Sunday, October 13, 2013
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Special Moments of the (last few) Week(s)
At bedtime.
Nina: Mom, can you tell me the best story you have in your mouth?
Me: These are our rules. Be kind. Be respectful. Be safe.
Nina: These are our rules. Number 1: Don't get into trouble. Number 2: Don't get hurt. Number 3: Don't walk in circles unless you are with your friends. Number 3: Wait, what number was I on?
Me: Number 4.
Nina: Number 4: You can't break glasses.
I walk away then return several minutes later.
Nina: Number 9: You can't open a curtain unless someone is with you. Number 10: You can't jump on the bed with a drink because you will break it.
Dad and Nina found some ants on the sidewalk eating a mini Ritz peanut butter filled cracker.
Nina: Look, ants! And they're eating an ant birthday pie! They're singing ant Happy Birthday!
Nina: Guess what, I forgot to tell you lasternight Owen peed in the tub! Don't pee in the tub! That's another rule you should write on your list, mom!
Nina: Knock Knock.
Me: Who's there?
Nina: Owen.
Me: Owen who?
Nina: Owen you glad I didn't say Nina?
Nina: Where are we going?
Me: Where are we going?
Nina: Where are we going?
Me: Where are we going?
Nina: Target?
Me: Yes.
Nina: Why didn't you say that?
Me: Because you know the answer.
Nina: No I don't.
Me: Yes you do. You just said it.
Nina: Said what?
Me: Target.
Nina: Target?
Me: Yes.
Nina: The Targ store?
Me: What's the Targ store?
Nina: They sell houses and farms and little dolls, and uh, milk bottoms and green lights...
Nina: Knock knock.
Me: Who's there?
Nina: Owen.
Me: Owen who?
Nina: Owen you glad I didn't say I'm angry because I am angry because I said "Target" but I wanted you to say "Target" when I asked you where we were going.
Me: But you know where we're going.
Nina: Where are we going?
Me: Target!
Nina: Knock knock.
Owen: Dhere?
Nina: Symbol.
Owen: Haaaaaa!
Nina: You're supposed to say "symbol who?" not "haaaaa!"
Nina: Mom, I closed the bathroom door because I don't want Owen to get hurt because I love him now.
Nina: Mom, can you tell me the best story you have in your mouth?
Me: These are our rules. Be kind. Be respectful. Be safe.
Nina: These are our rules. Number 1: Don't get into trouble. Number 2: Don't get hurt. Number 3: Don't walk in circles unless you are with your friends. Number 3: Wait, what number was I on?
Me: Number 4.
Nina: Number 4: You can't break glasses.
I walk away then return several minutes later.
Nina: Number 9: You can't open a curtain unless someone is with you. Number 10: You can't jump on the bed with a drink because you will break it.
Dad and Nina found some ants on the sidewalk eating a mini Ritz peanut butter filled cracker.
Nina: Look, ants! And they're eating an ant birthday pie! They're singing ant Happy Birthday!
Nina: Guess what, I forgot to tell you lasternight Owen peed in the tub! Don't pee in the tub! That's another rule you should write on your list, mom!
Nina: Knock Knock.
Me: Who's there?
Nina: Owen.
Me: Owen who?
Nina: Owen you glad I didn't say Nina?
Nina: Where are we going?
Me: Where are we going?
Nina: Where are we going?
Me: Where are we going?
Nina: Target?
Me: Yes.
Nina: Why didn't you say that?
Me: Because you know the answer.
Nina: No I don't.
Me: Yes you do. You just said it.
Nina: Said what?
Me: Target.
Nina: Target?
Me: Yes.
Nina: The Targ store?
Me: What's the Targ store?
Nina: They sell houses and farms and little dolls, and uh, milk bottoms and green lights...
Nina: Knock knock.
Me: Who's there?
Nina: Owen.
Me: Owen who?
Nina: Owen you glad I didn't say I'm angry because I am angry because I said "Target" but I wanted you to say "Target" when I asked you where we were going.
Me: But you know where we're going.
Nina: Where are we going?
Me: Target!
Nina: Knock knock.
Owen: Dhere?
Nina: Symbol.
Owen: Haaaaaa!
Nina: You're supposed to say "symbol who?" not "haaaaa!"
Nina: Mom, I closed the bathroom door because I don't want Owen to get hurt because I love him now.
Fun on a scale of 0 to 10
Breakdown:
Eating at a grown-up restaurant: Before kids, this was one of my top two favorite things to do, right along with going to the movies. I loved trying new foods, talking with my husband, and having absolutely no dishes to clean afterward. After kids, going out to eat is akin to throwing myself on a grenade. I know the explosion is going to come at some point, so I sacrifice myself to keep the casualties to a minimum. Meals are now spent shaking objects in front of the kids to prevent a meltdown, picking crayons up off the floor, and shoveling my meal down my throat so I at least get to eat some of it before we have to do the walk of shame to the front door with screaming children in tow.
Going to an amusement park: Before kids, it was rides! games! food! fun! Now it's watching the kids have fun while we watch the coasters zoom by without us. If I'm lucky, I get to go on rides like Lucy's Camp Bus and Woodstock's Whirlybirds. So I guess there's that. Bonus is that by the end of the day, everyone is so exhausted that we leave shouting at each other through tears.
Watching TV: I'll watch anything on TV, so aside from the nonstop talking this hasn't changed much.
Cleaning: I never liked cleaning much, but I like a clean house. Using a few precious Saturday morning hours to clean seemed like such a waste, but it had to be done. Morning was whenever I rolled out of bed -- usually around 10 a.m. Once clean, the house would feel pretty sanitary for a good five days or more. Now, cleaning is my worst nightmare. Not only is there no time to knock it all out in a few hours, but immediately after I clean something, it's dirty again. I sweep the floor; Owen finds an old cracker and smashes it onto the hardwood, creating far more crumbs than mathematically possible. I wash the dishes; someone wants a snack, but not that snack, and not on that plate, and a drink, but not in that cup. In fact, I'm pretty sure my house would actually be cleaner if I didn't try to clean. Because if I lock the kids in a room full of toys so I can clean the kitchen, I return to a destroyed room that needs more cleaning.
 |
| Room full of toys? Let's pull every movie and video game out of the entertainment center! Weeee! |
Grocery shopping, alone: Previously one of the most boring items on my to-do list; however, since having children, grocery shopping alone has become a mini-vacation. I sip my Starbucks latte while cruising the isles, making purchasing decisions and comparing prices without interruption. Inwardly, I giggle at all the exasperated moms bribing their children with donuts and M&Ms. Unfortunately, next time I'll be that mom, tossing random items into the cart, trying to prevent their little angry heads from spinning, and rushing to the front to pay before I'm actually done. Of course, I leave without the one thing I went in for.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Who I'm not
I'm not a preschool teacher. The thought of all those kids looking to me for educational guidance for a full 6 hours or more makes my head ache. I'm not a nurse. I can never tell when my child is sick, unless she comes to me and says, "I'm sick" or vomits all over me. Even then, I'm more prone to tell her to suck it up than to recognize she may be legitimately ill. I'm not a camp counselor. I don't enjoy being outdoors unless I'm alone and it's quiet. I don't even really like the sun, with all its bright hotness making me uncomfortable. I'm not an artist, or a musician, or a dance instructor. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. Not good enough, not thoughtful enough, not sensitive enough.
Since having kids, my life has been filled with thoughts of who I'm not instead of thoughts of who I am. I constantly feel the need to be someone else -- a preschool teacher, a nurse, an activities coordinator. I feel the need to change who I am to fit what a mom should be.Things that before gave me a sense of identity -- my love of pop culture, my tendency to get so focused on a project that I can spend hours seeing it through, my daydreaming -- are now glaring personality flaws incompatible with a life where asking for time to do something I enjoy feels selfish and giving someone else responsibility for my children feels like shirking my duties as a mother.
You can say my expectations are too high. That no mom can be everything (except for the overachieving ones on Pinterest). But these expectations come from somewhere. They're all around me, in the television I watch and the magazines I read and the stories I hear from other mothers. Just flip through an issue of Parenting to see why so many moms are anxious. There you'll see five-step, sure-fire solutions to every parenting problem, from tantrums to bedtime to healthy eating, and if you can't do it or don't want to, then it's your own fault. You can choose to succeed, or you can choose to fail.
Choices, choices, everywhere, and yet I feel forced into choosing the path of anxiety and self-doubt. Maybe that's because, as Judith Warner explains in her book, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, the choices we're offered aren't really choices at all.
After my first child was born, I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of loss. I grieved the person I used to be, and struggled to feel like a mother. The person I thought I was -- confident, logical, ambitious, good-humored, and deep-thinking -- was buried by the new person I became -- obsessed with and overwhelmed by the crushing responsibility of motherhood.
Each choice I made seemed Incredibly Important. To work or stay home, to buy jarred baby food or make it myself, to watch TV or read more books, to send my kids to preschool or hire a nanny. Instead of just being me, imperfect but generally happy, I worried that my imperfections would destroy my children. I became an expert on things in which I had no interest, because the general consensus is that there is no excuse for being uninformed. As Warner points out, if we make the right choices our children will be successful, but "if we choose badly, our children will fall prey to countless dangers--from insecure attachment to drugs to kidnapping to a third-rate college. And if this happens, if our children stray from the path toward happiness and success, we will have no one but ourselves to blame."
No pressure or anything.
Do fathers suffer from the same kind of identity crises after having children? Do they feel the constant need to enrich their children's lives at the expense of their own interests and sanity? I asked my husband, who stayed home with our daughter for a year starting when she was 18 months old, and he said at the time he thought she was too young to do any enrichment activities.
Yeah, I almost jumped out of my seat when he said that, too. I actually almost screamed, "How is it you get off not worrying ONE BIT about our child's future success or failure as a human being, and I spend hours, days, weeks, months of my life doing nothing but worrying?"
I would venture a guess that no mom reading this thinks that 18 months is too young to start enrichment. In fact, I stayed home with our daughter from her birth until she was 18 months old, and during that time I joined a moms play group, went to music programs, signed up for babytimes at the library, and bought a book of activities to do at home to improve her motor coordination and verbal skills. I agonized over bottle feeding her (would she ever bond with me?), and feeding her solid foods (would she end up obese because I didn't feed her enough vegetables?), and letting her cry it out versus soothing her to sleep (would she end up emotionally scarred, or too needy?)
Despite being home with dad for a year, my daughter turned out just fine. Well, she's crazy, but I don't think that's his fault. I think that's just because she's 3. She seems smart enough, and she's on target for all of her milestones. So really, shouldn't I consider my job done and call it a day? Shouldn't I stop worrying so much and just accept that they'll probably be fine despite my obvious shortcomings?
And yet... there is still always the list of "who I'm not" lingering in my mind. I'm not selfless enough. I'm not fun enough. I'm not patient enough. I'm not perfect.
To admit it seems like admitting an immense failure. I'm not perfect; I never was. I don't expect my kids to be perfect, and I hope you'll forgive them for talking a bit too loudly, eating too many snacks, and enjoying TV a little too much. Because one day they'll be parents, too, and my heart breaks thinking about them punishing themselves for being who they are, in all their crazy, imperfect, wonderful ways.
Since having kids, my life has been filled with thoughts of who I'm not instead of thoughts of who I am. I constantly feel the need to be someone else -- a preschool teacher, a nurse, an activities coordinator. I feel the need to change who I am to fit what a mom should be.Things that before gave me a sense of identity -- my love of pop culture, my tendency to get so focused on a project that I can spend hours seeing it through, my daydreaming -- are now glaring personality flaws incompatible with a life where asking for time to do something I enjoy feels selfish and giving someone else responsibility for my children feels like shirking my duties as a mother.
You can say my expectations are too high. That no mom can be everything (except for the overachieving ones on Pinterest). But these expectations come from somewhere. They're all around me, in the television I watch and the magazines I read and the stories I hear from other mothers. Just flip through an issue of Parenting to see why so many moms are anxious. There you'll see five-step, sure-fire solutions to every parenting problem, from tantrums to bedtime to healthy eating, and if you can't do it or don't want to, then it's your own fault. You can choose to succeed, or you can choose to fail.
Choices, choices, everywhere, and yet I feel forced into choosing the path of anxiety and self-doubt. Maybe that's because, as Judith Warner explains in her book, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, the choices we're offered aren't really choices at all.
What kind of choice is it really, after all, when motherhood forces you into a delicate balancing act -- not just between work and family, as the equation is typically phrased, but between your premotherhood and postmotherhood identities? What kind of life is it when you have to choose between becoming a mother and remaining yourself?
After my first child was born, I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of loss. I grieved the person I used to be, and struggled to feel like a mother. The person I thought I was -- confident, logical, ambitious, good-humored, and deep-thinking -- was buried by the new person I became -- obsessed with and overwhelmed by the crushing responsibility of motherhood.
Each choice I made seemed Incredibly Important. To work or stay home, to buy jarred baby food or make it myself, to watch TV or read more books, to send my kids to preschool or hire a nanny. Instead of just being me, imperfect but generally happy, I worried that my imperfections would destroy my children. I became an expert on things in which I had no interest, because the general consensus is that there is no excuse for being uninformed. As Warner points out, if we make the right choices our children will be successful, but "if we choose badly, our children will fall prey to countless dangers--from insecure attachment to drugs to kidnapping to a third-rate college. And if this happens, if our children stray from the path toward happiness and success, we will have no one but ourselves to blame."
No pressure or anything.
Do fathers suffer from the same kind of identity crises after having children? Do they feel the constant need to enrich their children's lives at the expense of their own interests and sanity? I asked my husband, who stayed home with our daughter for a year starting when she was 18 months old, and he said at the time he thought she was too young to do any enrichment activities.
Yeah, I almost jumped out of my seat when he said that, too. I actually almost screamed, "How is it you get off not worrying ONE BIT about our child's future success or failure as a human being, and I spend hours, days, weeks, months of my life doing nothing but worrying?"
I would venture a guess that no mom reading this thinks that 18 months is too young to start enrichment. In fact, I stayed home with our daughter from her birth until she was 18 months old, and during that time I joined a moms play group, went to music programs, signed up for babytimes at the library, and bought a book of activities to do at home to improve her motor coordination and verbal skills. I agonized over bottle feeding her (would she ever bond with me?), and feeding her solid foods (would she end up obese because I didn't feed her enough vegetables?), and letting her cry it out versus soothing her to sleep (would she end up emotionally scarred, or too needy?)
Despite being home with dad for a year, my daughter turned out just fine. Well, she's crazy, but I don't think that's his fault. I think that's just because she's 3. She seems smart enough, and she's on target for all of her milestones. So really, shouldn't I consider my job done and call it a day? Shouldn't I stop worrying so much and just accept that they'll probably be fine despite my obvious shortcomings?
And yet... there is still always the list of "who I'm not" lingering in my mind. I'm not selfless enough. I'm not fun enough. I'm not patient enough. I'm not perfect.
To admit it seems like admitting an immense failure. I'm not perfect; I never was. I don't expect my kids to be perfect, and I hope you'll forgive them for talking a bit too loudly, eating too many snacks, and enjoying TV a little too much. Because one day they'll be parents, too, and my heart breaks thinking about them punishing themselves for being who they are, in all their crazy, imperfect, wonderful ways.
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