Let the Mommy Wars Begin

I was watching Meet the Press on Sunday and I was struck by how much emphasis that certain journalists were putting on Palin's role as a mother. Specifically, DAvid Gregory, NBC's chief White House correspondent told the panel, "This is a woman who's got five children and is the governor of Alaska. I think she's figured out the work-life balance that a lot of women struggle with....She went into labor and got on an airplane to go back to Alaska. That's pretty cool. "

I did one of those double takes you see in cartoons.

First-- not "pretty cool." That's what I would call extremely, extremely stupid. What person in their right mind who thinks they're in labor and has a hospital nearby chooses to board a plane for a long flight to Alaska? Especially if this is your 5th child. Not cool-- stupid. Very, very stupid. It shows a complete lack of judgment about the safety of herself and her child--a child she already knew had medical complications. You're not supposed to fly your third trimester-- airlines won't let you on the plane without a doctor's note. You're definitely not supposed to get on a plane when you are in LABOR.

Her lack of judgment aside, though, Gregory's analysis is a lot like much of the statements I'm hearing about Palin right now. The one woman on The View this morning actually said that her being a mother of 5 was the only preparation she needed to run the country. It's very, very surreal to me.

Because here are the facts--in this country, at this moment, having a child--in most occupations--does not mean you get a promotion. It means that you are seen as a liability. I know this personally. I know that I need to keep any pictures or mentions of my little guy off of my web pages and out of interviews because, at least in my line of work, having a kid might cost me a job. In my line of work, where jobs are hard to come by, having a kid might send the wrong message--that I'm not serious about my work, that I won't be a productive part of the department, that I'll want to someday stop the tenure clock, that there are a lot of other candidates out there with similar qualifications who are more "stable" in terms of productivity.

It's not just my occupation that puts mothers at risk. The statistics don't lie. Women with children make even less than men than women without children do.

So I'm torn. Because part of me loves that finally the general consensus is that a working mother can be better suited for a job-- smarter, tougher, harder working. That her ability to balance work and family can be an asset rather than a liability. But I also know that rhetoric can be very, very empty.

News services can't exactly question her ability to perform her duties because she's a mommy. It's not PC. Sexism is bad.

But just because the media seems to be portraying working moms as the country's answer to everything doesn't mean that it changes the reality of working mothers.

Enter the mommy wars. It's already starting, as evidenced by this NY Times Article about mothers' reactions to Palin's candidacy. On one hand, mothers identify with her and admire her. On the other, mothers are speaking up and out about her decisions and the way she balances work and family.

I had many of the same reactions. Because the truth is that balancing work and family means making sacrifices. It has to. There are not enough hours in the day to be the kind of full-time mothers that women could be in the 1950s and the kind of full-time careerists that men have always been able to be. Maybe there is a superwoman out there that can do it all and never flinch. From my own experience, I doubt it.

I do good work-- I know I do. But I also know I could have graduated a year ago if I hadn't had my son. I also know that I don't--not can't, but won't--work as much as some of my peers because 3:30-8:30 every day and all weekend is family time. Period. I also know that I'm missing something by bundling my little guy off to daycare everyday. That someone else has a knowledge of his secret life that I do not. I only see the evidence of it later--things he says and does that I know I didn't teach him.

I'm not saying that Palin can't do it. I'm not saying that I don't want her to be able to do it (balance work and family, that is, not get into the White House). I'll be honest- I have serious, serious doubts. At only 4 months after delivery, she's still at risk for post pardum. With a child with special needs and a teenage daughter who is also expecting, one would thing that she'd want to be there for them first. Those are her choices- fine. But it disturbs me that one woman's political rise has suddenly made millions of other women's daily struggles seem eviscerated. As though they don't even exist.

I think that's the real reason the mommy wars are beginning. This Cinderella story is just that--a story. It may be Palin's reality, but the reality for women across this country is that it does matter if you have a child, but not in the way that journalists and the political analysts are spinning it.

Trust me on this one. Not a single person is going to be impressed if I tell them that my dissertation was completed with a two-year-old in the background. It's not a job qualification for anything else--why should it be for the Vice-Presidency?

Or maybe it should be a qualification, but I don't think that a single woman's rise is going to do a single thing for the rest of us.

Well, At Least He's Determined

Tomorrow J and X* and I pack for a week at the beach. We have to drive to the airport tomorrow night and spend the night at a hotel because our flight leaves at the most god-awful early time in the morning.

The stress of a 6AM flight has only been exacerbated by the fact that for the last three days, my dear, sweet, lovely little boy has had a sore throat that has kept him refusing food and screaming most hours that "hurt, mouf hurt." For almost 24 hours the kid just wouldn't eat or drink anything. He sat with his little mouth open, lips dripping with the drool he refused to swallow. For most of last evening, he used my shirt as the receptacle for that drool. Yuck and double yuck. I'll give him one thing, though-- the little guy was determined not to let anything at all pass that oh-so-sore throat. It got so bad that we finally had to give him tylenol, um... through the other end.

I think we're through the woods though. Tonight he finally broke down and ate a cookie. And then he followed that cookie with about 8 more.

I'm still not looking forward to the 6 AM flight. Oh- and the airport is in a different time zone, so that flight is really 5 AM our time.

And it looks like the beach we're going to is infested with Jelly Fish.

And because of X's little sore throat, I didn't finish the work that I needed to do-- so this is going to definitely be a working vacation for me. Thank goodness it's at a beach. Because there was some talk about some sort of family retreat house in the middle of nowhere Ohio. This is much, much better.

Beach. Sunshine. Ocean.

Ok- I'm going to my happy place now.

*Little Man isn't so little any more-- we're going to a new moniker

Strawberry Fields, Forever

He gave me strawberries from a bright orange pumpkin, pulling them out one by one so that I could taste them, and then he went off to pick some more.


How he knows that you even pick strawberries is beyond me. The only kind he's ever encountered are in little plastic containers at the supermarket. But somehow he know.

I'm not sure when this all happened, when I knew for sure that all of his baby-ness was gone. That he was a real little boy--some Pinocchio-like transformation that boggles the mind. Maybe it was when I realized that he takes up most of his crib now, when at first, we could lay him vertically just on one end. Maybe it was when I saw his long, lithe body in the bathtub and realized that soon he won't be able to swim in it. Maybe it was when he actually asked for a time out, because it was better than having to sit through dinner with us.

It's been cumulative, with no real point of reference for me to say, "ah, there it is--the end of infancy." It still surprises me--when he remembers where something is that J and I have long forgotten about. Off he'll go, disappearing into the other room while we sit confused, and then amazed, because he knew where he was going all along. When he sings me songs in the car--knowing all the melody and the words, even though he doesn't know what they mean--no frame of reference for "fleece" or the "live long day."

It always unsettles me at the same moment that it delights me, those small moments that show me just how much he's grown, just how much he really knows., but playing pretend has been the most startling and delightful of all. He loves to play drive through at this one playground we go to. Running back and forth to get me cheeseburgers and shakes, taking my money and making change. We don't really ever go to drive-throughs, I don't know where he gets these ideas from.

But he does, and they delight him. So off he goes to pick more strawberries for me. And I take them, invisibly in my hand and eat, wishing that I could pause this all just for a moment, but then also in wondering anticipation of what comes next.

Mother's Day- or one that my mom can read all the way through

The first time my mom and dad had a date, he backed out because the weather was bad. She got into her little yellow Duster and went out with friends.

I love that story. As much as I love the fact that she was always a working mom. As much as I love that she went to Europe, Panama, and Hawaii in her twenties with friends. As much as I love that in her twenties she drove a little yellow Duster with the back end jacked up and a thick black stripe down the side.

Growing up, I never had the idea that I couldn't accomplish whatever I wanted. I never worried that I couldn't be both fabulously successful and be married and have children. And it's really because of her example.

In High School, a counselor told her that she wasn't cut out for being a teacher. Two and a half years after she graduated High School, she graduated from college and got her first teaching job. Thirty-some years later, she's still teaching. She could retire at any time, but she's not ready yet, because she still is what she does-- she's still a teacher and isn't ready to give that up.

I'm incredibly lucky that I had her example to grow up to. She taught me that traveling is important, that I should do all the things I wanted to do before worrying about settling down. She wasn't married until her late twenties, so I always felt like I had time. And that feeling--that getting married wasn't the top priority of your teens and early twenties--allowed me the freedom to do the things that I wanted and to find the person that was really right for me. She taught me that you can have a marriage and a career--that one doesn't need to replace the other. And she taught me that you make your own choices and your own path in life--even if that means driving a little Duster out into the snowy Ohio night.

The problem with all of this is that I took it all to heart-- probably in ways she never expected. I'm probably not the daughter she expected--I'm certainly not the daughter that she is for her parents. She taught me loyalty to family, how important it is, and I've taken that as one of my primary goals to teach my own children. But I've never been able to muster the selflessness that she has for her own parents. I have too big a mouth. I'm far too opinionated.

But I blame her for that.

And as much as I'm sure I've driven her crazy more times than she cares to remember, I thank her for that.

Recently, she told me that there are some posts on this blog that she doesn't read. That she doesn't like it when I talk about my childhood sometimes or how they were as parents. And I feel bad about that, because I never write anything that's meant to hurt her. Even if it does. Everything I write about my childhood and my parents comes after deep and heartfelt thought-- and I hope that eventually she can see that if I disagree or if I make other choices for my own child, it's not because I'm rejecting my childhood. It's because my childhood--her motherhood--has been such that it deserves deep and heartfelt thought. That it serves as a touchstone for everything I do, even if what I do is to do something different.

But my ability to do something different, or to keep things the same, comes from her-- even if she doesn't realize it. She should have been a little less independent if she didn't want a daughter like me. (Although, I realize, that even Frankenstein thought his monster was a good idea at the time.)

She wasn't. And I am who I am today because of that.

So thanks mom.

And happy Mother's Day.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Last night, the three of us snuggled in the big bed after Little Man's nightly bath. I had been feeling run down and sore, the effects of a stupid tetanus booster, but all the frustration of feeling so cruddy melted away with the smell of his wet hair and his lankly body snuggled against me to read our nightly books.

"Pretty soon mama's going on an airplane, but I'll come back soon."

"Little Man airpain too."

"No, honey. Mama's gotta go by herself, but you and Papa will have fun together."

I know it's stupid. That hundreds and thousands of women leave their children for business--or for pleasure. I just never have, and this is hard for me. Rationally, I know this is the last big piece of the dissertation puzzle--working in the Hemingway archive. Emotionally, I want to take them both with me, even though I'll be unavailable from 8:30 until 4:30 every day I'm gone.

I'm not sure he understands I'm going tomorrow. I'm leaving too early in the morning to really say goodbye to him, and I'm afraid he'll be angry at me when I get back. We're buddies, he and I.

"But after I get home, then we all are going on an airplane. We're going to the beach."

"Beach. Oshee"

"Yep, the ocean. We're all going to go together and be together for a whole week. What will we see at the ocean?"

"Fishies. Dolphies. Ducky," he tells me, the tone of his voice raising for each word, almost question-like.

"Ducky? Oh honey, there aren't duckies in the ocean."

"Duckie oshee," he insists, shaking his head in the affirmative.

"But Duckies don't live in the ocean. Maybe sea gulls or pelicans."

He gets out his Spot Goes to the Beach book, and sure enough, there is a ducky--the blue and pink spotted inner tube that Spot wears. He's so smart that I can hardly stand it sometimes.

"You're right. Duckies. Maybe we'll get a ducky for you to have at the beach."

He grins in excitement.

"Just the three of us. One. Two. Three," I say pointing to each of us in turn. "Because we're a family."

"One, two, pee," he repeats again and again, pointing to each one of us in turn. Proud of his accomplishment. Seemingly, understanding.

Because we're in it together. We're a family.

Bithdays are the Best Days

The grandparents came. The grandparents came. The grandparents had fairly inappropriate conversations about, well, poo. But that's another story entirely. And these are some birthday highlights:

One of the many reasons why I love The Cake Artist's Studio. And the best part? It tastes even better than it looks.

Little Man got a lot of presents. A lot. So many that the slide I bought him wasn't even interesting enough to open. He wasn't complaining. My personal favorite, though, were the little tiny tap shoes.

We had the singing lady come over for a little entertainment. Even the easily-spooked-toddler warmed up. Who wouldn't with a parachute and a bunch of flying balls??

Sometimes there's just too much party to keep your hat on straight.

Happy Birthday

Dear Little Man,

I was reading my old journal the other day, and I realized that I sold my Camaro exactly a year before you were born. I still remember having a minor panic attack as I watched someone drive away in my baby for the last time. I loved that car. Loved it. It wasn't anything special as far as sports cars or even muscle cars go, but it was mine. I bought it when I was 19-a sophomore in college. I went to look at a used Buick and fell in love with a shiny red Chevy instead. It wasn't the kind of car I ever imagined that my 19-year-old self could own at 19. But it was beautiful. The day after I brought it home, I tried looking out a window--you know, just to make sure it was real--but somehow lost my balance and gave myself a black eye. I didn't care- I owned a Camaro. Not my parents, not someone else- me.

I loved driving that car. I loved people looking twice to see who was in it. I loved the way you rode only 6 inches or so from the ground, your legs far out in front of you, as though you were lounging in some sort of souped up La-z-boy. Boys were always impressed with it. Most girls drove around little Cavilers or Toyotas--not me. I would get out of class, exhausted, but my face would light up when I saw her there in the parking lot. And on beautiful spring days, I would roll the window down and turn up my music as I drove from campus to work. I remember one day, in particular-- I was curving down the road that led into campus, the sun was shining (a rarity in Ohio), the sky was blue blue blue, and suddenly Metallica's cover of "Whiskey in the Jar" came on. Perfection.

I always told people that I would keep the car forever. For. Ever. I would shove car seats in the back. I would rent a storage unit to just keep it, so I never had to let it go. I never let anyone else drive it-- until I let your papa drive it. (It was one of the ways I knew he was different- I was that comfortable with him).

On the day we got married I drove myself around all morning, because I wanted to be in my car. It relaxed me to drive it. People thought I was crazy that I wanted to pick them up to go get our hair done, but being in the Camaro made me calm. We drove away in it that night, my skirt fluffed up to my chin in the tiny bucket seats-- I remember that more vividly than the antique limo we paid to have drive us around all day.

When we decided to have a baby, I knew that my Camaro really had to go. I was excited, because I wanted a baby so badly, but I was so sad every time I looked at the For Sale sign we put in its window.

I never expected it to sell so quickly. I thought I would have a month or so left, but then one evening some guy came and took it away. And as I watched him drive off in what was still car, I could hardly breath. Literally. I'm not exaggerating when I say this--I had an unbelievably visceral reaction to saying goodbye to that machine--to that part of myself.

I bought a Toyta.

I couldn't possibly have known that it would be one year to the day that you would come into my life. You could have been born before midnight. Lord knows I was in labor all day--there was really no reason to wait. But you did wait. At 1:15 in the morning you came into this world. On the 25th of April. One year later. It was like you were telling me that something new and better had come along.

When I read that journal entry the other night, I couldn't help but to smile. It's like you knew that you were supposed to be born that day--three weeks ahead of schedule. (Thank you, for that, by the way.)

Part of the pain of letting go of that car was the pain inherent in letting go of a part of yourself--a time in your life. Looking back, that pain doesn't seem misplaced or even overdone. It seems very, very appropriate. And yet, reading over the journal entry, I couldn't help but smile back at my 25 year old self. Because she thought she knew, but couldn't possibly really know that giving up that car meant getting something infinitely, infinitely better.

You.

I used to look longingly at every red camaro that crossed my path. Wondering if that was my car. I don't anymore. Sometime around 1:15 on April 25, 2006 something changed. You changed it.


So I hop into my little black Toyota--the one with only a 4 cylinder engine. And I actually love it- because your car seat is in the back. Because there are wipes in the cup holders and cheerios in the backseat. Because there are little jackets and still the residue from yerps that I can't quite get rid of. Because it's your car--the one that took me to the hospital on the 24th and brought you home on the 26th.

So Happy Birthday Sweet Boy. I knew that having you would change everything. I just don't think I could have ever imagined that they could have been this much better.

Even better than a 19-year old feels with a shiny red Camaro.

Love Always,
Mama

Something About Elephants

Little Man has a favorite animal- baby elephants. It doesn't matter whether the elephant in question is a mama, papa, or an actual baby-- they are all baby elephants in his book. And he loves them. Every. Single. One of them.

I don't know why he likes them better than cats or monkeys or crocodiles. I don't know what makes his little face light up differently when he spots a picture of one somewhere.

I do know, however, that they bring him pure joy.

It's one of my favorite parts about being a mom--that pure, unfiltered joy. When his face lights up and his entire being seems to jump into life because something has unexpectedly pleased him like he never expected, my whole world is right.

We saw lots of elephants this weekend. When the circus comes to town, the elephants camp out in the local university's parking lot. So we went to take a look at them on Friday. And then today, we saw them perform with their circus friends.

Did I mention that Little Man loves his baby elephants?

I know we didn't need to go to the circus again. (we just saw it in NYC less than a month ago.) I know I didn't need to take him over to the elephant area last Friday--he probably could have gotten his fill of them today. But I love seeing his face light up.

He goes all quiet, and grabs my hand tight, and then he realizes just how exciting it all is. And I melt. Absolutely melt. His entire being is suddenly aware that he is in the presence of a real live baby elephant. And really folks, what could possibly be better than that? What could you possibly buy that could give you that much joy? What could you possibly get that might give you even a twinkling of what his little 29-pound frame feels when he gets to see an elephant?


It's the same joy he radiates when he yells, "Watch 'is mama!" and then leaps off a step. (A new trick-- Papa is not amused.) It's the same joy that engulfs his little body when he sees that we've pulled into the park and the playground comes into view, or when he yells for me to swing him higher and then suddenly, giddily exclaims, "weeeeeeeeeeeeee!" To be honest, I didn't know that people really said "weeee" when they did something fun or exciting. And yet, he does it right on cue, without the tiniest bit of forethought or irony.


It's the spontaneity that makes his joy so wonderful. And it's his wonder at so many things that makes his joy so palpable. When I watch him, I can almost remember what it was like to feel that spontaneously joyful. I can almost remember what it was like when everything seemed taller and wider and the whole world seemed like an adventure waiting to happen. And then, I realize, I don't have to remember. It's still like that--and the same joy he gets from baby elephants, I get from him.

Weekend Update, Home Alone Edition

Last weekend, Little Man and I were flying solo. I was, admittedly, worried, but we actually had a pretty good time. Here are some highlights-

Friday Night- Pizza with Little Man's new best pal "Skeeter" over at MGM's. Skeeter is about a year older, so Little Man had a great time following him around and playing with all the new toys that were, as he claimed, obviously "mine." Plus MGM sent us home with a big old box of some great clothes. Apparently, Skeeter has a closet the size of Oprah's, because we barely made a dent.

Saturday- We did some shopping, ate at the golden arches place (which we never normally do) and then went to a local indoor play area. Can I just say that I'm in love?

Ok, so logically I know those ball pit things are the most disgusting, bacteria-laden areas on this planet. The rational mother in me knows that we should just get some of those bio-hazard bags they have at hospitals in the jumbo size and get rid of all of them. But that's what purel is for, right?

Little Man loved it. Hundreds and hundreds of balls to surround him, to jump in, to throw for mama to run after and replace. Who needs Disney World when there are local indoor playgrounds with ball pits? Germs aside, ball pits are one of the quintessential experiences of childhood. Who am I to argue?

Said indoor playground also had games to play and little mechanized rides that you used tokens for. Turns out that Skee-ball lasts a heckofa lot longer when you have trouble getting enough oomph to get that little wooden ball up the ramp. Plus, there's tickets. Little Man loved that the ball games gave us tickets. As soon as one would pop out, he'd rip it off. Suffice it to say that the poor teenage kid working the prize booth wasn't half as amused as I was when I handed her almost 100 single tickets to claim our bouncy ball.

So it was a good weekend. Easier than I thought it would be, but having him all to myself makes me realize even more that I am going to be miserable in Boston for three days without him.

Toddler Nutrition in 10 Easy Steps!

1. Begin when your child is young by painstakingly making all of his or her baby food for them. This may seem like a lot of work right now, but those hours slaving over your food processor and food mill will really pay off when your baby turns into a toddler and has an amazingly complex palate.
2. Once your baby is past pre-ground food, you can start them on a wholesome, nutritious diet that will lead to good eating habits for years to come! Beam as your little one gobbles down everything from pureed peas to Dim Sum in Chinatown.
3. Start your little guy or gal's day with a nutritious breakfast. Some whole-grain cereal, preferably without too much sugar and without high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oil. Offer a side of sliced fruit--bananas have always been a favorite--and a glass of nutritious organic milk.
4. Watch your toddler eat the cereal, ignore the bananas, and ask for "apple juice" instead. Note: you do not actually have any apple juice, you've never had any apple juice. Instead, you must decode whether today "apple juice" means orange juice or the blueberry pomegranate juice with the hidden veggies in it.
5. For lunch, make sure that you offer your toddler a balanced meal--lean proteins like grilled chicken, steamed veggies, some sliced fruit, and either milk or water to drink.
6. Your toddler will, most likely decide that none of this fare is to their liking. They will instead ask for "cheese," "crcker," and "ee-ohs bown. Try as you may, the kid is just not going to eat those cute little peas or bite size carrots. But you don't want him to starve, so dig out the goldfish crackers, some cheese, and--if the pleading doesn't stop--offer him his second bowl of "ee-ohs bowl" for the day.
7. Don't be surprised if he wants "mo ee-ohs bowl." He probably won't stop saying "mo," "mo mo," and "mo peese" until you comply by putting more "ee-ohs" into his book, topping it with some more dok (milk) and refilling the juice glass.
8. Fruit makes a great afternoon snack....but your kid's probably not going to eat it. Nope, he'll either want "ee-ohs bowl" or toast. Or both. Hopefully, you didn't buy the regular size box of oat-flavored ohs. Instead splurge for the gianormous "Honey Nut Scooters" from Sam's....you're gonna need it.
9. Dinner can be a great time to practice the social aspects of eating and to continue teaching your toddler the value of good nutrition. Offer him or her smaller portions of the food you've prepared for the rest of the family. Don't be surprised, however, when a seemingly child friendly meal, like spaghetti and meatballs isn't the hit you expected. Instead, prepare yourself for your child to scream "ee-oli" over and over, because he would prefer the blanched and fairly tasteless Gerber graduates ravioli. Don't worry, he's just being "social."
10. Congratulations on making it through yet another day of feeding your toddler! Your efforts to prepare nutritious, well balanced meals have been met with....err, um... some criticism. Never fear-- there's still the evening snack! As you pour the third bowl of cereal for the day, take some comfort in the fact that it's fortified.

I thought I had until April...

It seems like the terrible twos should start when, well, the child is actually two. Apparently, you do not get a full 24 months to prepare for them. Apparently, you get exactly twenty months and a handful of days. That's it--no more, not less.

Either that or my child has some sort of serious chemical imbalance.

Because the screaming, the random, heart-wrenching screaming and crying and holding onto my leg as I try to walk across the kitchen to make dinner isn't normal for Little Man. But in the last few days he seems to have caught the twoearlyitis disease.

One minute he's fine-- giggles and sweetness and everything wonderful. The next minute, however, he's wailing like a banshee (and not the good kind of banshee), throwing himself around on the flour, and J and I are staring at each other like an alien has just landed in the backyard and we're not sure whether to run or stand and fight. Five minutes or so later, and he's back to smiles and giggles and I can't help but smile when he beams with absolute and very random joy.

It's enough to make anyone crazy. And nothing works. You can't reason with them, you can't talk to them, you can't punish them. He is, quite simply, a raging ball of passion and desire with no direct course and no real way to channel it. So I reach down deep and try to find that inner peace to ride it out. Walking across the kitchen to chop another onion as he clings to my leg, wailing.

Snip, Snip, Snip

Other than wanting a healthy baby, I had only two requests for the powers that be about the baby I was carrying--dark eyes and dark hair. When he was born, I thought I had hit the jackpot. Not only was he perfect in every way (looking back, I realize that was probably the hormones talking) but he had beautiful dark eyes and a head of dark hair. I was so happy; my little Slovak-named baby looked so Italian (that, we learned later, was mostly the jaundice.)

A year and a half later, he still has his beautiful dark brown eyes, but that head of dark hair is long gone. It was somehow (and I really don't have the faintest idea when this happened) replaced by a mop of sunny amber fluff. Sometimes it's almost red. Other times, very blonde.

I've gotten over my disappointment at losing the dark locks and I've grown quite fond of his hair. It's so fine and light-- so unlike my own. I've watched it get longer and longer, finally covering over the bald spot in the back, finally long enough to sweep to the side and tuck behind his ear.

I've been thinking for a while now that it needed a trim, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I made one appointment a few months back and then "forgot" to go. But lately, it's gotten a bit out of hand, and he started to look a bit like Gene Wilder. So today, we finally had it trimmed.

Pre-Snip

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. He wasn't feeling too well, so he just sat there in a bit of a stupor. Didn't move once the whole time. And I managed not to cry as small bits of the hair he's worked so hard to grow floated gently to my knees.

Looking a Bit Out of It-- but Not Unhappy

I think I was most worried that suddenly he wouldn't look like a baby anymore. He doesn't, but then again, he hasn't really looked like a baby for quite some time now. I'm not sure when it happened, that transition from infant to child, but it didn't happen with this haircut. Maybe when he started walking, or started babbling, or started putting together sentences. Maybe it was in the middle of some night, while I was asleep, unable to witness the transformation. Who knows.

Handsome Little Man

The haircut helped the process along, but it certainly didn't start it. It's just one more marker-- one more milestone in that long progression of missed transformations that will, God willing, end in his adulthood. But it's a tangible milestone, and no matter how much he changes, how much that soft downy hair transforms into something unrecognizable, I will always have a few snips of sun-colored strands to remind me of this small, almost intangible moment.

Small Things

There are moments in life that take your breath away. Standing beneath the Sistine Chapel, flying over the Alps, finding out you're (finally!!) pregnant. Those are wonderful moments. They punctuate your life, creating a series of milestone that make your past recognizable as a coherent history.

But there are also moments in life that give you breath--that if you can stop for a moment and grasp them, you realize what it is that keeps you going on a daily basis. You realize why it is that you continue to unconsciously inhale and exhale your daily life. These moments are more rare than those big breathtaking events, because they are small and unconscious, and because they often go unnoticed. When you glimpse one, if you are lucky enough to take it in and realize what you are witnessing, you figure out what it is that holds everything together.

As I sat with Little Man in my grandmother's rocking chair last night, I watched J go about the same nightly ritual that happens every night. He handed me the binky, put down the side of the crib, located the wayward stuffed frog from within the sheets of our "big bed," put down the shade, and then asked if I needed anything else. This ritual started long ago, when I would need to nurse for twenty minutes or more to lull the baby into enough drowsiness that he would finally fall asleep, but now, putting Little Man to bed takes less than five minutes most nights. And yet, J still goes through the steps of making sure that I am ready to put him to bed. This is the kind of husband he is, the kind of father he has become. I watched him last night, making sure that everything was just so, dimming the lights and then finally turning them off. His darkened profile whispered a good night to the toddler in my arms, and Little Man responded by pointing at him-- his special way to tell his papa "I love you." The door shut, and suddenly, sitting in the darkness with the too-big body of my once baby in my lap, I realized suddenly and consciously all that I have.

All that my life has become.

And I took a slow and easy breath.

Why Little Man is Brilliant, Part I

I know that every parent thinks that their child is smarter, more talented, and cuter than pretty much any other child alive. I struggle constantly to recognize this propensity in parenthood, but every time I think I have the megalomania conquered, Little Man does something that puts me clear back to square one.

If it pleases the court, the people now present the following evidence:

Exhibit A-
You know those little pop-up toys that kids play with? You twist a knob or push a button or flip a lever and suddenly a little door pops up and shows the kid an animal of some sort. Great entertainment. Really.
Anyway, we have one and one day Little Man was playing with it. Out of the blue, and without coaching him, I asked which one the elephant was. Sure enough, the little booger pushed the right button. Thinking it was a fluke, I asked where the panda was. Right again. Somehow, he managed to memorize the entire board.

Exhibit B-
J was fastening him into the car seat tonight, and he suddenly exclaimed "elephant" (not quite that eloquently, but still). Look though he might, J couldn't find an elephant anywhere in the car. Then he realized that Little Man was pointing to a puzzle piece-- an upside down puzzle piece. No elephant was visible. He just knew, from the size and shape of the piece, that it was the elephant piece. Even out of context.

Every time I don't expect anything, he comes up with some new trick or piece of knowledge that he just picked up somewhere. Flippin' brilliant-- really.

Staying in the Moment

I just finished writing this rather depressing and sappy post about how I'm all stressed out right now. Then I got to the end of it, realized that writing it was enough, and decided that I couldn't possibly post it.

Instead, I thought I'd give you some random moments of joy in my daily life.
Before we went to DC, I showed Little Man some of the animals we'd be seeing at the zoo on the computer. The National Zoo has this fabulous website where you can watch live webcams of most of their animals. You can usually see an elephant and, almost always, the not-so-baby-anymore baby panda. Little Man loves it. Loves it so much that he wants to see the "eppugees" all of the time. "Eppugee," oddly enough is also his word for apple juice which is his word for any kind of drink. One night we were playing in the living room, and suddenly he took my hand, looked at me earnestly and said, "eppugee?" I asked, "Do you want a drink?" To which her replied solomnly, "ooo....eppugee, kiyyee kaa, oo-oo- ah-ah." Which translates, roughly, to "elephant, kitty cat, and monkey." How can you say no to a request like that??

To distract him from watching the eppugees all of the time--ok, really to entertain myself, because I can only look at the same #@^#^ elephant picture so many times in one week, I tried to find some animals on YouTube. Here's what my search came up with:
This is now Little Man's most favoritest thing to watch. And how can you not love it? Now, instead of eppugees, he wants the bock-bocks.

Oh- and he wants this too:



Can you blame him?

The One about Spanking

I know that some people have reacted and commented on the last post I made-- especially my own guilt about wanting to spank Little Man. I really appreciate those comments, because they always make me reexamine my own beliefs and my own decisions.

I think I need to clarify some of my comments though.

I think that we all have to make our own decisions about parenting and discipline-- only we live with our children. I know, in my own situation, that the moments I've wanted to smack my child doing so would have only made me feel better--and then very soon after, worse.
I know that developmentally, a child Little Man's age isn't really able to control his impulses-- it's why they do things over, and over, and over, and over, and over--until they can control their impulses, I don't think that a little (or big) smack can be effective. That urge to keep trying things is natural, and fear doesn't stop it. I don't think toddlers know what they're feeling half the time. Most of the time tantrums are just an overwhelming rush of desire and angst and fear all rolled into one. They seem so out of control because they, literally, are.

J and I have thought long and hard about the way we want to discipline our children. All I ever knew was discipline that involved a swat on the behind occasionally. I didn't really even buy into the whole time-out thing until somewhat recently. But as I think back over what I remember of the discipline of my childhood--and, really, I wasn't disciplined all that often-- I realize that spanking loses its effectiveness. I can remember the moment when it stopped being effective for me: my dad threatened to hit me for something and I thought to myself, "go ahead...I don't care." Maybe I said it out loud, I don't remember. But he didn't carry through. I don't think I was ever threatened with a spanking again...

The thing about spanking, I think, is that it is founded on fear rather than respect. I don't want my children to fear me. I want their respect, but like anyone else, like anything else, respect is something that has to be earned. I believe that parents earn that respect through consistency, stability, and the unconditional love they give their children. J and I decided that we want to think of discipline as a way to educate and guide. Yes, there will be punishments. Yes, it will drive me batty not to smack him sometimes. But in the end, I know that hitting him will make me feel awful--absolutely awful. I don't want to hurt the thing I love most. So, for me, I want to choose a disciplinary style that I don't feel bad about. I have no qualms whatsoever about sitting him in a corner or boring him silly. That I can do without guilt.

I like to think, in my infinite wisdom, that my instinct not to hit is the right one. But the American Association of Pediatrics backs me up on this. They state in their "Guidance for Effective Discipline":

Despite its common acceptance, and even advocacy

for its use, spanking is a less effective strategy
than time-out or removal of privileges for reducing
undesired behavior in children. Although spanking
may immediately reduce or stop an undesired behavior,
its effectiveness decreases with subsequent
use. The only way to maintain the initial effect of
spanking is to systematically increase the intensity with which it is delivered, which can quickly escalate
into abuse. Thus, at best, spanking is only effective
when used in selective infrequent situations.

They also say
• Spanking children ,18 months of age increases the chance of physical injury, and the child is
unlikely to understand the connection between the behavior and the punishment.
• Although spanking may result in a reaction of shock by the child and cessation of the undesired
behavior, repeated spanking may cause agitated, aggressive behavior in the child that may lead to physical altercation between parent and child.
• Spanking models aggressive behavior as a solution to conflict and has been associated with increased aggression in preschool and school children.
• Spanking and threats of spanking lead to alteredparent–child relationships, making discipline substantially more difficult when physical punishment is no longer an option, such as with adolescents.
• Spanking is no more effective as a long-term strategy than other approaches, and reliance on spanking as a discipline approach makes other discipline strategies less effective to use. Timeout
and positive reinforcement of other behaviors are more difficult to implement and take longer to
become effective when spanking has previously been a primary method of discipline.
• A pattern of spanking may be sustained or increased.Because spanking may provide the parent some relief from anger, the likelihood that the parent will spank the child in the future is increased.

Now I'm a scholar by trade. I know what goes into research and I know that when a study is published by a large scientific organization, I'm going to tend to trust it. I know that a mother's intuition is worth something, but I also know that there are a lot of times that it can be wrong.

Looking back over my childhood, the patterns that the AAPA discuss seem in many ways eerily familiar. I was never abused--never even close to being abused--not even in the same ballpark, but there is a point when physical punishment ceases to be effective. It's usually that same point where your kid has access to a car, access to friends with cars, and access to a whole other realm of dangers. That's not really the time that I want to be figuring out a back up.

I don't doubt that spanking works.... for a while. But then suddenly, your little man is 6'3" and the trusty old belt just doesn't seem like it's gonna do the trick any more. And then what??

For me, for us, spanking is not a discipline I'm willing to fall back on. I want to give my child the gift of a violence-free childhood. They do exist. J had one--and because of it, he doesn't have the slightest impulse to swat little man. For him, hitting seems so foreign, so strange, so unnecessary.

I want it to be unnecessary. We both know that it's much harder not to hit. You do have to repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat, because there is not immediate shock. It takes unending patience (something that I most certainly do not and will not ever have) to commit to this form of child-rearing.

I read once somewhere that Time-outs only work if there are also time-ins. But in a world of rushing around, stressful jobs, and limited patience, putting time in is extraordinarily difficult and exhausting. But it's work I'm willing to do. It's work that I believe needs done.

Do I think that spanking is wrong? Unequivocally, yes. Am I going to judge people who do it? Probably, but I'm sure they also think my time-outs are ridiculous. Such is life. Can I change people's minds about spanking? I don't think so. It's like J says, changing someone's mind about the way they were raised is like trying to change someone's mind about religion.

I'm just thankful for my own conversion.

Sleep Sweet Little Man

Even before Little Man was born, J and I worried about his sleeping.

A month or so before he arrived, we bought The No Cry Sleep solution and read it over and over in the weeks before his birth so we could be ready to gently guide him into sleep. We memorized the routines they suggested. We learned how many hours a newborn needs to sleep each day. We talked about the different methods and decided not to let him "cry it out." Then he arrived, and we soon realized that all our preparations were for naught.

After a day in the hospital for a fairly severe case of jaundice, his sleep schedule was completely turned on its head. We have video of this first month that shows the green digital clock on our stove reading 11:30 and our little alien-eyed bundle wide awake and blinking his interest in the world around him. We would take turns staying up with him until he finally decided at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning that he was ready to turn in for a few hours. We sat and held him during those early morning hours because he didn't want to be put down, and we didn't believe he needed to be put down.

I had no interest in letting my child cry for me. I never believed that I could spoil him so early by holding him too much or comforting him when he needed comfort. The truth was and still is that I wouldn't trade a single hour of the sleep I might have otherwise had for those hours that I had him in my arms. Now, he runs and plays; mama's arms are too constraining for such a inquisitive little soul.

Eventually he came around and realized that it is really better to be awake during the day. I went against most advice when I nursed him to sleep every night. Every single night. That was our time together, when he was warm and snuggly, smelling fresh after his nightly bath rather than like old milk from a day's worth of yerping. In his darkened room, I would rock in my grandmother's chair and sing him two songs every night-- "The Way You Look Tonight" and "Lullaby and Goodnight"--with the lyrics changed to make them his own. He'd drift off in my arms, and I would lay him down for the night.

Then one day we didn't nurse any more. We never had that "one last time" session. The time was right, and he weaned. I worried that he wouldn't let me rock him and sing to him any more, but he seemed to crave than warmth more than the milk I had provided. For the last four months he has climbed into my lap when the lights go out and looked up at me as I sing (poor kid). But lately, he doesn't have time for that. He sits in my lap and wriggles after only a few bars of the first song. What he wants is to be put to bed.

So instead of our longer ritual I now hum a few bars and place him in his crib. He grabs his stuffed frog, turns on his side, and closes his eyes. This is what we wanted from the beginning--a child who was able to fall asleep calmly, happily, on his own. Yet the loss of that time before he sleeps when his hair is still damp and his skin still fresh is almost more difficult than not nursing any more.

This is a small thing compared to what is to come. I realize that there will be more and more times when I have to step back and let him be--this is all part of motherhood. That gradual letting go of the baby you wanted so badly and the gradual acceptance of the boy and then the man you want him to become.

But still, there are things I am not willing to part with--things that I hope he will remember and maybe do for his own children. So every night, I kiss him gently on his cheek and whisper as I shut his door,

"Angels guard your sleep and make your dreams sweet."