Friday, August 22, 2014

We are running through Forest Park.
Me: "See the big trees?"
Eli: "No, I see the little trees."

We return to the entrance of the park.
Eli: "Yay! We came back this way!"

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Walking home from school, we see a dog.
Eli: "He's eating!"
Me: "I don't think he's eating, he's just sniffing the ground. Dogs like to smell a lot of things!"
Eli (self-importantly): "I can smell too!"
[bends down and starts sniffing the ground and panting like a dog]

We are waiting for a YouTube video to load.
Me: [groan of frustration]
Eli: "Patience!" 
 

Friday, August 15, 2014

You've got the love I need to see me through

When my son was born, I didn't love him.

I say that bluntly because there's really no other way to say it. No matter how many times I had been warned that bonding takes time, that you're not always hit with an instantaneous wave of love for your child, I still wanted to feel it. I imagined my pregnancy as the dress rehearsal leading up to the opening night, that as soon as I got on stage in the delivery room all the panic of the last nine months would vanish and motherly instinct would finally wash over me.

 It didn't.

Well-meaning friends and colleagues had promised me that motherhood was going to be amazing, that I would "love being a mother!" I didn't. I couldn't. What was to love? I had grown a human being inside me -- a tiny human person who literally needed me in order to stay alive. That wasn't amazing, it was terrifying. It was like being trapped inside a small space with a bomb that only I could disarm, except I didn't know which wires to cut. The day after we came home from the hospital, Phil ran out to Babies R Us to buy a breast pump and I thought, "Someone just left me alone with this baby. How can I be left alone with this baby?" We both cried. How could I love him? I didn't even know him.

I knew it was normal to feel overwhelmed, even sad. The "baby blues." I was prepared to wait. It will happen the first time he drifts off to sleep in my arms, I thought, or the first time he smiles. That thunderbolt of love, it will happen.

But there was a torrent of uncertainty beating deeper in my chest. I want to go back. This was a mistake. 

I never, ever said that out loud. It was shameful. It would have been OK to admit to feeling post-partum depression. But I wasn't depressed. I just didn't love my baby. I didn't love motherhood. I started contemplating returning to work as soon as possible, even though I'd planned to take the year off. I didn't want to spend all my time with this baby. I couldn't.

I didn't hate him, or resent him, or think about hurting him. I took good care of him. We went for walks. I talked to him. I videotaped him rolling over on his playmat and dressed him up in new outfits that our friends and relatives had bought for him. I bathed him even though all I really did was sprinkle water over him with a washcloth and then wrap him up in a hooded towel.

We started going out to the park to meet other moms, and I would watch enviously as they picked up their babies to cuddle and kiss them. If Eli was happy where he was, I tried not to pick him up, to disturb the delicate balance of our ecosystem, because what if he started crying and wouldn't stop? What if I had to nurse him there in the grass, or dropped his pacifier in the dirt, or worst of all what if he cried for no reason at all and I couldn't figure out how to help him? Why did everyone else have this motherhood thing all figured out?

He started to wake up more, to be more alert. He smiled. Still no thunderbolt. Sometimes I thought I felt some fondness stirring and I tried to kindle it into a flame, fanning the embers of my affection. Is this what motherhood feels like? Fake it till you make it.

I called a post-partum depression support hotline. She told me not to be dissuaded from breastfeeding if a psychiatrist wanted to prescribe medication. I told her I wouldn't mind if I was told to stop breastfeeding because breastfeeding was making me incredibly anxious. She told me the idea of not breastfeeding should provoke more anxiety in me because then my baby wouldn't be getting valuable antibodies that would protect him from diseases. I hung up and cried for hours. Thanks, post-partum depression support hotline lady.

Finally I put my foot down. I was going to love my child. I would not live in fear of his cry. I would not panic every time he stirred from a nap. He had soft fuzzy hair and my dad's toes and I was going to love him.

I was brave. I took Eli to mommy and baby yoga and he fell asleep on a yoga mat. When it got cold, our playgroup in the park moved indoors to Barnes & Noble. Sometimes he hated his stroller and I carried him in a Beco, his head nestled under my chin, close enough to kiss. In small ways, he began to seem amazing.


Eli will be 2 this weekend, and I finally feel that thunderbolt of love all the time. When he's sitting on my lap in his miniature armchair at bedtime and I fold his legs over mine. When he carefully deposits an armful of Legos in my lap with a "Here go, Mommy!" and a proud smile. Sometimes I sneak into his room at night, after he's sleeping, just to savor it washing over me, that love I thought I'd never feel: I love you. I do love you. You are mine.

This is not every mother's experience. I always feel a little sting of failure when I see a birth announced on Facebook with a comment like, "So in love." Every mother wants, and expects, to love her child from the moment he is born, or even before.

Sometimes I'd like to do those first few months over again, to cherish them without the cascade of panic in my chest. But then I might not get to treasure how far we've come from there to here.



Happy birthday, my Eli. Every day I'm proud that I was brave enough to love you.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Mastering the subtle and complex art of the #humblebrag*

*Disclaimer: Fully aware that this whole post is a humblebrag

Like most new(ish -- now that Eli is nearly 2 I suppose I need to add the "ish") parents, I could easily brag about my kid all day. Unfortunately, bragging about a human being who still requires supervision in the bathtub is somewhat gauche. Also, when you're a new(ish) parent and you brag to a non-parent about your kid's accomplishments, their reaction is generally underwhelming.

Me: "Eli just started saying 'yes' this weekend. It is SO CUTE!"
Non-Parent: "Um, what did he say before?"
Me: "Well, nothing. Like if you asked him if he wanted cheese, he'd say, 'Cheese?' But now, he says, 'Yes,' and it is so cute! I'll say, 'Eli, do you want to help Mommy do the laundry?' and he'll say, 'Yes.' So cute!"
Non-Parent "..."

As a new-new mom, I wasn't really into bragging about Eli's babycomplishments. Partially because (sorry, Eli) there wasn't much to brag about (late sitter, late crawler, average sleeper). I mean, yes, he was the cutest and squishiest baby on the planet with kissable cheeks like two juicy tomatoes (um, ahem). But let's be honest, if you've seen one video of an infant rolling over you've seen them all.

Then Eli hit toddlerhood, and the milestones became more and more interesting to me. My kid can run! Scoot! Sing! The urge to brag was suddenly irresistible.

Unfortunately for me, it's still in poor taste to brag too much. That's why for the past year I have been working on mastering the subtle and complex art of the humblebrag, a totally 21st-century term which Urban Dictionary defines thusly:
Subtly letting others now about how fantastic your life is while undercutting it with a bit of self-effacing humor or "woe is me" gloss.
(I believe the original humblebragger was Benjamin Franklin, who said, "Hide not your talents, for use they were made. What's a sun-dial in the shade?")

Humblebragging about your toddler can also be hashtagged #momofanawesomekidproblems --  basically the equivalent of #firstworldproblems or #whitepeopleproblems.

Every parent has their own humblebrag expertise. Like this weekend I was talking to a mom who has trouble getting out of the house early because her kid is such a good sleeper that she doesn't get out of bed until almost 9 a.m. (whereas the only reason we are such impressive early birds in my house is because Eli is screaming his head off every. single. morning before 5:30). Or those moms who are like, "Should I be worried that my kid eats an obscene amount of fresh vegetables and turns up his nose at processed foods?" Or my personal favorite, "My daughter is potty trained so early that I can't even seem to find underwear small enough to fit her!"

My humblebragging weakness is Eli's language. My kid is a talker. He wasn't a particularly early talker, and he started off pretty low-key (his first word was "ball"). But being a pretty verbal person myself, hearing him collect more and more words has really jazzed me up as a parent in this last year of toddlerhood.

My descent into humblebragging started innocently enough. "Oh man," I'd say casually when Eli had just a few words, "Eli thinks every single vehicle he sees is a bus! 'Bus, bus, bus,' that's all I hear all day."

Or, "I don't know how we'll ever take Eli's pacifier away now that he knows to ask for it. He doesn't even call it a paci, he enunciates it super clearly: pa-see-fi-er!"

Once he could put words together, the ball really started rolling. "We're definitely in the terrible 2s now," I'd say. "Eli's first full sentence ever was 'Don't touch it, Mommy!'"

"Ugh," I'd moan. "Eli wakes up so early. He comes into our bed and then he'll look out the window and go, 'Oh, it's dark out!' Then as soon as it starts to get light out he'll go, 'The sun is coming up!' And I'm like, Just lay down and go back to sleep!"

Lately, my humblebragging has come to feel a bit desperate. It's basically like, My kid is really awesome, just let me BRAG already. But for some reason, I always feel the need to blunt it with some kind of eyeroll, like, "Ugh, toddlers are so bossy. Eli's latest game is to play with his doctor set by ordering me to cry so he can pretend to give me medicine. He's always running up to me and demanding, 'Mommy, cry more!'"

I think perhaps what we parents need is a sort of reverse Purge, where one day a year we have the freedom to brag about our kids as much as we want without feeling embarrassed. "Eli has started to say 'please' and 'thank you' without prompting! And sometimes he requests that I hold him and rock him like a baby!" (OK, that last thing is not necessarily impressive, it's just really cute.)

So to everyone who's been the victim of a humblebrag attack from me: I apologize. It took me a solid nine months to get the hang of this parenting thing, so when I finally figured out how cool my kid really was, I just wanted to share it with everybody. Humbly.

Now let me tell you about the time we were at the beach and Eli kept pestering other sunbathers by repeatedly informing them, "The ocean is coming! The ocean is coming!"...