Pie in the Face

So. I have typed the opening to this post 6 times. Type type type. Delete delete delete. Type type type something else. Delete all that. Times six. So this meta-opening will have to suffice and I will launch into my story in medias res as if Homer himself was guiding my pen.

So. You can think you know someone, but everyone -- everyone -- is full of secrets.

Two nights ago, Little A. had a very rough night. She's stormy these days; whether it's her age or household stresses or fatigue or illness (oh constant germiness of winter, you are tiresome and please fuck off) or likely a combination of all plus a dash of mommy's lack of patience, who knows. Stormy, she is. On this particular night, the storm gathered around a typically contentious subject: the washing of the hairs. This kid HATES to get her hair washed. HATES. As if it were pouring acid, or red-hot meteorites, onto her head. Most days, I just let it go. But this night, I got a bee in my bonnet. Her hair was already mostly wet from "swimming" in the tub. One quick cup of water over the head, some shampoo, and another quick mermaid dunk, and we'd have clean hair for the week! No problem! Let's do it!

NO ACID FIRE HAIL HATE YOU NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOO.

And instead of caving in, I just went ahead and washed her hair. I tried to be gentle and cajoling but at a certain point the shampoo just had to be rinsed out and water got on the face and Oh. The rage. The screaming. The tears. The splashing and kicking and rage. It was completely out of proportion, yes. The howling and hitting would have been more in line with someone, I dunno, running over your family pet, or stealing your beloved.

The tantrum lasted all the way through Skype'd good-nights to Daddy, pajamas on, tooth-brushing. Finally, as it always does, the Incredible Hulk left the room and in its place a tired little girl needed a hug from Mama. I was happy to oblige. Suddenly, the tears started up again, but with a softer, sadder quality. I asked what was the matter. And this kid. This kid who has been nothing but shockingly amazingly wonderful (because she was incredibly attached to me prior to baby's arrival) to her little sister for the 14 months she's been on our planet, reluctantly, painfully said I wish it could be just you and me, Mama, no Baby G. I miss you so much Mama. And she started crying again, probably thinking I would be horrified at this admission, and that she would get in trouble. Guilty sobs.

OHFUCK PARENTING MOMENT. I thought. These are happening more frequently as the girl gets older and more articulate and oh god I need to read more books about kids because I am surely going to mess her up for life. But also, I could just answer honestly and from my heart and maybe that will work?

So that's what I did. I told her that I missed those days, sometimes, too. That it was so nice to have a Baby G in our family and to love but that we sure could use more "just us" times too. That I appreciated her honesty and that I love her so much -- even more when I see what an awesome big sister she is and that my heart grows 10 sizes every day because I am so proud of her. And we had more tears and a big hug and I tucked her into my bed for a special JUST US Mama-and-Little-A sleepover and we all slept like champions and the next morning was the smoothest we've had in weeks.

After the storm.

 Oof. In my excitement over her "good" behavior with her little sister, and my smugness in thinking that *I* had somehow masterfully engineered the smooth transition into big-sisterhood for her, I never once thought she was behaving, well, how she intuited *I* wished she would behave. I am certain her loving behavior towards Baby G is genuine, but she has never once expressed jealousy or acted out, as would be expected and completely normal for the deposed. Not once! Seriously! But those feelings were lurking there under the surface, and burst out in a painful, guilt-ridden confession during a crisis about something else entirely. 

Oh. Ha ha. Um. Yeah. That kinda reminds me of somebody: me. Quick, someone write a book about how to successfully parent me. Here's your working title.

Hey Girl, You Sure Seem OK, but There Really is Something Wrong, Right?:

How to Crack that New-English Veneer and Get to the Healing Truth.

And in the meantime, pass the Pinot. There's a whole lotta winter left to go up in this piece.

xoxo, A

Leaking Out My Ears

There is a moment every evening, after I have (finally) gotten both girls to sleep, after the chores (finally) are done, when the house is quiet. At that moment I think: now is when you can write. WRITE SOMETHING! C'MON JUST DO IT! I cast my ear up for sounds of wakeful babies. Nothing. The silence grows and grows and I find another pot to wash while ideas for posts and more posts and maybe even a little short story starts leaking out my ears and...

...And then I turn on the TV and watch for an hour or two until I decide to go to bed.

Why am I ignoring the internal prompts? I *almost* signed up for a poetry class. I *almost* signed up for a dance performance. But for each moment that presents as ripe for creative expression, something equally urgent insists that I turn my brain off and do nothing. It, frankly, does not feel great. I fear the house is growing stale and unmagical for the girls. I fear my soul has shriveled up into a dried pea. I fear...well...a lot. But mostly I fear that if I stop to examine all of my fears, confront them in writing, I will spontaneously combust. So, you know, no pressure.

Mother's little helper #21 -- matching jammies. 

I think I need more Vitamin D. February is so very...February-ish this year. January was too. We shall carry on, because we do. But goddamn wouldn't it be nice if it was a bit less of a slog. Ugh. My head is still up my butt. And it's dark up in this piece. Help!
 
AND ON THAT CHEERFUL NOTE.

xoxo, A

The New Normal

So, yeah, it's been a loooong time since I've posted up in this joint. Sorry about that, dear Reader. Right around the time of my last post, our family took on a change that seemed like no biggie at first but then, slowly but surely, lead us (me) down a rabbithole of stress and exhaustion and tears. Or maybe it was a coincidence of Seasonal Affective Disorder combined with the New Normal: Part-Time-Single-Work-Outside-the-Home-Motherhood (PTSWOHM?). Everything felt wrong; I had no patience, no reserves. At the end of each day I would lay in bed and stew about all the (my) shouting and impatience and unfairness (to my beautiful children, who deserve better than a shouty, impatient mama, and to me, who deserves better than to feel so lonely and stressed) and even indulge in a little self-loathing directed at my butt and belly because my baby is a year old and why am I still so squishy and what do you mean my baby is a year old time is slipping away and boohoohoo woe is me.

(p.s. The baby's birthday was really nice, you guys. And she is walking! And continues to be just about the funniest, sunniest creature ever. Dedicated post to come.)

And then there was that horrible week in December, when nothing happened to me directly but everything shitty happened to everyone else, and then the following week the world was supposed to end, and I was only slightly relieved when it didn't. Because everything was wrong, and there was nothing I could do.

All around the world, time zone through time zone, the world didn't end. In fact, nothing changed at all. December 21, 2012: a spectacular non-event.

And the next day the sun came up. And the baby stood up in her crib and grinned at me in the half-light. And said mumumumumumumumumMAMA!! And so I thinks to myself I thinks, HEY FUCK THIS FEELING BAD SHIT. Life, as they say, is short. The black hand doesn't discriminate and it won't award misery with longevity. Or pass you by because you are ignoring your talents and pushing away love that is right in front of you. I can't protect myself or my girls from anything through the force of my worry or anxiety. 

So I pulled up my bootstraps (metaphorical and literal) and finally did my Christmas shopping and engineered a lovely holiday. And had a birthday of my own (39??!? seriously how the hell?!!?). And started a new blog with a good friend. I am turning this train around, as slowly and surely as it went off track.

Well. I reserve the right to be impatient and shouty on occasion because 3.5 year olds can be assholes, and I am not keen on having my nipples bitten, but damned if I don't promise to also make my girls laugh hard and sing loud and feel loved every day. And I will use this space to document the bits of our lives so that I can look back and laugh and say those hard years when the girls were little...they had sweetness too. And if I get my head out of my butt for more than a few minutes at a time I can see how I can affect positive change elsewhere.

And it shall be so.

So, what are you guys up to for the New Year?

xoxo, A

Parenting Challenge #323

Curb your instinct to burst into guffaws when the adorable 3.5 year old girl serenades you with a mini-opera with a single lyric: shit.

Foul-mouth'd cherub.

Shit! Shitshit! Shit shit shit shit shit shiiiiiiiiiiiit!

MAMA! MAMA! SHIT! SHIT SHIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!

1 Million, Billion Bonus Points for accomplishing this before you have finished your morning coffee.

(Who else is glad it's Friday?)

xoxo, A

Nines

The baby has been out as long as she was in, 9 months old on Sunday the 2nd. The baby is trying very hard to not be a baby for much longer, what with all the pulling up and climbing stairs and trying to walk and babble-conversing and being almost a year old. The baby needs to STOP because she is my last baby and she is really just the sweetest, silliest, easiest baby ever.

I haven't yet told you her birth story, partly because it was so devoid of drama. The baby has been so agreeable from the moment she was conceived (excepting the 8 days she hung out past her due date, that was kind of a dick move) that I was able to deliver her without any pain medication whatsoever. So, we can do this real quick and move on:


Overdue. Boo.

After trying sex and pineapple and long walks and yoga and spicy foods and pizza and swept membranes and everything that is supposed to get the damn baby out, one Thursday night, a full week past my due date, I felt a contraction. A real, true contraction that made me go oof. But it was only one. And so we put our big girl to bed and went to bed ourselves. I had decided that I would try laboring through a *very* unstudied version of the Bradley method, and somehow lulled myself into such a state of relaxation that I was able to sleep for a few hours at a time between the somewhat more intense contractions, until the next morning. Friday, December 2nd. We woke rested and ready to get the show on the road.

The baby is so considerate that she waited until her big sister was breakfasted and whisked away by my parents for a weekend of ice cream and movies. The in-laws were put on alert to begin their drive up from Connecticut. Tim and I arrived at the hospital in time for a second breakfast*, around 10 am, and so began the long waiting time. Contractions were coming every five minutes or so, and for every one I closed my eyes and breathed slowly and deliberately and went hmmmmmm and was probably pretty weird-looking but it fucking worked. We walked the halls, we did the stupid slow-dance shuffle you see on every birthing video, I used the birthing ball, I draped my upper body over the edge of the bed and watched Food Network (that shit is soothing) while Tim rubbed my back. I had my Pandora station set to Super 70s Soul. It was awesome. We had a break for lunch*.  I went to the bathroom several times. See how boring is this? It was kind of boring, except for the growing realization that we were ABOUT TO HAVE A (NOTHER) BABY HOLY SHIT. But I was trying to keep that voice quiet, because that panicked voice had served me ill at Little A's birth. So with the Giada and the Contessa and the Aretha and the hmmmmm I kept the panic at bay.

My lovely midwife, Jerri, popped in at intervals to check my stats and sit on the couch and just hang out. My even nicer nurse came by more frequently to chat about whatever, our kids, the current show on TV, oh and also monitor my contractions and give me the crazy strong antibiotics I needed for the Group B strep I somehow picked up between pregnancies. At one point the nurse gave me the best shoulder rub I have ever had in my entire life, seriously, I would have paid a hundred dollars for that outside of the hospital, and there I was getting it for free just because I was pushing a baby out. Lucky me! Also, oxytocin is for real. Because:

After said shoulder rub, all of a sudden I got really, really tired. I wanted to lie down on the bed, so I did. And then even more suddenly shit got super real. My contractions became much more intense and frequent. I felt something like a water balloon popping inside my ladyparts and OH IT WAS MY WATER BREAKING SHIT IS GETTING REAL. The thought hey! an epidural would be really nice right about now floated into my mind space, but it was way too late. I was fully dilated and stripped out of my civilian clothes (cause, duh, I never changed until my water broke and ew gross like nearly everything birth-related) and the nurse was put on hurry-up to set up the birthing tray because all of a sudden I wanted to push. I never got that overwhelming sensation with Little A., but here it was: I wanted to push and push and please don't make me stop pushing because I am gonna be a pushing machine. The nurse said I could do little tiny pushes until Jerri came back from another patient. That kind of made me laugh. *Tiny* pushes? Hee. Hee. See how tiny?

And then Jerri came back. Jerri said, do whatever you need to do. Apparently, what I needed to do was grab those bars on the top of the bed (the next day my arms were SO sore, like I did 100 pullups) and go RAAAWWWWRRRR like a crazy thing. And maybe 4 crazy Sheela-na-Gig pushes later, Baby G shot out. Seriously. My nurse said she'd never seen a baby come out that fast. This is not bragging; I literally couldn't have helped myself. Unlike the first birth, I just let my body do its thing. And my body, I guess, can be efficient when my head is not in the way.
 

9 minutes old. Total. Bliss.



But then there was the problem. Baby G had the umbilical cord around her neck, and because my body wanted to shoot the baby out, Jerri didn't have time to gracefully unwrap the cord. So oh, oh, oh. The grey little baby they put on my chest that day at 3:40 pm. I cried and begged her to start crying, too. They took her away to give her oxygen and I cried and begged them to bring her back. Two of the longest minutes of my life passed and finally, finally, I heard her little cry and they brought her back to me and we looked into each other's eyes and good lord you guys. I fell in love so completely. We sat, happily cuddling and nursing and dreamily smelling her head and admiring her fingers and etc., for hours. The oxytocin and other feel-good chemicals didn't leave my system for two weeks.



9 months old. Total. Goof.



Natural childbirth, yo. Thumbs WAY up.

And so, my last baby was born. And it was so amazing, and so banal. And so, we became a family of four.

The end.

The beginning.

xoxo, A



*If you have a baby, do yourself a favor and find a midwife practice. So empowering! I got to decide things! I didn't get poked and prodded against my will every 15 minutes! I got to EAT! YAY MIDWIVES.





Gratutious babytoe photo serves no purpose.



Goin' Round this Roundabout

Well, in case you were wondering, I have found the cure for my recent, ridiculous overabundance of nostalgia: my 20-year high school reunion.

Every day I drive 40 minutes to sit in an office in the basement of the house where I spent all but the earliest of my school years. The house where I woke up at 5 am so I could do my homework and eat breakfast alone and have plenty of time to put a shit ton of mousse in my hair (no big bangs, though. More like a skater boy cut. Yikes). Where I got in a shit ton of trouble because I got caught spending the night at my boyfriend's house instead of at Ingrid's. Where I cheated on said boyfriend and then broke up with him and then got back together and then finally broke up with him for good after my freshman year in college. Where I opened my acceptance (and one most painful rejection) letters from college. Where I sat in a cheap, low fabric chair on the deck, reading Orlando and longing to be grown up and make important decisions for myself.

Little did I know I was making important decisions for myself, and casting my character, if not in stone, than at least in something it would be very, very difficult to modify. I graduated from high school on a hot day in June of 1992 and surprised myself by sobbing at the very lame Project Graduation party afterwards. The summer after we graduated I saw virtually no one but my boyfriend. My best girl friend found alcohol and lost her virginity and hung out with other girls I had known for years but who never quite were my friends. 

The roads leading to this house are all full of nostalgia-bombs too: the road upon which my boyfriend drove us, too fast and blasting Dinosaur Jr., to school every day. The road from the boyfriend's house I drove way too fast so I could beat a ridiculously early curfew. The road that twists up to the old grange hall where I was in my first "professional" theatrical production. The traffic light at the turn I took to my since-Jr-High crush's house on the day when I finally told him how I pined for him all those years I was his friend and confidante about all the other girls he dated (and how much was my life like a John Hughes movie?).

See? Everywhere I go around here, there is always something there to remind me. I have been spending the past year in the near-constant dull ache of nostalgia for days of old. For what was. I guess for what might have been.

And damned if there isn't a more bracing tonic for what might have been than confronting what is right now.

I did not keep in touch with anyone from my class but intermittently with said ex-boyfriend and one other girl who inexplicably asked me to be her bridesmaid. At our 10 year reunion I was newly transplanted to Brooklyn, super shiny and happy and in love with my life. So I went, and drank, and mingled with the barely-changed faces (the bride had gained weight but still looked and seemed essentially the same). Then ten more years somehow flew by and I moved back to Maine and bought a house with a boy and had two babies and wait how the fuck did ten MORE years go by?

And although I knew I would not know anyone, not really, at the reunion, I sure did have to go. My parents were lined up to babysit and I got my biennial haircut then nervously and uncharacteristically tried on several different outfits.

And thus coiffed and dressed we arrived at this ugly little cheap hotel event space. And BOOM went my nostalgia. All those familiar faces, grown rounder and softer. Everyone's voice sounds different than I remember. There were husbands and wives and pictures of children. No one is especially fabulous or especially grotesque. Stephanie was still a bitch, Melissa still smart and competitive, Marcy still bubbly and sweet, Laura still pretty and vapid, Dan still ruggedly handsome and vague. My old best friend Angela and I just sort of picked up where we left off and talked about life with new babies in our same old half-joking can you believe my LIFE way that we used to talk about our teachers or our crushes. The old cliques from high school formed again at the reunion, but with alcohol. We were just a collection of almost 40-year olds gathered 'round to celebrate the mere fact that we can still gather 'round. And then one classmate's band started to play and people started to dance and I am sure that is where things got more interesting but of course, I had to bail to meet curfew.


So. I still drive to my old house every day, and feel twinges of the past, ghosts of my decisions. But the ache is gone. We all just got older, but are not that old, and we wandered around living, but still have plenty left to do, and that is all. 

xoxo, A

I've Got My Own Hell to Raise (as long as it's before 11 pm)

You guys! I went out! To a show! With a girlfriend! A nighttime ladydate! With cocktails! It was amazing!  Nighttime! And a regular bra!! FREEDOM!!!

(Yep, until the SUPER WILD HOUR of 11 pm. And then boy was I hurtin' in the morning, cause babies don't care how late you were up or how many Citron and Sodas you had (2.5, for the record) or about you stupid post-pregnancy feet not used to heels anymore ouch.)

All that aside, how long have we loved Fiona Apple? A long time. It was so long ago that I first heard Tidal and was struck by its exotic familiarity. For a very long time I have been trying to perfect the ascending notes of Slow Like Honey during my shower-singing sessions (much to the chagrin of many of my former roommates, I am sure). For a very long time I have been amazed that someone could string together lyrics like "you've no reverence to my concern" in a goddamn hit single. Fiona, man. Carrying forth the solemn torch of confessional poets like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, combined with the badass self-preservation of Patti Smith. She keeps on making albums, surviving, and (perhaps unwillingly) serving as an inspiration to hordes of overly-sensitive young women who get all poetically mad at their boyfriends. Or the world. Whichever.  Not that we know anything about women like that. Not at all.

So, anyway. I had been silently moping over my presumption that the show -- because it was a social event happening in the evening and I just don't do that shit anymore -- was not going to happen for me. But one serendipitous conversation later (Tim mentioned to his friend that I had wanted to go and his friend said his wife, who is the sweetest person ever, also wanted to go but neither of us thought we would go because no one else had asked us to go wah wah waaah this is why you should just ask people if they want to do things, SELF) and I booked a lady-date to see an awesome lady-singer. I was thrilled to be out and happy to shell out the dough to see how Ms. Apple has grown up.

What I found out is that she barely has. Her voice was ferocious, ragged in some songs, on purpose. She danced like a feral yoga instructor or plopped herself down cross-legged and swayed like a little girl listening to records during musical breaks. She chastised the audience for talking during songs (people who talk during songs are bad in bed, she said. And so, um, I stopped talking). The whites of her huge eyes were visible in every part of the auditorium.  It was a tiny bit scary and fairly enthralling and the opposite of the shiny shiny polished pop star thing that a lot of music has become.

She played all the "hits" and several songs I had never heard before, including one batshit crazy song off her new album that is all circus bloops and jangles and was awesome and this description is why I am not a famous music critic. I liked it, and I want to buy the album and play it at high volumes in my car. There you go. 

And the show, the mere act of sitting in front of someone who has gone for the elusive it that is making a living sharing stories about yourself, nudged that part of me that identifies with writers, singers, artists, soul-barers. Not that I have DONE anything about it -- mama hasn't got the mental energy yet, but soon -- I was reminded she is there. The girl who used to carry a tiny notebook and dash off poems at cigarette breaks. The girl who felt too much and slept too little and thought that misery was the only true path to art. My greatest form of self-expression is through my kids, these days, and that is fine and good. But my former self, cut-off army shorts with Camels in the pockets, no money, bad boyfriends, sparking with creative energy self, yearns for another sort of outlet. Soon, I promise her. Soon.

xoxo, A