reasons i suck and you shouldn’t be my friend

I am one of those people who, if she is only getting a glass of milk or a dab of creamer for her coffee, leaves the refrigerator open while she gets a glass, pours the liquid in question and reseals it. I do it at work too. I do not, however, leave the water running while I brush my teeth. 

I am also one of those people who doesn’t care very much if her house is dusty and needs vacuuming, except when I am lying on the floor and realize how thick the dog hair is. I also don’t care if crap piles up in unorganized piles on our kitchen table and the breakfast bar. But I do regularly clean my kitchen countertops with an antibacterial cleanser, put dishes away out of the dishwasher ASAP and cook dinner almost every day. 

I am one of those people who likes to be right. A lot. But I am learning to be wrong. Sometimes. And, this weekend, when I snapped at my husband for no reason, I stopped and said, “hey, that was mean, I’m sorry.” See, I’m growing as a person. 

I am one of those people who likes to be liked and needs to be needed. I also hate confrontation and make my husband do all the hard stuff, like firing our insurance agent and talking to our neighbors about the lack of upkeep of their lawn and the dead tree that might fall on our house with the next stiff breeze. I didn’t used to be like this – before I was married, I handled my business by myself, all independent-like. I have no excuse now.  

I am one of those people who tries to be nice all the time, but sometimes I think I am secretly snobby and judgmental. But I’m working on it (unless I can think of a good snobby, judgmental joke – then all bets are off). 

I have a lot of faults, but I still like myself pretty well. I’m a good mom, mostly. I am loyal and smart and a very hard worker. I have a decent sense of right and wrong and mostly do the right thing. I love my family, even when I don’t like them very much. I have a heart for animals. As always, I am a work in progress.  

I wish I had better fashion sense, though. I am jealous of the stylish people.

Opposite day

I’m all out of sorts. I feel sad and guilty and tired. See, today was an awesome day at work. We got our “merit increases” today, and mine was even bigger this year than last year, which means that in three years at my current workplace, my salary has increased by nearly $10,000. 

Awesome, right? Totally cool, right? 

I thought so. But, just as picking up a joyful little girl at day care can totally put a bad day in perspective, seeing that same little girl burst into tears and run the other way at the sight of you has a way of evening out any good day too. She screamed when I bent down to pick her up (after chasing her across the room), she screamed when I opened the door to leave, she screamed all the way to the car. She screamed halfway home until I threw the pretzels leftover from my lunch at her in the back seat. 

Okay, I didn’t throw them at her. I handed the bag to her so she could promptly turn it upside down and litter the entire back floorboards with pretzels. And continue to cry. 

Then, Hubby is late coming home and in a foul mood. He doesn’t seem excited about my happy news. It’s good for our whole family, right? So why doesn’t he seem happy? 

Now, after dinner and cleaning up dog crap in the backyard, I can hear the two of them upstairs  - Angel Face is taking her nightly bath, and they are giggling over something. I feel so sad, for some reason. Usually, coming home is like my refuge where I can block out all the lousy office politics and occasional workplace drama. Today, it just feels like I can’t do anything right for the ones I love the most.

The birth story

Beth has been pondering whether or not to have a VBAC or a scheduled C-section here and here, and I have been reading her posts and every single comment with the hope of finding an answer to my own questions on the topic (not that I need to worry about now, or in the foreseeable future, but maybe… some day… I hope). 

People are telling their birth stories, and it occurred to me that perhaps I should write Angel Face’s birth story down so that someday she can know what it was like the day she was born. Angel Face was a Frank breech baby, which we found out at 35 weeks (December 7, 2005, Pearl Harbor Day!). The doctor said Frank breech babies can rarely, if ever, be turned. 

I didn’t realize until that moment how much I was looking forward to vaginal delivery, but also dreading it. While I felt some relief when I was told that “natural birth” would not be possible, it was overwhelmed by an intense disappointment and a feeling like I was a fake woman. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. I still feel like that sometimes, even though I’m still a mother and it doesn’t matter how it happened she was healthy and blah blah blah get-over-it. 

We scheduled the C-section for 11 a.m. on December 28, exactly 38 weeks (tax exemption yea! Close to Christmas boo!). We were instructed to be at the hospital at 9 a.m. That morning we got up and I showered and blew dry my hair and expertly applied more makeup than I do for work (I didn’t want to look pale and disgusting in those recovery room pictures!). I put on my favorite blue turtleneck and khaki maternity pants (so you could see my big fat belly even under the huge tent-like top – it was cute, I don’t care!). I only remember what I was wearing because we have video of it. 

Hubby watched a Grateful Dead concert dvd while I got ready. We snuggled the dogs and apologized for what was about to happen to them. Then, we were off, bag in hand. It was all very calm, with none of the OMG, contraction! OMG water breaking! Excitement that I had always pictured on the drive to the hospital. So I spiced the 15 minute drive up with some Def Leppard. 

We got there, checked in and I signed some papers that said I understand this is major surgery and I could die, please don’t sue us thanks a bunch. Then they took us to a little room, hooked me up to some monitors and discovered (SURPRISE) I was in labor anyway. My contractions were regular and about seven minutes apart. The doctor who was monitoring apparently the whole labor and delivery floor said he wished his pitocin patients were contracting as nicely. I felt proud – and sad, because I totally could handle this labor thing. But I don’t get to. Wahhh. 

Hubby and I waited in that room for a long time – 30 minutes past the scheduled delivery because of an emergency C-section that was taking up the operating room. I had to go to the bathroom, half-naked and across the floor, approximately 27 jillion times, and they always had to clear the area of men before I went. It sucked.  

Finally, I was brought (alone) to the OR. It was cold and sterile and my nurse’s name was Joyce. She was hesitant about letting me hold her hand while they gave me my spinal, but I must have been convincing because she finally let me. And I rewarded her by not squeezing too hard because it didn’t really hurt that much. I laid back down on the super cold table and they strapped my arms out, Jesus style. I started talking to the anesthesiologist and she seemed nice enough but I didn’t know at the time that she was not an APPROVED anesthesiologist and we would be in a three-way battle with the insurance company for months to come over her fees. 

Finally, when I was all situated (and by situated, I mean stark naked and spread-eagled on a metal table in front of three people I’ve never met before), they let Hubby back in the room. He sat by my head and looked really nervous. They started to cut at 11:44 a.m. and by 11:48 a.m., we were parents. Hubby said she was all slimy and screaming when she came out. I remember I didn’t see her and it took forever for them to clean her up, do the APGAR tests, clean me up, sew me up and get me to a gurney. When they finally brought her to me, it was weird. I didn’t feel that instant connection. I felt like somebody just handed me a baby. She was cute and all. I blame a combination of the drugs and the relative ease of that birth for the lack of emotion. 

Eventually, in the recovery room, I began to breast feed her. That helped create the bond that steadily grew over the next few months. Now, she is my world, and I really don’t worry about the fact that it took a little while for us to get used to each other. Both our lives changed dramatically at that point. Her life was certainly shorter, but you cold argue that the change for her was significantly more dramatic. 

I felt so guilty for so long about not feeling the instant bond that you read about or hear about all the time. But now, I know that everybody is different. And there’s nothing wrong with me. And, after all, I am still her mommy.

I can’t imagine where she got this bossiness…

“Mo! Mommy, mo!” 

In normal baby vernacular, you’d think Angel Face was asking me for ‘more’ something-or-another. In our household, the one run by a bossy 20-month-old who has no real plan but sure wants you to follow her down the path of the righteous, ‘mo’ is short for “COME ON!” 

Sometimes, she really wants something from you – she wants you to come dance to “Old MacDonald Had A Farm” as brought to you by the Fridge DJ. Or she wants you to come into the bathroom with her while she closes the door and screams “Bye bye!” at the top of her lungs. Or she simply wants you to walk round with her while she clutches your fingers and pulls you along with what seems like a clear purpose but really is just a ruse to get you to bend to her will. 

This all started late last week, when I arrived at day care to find Angel Face pulling another (much bigger and two months older) little girl around by the wrist, shouting, “Mo! Mo!” Angel Face wanted them to play with the kiddie keyboard. Then they chased each other around the room screaming like six-year-olds at a slumber party. That would drive me out of my mind, but the day care provider was unfazed by the deafeningly shrill shrieks. 

It continued with me on Friday afternoon, when I just wanted to sit down for TWO SECONDS and plan some meals for the next two weeks and maybe write out a grocery list, damn it. Instead, I was doing laps around the island in the kitchen and being pulled into the “fort” under her Disney Princesses table.  

While I huddled there under the pink table, watching Angel Face giggle with delight when my butt kept knocking the table legs, I realized that the grocery list will wait. I can plan meals after bed time. Because this little face won’t be asking me to “mo” forever.

Howdy, ya’ll

I am a person who likes other people to be comfortable. I dislike tension of any kind. I want everyone to be cheery and happy and glad to be around me. This means I often disguise my true feelings and take them out on my wonderful and long-suffering husband, but that’s a story for another day. 

Today’s story is about how my desperate need for others to feel “at home” around me leads me to do some pretty insane things sometimes. Perhaps the most insane thing I do on a fairly regular basis is adopt the speech mannerisms and accents of my fellow conversant. For example: if you and I are in a conversation and you have a
Georgia accent, I will soon begin softening my “r” sounds. If you are from
Boston, I might eliminate the “r” altogether and throw the word “wicked” around a lot more than I do in normal speech. 

This all started when I began my slow migration southward from my hometown in suburban
Chicago. My speech was nasal-y and very, very fast. By the time I ended up in southern Indiana (right on the Ohio River, any further and it would have been Kentucky), people looked at me strangely and repeatedly asked me to slow down. I began to adopt the speech patterns of the people around me. I talked slower. I even said (and still say) ya’ll.  

I found the technique to be very effective, especially in my job as a newspaper reporter. People like people who are like them, they talk more, they open up, they share to someone they see as “their own.” They don’t talk to 22-year-old Chicagoans who can’t even slow down enough to engage in small talk before asking the spelling of their last name. 

When I saw how this made people like me, I started doing it all the time – more often after a few drinks. It all culminated in an embarrassing episode on a bus in
St. Lucia in September 2002. After a long night of drinking, Hubby and I found ourselves seated next to a couple from
Britain. You can guess what came next. I can’t really remember much, except it did involve Hubby giving me the death eye. 

Last week, I was talking with the president of

Clemson
University, who has the most charming accent I’ve ever heard. I enjoyed our conversation very much, even though I was digging my fingernails into the fleshy part of my hand as a friendly reminder to not be an idiot, you are at work and adopting his accent in this situation WOULD BE STUPID. 

I know lots of people have little foibles like this. Help me feel like I’m not such a freak!

PS Angel Face is totally fine – she had a little bug, but by the time we got to the doctor she was running around like a crazy kid and happily pointed out the doctor’s eyes, nose, mouth, hair, ear, teeth and toes. And pointed at Mommy’s chest and said “don’t touch.”

…so much for cleaning the bathrooms

Why don’t I think it’s utterly disgusting when I’m drenched in my child’s vomit? I just take of my clothes, take off her clothes, clean up the mess and go on with life. I don’t even gag. Who would have thought?

Inching along

I think that I might have a bad body image. I have never had an eating disorder or gone on a fad diet or taken diet pills. I know my weight is probably about normal for a person of my height. But I can’t help but focus on things like the cellulite on my thighs and butt and the way I really put the PEAR in pear-shaped. 

I look almost comically disproportionate, what with my tiny A-cup 34-inch bust, my small (though not pre-baby tiny) waist and my child-birthin’ hips. I look at pictures of myself from four years ago, pictures taken at a time when I know I weighed more than I did at any other time than when I was pregnant (or in the year afterward that it took me to lose the baby weight), and I think, “She sure looks thin.”  

The thing is I weighed more then than I do now, by a not insignificant amount, all things considered. It’s just that now, everything is shifted all around. And it makes me sad and miss the girl I used to be. 

In college, I was the kind of girl who could drink a lot of beer and eat burritos for breakfast and Pokey Stix from Gumby’s Pizza at 2 a.m. and never gain an ounce (sadness, the one in college town has closed!). I am not that girl anymore. I count calories. I track fat content. I am conscious of everything I put in my mouth, even if it is the occasional potato chip or super-soft peanut butter cookie from our company caterer.  

I used to work out as regularly as I slept – every day would find me at the gym or hiking in the woods or on my bike or in a belly-dancing or kick-boxing class. The last time I was in the gym was two weeks before morning sickness set in. I did a yoga video throughout my pregnancy (even when I felt crappy) and once I was cleared for exercise, much of Angel Face’s nap time was filled with ten-minute exercise videos on demand during maternity leave. But once I went back to work, it was all over.  

Now, I get up at 5:30 a.m. on your average day in order to allow time for self-preparation and child-preparation before I leave at 7 a.m. for work. I get home from work/day care at about 5:30 every day, cook dinner in hopes of having it on the table by the time Hubby gets home at 6:15. After dinner, I have a precious half hour to 45 minutes to spend with Angel Face before it’s time to give her a bath and put her to bed. Then it’s time for various household chores (last night it was ironing and laundry, tonight I will be cleaning bathrooms, I know you’re super jealous).  

By the time I get to bed, I know I won’t be getting enough sleep. Add to that formula some recent job-related angst, and the time for working out appears to be in the negative. But I take what opportunities I have – we walk the dogs whenever possible (but not in this ungodly heat), we hiked many miles on our vacation and spend leisure time doing other walk-y activities. And that’s just going to have to be enough for now.

gasping

I can’t breathe right now. 

I heard about the bridge collapse this morning, but I didn’t let myself read any stories or look at pictures until my lunch hour. 

It’s really hurting in my chest and the pit of my stomach. 

One of the pictures I saw was a woman holding an infant. My God. What would I do if I were crossing a bridge with my daughter strapped in her carseat and that bridge started to collapse.  How are these families surviving? 

I think about falling (one of my biggest fears after snakes) and turning around to see her face… the feeling of helplessness is incredible. It leaves me literally struggling for a breath. 

Is this what motherhood has done to me?

Everybody’s crazy ’bout a mustached man

So my dad had a mustache for like the first 20 years of my life, but then shaved it off rather abruptly when I was in college. Now, I am trying really hard to remember what he looked like with the mustache and all I can remember are actual photographs I have of the stache. I can’t remember actually looking at my dad or having a conversation with him while he had a mustache. 

Is that weird?