Though until now my writing has been quite sarcastic, I want to take a moment to pause and be a little more serious.
I think it's easy to vent when things are hard, and it's familiar to ask for prayer and support when I have concerns or needs. But it's sometimes just as easy and familiar to forget to express gratitude when blessings come, when needs are met, and when concerns are taken care of. So let me share the UNENDING list of ways God has blessed us in the moving process. And interestingly, things almost always seem to happen within one week or less. Coincidence? You decide.
1. We began seriously considering a move to the Pacific Northwest around the time our son was born in December 2011. My husband started feeling out the job market, and a little after the New Year, he began applying for jobs. He applied for every job he found for which he seemed qualified, but to no avail - not a single bite for months. Finally, one morning, I became very frustrated and just prayed for God to give him some help and jumped on the computer for the first time to help him look for positions. I did a quick google search, and within minutes (and only the second posting I clicked on) I found the job for which he has now been hired.
2. We were originally trying to move to the Seattle or Olympia area of Washington state. Due to some circumstances that happened a few months into the job hunt, however, we started feeling our hearts changing and decided that maybe we were actually supposed to move to Portland, Oregon, the same city as my sister and brother-in-law. Within a week of our change of heart - after six years of being sure we wanted to move back to WA, I found the above Portland job posting.
3. My husband interviewed for the job in June via telephone and was notified within days that he was in the running for the job. An in-person interview was arranged, and he flew out. Within less than a week of interviewing in person for the Portland job, he was their top pick. The only drawback was that the background check could take up to two months. We were fine waiting, however.
4. Two months after being told my husband was wanted for the job, we were told that the background check process had been delayed, and though they still wanted him, we would need to just continue waiting. We were given no idea of how long that wait might be. At the three month mark of waiting to hear back from the job, we were losing hope. That Sunday, the message at church was about the Holy Spirit. During that message, I felt very distinctly the Holy Spirit speaking to me. A particular personal relationship of mine had been heavy on my heart, and that morning I heard God saying that I needed to take action in that relationship. Beyond that, I heard God telling me that He would not release us to leave Lynchburg until I took this particular act of faith. That week I obeyed, and the experience went better than I hoped, with every point of prayer involved being answered. Then, as if on cue, that very night, the Portland employer contacted us to begin the background check. The official job offer was made 7 days later, and we were given an official start date.
5. From the time we decided to move to the PNW, we have been praying about the financial factor. Moving across the nation is indescribably expensive: Selling house at a loss in this market or fixing up the house for rental condition. Moving truck, gas, food and lodging during drive. First/last months' rent, plus security and pet deposits at a new rental. Utility start-up fees and random associated costs. Missed paycheck or two because of lag between jobs. The list goes on. And along with it, the answers to prayer.
-Despite the housing market and people either being unable to sell or having to go into debt to get rid of their homes, within 5 weeks of setting the move date, our house will close for sale. We have been praying all along for it to sell for a particular amount. Even though it appraised for less, exactly one week from the day it appraised, negotiations were made and preliminary paperwork signed to sell at the exact amount we prayed for.
-When we took a short trip to Pennsylvania in the summer, we realized our son would not do well on a 3,000 mile road trip, going 10-15 hours a days in a car seat. We began praying at that time for God to provide funding for my son and myself to fly home while my husband drove the moving truck with a family member or friend. We didn't make this need public, just kept praying privately over the matter. The same week that we were contacted about the background check, I received an email - completely out of the blue - from family friends. Unaware of how close we were to a move, they wanted to help us fly home for a visit to see our families who were really struggling with missing us and our son. We explained to these friends about the possibility of a move instead of just a visit, and they eagerly agreed to take care of our tickets as soon as the move date was set.
-We determined what we would need in a rental home for the first year or two before buying in the Portland area: 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, a yard (preferably with a fence), a landlord who would accept our 110 lbs. beast of a dog, a safe area for children, and somewhere within a 10-15 minute drive of my sister and brother-in-law's home. (As an added cherry on top, we prayed for a dishwasher...just makes life so much easier with a baby.) We also determined a cap for what we could afford for rent.
After talking with my sister, however, we realized that only 3% of Portland housing is ever vacant at one time, and competition for houses is stiff. Often it takes weeks to find something that will work, so we started feeling concerned that we would have to temporarily store our household items and find other temporary housing until we could find a rental that was suitable. Also, to get everything we wanted in a house would likely cost us $100-150 over our budget, so we would need to figure out how to swing that much more a month. Or we would have to sacrifice a bedroom. We kept praying, however.
The second day of looking, I found an ad on Craigslist for a rental, but it had no pictures and not a lot of information. It was an ad I would normally skip, but I just felt a feeling in my gut that it was worth pursuing. The third day, my sister drove past the home to get a feel for the area. The fourth day she and her husband viewed the interior with the landlord. It included every single thing we prayed for, including the dishwasher. And it was only a 10-15 minute drive from my sister's home. The landlord agreed to accept our lovable beast of a dog, and beyond all our belief, he was charging exactly our original goal amount for rent, $100-150 less than other similar rentals. He said he preferred good renters over a little bit extra a month. The sixth day, the deposit was made, and the rental is waiting for us. Again, everything answered within a week.
-A couple other unexpected funding sources have come in to cover the rest of the uncovered one-time moving expenses, and we truly are amazed at God's provision. And again, those have come within a week or less of when they were needed.
6. We prayed that God would allow us to be home before our son's first birthday in December, and if at all possible, before Thanksgiving. It has been ten years since I have spent Thanksgiving with my family, and six years for my husband. What a blessing it would be to celebrate with our families all these miraculous answers to prayer. And, in His goodness, God is allowing us to move a full month before Thanksgiving!
We have other things we are currently praying for, but by this point, we know worrying for even a minute about things would be complete foolishness given the incredible ways God has answered prayer and proven faithful. Does that mean we won't worry? Probably not. We seem to have very weak faith when it comes to certain things. But we know that even though we'll fail in our faith, God will just show us how foolish our worry is and what a loving Father He is.
I leave you with two verses."And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." - Romans 8:28
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!" - Matthew 7:7-11
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
And sometimes life just decides to spew white ash all over your formal living room...
My husband and I are currently preparing for a cross-country move to the West Coast. We were given four and a half weeks from the time he was hired for his new job until we need to have the moving truck on the road. In these four and a half weeks, we need to pack up our house, sell our house, sell various personal items, say goodbye to ten years of relationships, and also continue with the day-to-day life of raising a 9-month-old. Can we say stress?
Our house that we want to sell lies parallel to a private college that has acquired the majority of the residential buildings surrounding the campus as student housing. We are one of just a few houses on our street that is not currently owned by the school or owned by landlords who rent to college students. This makes for some interesting weekends when our street becomes gridlocked and we can't park in front of our own house. And we have a fair share of smashed beer bottles that decorate a couple of our favorite paths for family walks. It's really fun to go out each morning and see what garbage the drunk college students have dumped in our yard. We get an especially wide variety of fast food bags and snack wrappers near the perimeter. I really wouldn't mind so much if they'd just leave a few bites for me. Selfish...
Aside from the parties, the trash, and the occasional stolen porch furniture for fraternity initiations - which for some reason then ends up randomly placed on the far side of our double lot - it's really not been bad. Plus, each year we get three months of Apocalyptic, end-of-the-world desolation once summer break hits. I could dance outside stark naked and start yodeling German folk music while roasting a pork on a spit, and only the squirrels and a few pesky campus security would see. But alas, the move has been announced for before the next summer break, so I have missed my chance to check that one off the Bucket List. Darnit!
Another plus to the location of our home is that now, even though the housing market is a dismal place for any seller, we have a definite buyer in the college. We are on one of the primary streets where they want more homes, and they have told us they will buy it for appraised value. [Insert excited, wide-eyed, relieved, giddy-with-glee face here.]
The only problem is that in order to sell before we leave the city, we had to ready the house for appraisal within a week of finding out we were moving. Everything rides on the appraised value. Which prompted a whirlwind of small home repairs and finishing touches, as well as your basic cleaning and tidying over the last several days. Our weekend was pretty ridiculous, and we accomplished more than I ever knew we could. Seems a shame now that we didn't have the same fire under our butts over the last several years, or we could have lived in a pretty awesome piece of real estate. But at least we get to truly enjoy it for a good week before we start putting everything into boxes.
I was, indeed, amazed at how much we got done in such a short amount of time. We were so grateful, and we appreciated the help of a really good friend who pitched in to get things done. Despite how smoothly things were going, by the last day before the appraisal (yesterday), I was admittedly worn out. But the end was in sight; it was down to just the final finishing touches. Everything major had been accomplished, and I was worrying mostly about decor and ambiance. I was feeling good and glad that I would soon be able to sit back and relax.
And that's right about when things started going downhill.
I had decided, per my friend's suggestion, to play up the fireplace in our living room. All these years we have always meant to use it, but the only times we seemed to light a fire were to burn some bio-degradable trash. Apparently the last time we did so, we forgot to clean it out, because there was a good 3 inches of ash in the bottom of the fireplace. I thought about getting the Shop-Vac, but I didn't feel like bringing the grimy Shop-Vac from my husband's work area in the basement into my beautifully clean living room. And I already had my vacuum out. So I proceeded to remove the vacuum head and suction out the ash.
I'd gotten a good quarter of it up when I thought I better re-check the vacuum bag - which had been close to full when I started working on the fireplace. I turned around to open the canister, only to discover that my living room and adjoining kitchen were filling with a hazy cloud of ash that my vacuum was quickly blowing all around me.
I started screaming and hurriedly turned it off. My husband heard my panic and a few moments later came into the doorway to see what the commotion was about. I, meanwhile, was standing in shock, whimpering, "Oh, no. Oh, no."
Now, my husband being the male that he is, does not always know how to best respond to my female meltdowns. We came to an understanding after the fact that his response in the moment was not the most helpful. But, not being quite able to overcome his natural urge, I could see he was doing his best not to laugh. This was not the response I wanted.
I started scolding him and telling him that he better stop laughing - that this was NOT something to laugh at. He still couldn't quite muzzle the smirk. After some back-and-forth marital "conversation," and me about ready to lose it, he went down to the basement to retrieve his Shop-Vac as I continued in stunned horror to assess the damage.
He came back upstairs with the Shop-Vac, and I asked very shortly whether or not he was sure he knew what he was doing and wasn't going to have the same thing happen with his vacuum that happened with mine. He responded back matter-of-factly that he has vacuumed ash up many times, and YES, he knew what he was doing.
He turned it on and started on the fireplace, while I stood back skeptically to make sure things didn't go awry once again. Seeing that no ash was blowing, I left him to his work and stared around the room wondering how long it would be before the haze settled and I would be able to start damage clean-up. I sat down on the carpet, to calm down and think of a plan. A couple moments later, I glanced back over at my husband to see what progress he was making.
It was almost immediately after glancing over that something caught in the vacuum air flow, and, lo and behold, HIS vacuum started spitting out ash, only much faster and with more power!
I screamed with the performance that would win me any role in a horror movie and shrieked, "TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!" He turned around to see what was happening and quickly pulled the plug.
It was at this point in time that the week of pushing myself to get everything done, the physical drain of the days of hard labor, the emotional pressure of getting ready for a move, the loss of saying goodbye to old friends, and having to perfect my house that I love only for the enjoyment of someone else that I finally lost it.
I fell to my knees on the floor in my living room, now coated in a thin film of ash, where only moments before had been a nearly immaculate room of beauty, and I started wailing. I wailed and I wailed and I wailed. And when I was done wailing, I fell forward and began sobbing.
It was quite some time before I composed myself. And even after that, it took at least an hour for me to recover from the horror. My husband and I also managed to get into a pretty hearty marital "conversation" that led to our confused son's own personal meltdown.
However, by the end of the evening, I had overcome the trauma of the Rain of Fire-place, and my husband even got me to unwillingly crack a smile when he explained that his initial inability to stifle his laugh was because of the uncanny resemblance between my own situation and that of an episode of "I Love Lucy."
We also managed to bring the room back to show-worthy state (even though I know that out there lurks unseen ash hiding in the weave of various pieces of furniture and tapestry). And by the appraisal this morning, I could say with confidence that the house has not looked this good since the previous owner showed it when we decided to buy. The appraiser seemed to really like the place, and I think we did the best job we could. Now we will just have to hope for a good fair market value.
I don't anticipate this being my last meltdown before the move is complete, and I fully expect more catastrophes to follow over the next several weeks. But I will sincerely try to keep things in perspective and remember what is sure to become my new life mantra - at least until we get settled in our new home: "Do the best you can, but just know that despite your best efforts, sometimes life just decides to spew white ash all over your formal living room."
Our house that we want to sell lies parallel to a private college that has acquired the majority of the residential buildings surrounding the campus as student housing. We are one of just a few houses on our street that is not currently owned by the school or owned by landlords who rent to college students. This makes for some interesting weekends when our street becomes gridlocked and we can't park in front of our own house. And we have a fair share of smashed beer bottles that decorate a couple of our favorite paths for family walks. It's really fun to go out each morning and see what garbage the drunk college students have dumped in our yard. We get an especially wide variety of fast food bags and snack wrappers near the perimeter. I really wouldn't mind so much if they'd just leave a few bites for me. Selfish...
Aside from the parties, the trash, and the occasional stolen porch furniture for fraternity initiations - which for some reason then ends up randomly placed on the far side of our double lot - it's really not been bad. Plus, each year we get three months of Apocalyptic, end-of-the-world desolation once summer break hits. I could dance outside stark naked and start yodeling German folk music while roasting a pork on a spit, and only the squirrels and a few pesky campus security would see. But alas, the move has been announced for before the next summer break, so I have missed my chance to check that one off the Bucket List. Darnit!
Another plus to the location of our home is that now, even though the housing market is a dismal place for any seller, we have a definite buyer in the college. We are on one of the primary streets where they want more homes, and they have told us they will buy it for appraised value. [Insert excited, wide-eyed, relieved, giddy-with-glee face here.]
The only problem is that in order to sell before we leave the city, we had to ready the house for appraisal within a week of finding out we were moving. Everything rides on the appraised value. Which prompted a whirlwind of small home repairs and finishing touches, as well as your basic cleaning and tidying over the last several days. Our weekend was pretty ridiculous, and we accomplished more than I ever knew we could. Seems a shame now that we didn't have the same fire under our butts over the last several years, or we could have lived in a pretty awesome piece of real estate. But at least we get to truly enjoy it for a good week before we start putting everything into boxes.
I was, indeed, amazed at how much we got done in such a short amount of time. We were so grateful, and we appreciated the help of a really good friend who pitched in to get things done. Despite how smoothly things were going, by the last day before the appraisal (yesterday), I was admittedly worn out. But the end was in sight; it was down to just the final finishing touches. Everything major had been accomplished, and I was worrying mostly about decor and ambiance. I was feeling good and glad that I would soon be able to sit back and relax.
And that's right about when things started going downhill.
I had decided, per my friend's suggestion, to play up the fireplace in our living room. All these years we have always meant to use it, but the only times we seemed to light a fire were to burn some bio-degradable trash. Apparently the last time we did so, we forgot to clean it out, because there was a good 3 inches of ash in the bottom of the fireplace. I thought about getting the Shop-Vac, but I didn't feel like bringing the grimy Shop-Vac from my husband's work area in the basement into my beautifully clean living room. And I already had my vacuum out. So I proceeded to remove the vacuum head and suction out the ash.
I'd gotten a good quarter of it up when I thought I better re-check the vacuum bag - which had been close to full when I started working on the fireplace. I turned around to open the canister, only to discover that my living room and adjoining kitchen were filling with a hazy cloud of ash that my vacuum was quickly blowing all around me.
I started screaming and hurriedly turned it off. My husband heard my panic and a few moments later came into the doorway to see what the commotion was about. I, meanwhile, was standing in shock, whimpering, "Oh, no. Oh, no."
Now, my husband being the male that he is, does not always know how to best respond to my female meltdowns. We came to an understanding after the fact that his response in the moment was not the most helpful. But, not being quite able to overcome his natural urge, I could see he was doing his best not to laugh. This was not the response I wanted.
I started scolding him and telling him that he better stop laughing - that this was NOT something to laugh at. He still couldn't quite muzzle the smirk. After some back-and-forth marital "conversation," and me about ready to lose it, he went down to the basement to retrieve his Shop-Vac as I continued in stunned horror to assess the damage.
He came back upstairs with the Shop-Vac, and I asked very shortly whether or not he was sure he knew what he was doing and wasn't going to have the same thing happen with his vacuum that happened with mine. He responded back matter-of-factly that he has vacuumed ash up many times, and YES, he knew what he was doing.
He turned it on and started on the fireplace, while I stood back skeptically to make sure things didn't go awry once again. Seeing that no ash was blowing, I left him to his work and stared around the room wondering how long it would be before the haze settled and I would be able to start damage clean-up. I sat down on the carpet, to calm down and think of a plan. A couple moments later, I glanced back over at my husband to see what progress he was making.
It was almost immediately after glancing over that something caught in the vacuum air flow, and, lo and behold, HIS vacuum started spitting out ash, only much faster and with more power!
I screamed with the performance that would win me any role in a horror movie and shrieked, "TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!" He turned around to see what was happening and quickly pulled the plug.
It was at this point in time that the week of pushing myself to get everything done, the physical drain of the days of hard labor, the emotional pressure of getting ready for a move, the loss of saying goodbye to old friends, and having to perfect my house that I love only for the enjoyment of someone else that I finally lost it.
I fell to my knees on the floor in my living room, now coated in a thin film of ash, where only moments before had been a nearly immaculate room of beauty, and I started wailing. I wailed and I wailed and I wailed. And when I was done wailing, I fell forward and began sobbing.
It was quite some time before I composed myself. And even after that, it took at least an hour for me to recover from the horror. My husband and I also managed to get into a pretty hearty marital "conversation" that led to our confused son's own personal meltdown.
However, by the end of the evening, I had overcome the trauma of the Rain of Fire-place, and my husband even got me to unwillingly crack a smile when he explained that his initial inability to stifle his laugh was because of the uncanny resemblance between my own situation and that of an episode of "I Love Lucy."
We also managed to bring the room back to show-worthy state (even though I know that out there lurks unseen ash hiding in the weave of various pieces of furniture and tapestry). And by the appraisal this morning, I could say with confidence that the house has not looked this good since the previous owner showed it when we decided to buy. The appraiser seemed to really like the place, and I think we did the best job we could. Now we will just have to hope for a good fair market value.
I don't anticipate this being my last meltdown before the move is complete, and I fully expect more catastrophes to follow over the next several weeks. But I will sincerely try to keep things in perspective and remember what is sure to become my new life mantra - at least until we get settled in our new home: "Do the best you can, but just know that despite your best efforts, sometimes life just decides to spew white ash all over your formal living room."
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Myth of the Pregnant Glow
Okay, who made up this auspicious "glow" that all pregnant women hear about? I'd like to meet that person and personally congratulate him on pulling off the Greatest Hoax of All Time. I sincerely suspect that what really happened, back long before our day, to create this idea of a pregnant woman having an aura of peace, calm, and radiance was actually this:
Late one evening, a group of Neanderthals was sitting around a campfire, ugging and ooging about their day, when a pregnant Neanderthal waddled up. The light and shadows of the campfire illuminated her as she came to the scene in her monstrous state, and everyone sitting around the fire was startled and began shrieking and running around in terror. With their limited vocabulary, they managed, "Ahh!!! Glow!!!," to express their fear of this glowing, shadowy monster. However, when they realized it was just their boat-sized tribeswoman in the latter stages of pregnancy, illuminated by the glow of the fire, they all felt terrible. But an extremely clever and diplomatic member of the tribe, who was more quick-witted than the rest, spoke up in hopes of saving the day. He said in an awed, respectful tone, "Ohhhhhh....Gloooooowwww!! OOooohhh!!" And the rest of the tribesmen quickly followed suit.
Willing to believe anything in her fragile pregnant state (and already a bit dumber than dirt, given that she was a Neanderthal), she believed them. Seeing how encouraged she was and how much her mood improved over the course of the evening, the rest of the tribesmen got to thinking. It really was unpleasant when their pregnant, hormonal Neanderbrides started smashing rocks and throwing bones, and they really could use a leg up during what was normally a very unpredictable and unfulfilling phase of marital loving. So they started trying the same tack on all their pregnant wives. Lo and behold, this pregnant glow thing really took off!
Even females in the tribe started complimenting each other on their glows; because even though they didn't really see any glow, they didn't want to appear dumber and less observant than the other tribespeople. And besides, what female doesn't want to believe in some glow that she might possibly get when it's her turn to look like a beached whale? It was worth hoping!
And that brings us to our current fixation on the pregnant glow. I hear about it. "Oh, my word, but you should have seen her. She was just gorgeous during her pregnancy. She LITERALLY glowed!!" I see news stories on it. "Stay tuned for our next segment: 5 Tips on How You Can Get That Pregnant Glow!" I read about it. "When hormonal levels are raised, the increased estrogen and blood flow results in a more flush, brighter appearance to your skin..." But thus far, actually seeing this pregnant glow myself has been as lucky a search as my quest to meet a snipe.
As tempting as it is to believe that some hormonal change is going to make you beautiful when your belly doubles in size, your calves and ankles turn into cankles and your feet swell like over-filled water balloons, you begin sweating from places you didn't even know have sweat glands, and you begin to waddle like Daisy Duck, I think that you really need to let yourself off the hook and just accept that the only glow you will acquire during pregnancy will be from the scorching fire burning in your esophagus from uncontrollable heartburn and indigestion.
I know I got told I had the glow - which I certainly appreciated. Though this neither boosted my confidence in those individuals' grips on reality nor their integrity. Being my first pregnancy, I really didn't show for a very long time. Oh, I gained weight. BOY, did I gain weight! (49.5 lbs. over the course of the pregnancy.) But with the way it distributed, my belly didn't "pop" until almost 6 months in. So instead of looking all cutesie with my lovely little baby belly, I really just looked fat.
When I FINALLY started looking pregnant, it was around the 5.5 month mark. I was standing in the Walmart check-out, and the cashier, without hesitating, asked me off-handedly, "When are you due?" I think people had been afraid until this point to ask that question for fear it would be met with tears and a very awkward moment explaining that I wasn't pregnant and was actually just an overweight glutton with disproportionate fat distribution. I looked kinda pregnant, but it was the awkward period of not looking pregnant enough for people to risk asking. So when the cashier asked my due date, without hesitation or reticence, I nearly threw my arms around her and kissed her! THANK YOU!!! I finally look pregnant!!!
As fate would have it, though, soon after that point, I really began to feel pregnant. I'd dealt with nausea and exhaustion during the first trimester, and all through the second and third I had horrific back pain (and basically didn't sleep for 6 months before or after the baby was born). But until the third trimester, I didn't feel pregnant so much as run down and a bit "off." Third trimester rolled around, however, and I was amazed at how much you can feel like you've been hit by a mack truck without actually having been so.
By the end of the pregnancy (around week 36 or 37), I was so miserable, I quite literally got down on my hands and knees and began begging God for mercy and to bring my son early. While I wish I could say this was from maternal glowing embers of love and impatience to just have my little bundle of joy in my arms, it was actually one hundred percent self-serving out of a desperate plea to have my body back. "Please, God, give me my body back! I just want to feel human again! I feel like I am hosting an alien that is leaching me of all sanity and sustainability, and I need him to be out!!"
When he did finally come out (only 3 days early), I felt an immediate, immeasurable joy and passion for the beautiful creation God had blessed me with growing inside me, and I will never be able to put into words the love I felt (and still feel) for my little alien.
That being said, growing a creation within your body for nine months does come at a price. A price I gladly paid and would pay over and over and over and over again for my precious little miracle.
But if you are pregnant, sitting around wondering where your pregnant glow is, let me reassure you: it will never come. Your glow will come the second AFTER you give birth, when you see your miraculous, amazing, incredible bundle of beauty that you grew and protected in your body. Yes, at a sacrifice to your own well-being and health, but a sacrifice that does not even come close to matching the blessing of your beloved child. So hang onto that hope, and stop waiting around for your pregnant glow. Your glow is coming; it's just on the other side of that belly.
Late one evening, a group of Neanderthals was sitting around a campfire, ugging and ooging about their day, when a pregnant Neanderthal waddled up. The light and shadows of the campfire illuminated her as she came to the scene in her monstrous state, and everyone sitting around the fire was startled and began shrieking and running around in terror. With their limited vocabulary, they managed, "Ahh!!! Glow!!!," to express their fear of this glowing, shadowy monster. However, when they realized it was just their boat-sized tribeswoman in the latter stages of pregnancy, illuminated by the glow of the fire, they all felt terrible. But an extremely clever and diplomatic member of the tribe, who was more quick-witted than the rest, spoke up in hopes of saving the day. He said in an awed, respectful tone, "Ohhhhhh....Gloooooowwww!! OOooohhh!!" And the rest of the tribesmen quickly followed suit.
Willing to believe anything in her fragile pregnant state (and already a bit dumber than dirt, given that she was a Neanderthal), she believed them. Seeing how encouraged she was and how much her mood improved over the course of the evening, the rest of the tribesmen got to thinking. It really was unpleasant when their pregnant, hormonal Neanderbrides started smashing rocks and throwing bones, and they really could use a leg up during what was normally a very unpredictable and unfulfilling phase of marital loving. So they started trying the same tack on all their pregnant wives. Lo and behold, this pregnant glow thing really took off!
Even females in the tribe started complimenting each other on their glows; because even though they didn't really see any glow, they didn't want to appear dumber and less observant than the other tribespeople. And besides, what female doesn't want to believe in some glow that she might possibly get when it's her turn to look like a beached whale? It was worth hoping!
And that brings us to our current fixation on the pregnant glow. I hear about it. "Oh, my word, but you should have seen her. She was just gorgeous during her pregnancy. She LITERALLY glowed!!" I see news stories on it. "Stay tuned for our next segment: 5 Tips on How You Can Get That Pregnant Glow!" I read about it. "When hormonal levels are raised, the increased estrogen and blood flow results in a more flush, brighter appearance to your skin..." But thus far, actually seeing this pregnant glow myself has been as lucky a search as my quest to meet a snipe.
As tempting as it is to believe that some hormonal change is going to make you beautiful when your belly doubles in size, your calves and ankles turn into cankles and your feet swell like over-filled water balloons, you begin sweating from places you didn't even know have sweat glands, and you begin to waddle like Daisy Duck, I think that you really need to let yourself off the hook and just accept that the only glow you will acquire during pregnancy will be from the scorching fire burning in your esophagus from uncontrollable heartburn and indigestion.
I know I got told I had the glow - which I certainly appreciated. Though this neither boosted my confidence in those individuals' grips on reality nor their integrity. Being my first pregnancy, I really didn't show for a very long time. Oh, I gained weight. BOY, did I gain weight! (49.5 lbs. over the course of the pregnancy.) But with the way it distributed, my belly didn't "pop" until almost 6 months in. So instead of looking all cutesie with my lovely little baby belly, I really just looked fat.
When I FINALLY started looking pregnant, it was around the 5.5 month mark. I was standing in the Walmart check-out, and the cashier, without hesitating, asked me off-handedly, "When are you due?" I think people had been afraid until this point to ask that question for fear it would be met with tears and a very awkward moment explaining that I wasn't pregnant and was actually just an overweight glutton with disproportionate fat distribution. I looked kinda pregnant, but it was the awkward period of not looking pregnant enough for people to risk asking. So when the cashier asked my due date, without hesitation or reticence, I nearly threw my arms around her and kissed her! THANK YOU!!! I finally look pregnant!!!
As fate would have it, though, soon after that point, I really began to feel pregnant. I'd dealt with nausea and exhaustion during the first trimester, and all through the second and third I had horrific back pain (and basically didn't sleep for 6 months before or after the baby was born). But until the third trimester, I didn't feel pregnant so much as run down and a bit "off." Third trimester rolled around, however, and I was amazed at how much you can feel like you've been hit by a mack truck without actually having been so.
By the end of the pregnancy (around week 36 or 37), I was so miserable, I quite literally got down on my hands and knees and began begging God for mercy and to bring my son early. While I wish I could say this was from maternal glowing embers of love and impatience to just have my little bundle of joy in my arms, it was actually one hundred percent self-serving out of a desperate plea to have my body back. "Please, God, give me my body back! I just want to feel human again! I feel like I am hosting an alien that is leaching me of all sanity and sustainability, and I need him to be out!!"
When he did finally come out (only 3 days early), I felt an immediate, immeasurable joy and passion for the beautiful creation God had blessed me with growing inside me, and I will never be able to put into words the love I felt (and still feel) for my little alien.
That being said, growing a creation within your body for nine months does come at a price. A price I gladly paid and would pay over and over and over and over again for my precious little miracle.
But if you are pregnant, sitting around wondering where your pregnant glow is, let me reassure you: it will never come. Your glow will come the second AFTER you give birth, when you see your miraculous, amazing, incredible bundle of beauty that you grew and protected in your body. Yes, at a sacrifice to your own well-being and health, but a sacrifice that does not even come close to matching the blessing of your beloved child. So hang onto that hope, and stop waiting around for your pregnant glow. Your glow is coming; it's just on the other side of that belly.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Man or Beast?
Six weeks into my marriage, I decided it was probably time we buckle down and start a family. We had been putting things off long enough with this married-without-children thing, and it seemed about time to get down to business. My husband, on the other hand, felt that six weeks was not quite the eternity I thought it was, so we discussed a slightly less life-altering alternative.
And thus began our first experience as dog owners. (Oh, how little we knew.) We had both had dogs growing up, but let's face it - the child enjoys the dog, the parent cares for it. And what we have found in the last 3 1/2 years of dog parenting followed by 8 1/2 months of human parenting is that there are actually more similarities than dissimilarities between the two roles.
The first myth of dog ownership versus parenthood: Dogs are cheaper than kids. Maybe in the long-run, yes, dogs are cheaper than kids. After all, their life expectancy is much shorter. Plus they don't need a car or college education. But depending on the dog, it's really not the savings you might think. I guess if you're getting a dog to be an after-thought to your life, you don't have to do much more than give it some grub, buy a collar and chain, and maybe remember to give it some shots if you aren't into the whole worms and rabies thing. But if you treat your canine like another member of the family, then you have a whole other thing coming to you. And since my first baby had four legs and was covered in fur, I saw to every need with the devotion and willingness to sacrfice of any first-time mom. And, boy, does it add up once you figure in vet bills, food, destroyed household items and furnishings during the potty training/DON'T-CHEW-THAT! phase, a crate and toys, boarding or pet sitting if you go out of town, and so on and so forth.
Another myth of dog ownership versus parenthood is that you aren't shackled by a dog like you are by a kid. Well, in one sense, this is true. Instead of hiring a sitter, you can lock your dog in a crate for six hours and even come back to find him perfectly content, in good health, and just downright excited to see you. Nonetheless, a dog definitely ties you down. Anytime my husband and I have wanted to plan a spontaneous, spur of the moment trip out of town (even for a long weekend), we've stopped short, realizing that the cheap weekend deal we found a couple hours away would not be nearly so cheap when we figured in boarding fees. And oftentimes finding a boarder with last-minute availability has been hard to come by, since we made the oh-so-smart decision to own a 110 lb. beast that nobody wants to board and nobody has room to board vs. one of those nice, cute compact little things people can stick in their purses. (Though, really, those little things don't qualify as dogs. They're more like dog treats. My dog could eat two or three of them for lunch and still need dessert.) But anyway, the point being, travel is tricky with a dog as well as a kid. Even if you take the dog on the trip and find somewhere that accepts pets and accepts pets as large as ours, you probably wouldn't want to stay in said lodgings unless you yourself were part canine and could handle the smell of marked territory.
Other similarities between children and dogs:
-Immediate heartbreak if attention is given to one dependent and not the other
-Demanding a diaper change/to be let out right as the last three minutes of your season finale is airing.
-The incredible ability to refuse sustenance all evening until the exact second the first bite is being raised to your mouth at the dinner table, at which point spontaneous starvation is triggered and feedings can under no circumstances be postponed.
-Vomiting on your carpet rather than the tile floor that is a mere 2 inches away.
-Refusing any beverage that is not the perfect temperature. (Yes, my dog is that picky. Tepid water, water shared with another dog, water that has been sitting a few hours - all completely unacceptable and less appealing than even death by dehydration.)
The greatest similarity between my dog and child which I've noticed thus far is during my son's crawling and trying to walk phase. Now that he is mobile, I am having flashbacks to the dog training phase and realizing that I already have in place all the vocabularly needed. "Leave it!" "Don't chew that!" "Back away!" "Waaaaiiiiit." And my favorite - "Come here," while holding out a piece of food to coax him across the room.
My son apparently also believes himself to be on a similar playing field with his four-legged counterpart. Around four months old, I discovered that really the only difference between dog chew toys and baby chew toys is who happens to be sucking on said chew toy at a particular moment in time. They both squeak. They both crinkle. They both get ratty and gross. They both get lost for weeks, only to be found randomly by an unsuspecting bare foot in the middle of the night. I try to keep the toys separate, but no matter how much effort I put into it, I always find my son sucking on the dog's rope toy and the dog batting around my son's water bottle.
Probably my greatest difficulty I face in keeping my baby out of my dog's things is keeping him out of the dreaded dog water and food tray. For at least 2 months now, my son has been undeterred in his determination to splash his hands in the dog water. We put up a gate between the kitchen - where the dog tray is kept - and the living room, but somehow he still manages to pull a Houdini and get to it a couple times a week. He will happily sit and smack the water, splashing himself and everything around with grimy, dog drool water. Now, most recently, he has discovered the dog pellets. And, gosh darn it if he doesn't try to pop them like Whoppers! He will eagerly grab a handful, tilt his head back, and like any male sitting on a sofa watching football, try to pop them in his mouth.
Thankfully, my ever-vigilant eye has caught him in time to prevent consumption of these pellets, but I know it's only a matter of time before he succeeds. Maybe when he starts integrating dog food into his diet he'll also begin barking and scratching behind his ears with his toes. And now that my son has taken to throwing Cheerios on the floor for the dog, I wouldn't be surprised if very soon my dog starts walking upright on her hind legs and calling me "Mom."
Believe me - at this point, NOTHING would surprise me.
And thus began our first experience as dog owners. (Oh, how little we knew.) We had both had dogs growing up, but let's face it - the child enjoys the dog, the parent cares for it. And what we have found in the last 3 1/2 years of dog parenting followed by 8 1/2 months of human parenting is that there are actually more similarities than dissimilarities between the two roles.
The first myth of dog ownership versus parenthood: Dogs are cheaper than kids. Maybe in the long-run, yes, dogs are cheaper than kids. After all, their life expectancy is much shorter. Plus they don't need a car or college education. But depending on the dog, it's really not the savings you might think. I guess if you're getting a dog to be an after-thought to your life, you don't have to do much more than give it some grub, buy a collar and chain, and maybe remember to give it some shots if you aren't into the whole worms and rabies thing. But if you treat your canine like another member of the family, then you have a whole other thing coming to you. And since my first baby had four legs and was covered in fur, I saw to every need with the devotion and willingness to sacrfice of any first-time mom. And, boy, does it add up once you figure in vet bills, food, destroyed household items and furnishings during the potty training/DON'T-CHEW-THAT! phase, a crate and toys, boarding or pet sitting if you go out of town, and so on and so forth.
Another myth of dog ownership versus parenthood is that you aren't shackled by a dog like you are by a kid. Well, in one sense, this is true. Instead of hiring a sitter, you can lock your dog in a crate for six hours and even come back to find him perfectly content, in good health, and just downright excited to see you. Nonetheless, a dog definitely ties you down. Anytime my husband and I have wanted to plan a spontaneous, spur of the moment trip out of town (even for a long weekend), we've stopped short, realizing that the cheap weekend deal we found a couple hours away would not be nearly so cheap when we figured in boarding fees. And oftentimes finding a boarder with last-minute availability has been hard to come by, since we made the oh-so-smart decision to own a 110 lb. beast that nobody wants to board and nobody has room to board vs. one of those nice, cute compact little things people can stick in their purses. (Though, really, those little things don't qualify as dogs. They're more like dog treats. My dog could eat two or three of them for lunch and still need dessert.) But anyway, the point being, travel is tricky with a dog as well as a kid. Even if you take the dog on the trip and find somewhere that accepts pets and accepts pets as large as ours, you probably wouldn't want to stay in said lodgings unless you yourself were part canine and could handle the smell of marked territory.
Other similarities between children and dogs:
-Immediate heartbreak if attention is given to one dependent and not the other
-Demanding a diaper change/to be let out right as the last three minutes of your season finale is airing.
-The incredible ability to refuse sustenance all evening until the exact second the first bite is being raised to your mouth at the dinner table, at which point spontaneous starvation is triggered and feedings can under no circumstances be postponed.
-Vomiting on your carpet rather than the tile floor that is a mere 2 inches away.
-Refusing any beverage that is not the perfect temperature. (Yes, my dog is that picky. Tepid water, water shared with another dog, water that has been sitting a few hours - all completely unacceptable and less appealing than even death by dehydration.)
The greatest similarity between my dog and child which I've noticed thus far is during my son's crawling and trying to walk phase. Now that he is mobile, I am having flashbacks to the dog training phase and realizing that I already have in place all the vocabularly needed. "Leave it!" "Don't chew that!" "Back away!" "Waaaaiiiiit." And my favorite - "Come here," while holding out a piece of food to coax him across the room.
My son apparently also believes himself to be on a similar playing field with his four-legged counterpart. Around four months old, I discovered that really the only difference between dog chew toys and baby chew toys is who happens to be sucking on said chew toy at a particular moment in time. They both squeak. They both crinkle. They both get ratty and gross. They both get lost for weeks, only to be found randomly by an unsuspecting bare foot in the middle of the night. I try to keep the toys separate, but no matter how much effort I put into it, I always find my son sucking on the dog's rope toy and the dog batting around my son's water bottle.
Probably my greatest difficulty I face in keeping my baby out of my dog's things is keeping him out of the dreaded dog water and food tray. For at least 2 months now, my son has been undeterred in his determination to splash his hands in the dog water. We put up a gate between the kitchen - where the dog tray is kept - and the living room, but somehow he still manages to pull a Houdini and get to it a couple times a week. He will happily sit and smack the water, splashing himself and everything around with grimy, dog drool water. Now, most recently, he has discovered the dog pellets. And, gosh darn it if he doesn't try to pop them like Whoppers! He will eagerly grab a handful, tilt his head back, and like any male sitting on a sofa watching football, try to pop them in his mouth.
Thankfully, my ever-vigilant eye has caught him in time to prevent consumption of these pellets, but I know it's only a matter of time before he succeeds. Maybe when he starts integrating dog food into his diet he'll also begin barking and scratching behind his ears with his toes. And now that my son has taken to throwing Cheerios on the floor for the dog, I wouldn't be surprised if very soon my dog starts walking upright on her hind legs and calling me "Mom."
Believe me - at this point, NOTHING would surprise me.
Friday, August 31, 2012
And What Exactly Does She Do All Day?
Prior to having a child and starting my new career as a domestic administrator, I worked for several years cleaning houses while getting a post-graduate certification in photography, as well as spending at least 3 (often 5) nights a week involved in church events. So whenever my employer sent me to clean the home of a stay-at-home mom, I would quite literally scoff. (Except, mind you, in cases where health problems were a factor.) How in the world could a woman whose sole purpose was to stay at home not take responsibility for her one duty, namely that of taking care of her home?! This, to me, was ludicrous and just downright pathetic. I, working 5 days a week, attending classes 3 days a week, doing projects both at home and in the photo lab, hosting church functions in my home as well as attending other church events, plus being a wife to my husband and a mom to a 100 lb. beast of a dog, did not give myself the freedom to hire a house cleaner, nor did I have room in the budget for such a thing. So why should this woman who sits at home all day indulge in such a luxury? (You may now start throwing virtual tomatoes at me and begin cyber-stalking me to figure out where I live and how you can dispose of my body, all you infuriated mothers out there...)
What I now, finally, understand about motherhood has humbled me to the core and made me realize that being a mother is the one job in my life at which I spend endless hours with virtually nothing to show for it. I have worked as a babysitter, a dishwasher, a server, a prep cook, a cashier for food services and grocery stores, a third-shift pricer at a grocery store, an HR assistant, an administrative assistant for both non-profit and government, a third-shift call center representative, a third-shift call coordinator, a landscaper, a janitor, a housecleaner, and a photographer. All of these positions have yielded some sort of end-product by which I could judge my success and rate my work. Mother, however, is the one job I have done which seems an endless abyss of unaccomplished tasks, checklists unchecked, and yet an unending lethargy that is so pervasive I sometimes wonder whether or not if they sampled my blood they would find anything but caffeine and aspartame from the endless IV drip of coffee and diet sodas I've been using the last 8 months since my son was born.
So for all you doubters out there who have asked yourself over and over, like I myself once did (and STILL DO), here is what a typical day in Mommy Land can look like.
2:00am - Awakened from a dead sleep to the wailing of a teething child in the midst of a growth spurt who is ravenously hungry and is convinced that your sole intent in life in this moment is to starve him before he reaches morning. Thankfully, he immediately becomes the happiest baby alive when the bottle touches his lips. You change his wet diaper in the dark while he downs his bottle and falls immediately back to sleep. You go back to bed.
6:30am - Re-awakened by a child who is again ravenously hungry, but this time he is wide awake. You give him the bottle and dump a great assortment of toys and books into his crib for him to play with while you go back to bed for an hour. You don't really sleep, but you close your eyes and are vaguely aware of your child's giggles and burblings as he plays.
7:30am - You child becomes bored and starts screeching because he has now fully digested his bottle and is badly in need of a diaper change. You change him, then take him to the living room and set him on the floor amongst various toys while you go for the coffee that your husband has oh-so-kindly brewed. You have almost finished fixing your coffee when the dog propels down the stairs and starts yelping in your face that she needs to go out. You take the dog out, then head back to the kitchen for your coffee. As you pass by your child in the living room, he realizes that you've been ignoring him for a full five minutes, so he begins to wail out his wounded heart. You pick up your child and comfort him, reassuring him that he is loved and important. You carry him into the kitchen and grab your coffee with the other hand. You come back out to the living room and turn on the television, because your child thinks the magical light box in the corner of the room is the most wondrous thing in his universe. You give him the remote, because he likes to play with the buttons and will be thoroughly amused for the next 45 seconds, allowing you to take exactly three sips of your coffee.
8:30am - You have finally drunk half your cup of coffee and have only had to re-program the television eight times since handing your son the remote. Right about now, he starts crying because he wants real food. You down the rest of your coffee - which is now easily drinkable at room temperature, and carry both baby and coffee cup back to the kitchen. You strap your child into the high chair, refill your coffee, and drink it and eat a bowl of cereal while feeding your child his baby mush.
9:15am - Your child took 45 minutes to eat his meal: 40 minutes to eat his vegetables; 5 minutes to eat his fruit. You hose him down, because the majority of the vegetables ended up in his ears, on his neck and belly, between his toes, all over his high chair, and you. You prepare his bottle and lay him down in the crib; soon after, he falls asleep.
9:30am - You patrol the house, picking up toys, clothes, torn magazines. You re-wash the load of laundry that you forgot to dry the day before. Then you hop on the computer to balance the finances, pay some bills, and most importantly, to see which other mothers out there are having a rough day.
11am - Your child awakes. You feed him again. You put the laundry in the dryer and start a new load. You decide to run errands. It takes an hour to get ready: 10 minutes to ready yourself; 50 minutes to take care of the dog, the baby, and prep the diaper bag. Why? I have no clue. It just does.
12:30pm - You have 3 places you need to go. Walmart. The bank. Another grocery store where diapers and fruit are cheaper. All goes well at Walmart and the bank. Several people even stop you to say how beautiful and well-behaved your child is. You beam and think of what a great day this is turning into.
2:30pm - You are at the 2nd grocery store when your child begins to get hungry and need his nap. But you forgot the diaper bag with his bottle in the car. So you hurriedly race through the aisles, trying to entertain your child, trying to make him laugh. You get to check-out and realize you also left your wallet in the car. You explain to the cashier, unstrap your child from the cart, put the cart off to the side, and walk out to the car to get your wallet. While there, you make up your child's bottle, since he is now at near meltdown. You try not to look at passers-by, not wanting to see the dirty looks from people as they judge you and your poor parenting capabilities. You breathe deeply and say a prayer under your breath, thinking of what an awful day this is turning into. You walk back into the store, grab your cart, wait in line again, pay for your groceries, go back to the car, strap in your wailing child who is fighting against being strapped in, and finally drive home.
3:15pm - You lay your child down for his nap. You realize it's almost 3:30, your husband will be home in a little over an hour, and you still haven't thought about dinner. Plus you still need to exercise to get the last darn 10 lbs. of baby weight off.
3:30pm - You turn on your workout video. You think how much nicer a big bowl of ice cream would be, but you jiggle your baby belly fat as a reminder of why you're going to subject yourself to this suffering. You feel empowered when Jillian Michaels reminds you of how you'll feel when you're out jean shopping or bathing suit shopping; though you'd settle for just wearing your pre-baby Fat Jeans, which currently boast about 2 inches of muffin top all the way around.
4:00pm - The baby wakes up. You get him out of the crib and put him in the Johnny Jump-Up. He giggles and laughs and jumps while you take a shower at world record speeds. You run to the basement to grab some clothes from the dryer, because you completely forgot the laundry. You throw in another load, dry the wet one, and leave the 2 loads of dry laundry in the basket, making a mental note to fold them tomorrow. And clean the bathrooms you meant to clean today. Oh, and also do the dusting and vacuuming. You run back upstairs, get dressed, look in the mirror and realize it's a good thing your husband isn't the superficial type.
4:30pm - You sit down on the couch, put on a Netflix show and drink a glass of water, trying to think of what you should make for dinner. Meanwhile your son jumps around, happy as a clam.
4:45pm - Your husband arrives home. He finds you on the couch, looking like you've been vegging out all day. You swear you haven't been there all day. He laughs, gives you a kiss, and say he knows. He exercises, then takes over baby duty while you make dinner.
6:00pm - You eat dinner with your husband while also feeding your baby.
7:00pm - Your baby starts getting fussy. You prep him for bed, and he is out by 7:30pm.
7:30pm - You and your husband sit down on the couch. He asks you what you did with your day. You can't remember. You spend a few hours picking up the house with your husband, watching a show or two, and then decide it's probably time for bed.
10:30pm - You try to go to sleep, but just as you are drifting off, the baby wakes up for a bottle. You get back in bed, realizing there are wet clothes in the laundry. You decide you can just re-wash the load tomorrow. You finally drift off at about 11:30pm.
2:00am - REPEAT.
What I now, finally, understand about motherhood has humbled me to the core and made me realize that being a mother is the one job in my life at which I spend endless hours with virtually nothing to show for it. I have worked as a babysitter, a dishwasher, a server, a prep cook, a cashier for food services and grocery stores, a third-shift pricer at a grocery store, an HR assistant, an administrative assistant for both non-profit and government, a third-shift call center representative, a third-shift call coordinator, a landscaper, a janitor, a housecleaner, and a photographer. All of these positions have yielded some sort of end-product by which I could judge my success and rate my work. Mother, however, is the one job I have done which seems an endless abyss of unaccomplished tasks, checklists unchecked, and yet an unending lethargy that is so pervasive I sometimes wonder whether or not if they sampled my blood they would find anything but caffeine and aspartame from the endless IV drip of coffee and diet sodas I've been using the last 8 months since my son was born.
So for all you doubters out there who have asked yourself over and over, like I myself once did (and STILL DO), here is what a typical day in Mommy Land can look like.
2:00am - Awakened from a dead sleep to the wailing of a teething child in the midst of a growth spurt who is ravenously hungry and is convinced that your sole intent in life in this moment is to starve him before he reaches morning. Thankfully, he immediately becomes the happiest baby alive when the bottle touches his lips. You change his wet diaper in the dark while he downs his bottle and falls immediately back to sleep. You go back to bed.
6:30am - Re-awakened by a child who is again ravenously hungry, but this time he is wide awake. You give him the bottle and dump a great assortment of toys and books into his crib for him to play with while you go back to bed for an hour. You don't really sleep, but you close your eyes and are vaguely aware of your child's giggles and burblings as he plays.
7:30am - You child becomes bored and starts screeching because he has now fully digested his bottle and is badly in need of a diaper change. You change him, then take him to the living room and set him on the floor amongst various toys while you go for the coffee that your husband has oh-so-kindly brewed. You have almost finished fixing your coffee when the dog propels down the stairs and starts yelping in your face that she needs to go out. You take the dog out, then head back to the kitchen for your coffee. As you pass by your child in the living room, he realizes that you've been ignoring him for a full five minutes, so he begins to wail out his wounded heart. You pick up your child and comfort him, reassuring him that he is loved and important. You carry him into the kitchen and grab your coffee with the other hand. You come back out to the living room and turn on the television, because your child thinks the magical light box in the corner of the room is the most wondrous thing in his universe. You give him the remote, because he likes to play with the buttons and will be thoroughly amused for the next 45 seconds, allowing you to take exactly three sips of your coffee.
8:30am - You have finally drunk half your cup of coffee and have only had to re-program the television eight times since handing your son the remote. Right about now, he starts crying because he wants real food. You down the rest of your coffee - which is now easily drinkable at room temperature, and carry both baby and coffee cup back to the kitchen. You strap your child into the high chair, refill your coffee, and drink it and eat a bowl of cereal while feeding your child his baby mush.
9:15am - Your child took 45 minutes to eat his meal: 40 minutes to eat his vegetables; 5 minutes to eat his fruit. You hose him down, because the majority of the vegetables ended up in his ears, on his neck and belly, between his toes, all over his high chair, and you. You prepare his bottle and lay him down in the crib; soon after, he falls asleep.
9:30am - You patrol the house, picking up toys, clothes, torn magazines. You re-wash the load of laundry that you forgot to dry the day before. Then you hop on the computer to balance the finances, pay some bills, and most importantly, to see which other mothers out there are having a rough day.
11am - Your child awakes. You feed him again. You put the laundry in the dryer and start a new load. You decide to run errands. It takes an hour to get ready: 10 minutes to ready yourself; 50 minutes to take care of the dog, the baby, and prep the diaper bag. Why? I have no clue. It just does.
12:30pm - You have 3 places you need to go. Walmart. The bank. Another grocery store where diapers and fruit are cheaper. All goes well at Walmart and the bank. Several people even stop you to say how beautiful and well-behaved your child is. You beam and think of what a great day this is turning into.
2:30pm - You are at the 2nd grocery store when your child begins to get hungry and need his nap. But you forgot the diaper bag with his bottle in the car. So you hurriedly race through the aisles, trying to entertain your child, trying to make him laugh. You get to check-out and realize you also left your wallet in the car. You explain to the cashier, unstrap your child from the cart, put the cart off to the side, and walk out to the car to get your wallet. While there, you make up your child's bottle, since he is now at near meltdown. You try not to look at passers-by, not wanting to see the dirty looks from people as they judge you and your poor parenting capabilities. You breathe deeply and say a prayer under your breath, thinking of what an awful day this is turning into. You walk back into the store, grab your cart, wait in line again, pay for your groceries, go back to the car, strap in your wailing child who is fighting against being strapped in, and finally drive home.
3:15pm - You lay your child down for his nap. You realize it's almost 3:30, your husband will be home in a little over an hour, and you still haven't thought about dinner. Plus you still need to exercise to get the last darn 10 lbs. of baby weight off.
3:30pm - You turn on your workout video. You think how much nicer a big bowl of ice cream would be, but you jiggle your baby belly fat as a reminder of why you're going to subject yourself to this suffering. You feel empowered when Jillian Michaels reminds you of how you'll feel when you're out jean shopping or bathing suit shopping; though you'd settle for just wearing your pre-baby Fat Jeans, which currently boast about 2 inches of muffin top all the way around.
4:00pm - The baby wakes up. You get him out of the crib and put him in the Johnny Jump-Up. He giggles and laughs and jumps while you take a shower at world record speeds. You run to the basement to grab some clothes from the dryer, because you completely forgot the laundry. You throw in another load, dry the wet one, and leave the 2 loads of dry laundry in the basket, making a mental note to fold them tomorrow. And clean the bathrooms you meant to clean today. Oh, and also do the dusting and vacuuming. You run back upstairs, get dressed, look in the mirror and realize it's a good thing your husband isn't the superficial type.
4:30pm - You sit down on the couch, put on a Netflix show and drink a glass of water, trying to think of what you should make for dinner. Meanwhile your son jumps around, happy as a clam.
4:45pm - Your husband arrives home. He finds you on the couch, looking like you've been vegging out all day. You swear you haven't been there all day. He laughs, gives you a kiss, and say he knows. He exercises, then takes over baby duty while you make dinner.
6:00pm - You eat dinner with your husband while also feeding your baby.
7:00pm - Your baby starts getting fussy. You prep him for bed, and he is out by 7:30pm.
7:30pm - You and your husband sit down on the couch. He asks you what you did with your day. You can't remember. You spend a few hours picking up the house with your husband, watching a show or two, and then decide it's probably time for bed.
10:30pm - You try to go to sleep, but just as you are drifting off, the baby wakes up for a bottle. You get back in bed, realizing there are wet clothes in the laundry. You decide you can just re-wash the load tomorrow. You finally drift off at about 11:30pm.
2:00am - REPEAT.
If He Only Knew...
Good Day, Invisible World of readers, whose populace likely equals a grand total of FIVE, namely my husband, my mother, my father, my sister, and myself.
1.) My husband, who surely tires of the rantings and ravings of his not-so-sane wife but remains interested and supportive because he knows his wife needs constant reassurance that she is not insane, even though both he and I know she is.
2.) My mother, because, well, she is my mother. And virtually anything I do or say gets her avid interest and stamp of approval, because she, too, did what I can only now understand: sacrificed her body, her mind, her life to a little alien creature who invaded and conquered her world with no regard for its previous ruler. And whom she thankfully chose to love and cherish and dote on with little or no thanks in return, finding it all worth it because she was molding a little person into the functional (or maybe not-so-functional) adult which you now find before you.
3.) My father, because he has always been my buddy and always will be, and he appreciates and gets that my sarcasm and banter are a light-hearted way to ventilate and process the harder things in life (rather than finding my diatribes cynical and whiny like others might).
4.) My sister, because sisters are the best friends who don't judge, listen even when it's not interesting, help you laugh when you feel like crying, and remind you that they've always known you didn't have it all together, so what's the big deal that you don't have it all together now that you're a mom?
And 5.) Myself, because yes, it’s therapy for the Mommy Brain. Re-reading my own accounts of my days helps take the pressure off and remind me of the pure comedy of life’s daily grind. (Plus, hopefully by the fourth re-reading I’ll catch all the things I probably shouldn’t have confessed to the Cyberworld at large the first time around. A reason to be grateful I only have five readers.)
So yes, this shall be my place to release the inner thoughts and musings of a first-time mommy struggling to reconcile the adult on the outside with the little girl inside who is staring wide-eyed at the oncoming bus of parenthood wondering why in the world anyone entrusted her with the care of this tiny human being who seems to think she has the answers. If he only knew…
1.) My husband, who surely tires of the rantings and ravings of his not-so-sane wife but remains interested and supportive because he knows his wife needs constant reassurance that she is not insane, even though both he and I know she is.
2.) My mother, because, well, she is my mother. And virtually anything I do or say gets her avid interest and stamp of approval, because she, too, did what I can only now understand: sacrificed her body, her mind, her life to a little alien creature who invaded and conquered her world with no regard for its previous ruler. And whom she thankfully chose to love and cherish and dote on with little or no thanks in return, finding it all worth it because she was molding a little person into the functional (or maybe not-so-functional) adult which you now find before you.
3.) My father, because he has always been my buddy and always will be, and he appreciates and gets that my sarcasm and banter are a light-hearted way to ventilate and process the harder things in life (rather than finding my diatribes cynical and whiny like others might).
4.) My sister, because sisters are the best friends who don't judge, listen even when it's not interesting, help you laugh when you feel like crying, and remind you that they've always known you didn't have it all together, so what's the big deal that you don't have it all together now that you're a mom?
And 5.) Myself, because yes, it’s therapy for the Mommy Brain. Re-reading my own accounts of my days helps take the pressure off and remind me of the pure comedy of life’s daily grind. (Plus, hopefully by the fourth re-reading I’ll catch all the things I probably shouldn’t have confessed to the Cyberworld at large the first time around. A reason to be grateful I only have five readers.)
So yes, this shall be my place to release the inner thoughts and musings of a first-time mommy struggling to reconcile the adult on the outside with the little girl inside who is staring wide-eyed at the oncoming bus of parenthood wondering why in the world anyone entrusted her with the care of this tiny human being who seems to think she has the answers. If he only knew…
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)