Babybottoms

In which I say the word "want" way too much

Now and again (or more like every day) I find myself literally freaking out over something that the boy isn't doing yet. It can be any little thing such as crawling, sitting without support or doing algebra problems. Usually these moments are provoked by me observing another baby in the boy's age group who is in fact doing the activity in question. Let's just get it out there that the boy is not setting any records in terms of reaching his developmental milestones. But he is growing and developing and is completely withing the range of normal according to his pediatrician. So I should stop worrying, right? Wrong. Telling me not to worry is like telling Hollywood starlets to stop having babies just because they are the "in" accessory. It's just not happening. And I don't just worry, no that would be too easy. I get so worked up that my mind is running ragged with crazy doom and gloom scenarios a la : he will never drink from a sippy cup, therefore he will never drink from a regular cup, and he'll be asking for his Chardonnay in a Dr. Brown's bottle on dates. Yes, I am that crazy.

When I just had the boy I used to read all the baby books that tell you what your baby should be doing at the moment. Then I stopped, and not a moment too soon as my husband was packing my bag for the insane asylum. And then I joined a playgroup. A stepford playgroup. With stepford babies who reach all their milestones early AND are always perfectly behaved. The boy, not so much. He screams his head off almost every single time. And of course I am convinced that they must think that I am a terrible mother, completely unqualified to care for a child.

And then there are those people. You know the ones that ask you excitedly if your child is "insert milestone here" yet? And when you say  "no, he is not applying to medical school just yet (and yes I would love for the boy to become a doctor, original I am not)" they go all "oh, don't worry he'll get there". Well, if I wasn't worried before, I am now.

It seems that these days if you are not an overachiever, you are an underachiever. And I experienced first hand how mentally draining it is to spend your whole life living up to somebody's expectations. This is not the life that I want for the boy. But I also want him to be the best at everything. So there you have it. I want it all (by the way the number of times I used the word want in this post is truly appalling). It's amazing that being a parent is at once the most selfless and the most selfish thing we do. 

It's my party

When I started this blog I wasn't really putting a label on it. For me it is just another way to express what I am going through at the moment. Sort of like therapy but cheaper. I am not a writer as you probably figured out if you got this far. This is not even my first language so I apologize for the blatant misuse of grammar and punctuation (I am able to avoid spelling errors thanks to spell check, I LOVE spell check). So this blog is not my way of writing the next great American novel or even a mediocre one at that. I suspect that it is so for most of the bloggers I encountered. For many blogging does translate into something more than a hobby. And most of these people are indeed brilliant. Their blogs are as addictive as chocolate and extremely well written.

It came to my attention recently that there's been a whole controversy brewing about blogging and "mommybloggers" in particular. Apparently certain people take offense at mommies chronicling their trials and tribulations on the web for all to see. They ridicule the potty mouthed language and overabundance of poop and boobs entries in these blogs. My take on it is if you don't like it, don't read it. But these "critics" keep on reading and ridiculing. Which I guess is fine. I am a huge fan of ridiculing things myself, so I am not going to judge. Or am I? Who am I kidding, of course I am. You know that saying "if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all"? Definitely not something I subscribe to. So they can have their fun and I will have mine. And it will include tons of poop stories. Because it is MY blog and hello the name is babyBOTTOMS. What do you think comes out of there, french perfume? Although I bet that would pay for all the diapers. Well, this turned into a rant but it's my party and I'll rant if I want to............

The booby trap

Before I even got pregnant I was pretty sure that I was going to breastfeed my baby for at least the first few months. Of course once I actually got pregnant complete strangers felt totally entitled to ask me whether I was planning on breastfeeding. And everyone had an opinion. What surprised me the most is that not everyone thought that it was such a great idea. And the biggest advocate of keeping the boobies baby-free was my mom. I was a breastfed baby. But apparently I was also a little bitch (not surprising as I am now a big one but more on that in another post). I would not latch on, I would not eat, you name it I did it. So my mom didn't have the best breastfeeding experience. Wanting only the best for her daughter as any parent does, she strongly advised me against breastfeeding. And I have to admit that as my due date approached my fear of breastfeeding grew. I went on Google and researched a million and one things that would undoubtedly go wrong when I attempt to breastfeed. I woke up at night to nightmares of breast infections, thrush and starving baby because I WAS DOING IT WRONG. But I still felt that I had to give it a try because I also googled what would happen to my baby if I didn't and that picture wasn't pretty either. According to Google he was going to be sick all the time, have lower IQ and potentially hate me for the rest of his life and have some kind of breast fetish that would impair his ability to develop meaningful relationships with women.

After the boy was born I decided that I would try it and see how it goes. But I have to admit that my heart wasn't in it. If you breastfed a baby you know that it is an agony in the beginning. We had it all. He wouldn't latch, the milk was late coming in and of course there was the nurse from hell at the hospital that took one look at my breast and announced that I was sure to get an infection (which I never did). After we came home from the hospital and the boy was still not latching I decided that I would at least try pumping and giving him breast milk in the bottle. I spent the next few days pumping for hours to get maybe half an ounce if I was lucky. At that point my husband just looked on in fear as I approached the pump that did  in fact look like some medieval torture device. On the fourth night home I wound up in the ER with blood pressure that was going through the roof and was admitted to the hospital and put on magnesium to prevent seizures. Now that was fun. As the blood pressure wasn't going sufficiently down I was told that I would have to go home on blood pressure medication and would probably not be able to breastfeed. And I was relieved! I still feel the guilt over that huge feeling of relief that washed over me when it turned out that I had a legitimate medical reason bot to breastfeed. I could quit and not feel guilty about it, right? Wrong. Not a day goes by that I don't feel guilty about it. And that guilt is not really about not breastfeeding as much as about not wanting to breastfeed, about feeling relieved when told that I couldn't.

The blood pressure issue just resolved on its own in afew days and I could go off the medication. I could breastfeed if I wanted to. Granted, by then the milk was drying up but I could have re-lactated. I didn't. And every time the boy has a cold, is lagging behind on some developmental milestone or being too fussy I start thinking "is this happening because I didn't breastfeed?".

What about you? Did you breastfeed? Did you succeed? Do you feel as a lesser mother if you didn't?

The good, the bad and the ugly - part deux

I apologize to all three of my readers (including myself, my husband and the dog) for being late with this week's edition of The good, the bad and the ugly. But in all fairness I did warn you about my tendency towards procrastination. So here goes.....

The good:

1. The boy is finally feeling better and I sort of have my sanity back (to the extent I ever had it that is).

2. We have a real sharp pointy white tooth. Yay for us!!!!!!

3. It was J's birthday on Thursday and therefore an excuse for us to totally and completely pig out by stretching Thursday into the whole birthday weekend (of course J insists on having an entire birthday month but that's a subject for a whole other post).

The bad:

1. I caught whatever it was that the boy had and now I am sick. Grrr. Haven't I suffered enough.

2. Due to me being sick J and I were not able to make it to the city for the romantic birthday dinner that we planned for him. We still managed to go out locally and since we had the babysitter till ten and were done with dinner at eight we finished off the night by doing food shopping. I was slightly embarrassed carrying grocery bags into the house in front of the babysitter who probably thought that we are majot loosers if grocery shopping is the highlight of our Saturday night.

The ugly:

Due to being sick and having a major sore throat I had to limit my intake of chocolate as it is too hard to swallow. Am now experiencing severe chocolate withdrawal symptoms. I wonder if there's a support group for that. Hmm, I guess it would be called CA - chocoholics anonymous.

Mushy Monday and general suckage

I feel all teary-eyed and sentimental today. Could be the cold that I got from the boy, my first mother's day, the grayness outside or just a case of Monday blahs. This feeling is entirely different from the anger-fueled, resentment-infused helplessness of the past couple of weeks. I feel sad but it's a good sad if that makes any sense.

The boy is still sick and had a huge coughing fit after eating this morning. And then he turned to me and smiled. That made my heart break into a million little pieces.

Well, that didn't last long. I am out of the whole sentimental teary-eyed thing and back to pissedoffville. I've been trying to reach the pediatrician since Saturday due to the increasingly alarming cough that ate my child and I've been getting the message that loosely translates into something like this :" Due to area code changes you need to dial the 10 digit number including the area code". That is what I have been dialing this whole time not to mention for the past six months. After numerous failed attempts I finally called the phone company and their records show that the number has been disconnected but they don't have the order to disconnect the number. So they are investigating and I am dialing frantically every 5 minutes. How is it possible for an entire pediatrician's office that has four doctors and a bunch of nurses not to mention all the administrative staff not to know that their phone is not working. Aren't they at all surprised that there are no calls coming in from hysterical parents of newborns. I know I sure called every 2 seconds when I first brought the boy home.

The good, the bad and the ugly.

I've been thinking that Friday would be a good day to summarize the week. In my usual ambitious manner combined with total disregard of my tendency towards procrastination I will attempt to make this a weekly occurrence. Ladies and gentlemen (or the three people that actually read this blog), I give you The good, the bad and the ugly.

The good:

1. It's mother's day week. Being a mother is finally beginning to pay off. I got a bunch of chocolates and promptly proceeded to eat almost half of them as J (I'll be referring to my husband as J from now on because let's face it I am just too lazy to type the word husband every time and he won't let me use his full name for fear of being abducted and held for ransom) looked on in abject horror.

2. The boy (or lil'J) rolled over from back to front, which could also be a bad thing as he invariably does this in his crib when I put him down for a nap and then screeches until I come and rescue him.

The bad:

1. I am sooo blowing my diet that it's not even funny. I have no self control people. Not a shred. It's gone, together with my pre-pregnancy ass and tight low-rise jeans that will be no more. Oh how I loved those jeans. But I digress. As a result of this lack of willpower the couple of pounds that I need to lose are staying firmly put. Woe is me. Let me go drown my sorrows in some more yummy chocolate.

2. It is also "that time of the month" and it came with a side of extra bitchy this time. I need not say more (although I think J would love to comment).

The ugly:

1. The boy is sick. Read my previous post. There's nothing more to say on the subject. The world has ended and it was an ugly end.

Revenge in a bottle.

The boy has been sick with tonsillitis for the past few days. It is his first time being sick in the six months that he has been alive and he is pissed. I mean PISSED. At the world, at me ,the crib, the car seat, the jumparoo, the high chair, oh the high chair. But the biggest object of his wrath at the moment is the bottle. Oh how he hates it. And he is not shy about showing it. He looks at that bottle with the same look Mike Tyson looks at the opponent's ear and tries to bite it with the same aggression fueled abandon.

Let me tell you that the first few months of the boy's life were very challenging for me. I was certain that I was not cut out for this whole motherhood thing and was even more certain that I would never ever in a million years have another child. The very thought of ever having another child made me shudder with horror. A couple of months later it all started to make more sense. I even started to (gasp) enjoy various motherhood related activities and of course I love the boy. I even started shocking my husband profoundly  by saying things like "wouldn't it be nice to have a girl too". And then the boy got sick and started hating everything, and mostly the woman that brought him into this world of misery and stuffed up noses - me. There have been countless moments in the past couple of days when I had to put him somewhere, anywhere, so that I could go and scream at the top of my lungs to vent my frustration. And then there were frantic calls to the hubby of the "you have to come home now or I will leave this child for the vultures" variety. I think at some point my hubby actually thought there was a chance I might deliver on that promise and tried to patiently talk me off the ledge saying things like :"just let him cry, he is just sick, it'll get better" etc. Now if you are a mother who has been in a similar situation you know that all you want to say to that is "screw you, you don't have to spend your days with the wailing beast". But then the hubby got home. And tried to feed the boy. The fool. The boy would not tolerate such indignity and barely took an ounce if that. Mommy had to come to the rescue and he finally ate for me. This was revenge and validation in one bottle so to speak. Oh the look of frustration on the hubby's face. And all I wanted to say was "how do you feel now, bitch".

A husband in need...

I just called my husband to tell him that I am already over the calorie quota that I allowed myself till dinnertime (let's just say some bagel chips and mini dove bars were involved). He responded by saying that he had had some girl scout cookies someone left in his office. This was exactly the right thing to say because, people, misery loves company and those cookies were a perfect complement to my bagel chips and dove bars.

Now why would I care about calories you might ask. Well, I had a baby 6 and a half months ago and I still have to lose 2 and a half pounds. I know a lot of you will hate me for whining about these 2 and a half pounds because lets face it most moms at this point have bigger fish to fry but these 2 and half pounds have been hanging on with all their might for a while now and I've always had weight obsession issues that never developed into full-blown anorexia because who am I kidding I just don't have that kind of willpower and love chocolate way too much.

My mom thinks that I should never discuss weight issues with my husband as that takes the mystery out of the relationship. But that mystery went out the window with my first fart so I guess compared to that a couple of pounds are small potatoes. I just realized how lucky I am that my mom is not computer savvy enough to ever find this blog. Unlucky for you that means countless musings on various bodily functions.

Well, lets get back to the hubby. The reason I told him about the pig-out is because I knew he would understand. We are both perpetual dieters. Relatively skinny perpetual dieters but still. We love to eat but don't have the metabolisms to support all the eating so we pig out on the weekends and compensate during the week. Our poor child will so not have the right idea about body image issues. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

The boy has awoken from his nap and is not shy about telling me to get my lazy ass over there and rescue him from his crib so this'll be all for now.