There’s stuff on my mind but that stuff bores and frustrates me because it is hard to put into words. I know, I know my students would say, “Well, then that’s all the more reason why you should write it.” They give my shit right back to me and that’s why they are all geniuses.
I am neatly avoiding and trying desperately to NOT write what I should write. The stuff that is on my mind, but I fear writing about it because I want to drive the bus of my life and not struggle with the obsessive thoughts I have or repetitive themes that bother me.
Simple put, the things I cannot change. I really don’t want to write about THOSE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE THOSE THINGS I MUST JUST ACCEPT. But yet it is those things that are a.) interesting because they contain drama and trauma b.) I need to continually purge those things. SO I don’t need to write about those things in order to FIGURE THEM OUT. I spent 10 years plus in therapy for that and don’t want to or need to. But, as I tell all my students, writing and journaling about the shit that weighs us down is necessary. It clears the air for more creative and interesting writing. It’s like sloughing off dead skin so you can see and feel the smooth pink stuff underneath.
Look how much time I have spent avoiding writing about what weighs my brain and spirit down.
Dad.
Mother guilt.
Publishing/self publishing
But what’s the feeling? Because it is never the content of our lives that weighs us down. It is the feelings that those feelings bring to us, and you will find that each of the THINGS that troubles you, if you line them up and looked at their invisible form, you will discover that what hovers above them is some pervasive feeling you have struggled with your whole life.
Dad (Thing 1):
The Dad Thing is less now. It’s more about sadness and mourning the loss of the either reality or fantasy about him. At this point, whether or not he was a good father before my parents divorce is irrelevant because I thought he was, and whether I made it up or not, I felt it, and so what I mourn is what I had or thought I had– again, irrelevant. The point was, at the time and for years, I felt I had it. Now, I know I don’t, and it is sad and I miss it. At the same time, you may say, well, get it back, and the truth is, it doesn’t exist any more even though he is alive and he exists, he is not who I thought he was (or who he really was back then, again irrelevant). So, I don’t struggle except when it’s a holiday or birthday and the struggle is, do I or don’t I? I usually do, but each year it gets to be less and less effort. This year, no card. Not even an e-card. Just an email and I forwarded a few pics of the kids. His response: Thanks but my birthday would have been better if I wasn’t so sick with a cold…No mention of how are the kids or Mike? No mention of the fact that it’s been months since we have seen each other. So, you can see this whole thing goes both ways. And, it’s sad because I would love to have a father who showed genuine interest in me and my life and my children. Who wanted to help me make my way through adulthood. But he doesn’t, and, you know, I am not angry just simply sad. And I accept that I am sad and will probably always be about him. How can I not? Everyone wants a dad who loves and cares about them and shows it.
Mother Guilt (THING 2)
I hate writing about this because this one. I do struggle with and it sucks. I work and it’s a fact and if I sit here and explain how and why I work, it just all sounds more like struggle. Struggle to justify my working and really why the f*** do I have to explain and justify it? Why do I feel like I have to? Mother guilt. It just is. I think it’s part of the package no matter who you are and how you mother. It hurts. It hurts when I am working with a client in my home office (by the way, see how I try and soften and justify my working situation. Well, I work from home and am always available, etc, and I only work about 20 hours a week and…) Anyway, when Chels comes home from school, and I am with someone, she knocks on the door. It’s part of the agreement we have about Mommy working. She is allowed to come in after she comes home and say hello, and it kills me because she is sooo good– has never thrown a fit. She comes in, kisses me and says hello to whomever I am with and then frolics back upstairs to Daddy or our babysitter. She is FINE as my husband says don’t worry and, yet, I do. Is she okay? Is she feeling slighted or sad? Does she need me? Blah, blah….Even as I write this, I think, God what the hell am I feeling so sad about? If she weren’t okay, I would drop any and every thing for her and she knows it, so stop. But do you hear the struggle? And that, my friends, is what ruins a perfectly good and happy life. Struggling with your feelings. The tug-of-war that goes on between rational and irrational between the shoulds and what is. It simply sucks. This is not about whether or not I should work. Or whether or not I should do the residency program that starts in January where I will be gone for 9 days, my husband at home. This is about my struggle between the messy reality of motherhood and the perfect images I have in my head. This is about the F****** annoying thing I feel. This knee-jerk need to justify myself, to justify my working, which all creates more struggle.
Self Publishing and Publishing (THING 3)
Oh, I hate this one and feel the urge to refer you to previous blogs that really outline my on going struggle with this whole bullshit world of publishing and I really should phrase this all properly. The truth is what I struggle with is that I have been rejected by the mainstream, traditional publishers and have been embraced by the other world called self-publishing, awards and audience and agents. And, yet, I can’t get there where the elite live, and it’s funny. I am not the elite so it makes sense that the elite world of traditional publishing shrugs me off. But I want to be the nonconformist who CAN conform and benefit from the elite snooty snoots who can bridge the gap between and WHY THE F**** ISN’T IT HAPPENING????????? I got the brains and the talent and the audience. What THE F****?
I don’t need to discuss this bullshit more. You get it.
So I did it. I wrote about the three things on my mind. No, I didn’t go through heavy analysis but that’s boring and circuitous and frustrating cause who gives a shit WHY at this point. It’s more about WHAT IS and, hell, WHAT’S NEXT???????
With Dad and Mother Guilt nothing is next. I will continue to put out minimal effort with him and accept the level of our relationship and not really judge it or exert energy over it and with MOTHER GUILT I will continue to work and let the kinks of motherhood work themselves out.
With publishing….Here’s the thing. I can do something not about it but I can do something to work through it because it is truly the one thing I DON’T ACCEPT. I Don’t ACCEPT that mainstream traditional publishers will not publish me. That I won’t have a fabulous deal and movie rights, etc. I don’t accept it. I just don’t.
So, I did it. I wrote about the things I didn't want to. I am at the end and awaiting for some brilliant conclusion or parting thought but nothing is there.
I'm done.
Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Sunday, November 09, 2008
More Observations from Motherhood
Motherhood continued….
I kept my promise to my students in my current class who asked me to journal about motherhood. The journal is ongoing. Below are more entries continuing from my last blog entry. Most of the time I journal it’s just a quick opportune moment while hanging out with the kids–the baby asleep and the big one playing.
Again, I share with you not in the hopes of advice but in the hopes of connecting and urging you to share your mommyhood stories with me.
October 28, 2008
Now we are going to move on to D Ab,cdef…efg…eeeeee…(silence) Doll….Then we are going to go to E e abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy and z how I know my abcs next time won’t you sing with me….that’s all scribble after tomorrow we are going to do scribble efg…
A POEM AS I WATCH MY 4 YEAR OLD PLAY
We rearranged the playroom
The hum of our new white noise machines
The asthmatic purr of Maisey to the left, on the kitchen floor
The musical tones of my eldest daughter as she plays school and talks to her students they are learning the abcs and “scribble” as she calls cursive
My youngest is quiet…I would say finally but for her taking an hour to settle into bed is good luckily she never blaringly cries just fusses herself to sleep
I finally get that and stop futzing with her every 5 seconds
I a m not a poet and I HATE poetry. Except Emily Dickinson.
“g-g-gi-ff-t “ Now Chels is sounding out words. I can’t see her as we have rearranged the playroom so she can hide in front of the couch and play. But I know she is using her Barbie workbook. The same one she wants to bring to class to teach you all about how to write letters. Yeah, that’s what she thinks teaching “writing” means. : )
I don’t know what to write… Oh, yes, I do. I cried today as I fed Viv her dinner bottle today. It was just before 5, I had finished her bath, and she was howling for her bottle, which I know she probably wanted almost an hour before but had been patient with her mother who wants to try and get a schedule of some kind–
BTW Chels is taking her students to the computer lab now.
Anyway, I was feeding Viv, and she was super focused, not even remotely distracted by my stroking her cheek and kissing her soft, yummy, dumpling forehead–
No cheating! You know what cheating means. You do this…I am not going to do that– Okay?
Anyway¬– sorry, it’s hard not to eavesdrop on Chels.
So, Viv was feeding and I had on the classical station because we discovered over the weekend that Viv loves it, calms right down. The melodies were rushing around me, violin sounds and Viv was half asleep, but sucking steadily. I held her, warm, to me, and I was able to look out the front window and see the peeking blue from the gray clouds and the leaves wiping around from the wind–
There she goes again. It’s been exactly and hour and she is not totally asleep.
–the wind wiping and the musical swirling and Viv sucking, and I started to cry, just thinking…About my friend who’s son has been in the hospital for 2 weeks, with some kind of infection they can’t pin down, swollen eye and rash and morphine drips and no diagnosis. He’s almost 4. Last November a few days before Thanksgiving, she lost her third child, 16 weeks. She’s pregnant now, due in December, and this is what she is facing this year….I thought about it and I can’t say it– the loss of a child–God it is the worst thing in the world, I think. I looked at my healthy baby, and I cried and I thanked God.
Am I capturing motherhood?
October 29, 2008
Last night at 2 am. Chelsea came in. “I had a bad dream!” and not in the matter of fact voice that means she thought she might have a bad dream and preventatively she wants to come in and sleep with us–just in case. No. She was genuinely crying and scared. I brought her back, shushed her, didn’t even ask what the dream was. An hour later she came in and Mike brought her back. A few minutes later, she came back in, and I went back with her and slept in her room.
At some point in this whole thing, I think Mike said to me, “You need to be nicer to her.”
I feel something when Chels is needy…It used to be I would feel an urgency to meet her need. “Mama…I need to do last snuggles…Mama I need you to read me that book…Mama I need you to kiss my boo boo…Mama I need you to read me two bedtime stories…Mama….” I jumped and jumped because I really wanted to. It was healing to soothe her.
The needyness she has now is fickle and evolving. Sometimes it’s “Mama I need you!“ Then, two minutes later it’s “Mama, I can do it myself!” But in the middle of the night she needs me…
At one point, while I was in bed with her, I felt her stir a bit, and I said, “You can hold on to me, honey. That’s why I am here…Later, when I stirred and tried to find my spot, she said, “Mommy you can hold on to me if you want.” And I did.
I tried to explain it to my mother today but she just turned it into a statement about her mothering of me:
Me: I just don’t want to start some kind of thing where I am always sleeping with her-
Her: You know you didn’t sleep with us every night!
I mean come on! Did I even mention my shit? Of course, she was right to be defensive because why am I so crazy about making sure my daughter stays in her bed and I in mine? Because my mother never tried to get me to sleep in my own bed and let the boundary just burst wide. So much so, that I didn’t sleep by myself until I was 9.
I worry that Chels, who has the same anxiety I had as a child,anticipatory. As in, fear of the "What will happen? What could happen?" I don’t want to cater to it. I guess, I want her to be tougher than I was…I am projecting my own shit. I guess I have to get out of the way and watch her and deal with her needs in context to her and her life– not my childhood…
Isn't that the definition of good parenting?
October 30, 2008
Mommy I ate a little bit of it.
Keep eating.
And then you will give it to me?
Do I have to eat all of it? The two carrots? That’s boring. Sitting here and eating carrots– BORING! BORING! BORING!
SHHHH! Do you want to go to your room?
I can eat and still do stuff, Mommy! Mommy? I am not kidding, MOMMY! I AM NOT KIDDING. Crunch. That’s just mean, not letting anyone do something! You can’t just be MEAN! That’s just being mean, Mommy. You’re being mean!!!
Eyebrows raised [mine].
She turns her back to me and then glances over her shoulder.
Ahhh, but she is silent.
She turns again.
I type.
She scratches her neck. CRRRRUUNNCCCHHHHH
She leans her elbow on the table and puts her head in her hand. CRUNCH CRUNCH Shakes her head like, my mother is soo cruel how can she do this.
Silence
No crunching.
I burst out laughing.
What are you laughing about? What are you laughing about? Now she whispers: What are you laughing about? Then, louder: What are you LAUGHING ABOUT MOMMY?”
Us.
Me and you? Oh, my God!
I think we are funny.
She laughs and crunches. I don’t think we are funny.
She pretends to swim on the floor.
Nov 3
Last night before bed I was moaning about period cramps and I turned to Chels and said, “When you are a big girl and you get your period, I want you to know you can talk to me about it.” She cocked her head and said matter-of-factly, “That’s inappropriate to talk about with your child.” Mind you, this is the same child who bends over and looks at her "va jay-jay" as she calls it and says, “Mama, I think I got fuzz in my va jay-jay. Can you get it out?” Talk about inappropriate. She also is the same child who wants to watch me go to the bathroom at all times and I have to politely refuse her, citing “privacy” as a need. So, anyway, I found this all to be very amusing. So I said, “Oh, why is it inappropriate?” She said, “That’s not for a long time. We can talk about it when I am bigger.” I said, "How come you are so smart?" And she said, “Cuz my head is thinking.”
Nov 4
Whole day with both girls. Took both to vote and both to Stop & Shop. Finagled Mom to come over. Outside now typing and watching Chels sulk because she has no one to play with. We did go to the park, and she did play with a little girl she knows from the pool. The neighbors aren’t around so she ‘s bummed. I found out this morning that one of the neighbor’s kids, a 7-year-old boy, was talking about his “ding dong”, a word I never heard Chels use before today, and that he ordered her and his sister, who is Chels’s age, to take off their panties during some kind of game–
So I just went over to the neighbors and said something to the dad, and he was clearly embarrassed, but I think we both agreed that we didn’t want to make a big deal.
Nov 5
God, I think about the stuff that went down when I was a kid. Not really at Chels’ age but a little later. I seem to remember vividly, and not fondly, that a neighbor, when we lived in VA, invited me to come over to his house and then bought me passed his mother who was baking cookies, down to his basement where he stopped, turned the light on, and then in a flash, wiped out his penis. I screamed and turned around and ran up the stairs and out the door. I believe when the little boy wiped it out he beseeched me to “touch it, go ahead and touch it!” Good Lord!
Just thinking about my daughter….AHHHHHHHHH! I don’t want her touching “it” until she’s at least 25!!!!!
Stay tuned for more from my mommy diary!
I kept my promise to my students in my current class who asked me to journal about motherhood. The journal is ongoing. Below are more entries continuing from my last blog entry. Most of the time I journal it’s just a quick opportune moment while hanging out with the kids–the baby asleep and the big one playing.
Again, I share with you not in the hopes of advice but in the hopes of connecting and urging you to share your mommyhood stories with me.
October 28, 2008
Now we are going to move on to D Ab,cdef…efg…eeeeee…(silence) Doll….Then we are going to go to E e abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy and z how I know my abcs next time won’t you sing with me….that’s all scribble after tomorrow we are going to do scribble efg…
A POEM AS I WATCH MY 4 YEAR OLD PLAY
We rearranged the playroom
The hum of our new white noise machines
The asthmatic purr of Maisey to the left, on the kitchen floor
The musical tones of my eldest daughter as she plays school and talks to her students they are learning the abcs and “scribble” as she calls cursive
My youngest is quiet…I would say finally but for her taking an hour to settle into bed is good luckily she never blaringly cries just fusses herself to sleep
I finally get that and stop futzing with her every 5 seconds
I a m not a poet and I HATE poetry. Except Emily Dickinson.
“g-g-gi-ff-t “ Now Chels is sounding out words. I can’t see her as we have rearranged the playroom so she can hide in front of the couch and play. But I know she is using her Barbie workbook. The same one she wants to bring to class to teach you all about how to write letters. Yeah, that’s what she thinks teaching “writing” means. : )
I don’t know what to write… Oh, yes, I do. I cried today as I fed Viv her dinner bottle today. It was just before 5, I had finished her bath, and she was howling for her bottle, which I know she probably wanted almost an hour before but had been patient with her mother who wants to try and get a schedule of some kind–
BTW Chels is taking her students to the computer lab now.
Anyway, I was feeding Viv, and she was super focused, not even remotely distracted by my stroking her cheek and kissing her soft, yummy, dumpling forehead–
No cheating! You know what cheating means. You do this…I am not going to do that– Okay?
Anyway¬– sorry, it’s hard not to eavesdrop on Chels.
So, Viv was feeding and I had on the classical station because we discovered over the weekend that Viv loves it, calms right down. The melodies were rushing around me, violin sounds and Viv was half asleep, but sucking steadily. I held her, warm, to me, and I was able to look out the front window and see the peeking blue from the gray clouds and the leaves wiping around from the wind–
There she goes again. It’s been exactly and hour and she is not totally asleep.
–the wind wiping and the musical swirling and Viv sucking, and I started to cry, just thinking…About my friend who’s son has been in the hospital for 2 weeks, with some kind of infection they can’t pin down, swollen eye and rash and morphine drips and no diagnosis. He’s almost 4. Last November a few days before Thanksgiving, she lost her third child, 16 weeks. She’s pregnant now, due in December, and this is what she is facing this year….I thought about it and I can’t say it– the loss of a child–God it is the worst thing in the world, I think. I looked at my healthy baby, and I cried and I thanked God.
Am I capturing motherhood?
October 29, 2008
Last night at 2 am. Chelsea came in. “I had a bad dream!” and not in the matter of fact voice that means she thought she might have a bad dream and preventatively she wants to come in and sleep with us–just in case. No. She was genuinely crying and scared. I brought her back, shushed her, didn’t even ask what the dream was. An hour later she came in and Mike brought her back. A few minutes later, she came back in, and I went back with her and slept in her room.
At some point in this whole thing, I think Mike said to me, “You need to be nicer to her.”
I feel something when Chels is needy…It used to be I would feel an urgency to meet her need. “Mama…I need to do last snuggles…Mama I need you to read me that book…Mama I need you to kiss my boo boo…Mama I need you to read me two bedtime stories…Mama….” I jumped and jumped because I really wanted to. It was healing to soothe her.
The needyness she has now is fickle and evolving. Sometimes it’s “Mama I need you!“ Then, two minutes later it’s “Mama, I can do it myself!” But in the middle of the night she needs me…
At one point, while I was in bed with her, I felt her stir a bit, and I said, “You can hold on to me, honey. That’s why I am here…Later, when I stirred and tried to find my spot, she said, “Mommy you can hold on to me if you want.” And I did.
I tried to explain it to my mother today but she just turned it into a statement about her mothering of me:
Me: I just don’t want to start some kind of thing where I am always sleeping with her-
Her: You know you didn’t sleep with us every night!
I mean come on! Did I even mention my shit? Of course, she was right to be defensive because why am I so crazy about making sure my daughter stays in her bed and I in mine? Because my mother never tried to get me to sleep in my own bed and let the boundary just burst wide. So much so, that I didn’t sleep by myself until I was 9.
I worry that Chels, who has the same anxiety I had as a child,anticipatory. As in, fear of the "What will happen? What could happen?" I don’t want to cater to it. I guess, I want her to be tougher than I was…I am projecting my own shit. I guess I have to get out of the way and watch her and deal with her needs in context to her and her life– not my childhood…
Isn't that the definition of good parenting?
October 30, 2008
Mommy I ate a little bit of it.
Keep eating.
And then you will give it to me?
Do I have to eat all of it? The two carrots? That’s boring. Sitting here and eating carrots– BORING! BORING! BORING!
SHHHH! Do you want to go to your room?
I can eat and still do stuff, Mommy! Mommy? I am not kidding, MOMMY! I AM NOT KIDDING. Crunch. That’s just mean, not letting anyone do something! You can’t just be MEAN! That’s just being mean, Mommy. You’re being mean!!!
Eyebrows raised [mine].
She turns her back to me and then glances over her shoulder.
Ahhh, but she is silent.
She turns again.
I type.
She scratches her neck. CRRRRUUNNCCCHHHHH
She leans her elbow on the table and puts her head in her hand. CRUNCH CRUNCH Shakes her head like, my mother is soo cruel how can she do this.
Silence
No crunching.
I burst out laughing.
What are you laughing about? What are you laughing about? Now she whispers: What are you laughing about? Then, louder: What are you LAUGHING ABOUT MOMMY?”
Us.
Me and you? Oh, my God!
I think we are funny.
She laughs and crunches. I don’t think we are funny.
She pretends to swim on the floor.
Nov 3
Last night before bed I was moaning about period cramps and I turned to Chels and said, “When you are a big girl and you get your period, I want you to know you can talk to me about it.” She cocked her head and said matter-of-factly, “That’s inappropriate to talk about with your child.” Mind you, this is the same child who bends over and looks at her "va jay-jay" as she calls it and says, “Mama, I think I got fuzz in my va jay-jay. Can you get it out?” Talk about inappropriate. She also is the same child who wants to watch me go to the bathroom at all times and I have to politely refuse her, citing “privacy” as a need. So, anyway, I found this all to be very amusing. So I said, “Oh, why is it inappropriate?” She said, “That’s not for a long time. We can talk about it when I am bigger.” I said, "How come you are so smart?" And she said, “Cuz my head is thinking.”
Nov 4
Whole day with both girls. Took both to vote and both to Stop & Shop. Finagled Mom to come over. Outside now typing and watching Chels sulk because she has no one to play with. We did go to the park, and she did play with a little girl she knows from the pool. The neighbors aren’t around so she ‘s bummed. I found out this morning that one of the neighbor’s kids, a 7-year-old boy, was talking about his “ding dong”, a word I never heard Chels use before today, and that he ordered her and his sister, who is Chels’s age, to take off their panties during some kind of game–
So I just went over to the neighbors and said something to the dad, and he was clearly embarrassed, but I think we both agreed that we didn’t want to make a big deal.
Nov 5
God, I think about the stuff that went down when I was a kid. Not really at Chels’ age but a little later. I seem to remember vividly, and not fondly, that a neighbor, when we lived in VA, invited me to come over to his house and then bought me passed his mother who was baking cookies, down to his basement where he stopped, turned the light on, and then in a flash, wiped out his penis. I screamed and turned around and ran up the stairs and out the door. I believe when the little boy wiped it out he beseeched me to “touch it, go ahead and touch it!” Good Lord!
Just thinking about my daughter….AHHHHHHHHH! I don’t want her touching “it” until she’s at least 25!!!!!
Stay tuned for more from my mommy diary!
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Mommyhood & Writing
Observations From My Mommy Diaries.
Read about my life as a working and writing mommy. It’s raw and unedited…but a little censored!
I am currently teaching a writing workshop and one of the constant homework assignments is 12 pages a week. So, I decided to keep a “mommy” diary during this time. I hope to post daily or weekly excerpts. I am not looking for advice with these posts, just looking to be heard and understood. I also am in the processing of editing and publishing another book. Having a newborn, an almost 5-year-old and a business makes for one TIRED Mommy. Maybe you can relate?
Oct 18
I love Viv. I love her needy, floppy, sturdy, learning, emerging baby body. The way she responds to skin and touch and food and warmth, so natural, so instinctual to lean into my hand when I cup her cheek as she sucks her bottle or lean into my arm as I cradle her head while she feeds. When I hold her upright against me, over my shoulder her head nestles into my neck, her mouth and hands searching for my skin, her little scratchy fingernails gently poking my flesh. I love when she is tired.
October 19
The house is relatively quiet, just the hum of the baby monitor– Viv is asleep for a nap. Chels and Mike are at Sunday school– Well, Chels is and Mike took off to bowl, he’s highly motivated to take her now because the bowling alley is nearby and he can squeeze in a game. Viv is a little off her normal schedule today which produces a small trickle of anxiety. If she is off in her feeds, she won’t have the magic tank up between 5-6 pm so she can get through the night until 5 tomorrow…I just started to write about that more and then felt stalled like why am I writing about that? Who gives a shit? It’s boring. Only I give shit because scheduling my baby is of utmost importance to a working mother, to any mother. I am not a schedule imposer but more of let’s-observe-her-and-see-what-she-does-and-needs and then let’s work around that, but it can’t be the haphazardness of the first 6 weeks to 2 months any more.
Anyway, this truly is only interesting to my fellow mommy friends, and me not even, actually. Just me and my hubby and my other friend with an infant.
The world of having an infant is pretty narrow and small. It’s a world of nesting and wanting to be home, wanting to just be all about baby. Even though I work (from home), the day revolves around baby. I feel drunk with my love for her. I tell myself that she can flail on my bed or in her bouncy while I do stuff, but when she is awake, the brief periods that she is, I want to look into her round gray blue eyes and watch how they really seem to brighten and glow and light up when I talk to her and smile. I want to watch her try and hoist her body over to the side as she learns to roll over. I want to play our little game of holding my fingers and she’s gotta grip as I help her pull herself up to sitting. She looks so proud and happy when we do it. I want to hold her over my shoulder and let her cheek lean into mine so I can feel the soft doughyness, the dumplingness of her pudgy skin. I feel complete when I hold her and when I feed her as she leans into my arm or clutches with her hand onto the fabric of my clothes or rests her hand on my chest as she suckles. I love to run the palm of my hand over her head and feel the puppy softness of her hair and the warmth of her head. When I hold her and play with her I feel her life, her aliveness or growth, and her emerging into full humanness. I feel the same as I did with Chelsea– the same drunk baby love. When I hold her, no one else is around. The house isn’t dirty and there’s no work to be done. It’s just her.
October 21
Hands working. Ehhhlaohhhlaaahmrmmmmhmmmmhmmmmmdribble. Legs kicking. Bahhhhh! Swipe at the rattles attached to the bouncy seat hood. Leg up and a whine that sounds like I want to play but getting tired. Now an eye rub with some talking. Better get her to bed¬–
Put her down. Conflicted mommy-guilt, but, you know, get out of the way and stop making it about you, Hannah, after all, it’s most important to think about the needs of baby and every baby needs to learn how to self soothe and sleep. Sleep alone with minimal binkings and a mother or father coming in every second to rebink and reset. There has to be the time when you say, “Okay, I am willing to step out of the way and deal with the crying.” Guess what? It didn’t last long. I put her down and rebinked her once, telling myself, “Okay after this rebink, you will wait it out, and let her cry in increments of 5 minutes…” Look there it is, she is quiet and dare I say asleep…
Guilt
Worrying about some work stuff (I censored this to protect my clients)…. Chelsea saying she doesn’t like that I work because she wants to be with me all the time oh shit there goes the baby with a whine but it’s not a shrieking terrible cry don’t focus on it Hannah tune it out but I can’t want to sit here and keep typing wait wait Hannah don’t go in there but it’s escalating I need to go in wait wait wait wait the 5 but what if the binks in her neck or the blanky is on her head it’s fine she is fine no no I need to check you can check but then leave leave okay checked and she is fine but fussy and bink is out and I am going to experiment if I tell myself its just an experiment shit she is really crying mad now sort of not terrible but she wants that bink wait wait the 5 you can do it need to practice now she sounds fine shit was she even ready for bed should I have waited whatever I didn’t and now here we are be consistent Hannah that’s what a good parent does shit shit up goddamnit this is soo hard and the other one is yelling at her Barbies and watching Ratatouille keep waiting Hannah it’s an experiment you can do it just wait wait to go in don’t be so three more minutes and I can go in I have to stick with this I just have to I will I want to stop writing and eat my apple now Chels is sort of drowning out the baby which both annoys and relieves me. Shit.
October 22
Committing to writing every day and getting those damned 12 pages–what I have assigned my students in my current class. I have been working on my edits for my new book. I am sick of the querying and rejection process. Trying to make people see how awesome my work is. I kind of feel like f- it. Whatever I do is going to have to be good enough. This editor I am working with thinks I should query MSV, but I think that if someone doesn’t want MSW, than I don’t want to work with him or her anyway, you know?
On another note, I have parted with my agent, and she sent me a lovely email back saying she would certainly be open to working together with me in the future. So I feel good. I wanted to be released so I could have total freedom to figure out what I do want to do with the whole publishing thing. It wasn’t happening with her, and I don’t fault her, frankly. It’s the business, and I need to figure out what I want. If the business doesn’t want me, I need to either find out how to change so it does, or I need to totally let go and go back to just doing my thing, writing and self publishing. I don’t want to waste energy any more on people who just say no, no, no.
I want a book deal. I want it, but not desperately any more. I finally feel calm and okay about it like whether it does or doesn’t, I will be fine. It won’t be this awful huge big deal if it does happen. It will all be okay. I am not desperate. I feel so much more confident and at peace with myself because I no longer compare or feel envious of other published authors– whatever. I am not the same as others and that’s great. Who the hell really is the same or perfect? F- it. I have bigger things. That’s the gift Viv has given me. I don’t have time for self-loathing and pity. I just want to keep trying and putting myself out there, and it’s not for anyone other than me, really.
I am only up to 4 pages. Should I also count all the rewrites and edits from the week?
October 23, 2008
I need to step aside, get out of the way with Viv. She is not sleeping through the night. From 12-4 last night she cried and we went in and rebinked her. I kept saying to Mike, she’s suffering. He was like, “No, she’s not. She needs to learn.” Then I would say, “But we waited until Chels was 7 months to do this. And he was like, “We aren’t waiting that long this time, we are tired and she needs to sleep and learn how to sleep.” He likened it to teaching a child to potty train early; it will take a little longer but we will get there sooner than if we waited. I feel crazy in the middle of the night, and it feels like things have gotten worse since Sunday night when we were doing fine before without feeding her in the middle of the night and only rebinking a few times, but on that night it was like everything changed and we had to give in and fed her. Mike thinks it’s connected to moving her out of the old bassinet, which was way too small for her, and into the new one. Alyssa says growth spurt. I say, “Shit, I don’t know what the f-?” But the bottom line is, I feel responsible. Maybe I am working too much and not observing her enough to learn how to read her properly? I mean right now, she seemed ready for a nap, but then I put her down, and she has cried for the last 15 minutes and is still crying. I just turned on the monitor. I just don’t get it. I feel like it’s me. It’s something I am not doing or not understanding. There she is. Crying. You have no idea the torture it is to hear your child cry. Well, maybe you do. Why is she so sad? Why doesn’t she want to sleep? We were doing so well, and, now, it’s just terrible and the other thing is that when she is out of bed, she is so happy and sweet and smiling. Now I wonder, is she mad? Is she okay? Now she is kind of singing in there. Maybe she’s not tired? I don’t get it. When I went in there before, she was doing her trying-to-sleep-thing by turning her head to the side snuggling the blanket, and I saw some spit up. So I wiped it and then gave her binky and then shot out of there. She is quiet now. It’s only taken over 20 minutes. I have to get out of the way and make this about her. She is working it out. The only way she knows how, which is to cry. I mean she can’t talk, and she can’t even move around that much. Give her a break and yourself. Okay?
I feel like I need a plan. Like I need to reread Dr. Ferber and Weissbluth, but you know, I smell a rat so-to-speak. Am I going back and reading and making a plan in the hopes or in the magical thinking that if I do all that, it will all be better? Because the truth is, this may get worse before better. No matter what plan you do.
My plan is to let her cry it out in increments of 5, 10, 15. That’s my plan
I put Viv down at 1:44 and let her cry for 5 min and then went in and reset and then left and let her fuss for 10…It’s 2:18 and she is quiet. So this stuff really works. I have to trust that I know what I am doing. I did it before, and I can do it again. Crying it out and scheduling feedings is a good thing and baby needs it. So f- myself and I better get a spine.
Later…
Absolutely nothing has worked today. Nothing that normally works has worked and neither has crying it out. I do realize a few things:
I need to get back into going with my gut, intuition, and in-the-moment stuff with her. Maybe we pushed a schedule too hard. Whatever. I am struggling. That’s the bottom line and I want to let go and make space for the pain of not being able to get her and get her soothed and on a schedule so Mike and I and Chels will be happier. I have to make space for the feeling of failure I have. Make space for my pain and frustration and aggravation and sleep deprivation. But, you know, it doesn’t mean anything other than what it is. It doesn’t mean my life is a mess and out of control. It means my newborn is not predictable (what a shock!) and that’s frustrating (what a shock, again!) and also I feel guilty about being frustrated and wanting this all to move faster. You know, I didn’t have these feelings with Chels.
Speaking of… I left the baby alone with Chels upstairs. I need to walk away. It’s terrible I don’t even do this every day… I just went upstairs and she was slumped, drunk, in front of the TV with Chels. Her first time in front of TV. Loving it. I scooped her up and did my favorite hold with her. Cheek to cheek and she puts a hand on either side of my neck and grabs like a cling-on. Now she is down in my study while I type this and I realize I am still in shock that I have another baby and maybe that’s another thing I am feeling. I feel like I am in the center of chaos, and maybe I need to go into it? Now she is snorting cooing. Oops. She just threw up. Marvelous.
Oct 24
Had an epiphany. Spoke to a client whose hubby is a pediatrician. Told her that Viv seems to need to eat again around 10 or 11pm. She said, “Oh, yeah, of course. That’s not the middle of the night.” Yeah! My mommy instincts are still good. So Mike and I agreed to feed her another feed before 12 without a problem. Middle of night feeds would be like between 12 and 4. That’s what we are going to avoid. Perfect! Decided to stick with 3 ounces if she absolutely needs another feed.
But she had another tough evening and I immediately blamed my self. I said, “I am not a good mommy.” Chels was like, “No, no! You are a good mommy. I am not a good big sis.” I jumped right on that and said, “Yes you are! You are great.” She really does imitate everything.
I don’t think I made it to 12 pages, but I did work on my book in addition to this. So, does that count? Of course it does. I’m the teacher!
Stay tuned for more from My Mommy Diaries
Read about my life as a working and writing mommy. It’s raw and unedited…but a little censored!
I am currently teaching a writing workshop and one of the constant homework assignments is 12 pages a week. So, I decided to keep a “mommy” diary during this time. I hope to post daily or weekly excerpts. I am not looking for advice with these posts, just looking to be heard and understood. I also am in the processing of editing and publishing another book. Having a newborn, an almost 5-year-old and a business makes for one TIRED Mommy. Maybe you can relate?
Oct 18
I love Viv. I love her needy, floppy, sturdy, learning, emerging baby body. The way she responds to skin and touch and food and warmth, so natural, so instinctual to lean into my hand when I cup her cheek as she sucks her bottle or lean into my arm as I cradle her head while she feeds. When I hold her upright against me, over my shoulder her head nestles into my neck, her mouth and hands searching for my skin, her little scratchy fingernails gently poking my flesh. I love when she is tired.
October 19
The house is relatively quiet, just the hum of the baby monitor– Viv is asleep for a nap. Chels and Mike are at Sunday school– Well, Chels is and Mike took off to bowl, he’s highly motivated to take her now because the bowling alley is nearby and he can squeeze in a game. Viv is a little off her normal schedule today which produces a small trickle of anxiety. If she is off in her feeds, she won’t have the magic tank up between 5-6 pm so she can get through the night until 5 tomorrow…I just started to write about that more and then felt stalled like why am I writing about that? Who gives a shit? It’s boring. Only I give shit because scheduling my baby is of utmost importance to a working mother, to any mother. I am not a schedule imposer but more of let’s-observe-her-and-see-what-she-does-and-needs and then let’s work around that, but it can’t be the haphazardness of the first 6 weeks to 2 months any more.
Anyway, this truly is only interesting to my fellow mommy friends, and me not even, actually. Just me and my hubby and my other friend with an infant.
The world of having an infant is pretty narrow and small. It’s a world of nesting and wanting to be home, wanting to just be all about baby. Even though I work (from home), the day revolves around baby. I feel drunk with my love for her. I tell myself that she can flail on my bed or in her bouncy while I do stuff, but when she is awake, the brief periods that she is, I want to look into her round gray blue eyes and watch how they really seem to brighten and glow and light up when I talk to her and smile. I want to watch her try and hoist her body over to the side as she learns to roll over. I want to play our little game of holding my fingers and she’s gotta grip as I help her pull herself up to sitting. She looks so proud and happy when we do it. I want to hold her over my shoulder and let her cheek lean into mine so I can feel the soft doughyness, the dumplingness of her pudgy skin. I feel complete when I hold her and when I feed her as she leans into my arm or clutches with her hand onto the fabric of my clothes or rests her hand on my chest as she suckles. I love to run the palm of my hand over her head and feel the puppy softness of her hair and the warmth of her head. When I hold her and play with her I feel her life, her aliveness or growth, and her emerging into full humanness. I feel the same as I did with Chelsea– the same drunk baby love. When I hold her, no one else is around. The house isn’t dirty and there’s no work to be done. It’s just her.
October 21
Hands working. Ehhhlaohhhlaaahmrmmmmhmmmmhmmmmmdribble. Legs kicking. Bahhhhh! Swipe at the rattles attached to the bouncy seat hood. Leg up and a whine that sounds like I want to play but getting tired. Now an eye rub with some talking. Better get her to bed¬–
Put her down. Conflicted mommy-guilt, but, you know, get out of the way and stop making it about you, Hannah, after all, it’s most important to think about the needs of baby and every baby needs to learn how to self soothe and sleep. Sleep alone with minimal binkings and a mother or father coming in every second to rebink and reset. There has to be the time when you say, “Okay, I am willing to step out of the way and deal with the crying.” Guess what? It didn’t last long. I put her down and rebinked her once, telling myself, “Okay after this rebink, you will wait it out, and let her cry in increments of 5 minutes…” Look there it is, she is quiet and dare I say asleep…
Guilt
Worrying about some work stuff (I censored this to protect my clients)…. Chelsea saying she doesn’t like that I work because she wants to be with me all the time oh shit there goes the baby with a whine but it’s not a shrieking terrible cry don’t focus on it Hannah tune it out but I can’t want to sit here and keep typing wait wait Hannah don’t go in there but it’s escalating I need to go in wait wait wait wait the 5 but what if the binks in her neck or the blanky is on her head it’s fine she is fine no no I need to check you can check but then leave leave okay checked and she is fine but fussy and bink is out and I am going to experiment if I tell myself its just an experiment shit she is really crying mad now sort of not terrible but she wants that bink wait wait the 5 you can do it need to practice now she sounds fine shit was she even ready for bed should I have waited whatever I didn’t and now here we are be consistent Hannah that’s what a good parent does shit shit up goddamnit this is soo hard and the other one is yelling at her Barbies and watching Ratatouille keep waiting Hannah it’s an experiment you can do it just wait wait to go in don’t be so three more minutes and I can go in I have to stick with this I just have to I will I want to stop writing and eat my apple now Chels is sort of drowning out the baby which both annoys and relieves me. Shit.
October 22
Committing to writing every day and getting those damned 12 pages–what I have assigned my students in my current class. I have been working on my edits for my new book. I am sick of the querying and rejection process. Trying to make people see how awesome my work is. I kind of feel like f- it. Whatever I do is going to have to be good enough. This editor I am working with thinks I should query MSV, but I think that if someone doesn’t want MSW, than I don’t want to work with him or her anyway, you know?
On another note, I have parted with my agent, and she sent me a lovely email back saying she would certainly be open to working together with me in the future. So I feel good. I wanted to be released so I could have total freedom to figure out what I do want to do with the whole publishing thing. It wasn’t happening with her, and I don’t fault her, frankly. It’s the business, and I need to figure out what I want. If the business doesn’t want me, I need to either find out how to change so it does, or I need to totally let go and go back to just doing my thing, writing and self publishing. I don’t want to waste energy any more on people who just say no, no, no.
I want a book deal. I want it, but not desperately any more. I finally feel calm and okay about it like whether it does or doesn’t, I will be fine. It won’t be this awful huge big deal if it does happen. It will all be okay. I am not desperate. I feel so much more confident and at peace with myself because I no longer compare or feel envious of other published authors– whatever. I am not the same as others and that’s great. Who the hell really is the same or perfect? F- it. I have bigger things. That’s the gift Viv has given me. I don’t have time for self-loathing and pity. I just want to keep trying and putting myself out there, and it’s not for anyone other than me, really.
I am only up to 4 pages. Should I also count all the rewrites and edits from the week?
October 23, 2008
I need to step aside, get out of the way with Viv. She is not sleeping through the night. From 12-4 last night she cried and we went in and rebinked her. I kept saying to Mike, she’s suffering. He was like, “No, she’s not. She needs to learn.” Then I would say, “But we waited until Chels was 7 months to do this. And he was like, “We aren’t waiting that long this time, we are tired and she needs to sleep and learn how to sleep.” He likened it to teaching a child to potty train early; it will take a little longer but we will get there sooner than if we waited. I feel crazy in the middle of the night, and it feels like things have gotten worse since Sunday night when we were doing fine before without feeding her in the middle of the night and only rebinking a few times, but on that night it was like everything changed and we had to give in and fed her. Mike thinks it’s connected to moving her out of the old bassinet, which was way too small for her, and into the new one. Alyssa says growth spurt. I say, “Shit, I don’t know what the f-?” But the bottom line is, I feel responsible. Maybe I am working too much and not observing her enough to learn how to read her properly? I mean right now, she seemed ready for a nap, but then I put her down, and she has cried for the last 15 minutes and is still crying. I just turned on the monitor. I just don’t get it. I feel like it’s me. It’s something I am not doing or not understanding. There she is. Crying. You have no idea the torture it is to hear your child cry. Well, maybe you do. Why is she so sad? Why doesn’t she want to sleep? We were doing so well, and, now, it’s just terrible and the other thing is that when she is out of bed, she is so happy and sweet and smiling. Now I wonder, is she mad? Is she okay? Now she is kind of singing in there. Maybe she’s not tired? I don’t get it. When I went in there before, she was doing her trying-to-sleep-thing by turning her head to the side snuggling the blanket, and I saw some spit up. So I wiped it and then gave her binky and then shot out of there. She is quiet now. It’s only taken over 20 minutes. I have to get out of the way and make this about her. She is working it out. The only way she knows how, which is to cry. I mean she can’t talk, and she can’t even move around that much. Give her a break and yourself. Okay?
I feel like I need a plan. Like I need to reread Dr. Ferber and Weissbluth, but you know, I smell a rat so-to-speak. Am I going back and reading and making a plan in the hopes or in the magical thinking that if I do all that, it will all be better? Because the truth is, this may get worse before better. No matter what plan you do.
My plan is to let her cry it out in increments of 5, 10, 15. That’s my plan
I put Viv down at 1:44 and let her cry for 5 min and then went in and reset and then left and let her fuss for 10…It’s 2:18 and she is quiet. So this stuff really works. I have to trust that I know what I am doing. I did it before, and I can do it again. Crying it out and scheduling feedings is a good thing and baby needs it. So f- myself and I better get a spine.
Later…
Absolutely nothing has worked today. Nothing that normally works has worked and neither has crying it out. I do realize a few things:
I need to get back into going with my gut, intuition, and in-the-moment stuff with her. Maybe we pushed a schedule too hard. Whatever. I am struggling. That’s the bottom line and I want to let go and make space for the pain of not being able to get her and get her soothed and on a schedule so Mike and I and Chels will be happier. I have to make space for the feeling of failure I have. Make space for my pain and frustration and aggravation and sleep deprivation. But, you know, it doesn’t mean anything other than what it is. It doesn’t mean my life is a mess and out of control. It means my newborn is not predictable (what a shock!) and that’s frustrating (what a shock, again!) and also I feel guilty about being frustrated and wanting this all to move faster. You know, I didn’t have these feelings with Chels.
Speaking of… I left the baby alone with Chels upstairs. I need to walk away. It’s terrible I don’t even do this every day… I just went upstairs and she was slumped, drunk, in front of the TV with Chels. Her first time in front of TV. Loving it. I scooped her up and did my favorite hold with her. Cheek to cheek and she puts a hand on either side of my neck and grabs like a cling-on. Now she is down in my study while I type this and I realize I am still in shock that I have another baby and maybe that’s another thing I am feeling. I feel like I am in the center of chaos, and maybe I need to go into it? Now she is snorting cooing. Oops. She just threw up. Marvelous.
Oct 24
Had an epiphany. Spoke to a client whose hubby is a pediatrician. Told her that Viv seems to need to eat again around 10 or 11pm. She said, “Oh, yeah, of course. That’s not the middle of the night.” Yeah! My mommy instincts are still good. So Mike and I agreed to feed her another feed before 12 without a problem. Middle of night feeds would be like between 12 and 4. That’s what we are going to avoid. Perfect! Decided to stick with 3 ounces if she absolutely needs another feed.
But she had another tough evening and I immediately blamed my self. I said, “I am not a good mommy.” Chels was like, “No, no! You are a good mommy. I am not a good big sis.” I jumped right on that and said, “Yes you are! You are great.” She really does imitate everything.
I don’t think I made it to 12 pages, but I did work on my book in addition to this. So, does that count? Of course it does. I’m the teacher!
Stay tuned for more from My Mommy Diaries
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