I call shennanigans

About nine months ago, someone was waxing poetic to me about the joys of motherhood and how every moment was just flowers and sunshine and she wouldn’t change one little thing about it, not even the stinky diapers, and how she just can’t remember life without her precious wee babe. 

Now, I love being Angel Face’s mom, but she’s only 18 months old, I can certainly remember what it was like before she was born. Before I was pregnant, even. And while being her mom can be a lot of flowers and sunshine, there are certainly days where I feel like someone is pelting me with stones disguised as snowballs. And I wouldn’t be at all upset if I never changed another stinky diaper, especially after last night when it was dark and thick and mysteriously sticky. (Seriously, what are they feeding her at day care?) 

At that time I just nodded my head and thought this woman was crazy. I will always remember what it was like to be spontaneous and carefree and without the responsibility of caring for and raising another person (besides Hubby, of course, who can mostly take care of himself). And the truth is, I do remember, but it’s getting foggier. 

Maybe instead of saying she can’t remember those days, she meant to say she doesn’t want to remember them. I think I will always look back fondly on our pre-Angel Face life, but that doesn’t mean I want to go back there. I get so much pleasure out of watching her drink life in with a mixture of wonderment, frustration and pure joy that while I appreciate “the old days,” I don’t think I’d want to relive them. 

These days – stinky diapers, tantrums, whining, pointing-and-grunting, vomiting, and all – are worth all those other days put together. Especially when these days include moments like little fingers resting on my nose and a little voice saying “mommy nose” and that moment of bliss before she goes to sleep when she raises her tiny soft hand to my face and rubs it back and forth on my cheek. And the belly laughs of a toddler are incomparable, especially when it’s a non-tickle laugh. A pure joy-of-living laugh – those are the best.

my love-hate relationship with feminism

Christina wrote here about staying home after her baby is born later this year. She writes about always knowing she would be home when she started her family and, now that she’s actually faced with it, questioning whether it’s the right choice for her. She links to fellow Nap-towner Frema’s post here about the same topic – staying home after baby. Frema always dreamed she’d stay home, but her reality won’t let that happen. 

Fifteen months after my first day back at work (March 22, 2006, a day that will live in infamy as tearful and difficult), I’m still questioning whether it was the right choice for me. Even though there really was no choice at all – without my income, we wouldn’t be able to support three people. Like Frema’s husband, my Hubby’s college degree and eleven years of experience in “the business” of journalism hasn’t gotten him quite the pay grade that we would need to support our household. I am offended on his behalf. 

 My total abandonment of my principles learned in journalism graduate school to take the first job waved under my nose that had  a 30 percent pay raise means that I am a little bit better off in the salary department – but not much. Because how did I live when I was making $25,000 a year and had six times the minimum student loan payments that I have now? 

We struggled when we were supporting two people and a dog on just Hubby’s income, and that was when we lived in an apartment and didn’t have to pay for things like new air conditioners and new windows and replacement flooring. Or a gas bill.  

I am lucky. I love my job. I have said so many times that if I had had to go back to my old newspaper job after Angel Face was born, a job that made me literally sick to my stomach most mornings, I would have simply refused. Back then, we lived in a smaller city with a lower cost of living and most things overall were cheaper (gas) and we spent less.  

I took the full 12 weeks of maternity leave, all paid (because Angel Face was born at the end of December, I was able to cobble together sick leave and vacation time from TWO years), and I didn’t even think twice about taking it all. It meant a LOT of work just before I gave birth, but I felt my bosses, who were cool about the whole thing, at least to my face, deserved that from me. 

But I still have to tell myself every morning that I’m going to work because it’s the right thing to do for all women, that we can have it all, that I’m working because I want to give my child everything she needs in life (but not everything she wants, because I want to teach her the value of hard work).  

Inside, it reduces me to a quivering mess every time I look in on her in the mornings, asleep in her crib, knowing that I won’t see her again until I pick her up from day care, when she’s tired and cranky and hungry and likely has another scratch or bruise from a squabble over a toy (she’s a warrior, that kid). 

I end up spending about two hours each week day with her. Sometimes those hours are good, sometimes I’m rushing about, trying to fix dinner and straighten up and keep her from drinking toilet water or eating dog food. I value my weekends with her immensely and hate that I’ve had to make (and enforce) a rule that we spend at least one weekend a month at home alone (because otherwise we would be rushing around trying to visit friends and family all the time). 

When I was a kid, until the third grade, I had a stay-at-home mom. I loved coming home for lunch (school was right across the street), baking cookies in the afternoon, having French Toast for breakfast every Tuesday. Once I hit third grade, mom went to work as a teacher’s aide, so she was still home most of the time I was. In high school, she went back to college and earned her CPA license and began to work full time. 

When I was a junior, I had a choral performance and neither of my parents could make it. I was hurt, disappointed and sad. Is that how my little girl is going to feel every day of her life – when the other parents show up to eat lunch with their kids, make mid-day school performances and serve as room mothers? That’s my biggest fear. 

Being a SAHM is such a personal decision, and yet it’s a public one that other mothers have no qualms about criticizing. I am so unsure that I’ve made the right choice and so sensitive about this subject that I take the criticism right to heart. I search my soul (and our bank statements) to see if there’s another way. 

But I’m also afraid of actually having a choice – what if Hubby gets a new job, a great job that pays an incredible amount? What if I actually could stay at home? Would I do it? Would I have the guts to walk away for years and devote myself to my children (because oh, there certainly would be more in this scenario)? The likelihood of this happening is slim, so I don’t devote much time to these thoughts, but I’m afraid of the answers, because what if they aren’t what I think they are?

A zoo? An aquarium? a metro-area neighborhood!

For some reason, this scares the crap out of me.

 And the fact that we saw a giant tortoise in the backyard of one of our neighbor’s homes, just out for a leisurely stroll… in INDIANAPOLIS. I assume it was a pet, but WOW.

 It rained too much for us to camp in the backyard this weekend, so Angel Face will have to do it for real with no prep or training on Saturday.

free to be… a big cry baby

When my sister and I were little kids, we loved to listen to the Marlo Thomas-driven, be-yourself-and-love-yourself, I’m-okay-and-you’re-okay Free to Be… You and Me on our cassette player and totally rock out to Shel Silverstein poems set to music.  

Lisa bought the cd and dvd set for Angel Face for Christmas, and now that she’s singing along to stuff she likes, I thought we’d start listening to it in the car. So this week (when I’ve been handling the dropoffs) we listen to it in the morning. 

It’s absolutely adorable the way Angel Face responds to the kid-centric music. The only other thing she responds to with such verve is the heavy bass line in gangsta rap, but I’ve been admonished not to listen to that with her anymore. 

What I wasn’t counting on was my response. To see her getting such joy out of something I remember loving as a kid (even when my 2^nd grade play was Free to Be… You and Me and I didn’t get a very good part – damn you Mrs. Seals), it honestly brings tears to my eyes every time. Birthing that child has totally ripped out every nerve I have and left them quivering on the surface, just waiting for the errant Gerber commercial or old Full House episode to cause a rush of emotions that can’t help but come out my eyes. 

the great outdoors

As much as I love sports and competition and tease my husband about his girlish fear of all things insect or arachnid, I am a far cry from a tom-boy. 

For example, I hate snakes. Hate seems like such a small word when it comes to how I feel about snakes. If I knew there was a snake in the same BUILDING as me, it’s possible that my heart would stop. Thinking about it right now has brought on the sweats, watery eyes, a gentle trembling and elevated heart rate. It’s beyond a phobia, and I really have no interest in changing that. I think it’s a healthy fear – after all, snakes can kill you. 

I explain all this because Hubby (who often teases me that he will get a real pet snake to keep in the garage – not funny) loves the outdoors. I like being outside, too – with proper attire, sun screen, bug spray, restroom facilities, electricity,  preferably an air-conditioned or heated place to sleep and NO SNAKES WITHIN A FIFTEEN MILE RADIUS. Alas, our annual camping trip with his family does not afford the last three items on that list (and one year didn’t even provide the last FOUR), and I have eight days to prepare myself. I go because I love him. And I can’t stand being called a City Girl. 

It will be Angel Face’s first camping trip, and while I am certain she will probably love it (outside was one of her first words), I think it’s also wise to prepare her for the realities of sleeping under the stars – or in a brand-new three-room family tent that we got for Christmas. So, we’ve planned to set up the tent in the backyard and have a good old-fashioned family sleepover just feet from our deck and the inviting comfort and cool of our air-conditioned bedrooms. 

Of course it’s supposed to rain this weekend. We’ll see how it goes. We have one of those wheeled outdoor fireplace thingies, so we’ll even be able to teach her about the wonder and danger of FIRE. Let’s hope nobody gets disfigured.

dark and dirty secret

When I was 19, I fell in love. His name was Nick, he wore a red plaid flannel shirt over a black t-shirt pretty much every day, and he had mutton chop sideburns. Only six months older than me, he had a five-year-old son with a much older woman. He was dangerous and dirty and, I found out later, mentally unbalanced. He dealt drugs and made me complicit. I didn’t argue – I was in love! 

My parents hated him. My mother forbade me from seeing him. But from more than 125 miles away, what could she really do? He cheated on me; we broke up; I took him back. He was verbally and emotionally abusive and once it became physical. I didn’t leave. I could change him. He had a good heart. I was sure of it.  After two years of jealousy and suspicions and wondering whether or not I could live like this forever, I decided I couldn’t. I threw in the towel. Shockingly, he was devastated. Late that night, he came to the house I shared with two roommates. I was home alone. He pushed his way in, grabbed a knife and began to cut himself repeatedly, in the arm, stabbing his side, professing his love for me.

I remember screaming over and over and pushing him out of the house. He came around to my bedroom window and put his head through the glass. I called the police. He left. There was blood everywhere. I got an emergency restraining order, but when it came time for the real thing, he contested. Eventually it was resolved that he had to stay away from me unless we were in the same classes. He spent time trying to figure out what classes I was in so he could take those and see me without violating the order.

Finally, I graduated and moved away to graduate school. He began sleeping with my best friend. She is no longer in my life. After graduate school, I took my first job at a newspaper in southern Indiana. I was there about six months when I began getting messages on my answering machine, first hang-ups, then one taunting message about how easy it was to find me. I was terrified, again.  But that was the last of it. It’s been nearly eight years since that phone call. I’m married and a mother and at least somewhat successful in my career. I’m happy. So, why do I still think about that night? Why am I still looking over my shoulder? Is it paranoid or smart? Obviously, I made a lot of mistakes in this situation. But I think I learned from them.

First tagging

I got tagged! My sister Erin, who blogs here, tagged me for Seven Random Things while I was on vacation. Sorry it took so long!

1. I love potato chips and Diet Coke. Together. The potato chips must be Frito-Lay plain and the Diet Coke must not be flavored in any way. They changed Lays a little bit in the last couple of years (probably to make them HEALTHIER), and they’re not as good, almost to the point that I prefer the kettle-cooked chips, but not quite. Eating potato chips and drinking a Diet Coke feels like pure heavenly decadence to me.
2. Since I was diagnosed with high blood pressure (what me? Stressed?) six years ago (at age 24), I have only allowed myself one caffeinated beverage a day. Even when I was pregnant and my blood pressure went down and my doctor said to simply “Keep it under a six pack a day,” I didn’t waver. Now I have no dependence on caffeine and can’t drink any past 3 p.m. or I won’t be able to sleep.
3. I used to love Britney Spears. What turned me off? No, it wasn’t the rehab or the head-shaving or the baby-on-the-lap-while-driving. It was the fact that she held up an entire plane of people, demanding to be let off because there were no leather seats. I hate to be delayed when I’m traveling. It’s enough to make me swear off one of my favorite guilty-pleasure-pop-tarts.
4. I’m genuinely shocked that I didn’t suffer from post-partum depression (and I know Hubby is too). I’ve just got the kind of personality that would seem prone to that sort of thing.
5. The back of my hair is very wavy and everything that grows around my face is stick-straight. It annoys the crap out of me because I have to either blow it out every day or wear the front part pulled back in a barrette or rubber band like I did in the eighth grade.
6. When my mother- and sister-in-law threw me a surprise baby shower, I knew about it in advance and toyed with their emotions. I’m not proud of that.
7. I used to think it was horrible to pierce your kid’s ears as infants or toddlers, but I swear to God, if one more person calls her “little man” or “little dude” or “what a handsome boy” I’m going to do it.

protection mode

Mallory’s posts here and here got me thinking about something that happened to a friend of mine recently. She is a beautiful person, inside and out (even if she does like to make fun of wannabe gangstas with grillz in their mouths). She’s a heavier girl, but she is probably the healthiest person I know. She eats the food pyramid, religiously (except on her birthday, when she allows herself a juicy cheeseburger and fries, once a year). Her idea of splurging is “pizza Fridays” when she has a Lean Cuisine microwave pizza. She works out for an hour and a half every single day, including weight training and cardio. But she’s always going to be overweight. 

The governor of our state happens to work out at the same gym she does at the same time every day. He has started this Get Fit campaign, and one day, he saw her on the treadmill and gave her one of his Get Fit t-shirts. She thanked him, wondering what the hell she was going to do with a t-shirt when she had two more miles to go and then deadlifts to do after the treadmill.  But the insult came a few weeks later. Guv saw her on the treadmill again and told her how proud he was of her for sticking with it. Sticking with it? She’s been doing this for YEARS. YEARS. Her feelings were hurt. She wasn’t working out because he inspired her to. She was working out because it made her feel good, feel better about herself. And with his off-handed comment, which I’m sure he didn’t mean to be insulting, he took some of that away from her. And that just sucks.

I need a vacation from my vacation

When I was 23 years old and had been dating Hubby for a little less than a year, we took our first vacation together. Being young and in love (emphasis on the young), we thought it would be fun to take a trip to Disney World.

We gamely packed up my two-door Camry (the Green Hornet!) and drove the 16 hours to central Florida. Upon arriving at the All-Star Sports resort, we discovered that ridiculously long lines began when you check in to your hotel (and never stop). As I waited (and Hubby paced the lobby, desperate for a beer), my ears were assaulted by the piercing screams of a cute little red-headed girl, about three years old.

“Stop It!” she shrieked, over and over and over and over and over, hanging off the velour rope that kept us corralled like cattle to slaughter. Parents? Who knows. No one seemed horrified or embarrassed by her behavior or was doing anything to bring it to a rapid or quiet conclusion. No one was grabbing her by the arm and threatening to take away Mickey privileges. It was irritating. I was annoyed. I questioned the fitness of her parents.

Not any more.

The 30-year-old Michelle has officially been there. She has watched helplessly as her 18-month-old daughter hurled (hot!) macaroni and cheese at perfectly nice-looking strangers the next booth over. She has cringed as the child had a complete meltdown, demanding to be taken to “swim” IMMEDIATELY, NOT AFTER YOU PUT ON MY SWIMSUIT AND SWIM DIAPER AND APPLY SUNSCREEN. RIGHT NOW. She has looked apologetically at strangers after the baby chucked small plastic toys at their heads. And she has cleaned up car-sickness-induced vomit from a car seat in the middle of a national park. And that, folks, isn’t easy.

But, she has also heard shouts of joy from first amusement park rides and first water slides and the first time little toes hit the cold water in the pool at the bottom of a waterfall. She has seen eyes light up at the sight of tadpoles-almost-turned-into-frogs in the wild and at the possibility of another ride on the Ducks. She has laughed as her not-shy-at-all daughter makes her way up next to a bluegrass harmonica and banjo player and dances to the delight of the gathered crowd. She has felt amazement as her little girl gamely repeated “two” after her daddy said “one” before taking a picture of complete strangers in front of the national park sign and learned the words “bear,” “water” and “hat” all in the same day.

Yes, 30-year-old Michelle is exhausted from vacation. But she’s so very, very happy.

My Other babies

I’m a bawling, sniveling mess right now. My husband just called from the road, moments after he dropped our two beloved-if-horribly-neglected beagles off at the kennel before our vacation. He was a mess. His exact words were, “Oh my God, that was worse than dropping off the baby.”

Apparently Otis, the almost-7-year-old who has been with us since he was just 10 weeks old, started shaking and whining and eventually yelping as they led him away. And Lucy, who is five and has been a member of our clan for just more than two years, had to be literally pulled through the hallway. Hubby thought she believed she was being returned to the pound.

It’s hard when you have kids after having pets, I think. I don’t love Otis and Lucy any less than I did before, I just don’t have the time for trips to the dog park and chasing them around the yard like I used to – though the nicer weather means they are getting lots more play time with us in the backyard than they do in winter.

Otis has come with us on every other trip we’ve made to the mountains. It’s almost like he knows what he’s missing. But he doesn’t. He couldn’t. Could he?

As Angel Face gets older, she is starting to really enjoy playing with the dogs. She’ll walk around and Otis will casually follow her, sending her into fits of giggles every time he turns when she does or his tongue darts out to taste her ear. The belly laughs are infectious. I have videotape evidence. And Lucy is very tolerant of toddler pettings and explorations.

I started to cry when Hubby told me about the kennel experience. We try our hardest never to kennel them, taking with us on trips to the parents’ homes and friends’ homes. They haven’t been kenneled since our third wedding anniversary when I was six months pregnant. That’s almost two years ago.

I try to comfort myself with the belief that at least they will have each other. And extra playtime on Friday. So, I’m sorry, Beagles. For everything.