we can and that's that. If we dedicate all our free time to exercising and having a perfect body, we probably have a dirty house. If we dedicate all of our time to keeping a spotless home, we probably have lumpy thighs. If we cook all our meals home-made, most likely, we won't have any time to knit scarves or work in the garden, and if we prance around in frilly night things for our hubbies every night and maintain a perfectly steamy relationship, our poor children are probably plopped in front of the TV in the other room while we're having (ahem) "relations"... (cause GOD KNOWS by the time I get to bed at night, all I want to do is SLEEP.)

We can't be everyTHING to everyONE. Those of us that try will most likely fail miserably. Case in point: Martha Stewart.

Life's full of give and takes. And, damn it, life's just not easy. Good parents will result in good kids, no matter how many hours a week mother works at a paid job.

This, my friends, seems to be the moral of the story. So, ladies (and men) keep up the good work. Do what you can, and don't worry about what you can't. Keep your sanity and know your limits. When you're at the paid job, work hard. Then, come home, and hug, kiss and pinch those little darling children of yours (and your spouse) every chance you get.

THAT, it seems, is what successful parenting is all about.

The Witching Hour

I've realized that at many moments there can be an extremely fine line between winning the mother-of-the-year-award and being one of those flipped out nutcases who drowns her kids in the bathtub. And those moments are usually the ten minutes before and after nap-o-clock.

One-o-clock, p.m. Nap time. I've learned that this is the witching hour when anything could happen. Nothing shocks me anymore when a child gets too tired. Usually, mostly, 99.999% of the time, my wonderful child continues to be wonderful and will go straight up to bed without a fight, blow me a kiss, and drift quietly off to slumbertown. But sometimes, on that rare occasion like last Tuesday, her blue eyes turn red, her soft, pale skin begins to change to a greenish-olive color, and her head starts spinning while she spews demonic sounding phrases in a bit of a Tasmanian-devil-interbred-with-that girl from The Exorcist kind of way...

Okay, so maybe she doesn't turn green. BUT, she does flip out. Well, maybe not flip out, but rather, flop to the ground and howl.

"Stand up, Kyra." I demand.

"Blaaah-bloo mWAAAAAA blah berty blooooo!" she screams back to me as her body turns to jello and she refuses to use her leg muscles.

Again, I try to pick her up, but somehow she transforms into a greased watermelon. No matter how I try, she slips through my grasp and continues to scream.

This is where I pause. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale one more time, and... (Here's the moment where I could be calm and whisk her up to her room like a good mom while she claws at my eyeballs, or lock her in a closet, get in the car, and drive it off a bridge.)

Well, obviously, I'm not dead in my car at the bottom of a lake some where today since I'm sitting here writing this blog post. Yes, I took the high road - was the good mom, remained calm and did not scream back, throw my own tantrum, spank or drown anyone.

Sometimes I even amaze myself.

Before I had a child of my own, I used to look at parents in a restaurant or the mall with a screaming, tantrum-throwing kid and think, "Jesus, what awful, horrible people. I wish they'd just shut that little monster up already..." But, now I know the real story. Those parents are probably great parents, and that tantrum-throwing monster is probably a really fantastic child. A fantastic child that just needs a good, old fashioned, two and a half hour nap.

When Hot Water And A Spin Cycle JUST DON'T CUT IT

***WARNING. THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC DETAILS OF TODDLER POOP. IF YOU'VE JUST EATEN RECENTLY, I'D SUGGEST YOU CHECK BACK LATER.***

Just when I thought my days of diaper-changing grossness and unexpected explosions of the pants were over, I let Kyra wear real undies with a set of those giant, plastic pants over them. She had gone pee pee in the potty (UGH, I HATE TALKING LIKE AN INFANT) many times already this morning, so I thought, Alright, that's it. She's wearing the plastic pants today.

I've got a big girl now. The time has come to get rid of diapers altogether.

So, while wearing The Big Girl Panties (I HATE THE WORD PANTIES.) with the plastic undies layered on top, she played with her toys on the living room floor, while I cleaned up in the kitchen. While reaching over to put a glass away in the cabinet, I something unpleasant crossed my nostrils.

"No. It can't be. She didn't. She didn't poop in her Big Girl Undies." I thought, as the scent grew stronger.

I walked into the living room, peeked down the backside of her pants, and saw what I dreaded most.

All I could think was, The Air Conditioning Man!!!! A fellow was on his way to our home at that very moment to give me an estimate on installing central air. I couldn't just change her diaper in the middle of the room like usual... I'd have to puuuuulll the pants offffff sloooooowly. It could contaminate an entire room!

This was going to be a mess, and there was no way I'm letting some stranger walk up to the door when I'm in the middle of a squishy poop-fest. I quickly decided to take her directly to the shower. Confine things to one area. Be able to spray and wash and lather if necessary. This job was bigger than something your average baby wipes could handle. This job needed water, and lots of it.

We rushed to the bathroom and I cleaned her up, while trying not to gag too much. Then I thought, What the heck do I do then with the underwear? Simply throw them in the trash? No. That'd be stupid. Wasteful. So, I did the only other thing I could think of in my state of panic: turn the washing machine on HOT, and throw everything in, poop and all.

I held the underwear, plastic liner, and their contents with one hand and opened the washer lid and turned it on with the other. Just as I moved to drop "the load" into the hot, bubbly water, a big squishy pile of poo fell out of the undies and landed on my bare foot.

Oh my god. OH MY GOD. I thought I would really vomit at that point. I hopped on my poop-free foot to the sink holding the poopy one in the air and stuck it under the faucet.

Just at that moment the air conditioning man arrived at the door. He entered our hot, steamy, poop-smelling house.

"Um, I hate to be gross, but, I apologize if it stinks in here." I flat-out said to him. "My daughter just had a, well, an explosion, if you know what I mean."

"Ah, nah, I don't smell a thing. Besides, I remember those days. Don't you worry."

I was in the clear.

After he left, my load of laundry (well, a little more than just laundry) spinned to a stop and I opened it up to see what was left and how clean things really were.

I'll say just this: I spent the afternoon cleaning grape skins out of the inside of the washing machine... and I don't think I'll want to do that ever, EVER, again.