You oughta know I’m perfect

I was 18 years old in 1995 when Alanis Morissette burst onto the pop scene with Jagged Little Pill and its anthem for women scorned everywhere, “You Oughta Know.” I was old enough and experienced enough to appreciate the sentiment, having four whole love affairs already under my belt, three ending badly (i.e. not by my own choice).

But this entry isn’t about that song. When Dave bought me the ipod nano a few months ago (I know, a little late to the 21^st century over here), it gave me an excuse to pull out all my old cds and excitedly dump them all into itunes so I could jam out to Live’s “Pillar of Davidson” followed immediately by Britney Spears “Hit Me, Baby… One More Time.” If that isn’t music nirvana, what is?

And no, I’m not a fan of Nirvana. Though I do own a Hole album. (I know, the kids probably aren’t calling them albums these days and that’s probably why I didn’t get an ipod until February.)

Anyway, one of the Alanis Morissette songs I decided I wanted to jam to every 22 hours when it comes up in the shuffle mode was “Perfect.” If you remember, that song is all about kids whose parents push them too hard to live out their own unfulfilled dreams and be awesome and great at everything and hot damn, that spoke to me at 18.

But when it came on yesterday, 13 years later, I had a completely different perspective. It was more cautionary tale than solidarity song. Because please oh please don’t let me be an overbearing mom who expects too much of her kid and doesn’t really love her the way she is unless she’s perfect.

I don’t think my parents were really like those in the song, though they did have high expectations, especially academically. And I plan to have similar expectations of R  - because if you don’t have high expectations, what’s the alternative? Low expectations? That’s not really an option.

But the moment was really revelatory to me, both on a parenting level and a “passage-of-time” level. Because what’s next? I won’t be dancing in a cage at a nightclub to “Intergalatic” by the Beastie Boys anymore?

Wait. I won’t, will I?

babysitter in a box

 

is it time to consider myself a failure as a parent, now that my child can sing along to the Nick Jr. On Demand theme music?

giving assvice

There are so many things I want to tell my sister right now. There’s the obvious statement that her life is never going to be the same.

But how is it different? How are we changed by parenthood?

There are big things, like having another person to keep alive. But there are also a lot of little things. Like how from now on, if she ever passes a mirror or a window with her son, she won’t look at her own reflection anymore, she’ll look at him.

She will never sleep the sound sleep of the childless ever again, even a year from now when he’s sleeping through the night.

Her life’s choices will be motivated by worry – and sometimes fear – a lot more than ever before. She will never think of herself first again.

She will talk about poop and pee and vomit in normal conversation and never think twice about it. She will also clean up all of the above with equally as little thought.

Her heart will hurt more and rejoice more, and she will feel it more acutely than ever before.

She will be amazed at how proud she can feel over little things like a perfect latch or a tiny gurgle that sounds almost a little bit like “mama.”

She will find herself tearing up at unusual times – family events, preschool programs, kite-flying excursions, Sesame Street Live. I don’t think the pregnancy hormones ever really go away…

Every day will be an adventure. Sometimes it will be challenging, like growing up with a sister just 17 months apart in age. Sometimes it will be wonderful, like growing up with a sister just 17 months apart in age.

If she’s like me, she might sometimes find herself lost, find her mommyhood taking over her life and crowding out her sense of self. But I think sometimes that’s okay. I think giving up parts of our selves temporarily for our children is normal. But I would also tell her to not lose herself completely. Because her son will benefit most from having a happy, whole mom. And she is going to be a wonderful mom.

OMG OMG OMG

Dear Internetz:

My baby sister is in labor RIGHT NOW. I am going to be an aunt for like, real. Not just because I married some guy whose sister already had kids. Though they are pretty cool too.

This will be my REAL BLOOD NEPHEW. And I don’t have any of those (nephews, I mean, blood or otherwise). She says she doesn’t think he’ll come until tomorrow. But I say you never can tell with these things. So I’m pricing flights to Pittsburgh, PA.

And BTW, she voted yesterday through some painful contractions. Way to do her civic duty!

Also, she’s the one on the right above. And if you didn’t know that already, I need to go on a diet.

Hugs and kisses,

Michelle

Color me speechless

So we’ve had an interesting development over at casa di Ledemeon. And I say interesting but I mean startling. And of course, this will only be startling to me, because no one was aware how firmly entrenched my husband was in his “no, no more kids” position just a few short months ago.

That stance softened around Christmastime or so to “no more kids RIGHT NOW.”

Who would have thought that all it took was a low-cut blouse, a slab of steak and half a bottle of Valpolicella to have him saying things like “Go off the pill whenever you want.”? While I know he didn’t MEAN that, it was most likely the wine and the microbrews talking, it is very encouraging.

But it also puts me in a bit of a pickle. Because now I have to decide for REAL when is a good time to get pregnant again. I know that sounds ridiculous, particularly to people who have difficulty conceiving. And who knows, I’m not in my twenties anymore. Maybe I will not get pregnant when Dave looks at me from across the room like I did last time. But since we had absolutely no trouble conceiving R, that’s all I have to go on.

And now I will most likely be one of those women who plans getting pregnant around her vacation. When our parents announced last month that they would be taking all of their children, children-in-law and grandchildren on a most-expenses-paid cruise in January 2009, I think my pregnant sister breathed a sigh of relief that her son will be seven months old then (kids have to be six months old to cruise on this line).

The same cruise line doesn’t allow pregnant women at 24 weeks or more to cruise. Also, I’ve never been on a cruise, but my morning sickness was very severe up until 24 weeks, and the thought of sea sickness AND morning sickness makes me want to wretch just thinking about it. Ha.

So, I guess Dave and I will just have to continue our trend of conceiving our children outside the United States. We did pretty well with the first one. Now comes the trick of making that baby whilst sharing a stateroom with a toddler. Luckily, we will be traveling with plenty of babysitters.

Up to the highest height

Zoot posted today about her experience flying a kite with the kids. Dave, R and I all took her Dora kite (from the Easter bunny) out for a spin on a recently blustery Indiana day. And she’s still talking about it.

I stupidly let a two-year-old hold the kite string all by herself. Dave said, “If she lets go of that, it’s gone.” It was that windy. Seconds after this photo, I was running across the soggy soccer fields, chasing the kite that eventually landed in the middle of a rather touching father-daughter-son soccer game. Awesome.

Daddy is much smarter with the kite string. But not so smart with the sucker. Her hair was soooo sticky after this.

She liked to look at it for awhile. Then she just wanted to go to the playground. Glad I spent $50 on the kite and rush delivery. I mean THE EASTER BUNNY SPENT $50.

Spray, snip, blow dry

You know how sometimes you go into things totally expecting the worst, and then, when the worst doesn’t happen, you are overjoyed? That pretty much describes the hair cut experience.

Dave and I had incredibly low expectations. Every time I had gone at her with the scissors to trim her bangs, or he had tried to calm her bed head in the morning with a spray bottle, or I had offered a blow out before bed, we were met with a universal response: squirming and screaming and general refusal to comply. As you can imagine, we were dreading 4 p.m. last Saturday with a deep, abiding fear.

What happened was pretty much the exact opposite. She played on the slide when we got there, chose to sit in a race car for the cut and sat quietly while stylist Leslie wielded all three things that were previously instruments of torture – spray bottle, scissors, hair dryer – and even smiled prettily for the camera when it was all over. She even let Leslie put a barrette in her hair, which she repeatedly pointed out to me for the rest of the day as “pretty.”

She was so good we immediately took her to a local discount retailer to choose new bedding for her “big girl bed” (a.k.a. the crib with the side taken off). She chose a Dora the Explorer bed set (big surprise) and I picked up some extra sheets – Dora and Diego.

I guess I’ve always known that “kids will surprise you.” And R is well-known for behaving like an angel while out in most public places. But this display… blew my mind. And that’s one thing that has seemed to happen an awful lot since December 28, 2005. She just blows my mind.

Hippie flashdance

I’m going to guess this was 1979, which would make me about the same age R is now. Among the interesting things about this photograph is how remarkably similar my sister (the one on the left) and I look in it. The similarities continued throughout high school, even into college a little bit. Once, when we were trying on clothes at the mall, the salesgirl kept bringing us each others’ items. She thought we were twins. But now, sometimes people don’t even believe that we are sisters.

Second, R looks a lot like me at that age, though it looks like my mom tried to flat iron and then feather my hair. The 70s rocked the house.

Third, I love the blouses. The mother-daughter-matching-vibe doesn’t really jazz me up, but I wish I had that little top for R. She would look adorable, especially with the addition of a cute kerchief for her head. My hippie husband would LOVE it.

Fourth, my knees are all scraped up in this JC Penney special. Why? I don’t know. My mom can’t remember.

Fifth – my mom had highlights? What?

Finally – We are taking R to get her first (and long overdue) haircut tomorrow. Will she allow the stylist near her head? Will she require a parent to hold her? Will she be enchanted and enthralled by the snacks/juice/toys/movies they will offer? Will Mommy cry at the loss of the baby curls and sweet, soft blonde locks? Tune in next week…

Midnight confessions

I know we mothers always complain about how we haven’t had a good night’s sleep since our children were born (and, if we’re being technical, probably well before that). Even when we go away for business or pleasure, we can’t turn that “mommy” thing off – at least I can’t. I wake up in the dead of night, straining to hear the cries of my child, who might need me, somewhere… somewhere!

While I can (and do) complain about the dark circles and endless fatigue with the best of them, I think it’s time – at the risk of losing my martyr card – that I ‘fess up to something.

Sometimes, sometimes I don’t mind it.

Last night, my first night to go to sleep unaided by OTC drugs of some kind since last Thursday, I heard her cries at about 4 a.m. From the guest room next door (still have a seal cough), I crept into her room. Her outstretched arms and soft sniffles were just the kind of comfort I needed in the middle of a sleepless night.

She nuzzled her little face into my neck, eyes still heavy with sleep, and I breathed in her little toddler smell – part lavender, part clean, part her. I wrapped her in her favorite blanket, and suggested we go to the guest room.

First, of course, we both took a trip to the bathroom, where she successfully used the potty and was rewarded with a horsey sticker and a fox sticker, one for each hand.

Then we retreated to what seemed like our own secret, private place, tucked under the covers of the guest room bed. She repeatedly told me how much she loved me, gave me hugs and kisses and said “thank you” after every kiss I gave her. She snuggled her body against mine, and every few minutes would look up at me and smile, touching my face or my hand.

It was amazing. It was perfect. And the fact that it was four in the morning? Actually made it even better.

Sick

You know how when you’re going pee and you start to have a coughing fit and the pee then gets all over your leg?

Yeah. That sucks.

You know when you are sitting in a meeting with several co-workers, all giving you the pity-eyes, and you are sweating profusely and then shivering uncontrollably?

That sucks.

Also, when you have no memory of coughing all through the night (possibly because of a combination of Tylenol PM Cold and Congestion and a Lunesta, just possibly), but you wake up in the guest room (where you spent the night to spare your husband the audible horror of what he has dubbed the ‘seal cough’) with incredibly sore abdominal muscles?

That sucks too.

And when you lie in bed an extra 20 minutes thinking about how you could use just two more hours of sleep, but if you call in sick you will probably regret later… but then you get to work and remember that it’s possible to regret the decision to come to work too?

That sucks a lot.

Just about the only thing that was kind of fun over the last 72 hours (and counting) has been the Tylenol PM-induced dream I had last night, in which I was still in college and crushing on an Air Force Fighter Pilot who looked suspiciously like Michael Johns from American Idol. And I never even thought Michael Johns was all that attractive until this dream. I blame Casey for that.