When I wash the dishes or trim the roses - pretty much any time I have a sharp object in my hand - I visualize myself accidentally cutting off a finger or slicing open my hand. I think we all do this, some not even quite consciously. For most, I suspect these images only hit the brain as a warning to not accidentally inflict hospital-worthy wounds. But lately, my mental flashes of bloody limbs have gotten more like movies. Instead of a quick picture that is drowned out by a renewed consciousness to watch what I am doing, I have come to take these imaginings as a possible vacation.
I imagine the entire scene unfolding and it appeals to me. I am not indirectly talking about suicide or an attempted suicide or even a pretend attempted suicide. I am imagining rest and being taken care of. I imagine the attention that would be paid to me, the way in which my youngest would finally stop asking me to hold him. I imagine that for a moment no one would need me and I would instead, be the needy one. As I write this my 7 year old has asked me to read him a poem that he wrote in a book he bound in a class I taught at his school. He also asked if he could sit in my lap while I wrote. And I am grateful for that - for being his teacher, for his love of me and his desire to share good memories with me, memories I helped facilitate. While I type these words, my 3 year old has made a successful trek up my leg and into my lap, my hands are rigid on the keyboard to prevent his monkey paws from ripping them off and toward what he'd like me to do.
Back to my victim fantasy: The whole ambulance ride to the hospital appeals to me, "Well, you look like you gave yourself one hell of a cut! What were you trying to do there?", the paramedic would joke - he would joke because of course, there would be no life threatening danger, just a quick ER visit and some stitches. Maybe a few hours in a room alone to recover while I waited to be picked up by my, very grateful I am alright, husband. He would probably bring me lunch, perhaps a sandwich made from food I didn't purchase, or maybe even something my kids would hate, like raw fish or a curry.
No children would be allowed in the recovery room and I wouldn't mind. For just a few hours in a day I would not be able to put myself second. If I didn't tend to this horrible wound I would be in for some serious trouble, doctors orders! And the follow-up care would involve absolutely no washing of dishes, nor bathing of children and certainly, under no circumstances, folding any clothes.
Because I actually do know what it is like when I am under orders to lay low (post-partum X 4) and the dire consequences to my marriage when I am not head of clean-up patrol, in this fantasy, my mother, the most tidy human on earth - would come over for 4 hours a day of cleaning, cooking and general childcare. And since I am thoroughly orchestrating how this disaster/miracle/stay-cation would go down, how about this: My whole family, sick with concern and worry for me, would realize that it just isn't healthy for their dear, beloved wife and mother to be solely focused on their needs. My kids would each pick a heavy-duty chore he could take on. One would realize that laundry was his new duty. Another, mopping and sweeping. Even the 3 year old would see me as I really am, a mere mortal who needs a little bit of physical space every once in while.
And then after the scar began to fade and became just another great party story, I would end the tale with this life lesson, "You know what I really learned from that whole event? The take-away? Boundaries. You have to learn to put down boundaries."
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Multi-Failing
I used to think a lot about the differences - neurologically - of men and women and how those differences manifested in our day to day behaviors. For example, I've given a lot of thought to this idea that women can multitask and men cannot. I won't bore you with the books and PBS shows I have read and watched that furthered my knowledge on this subject but suffice it to say that we now know that the brain does not in fact multitask, i.e., we do not do two (or more) things at the same time, ever. Like right now I am parenting and negotiating with my dad and typing these thoughts but I am not doing any of them at the same time, I stop, talk, stop, advise, stop, cuddle, stop, write, stop, yell, stop, write, stop, blow the hell up...
Anyway, that's all super interesting because it turns out that women have to be willing and better (the better part is perhaps conjecture) to multitask because they have to tend to disparate activities and needs while men can typically focus on a sole task. OK. Fascinating stuff. Here is some real proof of how we cannot truly multitask: So I had this great idea that I wanted to write here and when I sat down to do it my 7 year old who has a fever came up with the liquid ibuprofen and I was simultaneously thinking about what I was going to write, I mean really thinking (at this exact moment my 9 year old wants to know where the gun to his Lone Ranger figure is from 3 Christmases ago - I am not kidding - and he would like directions to bike to the store from which I purchased it so excuse me if I am scattered here) and I started to pour the medicine into the cap (no after 4 kids, I do not use a teaspoon because I know what a god damn teaspoon is, it is a cap-full) and because I am literally thinking hard about something else my body just keeps pouring the stuff, long after the cap was full. What a trip. That must be what it is like to have the onset of dementia. I just didn't have to the ability to DO it. And I realized, it is no wonder that I fuck up so much. That I burn the beets, that I over dry the cast-iron pans, that I forget dates I have made (and rarely write them down on the calendar), that I cannot follow recipes that call for exact measurements, that I don't remember where I set things down in the house and on and on. I am always attempting to multitask, and as the scientists have proven, when we do that, we do everything poorly. Half-assed. Shittily.
That's me.
Anyway, that's all super interesting because it turns out that women have to be willing and better (the better part is perhaps conjecture) to multitask because they have to tend to disparate activities and needs while men can typically focus on a sole task. OK. Fascinating stuff. Here is some real proof of how we cannot truly multitask: So I had this great idea that I wanted to write here and when I sat down to do it my 7 year old who has a fever came up with the liquid ibuprofen and I was simultaneously thinking about what I was going to write, I mean really thinking (at this exact moment my 9 year old wants to know where the gun to his Lone Ranger figure is from 3 Christmases ago - I am not kidding - and he would like directions to bike to the store from which I purchased it so excuse me if I am scattered here) and I started to pour the medicine into the cap (no after 4 kids, I do not use a teaspoon because I know what a god damn teaspoon is, it is a cap-full) and because I am literally thinking hard about something else my body just keeps pouring the stuff, long after the cap was full. What a trip. That must be what it is like to have the onset of dementia. I just didn't have to the ability to DO it. And I realized, it is no wonder that I fuck up so much. That I burn the beets, that I over dry the cast-iron pans, that I forget dates I have made (and rarely write them down on the calendar), that I cannot follow recipes that call for exact measurements, that I don't remember where I set things down in the house and on and on. I am always attempting to multitask, and as the scientists have proven, when we do that, we do everything poorly. Half-assed. Shittily.
That's me.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Loved This Book
Totally readable for the layman - This Stanford neurologist is the guy who discovered the therapy for phantom limb pain. Has very interesting ideas about other disorders.
Firemen
What is it with women and their obsession with firemen? I think every woman hankers for a mustached man in blue to appear in her second story window and carry her, ass in air, down to safety. Okay, maybe not every woman, but at least half. Or perhaps just half of the women I know personally - or of the women I have asked, who I already suspected were like me in that way.
I used to talk about my "thing" for firemen around my husband. It never occurred to me that it would bother him. At first it didn't. But then, like everything I do, it eventually became too much. I think that fireman-lust seemed a safe topic to share with him because he is a sort of honorary fireman in my book. He could be a fireman if he wanted to. He has all the bravery, the super-strength and whatever specific caveman elemental intelligence I've assumed fireman must be anointed with.
The end of my crass-disregard for my husband's peace of mind began a few years ago when my husband was working on a job near our house. We both heard sirens - me at home, him on the job site. The fire was close by. I, in my preternatural desire to be close to heroic men and the smell of their sweat wandered, zombie eyed, outside, sniffing my way to the scene. Luck would shine on me that day as the fire was about six houses away from mine.
Meanwhile, my could-a-been-a-fireman husband, naturally concerned for his family's safety, called our home phone. No answer. He tried my cell phone. Nothing. No one answered because no one was there to hear the ringing. Maybe the kids were were home but I wouldn't know because my mind was elsewhere. I spent the next thirty minutes bathing in the manly aura that is firemen at work and at play (because I get the feeling that when the fire is all under control and those obligatory end of the job details are being tended to, firemen are having a pretty good time being adored by the throngs of lustful housewives and envious men who hang around those big red trucks like groupies at a rock show).
Later that night, my husband told a joke that was funny at first but soon (once I took the joke as my own to tell) lost it's innocence and began to just fall flat. He said essentially that he knows better than to try to call me if he hears sirens near by because I won't be home - I will be outside checking out the firemen. When he told this story he was giving tacit approval and showing an understanding and tolerance of my fantasies about other men. When I told the story, especially in front of him, it was just emasculating. And it made me look dumb and insensitive. It took me some time after this little joke was born to stop telling it every single time we were gathered in a group and a fire truck would drive by or show up. Every block party, fourth of July fair, fundraiser or actual emergency for which firemen were present you could find me, stupidly patting my husband on the arm as I told a group of friends about what a total asshole I really was.
Because I am dense when it comes to other people's feelings, my poor husband's irritation was invisible to me. Hell, I was right there with him, checking out women and their cute butts wiggling by in skin tight leggings wasn't I? I was usually the one to tap him on the shoulder and point out someone I thought he would think was gorgeous. He and I had long since learned what was and wasn't acceptable in terms of inviting each other's green eyes monster. Or so I thought.
Recently my husband told me that only a few months into our relationship he figured out that if we were going to stay together then he had better do nothing, nothing, nothing, to make me jealous. He had seen me jealous and he didn't like it. At all. I guess there were two or three really ugly and one might call hysterical outbursts involving slamming down phones on his female friends, swearing, standing outside in the dark when he arrived home and lots of dirty looks and shrieking. It wasn't that my husband thought he was wrong and I was right. No. I really do wish that was true. I do. Because this is embarrassing. He was so turned off by my outbursts and knew that if I continued on in this fashion it would be a "deal breaker" for him. He tells me now that he determined he would be so careful, so protective of this jealousy of mine, that I would never come unglued again. And that is exactly what happened.
So much time has passed since our first, second and third apartments that until my husband recently revived my memory, I had erased from my self-concept utterly these ugly parts of me. I had come to believe that I was a very relaxed, sane, confident and secure wife. Yup. I could ogle women secretly with my husband from the safety of our tinted-windowed mini-van. I could talk about his ex's with fascination and empathy (poor her, she didn't know what she had in him). I even rented movies, on purpose, with Marisa Tomei, whom I knew he was really into, just for his enjoyment.
It seems to me now that my unconscious rule went something like this: If the woman was an abstraction then she was not a threat to me. If the woman was real then I went crazy. Women he would never meet or see again, were fine. Women who actually called our phone or gave him a ride in an old VW bug, they were not at all fine. And always, always, my husband was careful to point out that he was only attracted to women with bodies shaped exactly like mine, who were precisely my age and with the same kind of (name your feature). He was so careful and so convincing that I reshaped my own ideas about myself. I even went so far as to feel sorry for other couples who had problems with jealousy.
And then one day I went on Facebook. And I "friended" my old boyfriend from high school. You know the one. The One. Him. That was pretty cool. It was good to see that he had kids, was married, was seemingly happy and well. It was amending and made me feel like a grown up. Until I noticed that he was a...you guessed it, fireman.
I told my husband in the shower. "You are never going to believe..." He responded, only half jokingly that I might as well just leave now, he was obviously doomed. And for the next couple of weeks as I silently sorted out the emotional upheaval that occurs when we ask Facebook's assistance in the painful dredging up of the wreckage of the past, there were some pointed questions asked. I could feel his real core jealousy. He was worried and it didn't feel at all good. This situation certainly broke my "what is and isn't going to make your spouse jealous" rules. This was a real person from my real past really on Facebook. And he was a fireman.
I have had no revelation beyond the obvious here. I have done the trite and predictable thing that we all must do. Maturing and shedding old ideas about what and how we are is not as painful as I thought it would be - that is if I ever even thought I might one day succumb to social conventions or take the advice of someone with more experience than I. A wise friend said to me not that long ago, "There are some things that are just better left unsaid."
In a House Like Mine
There is no privacy
There is always someone looking over your shoulder
Your presence is needed and someone would like you to get off the computer now
Your chair is being leaned on
The bathroom is always full
The floor needs to be swept even if you swept it in the morning once
The new paint on the walls has smudges already and the new sheet rock has dents in it
Someone is hurt physically
Someone is hurt emotionally
Glass just broke on the tile floor
An animal is thirsty and no one can hear her cries
Your settings on the washing machine were changed to "small load" and there has never been a small load in this house
The floor is sticky
Clothes are dirty
Someone is sneezing, snotting, dripping, farting, pooping, peeing, leaking
Blame is being laid
Anger is expressed
Someone is hungry
Someone is dissatisfied
In a house like mine.
There is always someone looking over your shoulder
Your presence is needed and someone would like you to get off the computer now
Your chair is being leaned on
The bathroom is always full
The floor needs to be swept even if you swept it in the morning once
The new paint on the walls has smudges already and the new sheet rock has dents in it
Someone is hurt physically
Someone is hurt emotionally
Glass just broke on the tile floor
An animal is thirsty and no one can hear her cries
Your settings on the washing machine were changed to "small load" and there has never been a small load in this house
The floor is sticky
Clothes are dirty
Someone is sneezing, snotting, dripping, farting, pooping, peeing, leaking
Blame is being laid
Anger is expressed
Someone is hungry
Someone is dissatisfied
In a house like mine.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Third Child
They say that the third child is the forgotten one. The quiet one. The pleaser, the fixer, the easy-going mellow one. Totally true in my experience. My third, Trace, is a particularly pleasant person. I have this notion that he is the most like me of all my kids. I thought about this some more before I wrote that line and realized that is some serious fantasy. He is very little like me at all but I sure do like him anyway. Perhaps in fact I like him so much because he is so different than I. God damn it! There I go again analyzing everything. I do NOT know why but I just really dig the kid.
He is subtle, perceptive, loyal and stubborn on an as needed basis. He is naturally polite, sensitive to other peoples feelings. He fits in yet is not a doormat. He is tidy, organized, funny and smart, patient and kind. He really just came out that way. His birth was easy and magnificent. He was a perfect baby in every way. Unlike all my other kids, he liked people other than me and still does.
This morning while I was meditating, he came into my bed and without a word crawled in next to me and snuggled into my arm. He is the only child who does this. I have three other children each equally unique as Trace. And thus far I believe they were all pre-programmed to be the people they are with a dash of my and their father's (over and under) reactions/input/influence once they got here.
We all get some blessings, some challenges, some grace, some trials. I get my respite in Trace - my breath before diving back into the storm. I do think he is exactly where he is meant to be in the birth order and I am utterly grateful for the spot of number three being filled by such a human as he.
He is subtle, perceptive, loyal and stubborn on an as needed basis. He is naturally polite, sensitive to other peoples feelings. He fits in yet is not a doormat. He is tidy, organized, funny and smart, patient and kind. He really just came out that way. His birth was easy and magnificent. He was a perfect baby in every way. Unlike all my other kids, he liked people other than me and still does.
This morning while I was meditating, he came into my bed and without a word crawled in next to me and snuggled into my arm. He is the only child who does this. I have three other children each equally unique as Trace. And thus far I believe they were all pre-programmed to be the people they are with a dash of my and their father's (over and under) reactions/input/influence once they got here.
We all get some blessings, some challenges, some grace, some trials. I get my respite in Trace - my breath before diving back into the storm. I do think he is exactly where he is meant to be in the birth order and I am utterly grateful for the spot of number three being filled by such a human as he.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Boys
We let our 14 year old daughter have boys sleep over. Yes. I know that this is not normal and that in the past my insistence on not being normal has certainly been a bad choice. I may be completely wrong in all my ideas leading up to this allowance, it may be yet another example of the pendulum swinging way too far in one direction and yet, this is where my husband and I stand.
This morning, when I told my 78 year old father (who is staying with us right now) that there were several kids in my daughters room (2 boys, 2 girls) so beware, he replied, "You mean those boys spent the night? My God. Disgusting!" Suffice it to say, my father did not let me have boyfriends or boy-friends sleep over. I would have loved to, I had a few boy-friends who were as good or better girl-friends than any girl had been. It would have been wonderful to have them sleep over so our giggling could have been extended into the wee hours of the morning (the only reason for a sleep over I think). And if we had ended up smooching he would have been a safe boy to experiment with instead of some "cute" asshole I actually was physically attracted to.
I trust my daughter. I do not trust that she will never nor has ever lied to me. No, I trust she will and know she has. I trust her to talk to me about the things that matter. I trust that she trusts me and her father, to love her first and to judge and get angry second. I trust that she is not me, that she is a very different human being than I was and am. I trust her judgement to the degree that a 14 year old has judgement at all. I see that her judgement is about on par with mine at 19 or 20. I believe that she was born with a greater, more established sense of right and wrong and her position on such things, than I was.
My daughter has been asking me and my husband the most probing questions since she was 3. My favorite example of her willingness to reach out for information was at the age of 6 when she said, "If you and dad had to have sex to have Edan [her little brother] then where was I when you did it?" my response, totally caught off guard was something like, "Uhhh, well, um" to which she gracefully replied, "I am sorry if I asked an embarrassing question... I know! I was at a sleep over!"
My inability to smoothly answer this question set my husband and me to further discussion of our feelings about honesty with our kids. We both grew up in a time when drugs and sex were done and discussed openly and without any censorship nor real understanding of the effects of both on a child's self-concept. We agreed that we would continue to be utterly truthful about the mechanics, and even the element of love, involved in sex. But we decided that we would purposely censor ourselves when it came to our own histories with both sex and drugs.
And we did so successfully for a long time. No bragging stories was she to hear about our drunk driving, our brushes with the cops, our bad trips on acid and mushrooms, our promiscuity or our exes. She heard nothing of the arrests, the time in juvy, the breaking and entering the knives confiscated, the quitting high school, the coming to school drunk and high and doing cocaine in the bathroom stalls in 10Th grade. Unlike me, she didn't have a paraphernalia box to play in, she didn't know what a "numby" was (nor given herself one from the inside of an old cedar coke box), she didn't know what razors, dollar bills and short straws were really used for. Unlike her dad, she couldn't eye an eighth, she didn't know how to sex a pot plant, she didn't know the history of free-base. None of this was discussed in front of her.
Then she turned 13. And suddenly she started asking. "How old were you when you first had sex?", "Have you ever smoked pot?", "What about cocaine?". And we didn't want to lie and we desperately didn't want to tell her the truth. It was horribly complicated. I knew the power of a child's desire to be like and emulate her parent's exploits. I sure as hell made a conscious decision to be on par with my parents and their wild and crazy yet somehow not a problem now pasts.
So we dished out the truth in dribs and drabs. We revealed as little as we felt we could honestly. We did not condone nor relish any of our past adventures. We were full of regret. We warned and admonished her against repeating our mistakes. And all the while she herself was continuing to explore her own limits with sexuality, alcohol, drugs. First just by being near kids who might be doing a little of that stuff, by drinking half a glass of someones wine at Christmas dinner, by smoking a cigarette, by playing truth or dare at her birthday party. And she was honest about it all. My momma-sixth-sense knew it and asked or she felt guilty or she just casually mentioned it. And every time we had a good talk about it, about the internal and external pressures she felt, about her desire to be mature, grown-up, a leader, the first one to do cool things.
And while these things were occurring, while she was going along in the hell that is teenage hormonal insanity (because they are insane with their level of hormones washing over those poor brains) she was having friends over, making new friends, leaving friends, figuring out the safety of certain friends and often, having big group sleep-overs that included boys. Boys she had known since infancy, boys who she had known pre-puberty and post. Boys whom we liked, could talk with, who were respectful, funny, bright and loving. My husband and I saw that things were shifting, that these boys were becoming more overtly sexual and we remember what it was like at their age, we are not at all naive. But, we decided to continue to allow it.
There are some rules. One being that boys have to sleep on the floor, the second being that the boys have to pass the Nick test. My husband, not a small man and not easily intimidated by a mountain lion let alone an eesy-beensy boy, shakes hands, looks them in the eyes and says, "No messing around with my daughter or anyone else here. You got that? Be respectful, alright?" And he just knows. He has asked a boy to leave one night, just real casual. A boy who has slept over before but he could feel a vibe that night. And our daughter confirmed he was being playfully but possibly too pushy with her new friend.
I have had many an eyebrow raised at our allowance of this co-ed sleepover activity. I am not attached to it as a permanent standard but for now, as long as we feel good about our daughter, her friends and the flow of communication, it shall remain. I'll let you know how it works out.
This morning, when I told my 78 year old father (who is staying with us right now) that there were several kids in my daughters room (2 boys, 2 girls) so beware, he replied, "You mean those boys spent the night? My God. Disgusting!" Suffice it to say, my father did not let me have boyfriends or boy-friends sleep over. I would have loved to, I had a few boy-friends who were as good or better girl-friends than any girl had been. It would have been wonderful to have them sleep over so our giggling could have been extended into the wee hours of the morning (the only reason for a sleep over I think). And if we had ended up smooching he would have been a safe boy to experiment with instead of some "cute" asshole I actually was physically attracted to.
I trust my daughter. I do not trust that she will never nor has ever lied to me. No, I trust she will and know she has. I trust her to talk to me about the things that matter. I trust that she trusts me and her father, to love her first and to judge and get angry second. I trust that she is not me, that she is a very different human being than I was and am. I trust her judgement to the degree that a 14 year old has judgement at all. I see that her judgement is about on par with mine at 19 or 20. I believe that she was born with a greater, more established sense of right and wrong and her position on such things, than I was.
My daughter has been asking me and my husband the most probing questions since she was 3. My favorite example of her willingness to reach out for information was at the age of 6 when she said, "If you and dad had to have sex to have Edan [her little brother] then where was I when you did it?" my response, totally caught off guard was something like, "Uhhh, well, um" to which she gracefully replied, "I am sorry if I asked an embarrassing question... I know! I was at a sleep over!"
My inability to smoothly answer this question set my husband and me to further discussion of our feelings about honesty with our kids. We both grew up in a time when drugs and sex were done and discussed openly and without any censorship nor real understanding of the effects of both on a child's self-concept. We agreed that we would continue to be utterly truthful about the mechanics, and even the element of love, involved in sex. But we decided that we would purposely censor ourselves when it came to our own histories with both sex and drugs.
And we did so successfully for a long time. No bragging stories was she to hear about our drunk driving, our brushes with the cops, our bad trips on acid and mushrooms, our promiscuity or our exes. She heard nothing of the arrests, the time in juvy, the breaking and entering the knives confiscated, the quitting high school, the coming to school drunk and high and doing cocaine in the bathroom stalls in 10Th grade. Unlike me, she didn't have a paraphernalia box to play in, she didn't know what a "numby" was (nor given herself one from the inside of an old cedar coke box), she didn't know what razors, dollar bills and short straws were really used for. Unlike her dad, she couldn't eye an eighth, she didn't know how to sex a pot plant, she didn't know the history of free-base. None of this was discussed in front of her.
Then she turned 13. And suddenly she started asking. "How old were you when you first had sex?", "Have you ever smoked pot?", "What about cocaine?". And we didn't want to lie and we desperately didn't want to tell her the truth. It was horribly complicated. I knew the power of a child's desire to be like and emulate her parent's exploits. I sure as hell made a conscious decision to be on par with my parents and their wild and crazy yet somehow not a problem now pasts.
So we dished out the truth in dribs and drabs. We revealed as little as we felt we could honestly. We did not condone nor relish any of our past adventures. We were full of regret. We warned and admonished her against repeating our mistakes. And all the while she herself was continuing to explore her own limits with sexuality, alcohol, drugs. First just by being near kids who might be doing a little of that stuff, by drinking half a glass of someones wine at Christmas dinner, by smoking a cigarette, by playing truth or dare at her birthday party. And she was honest about it all. My momma-sixth-sense knew it and asked or she felt guilty or she just casually mentioned it. And every time we had a good talk about it, about the internal and external pressures she felt, about her desire to be mature, grown-up, a leader, the first one to do cool things.
And while these things were occurring, while she was going along in the hell that is teenage hormonal insanity (because they are insane with their level of hormones washing over those poor brains) she was having friends over, making new friends, leaving friends, figuring out the safety of certain friends and often, having big group sleep-overs that included boys. Boys she had known since infancy, boys who she had known pre-puberty and post. Boys whom we liked, could talk with, who were respectful, funny, bright and loving. My husband and I saw that things were shifting, that these boys were becoming more overtly sexual and we remember what it was like at their age, we are not at all naive. But, we decided to continue to allow it.
There are some rules. One being that boys have to sleep on the floor, the second being that the boys have to pass the Nick test. My husband, not a small man and not easily intimidated by a mountain lion let alone an eesy-beensy boy, shakes hands, looks them in the eyes and says, "No messing around with my daughter or anyone else here. You got that? Be respectful, alright?" And he just knows. He has asked a boy to leave one night, just real casual. A boy who has slept over before but he could feel a vibe that night. And our daughter confirmed he was being playfully but possibly too pushy with her new friend.
I have had many an eyebrow raised at our allowance of this co-ed sleepover activity. I am not attached to it as a permanent standard but for now, as long as we feel good about our daughter, her friends and the flow of communication, it shall remain. I'll let you know how it works out.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Anxiety
When my first child, Ellie, was born, I was 23. I had a complicated and disappointing birth experience. What was supposed to be a peaceful home birth ended up a terrifying C-section and many hours separation between my daughter and myself after her birth. Due to what I see as a perfect storm of circumstances I began to suffer - soon after her birth - from severe post-partum anxiety. I was depressed too but the real disabling pallor that now colored my every moment was a paralyzing hypochondria. My primary concern was Ellie and her health but eventually I began to fear for my own as well. I was insane with a belief that Ellie would develop an illness so severe that she would either be hospitalized (and I wouldn't be able to be with her) or die.
Every cough, fever or stomach bug would send me into a hyper-vigilant state of sleeplessness. I would watch over her, day and night, afraid to even move my body, to breathe deeply. I would count her breaths in the dark. I would examine her skin, did she look dehydrated? Was that rash perhaps indicative of something serious? Strep maybe? I was regularly convinced that she had meningitis, influenza, whooping cough, that she was dehydrated, starved of oxygen, constipated, infected, diseased. And to validate my fears, she was a seemingly sickly baby and kid (she was big and robust and actually recovered normally and was never hospitalized) but she did have asthma, some allergies, and lots of odd rashes, unexplained prolonged high fevers and every bad cold that came her way.
Every cough, fever or stomach bug would send me into a hyper-vigilant state of sleeplessness. I would watch over her, day and night, afraid to even move my body, to breathe deeply. I would count her breaths in the dark. I would examine her skin, did she look dehydrated? Was that rash perhaps indicative of something serious? Strep maybe? I was regularly convinced that she had meningitis, influenza, whooping cough, that she was dehydrated, starved of oxygen, constipated, infected, diseased. And to validate my fears, she was a seemingly sickly baby and kid (she was big and robust and actually recovered normally and was never hospitalized) but she did have asthma, some allergies, and lots of odd rashes, unexplained prolonged high fevers and every bad cold that came her way.
The older Ellie got the milder the anxiety was. When she was four and a half, her little brother Edan was born. This time, I had another failed home birth but did delivery him vaginally in the hospital. That small victory was enough to make me wonder if perhaps I wouldn't have the same crippling anxiety with this baby boy. But, soon after his birth it began. I could feel it coming on and there was nothing I could do to shield myself from it's onslaught.
And then there was a shift - out of nowhere. I couldn't have explained this at the time but now I recognize that I had a hormonal shift - I new wave washed over me - this one was a calm, trusting sense. A oxytocin-trust-faith kinda of thing. And although my fears were not entirely abated, I could quiet the disasterizer in my head. I could accept that we would be the ones to miss the rare disaster. I believed that I could tell the difference between sick and SICK. I still worried. I still went to the pediatrician more than I needed to and I read too many infant books but I was normal again.
I have never known why I suffered from this debilitating neurosis although I suspect it falls into line with a soldier's PTSD diagnosis. Something was thrown off coarse for me in the hospital with my daughter and it took a long time to realign. When my third and fourth children were born (both at home, peacefully) I was hyper aware that the worry would return and the first couple of nights after their births I did feel the fear lurking around my bed. But it didn't take hold.
Last night my three year old had a fever of 103.7 and although I was lovingly concerned I was in no way worried. I gave him some ibuprofen, snuggled him and went peacefully to sleep, knowing he was going to be alright.
And then there was a shift - out of nowhere. I couldn't have explained this at the time but now I recognize that I had a hormonal shift - I new wave washed over me - this one was a calm, trusting sense. A oxytocin-trust-faith kinda of thing. And although my fears were not entirely abated, I could quiet the disasterizer in my head. I could accept that we would be the ones to miss the rare disaster. I believed that I could tell the difference between sick and SICK. I still worried. I still went to the pediatrician more than I needed to and I read too many infant books but I was normal again.
I have never known why I suffered from this debilitating neurosis although I suspect it falls into line with a soldier's PTSD diagnosis. Something was thrown off coarse for me in the hospital with my daughter and it took a long time to realign. When my third and fourth children were born (both at home, peacefully) I was hyper aware that the worry would return and the first couple of nights after their births I did feel the fear lurking around my bed. But it didn't take hold.
Last night my three year old had a fever of 103.7 and although I was lovingly concerned I was in no way worried. I gave him some ibuprofen, snuggled him and went peacefully to sleep, knowing he was going to be alright.
Room to Spare?
We have a king sized bed. Nick, my husband, is a big guy with big physical boundaries. We were given the bed as a wedding gift from my uncle who made it by hand. It is simple and beautiful and I cherish it's squeekless solidity. When we got the bed we had one bun in the oven and she slept with us til the next one came along. Then we clamped a wee little twin that had once cradled my grandmother as a girl right up next to our bed. There was a tiny little path to Nick's side, then bed, bed, wall. We called it the room of bed. Our first slept in the twin, touching me by toe or hand and the new baby slept in the king with us. And on it goes until we had all four of our kids. Today sleeping arrangements go something like this: Youngest in bed with mom and dad, next two boys take turns every other night sleeping on the wee twin mattress on the floor (the bed itself went the way of the basement, I sacrificed the intimacy I get from sleeping on level with my kids for an actual matching bedside table). The eldest sleeps almost exclusively in her own queen bed which she graciously usually and sometimes reluctantly shares with alternating brothers. Yes, the brothers do have a room of their own. No, they don't sleep in it.
I have been asked if I like this sleeping arrangement. Some people think I am a big family-bed advocate and for some time I was. Now I don't care what other people do. I just know what we do and I cannot honestly justify or explain it. I've complained about it and I've ruminated about it. I once, for about six months did experience sleeping sans kids and not pregnant in our big bed. I think that that luxurious time was a turning point for me. I liked it and I am longingly looking forward to that day to come again. For now, I share my half (I believe against my husbands carpenterial objections that I actually only have one third of the bed but for harmonies sake I will say half) of the bed with a three year old. Sometimes a nine or seven year old will crawl in post-nightmare and nest in between my legs like a little puppy. I sleep like this unwillingly and willingly.
Sometimes, and at times in the past always, my husband "flips" and we sleep head-to-toe. I am surprised at how odd my friends find this. No one else I know has ever done this. It is kind of brilliant. We both get the shoulder room we crave and I actually like snuggling his toes. His ankles are much more inviting than his snoring back which is turned in defiant determination to sleep for consecutive hours uninterrupted. But there are nights, when I am awoken for perhaps (I really wouldn't know, have you ever tried keeping count of such a thing?) the 8Th time (and it's only 3AM) and I have to readjust the three year old so that he has covers, his action figure and skin to skin access to some part of my body, that I imagine us from an aerial perspective. I wonder, who else does this?
This is a unique intimacy, our families sleeping arrangement - as it is with all families and their personal culture. I think this is true. Perhaps it is only a justification, romanticising what is in reality a neurotic inability to set boundaries for God's sake! Perhaps it is laziness or perhaps I really do believe that this way of co-sleeping is better for my kids, for all of us. Somehow, after 14 years of it, I have stopped wondering. This is just us.
I have been asked if I like this sleeping arrangement. Some people think I am a big family-bed advocate and for some time I was. Now I don't care what other people do. I just know what we do and I cannot honestly justify or explain it. I've complained about it and I've ruminated about it. I once, for about six months did experience sleeping sans kids and not pregnant in our big bed. I think that that luxurious time was a turning point for me. I liked it and I am longingly looking forward to that day to come again. For now, I share my half (I believe against my husbands carpenterial objections that I actually only have one third of the bed but for harmonies sake I will say half) of the bed with a three year old. Sometimes a nine or seven year old will crawl in post-nightmare and nest in between my legs like a little puppy. I sleep like this unwillingly and willingly.
Sometimes, and at times in the past always, my husband "flips" and we sleep head-to-toe. I am surprised at how odd my friends find this. No one else I know has ever done this. It is kind of brilliant. We both get the shoulder room we crave and I actually like snuggling his toes. His ankles are much more inviting than his snoring back which is turned in defiant determination to sleep for consecutive hours uninterrupted. But there are nights, when I am awoken for perhaps (I really wouldn't know, have you ever tried keeping count of such a thing?) the 8Th time (and it's only 3AM) and I have to readjust the three year old so that he has covers, his action figure and skin to skin access to some part of my body, that I imagine us from an aerial perspective. I wonder, who else does this?
This is a unique intimacy, our families sleeping arrangement - as it is with all families and their personal culture. I think this is true. Perhaps it is only a justification, romanticising what is in reality a neurotic inability to set boundaries for God's sake! Perhaps it is laziness or perhaps I really do believe that this way of co-sleeping is better for my kids, for all of us. Somehow, after 14 years of it, I have stopped wondering. This is just us.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Whose Fault is It?
Having been raised on a steady diet of Freudian analysis at the dinner table I know that it is close to impossible that I will ever rid myself of it's influence. I don't think I even know the extent to which Freud's influence on modern psychology has pervaded my life. Every therapist I was sent to (your child is acting weird? therapy of course) used his approach melded with whatever latest fad in therapy was popular at that time. Quite a few members of my family considered themselves aficionados and my childhood was infused with the language of psychoanalysis.
Some of my best memories are of the car rides home after a social gathering. Me in the back, intently listening, my parents in the front, deeply scouring the psyches of our friends and family. I cherished these times as a child because of the deep sense of belonging it gave me. My parents, and hence I, really understood the motivations and unconscious longings of others. We knew them better, in fact, than they knew themselves.
The idea, no, belief, confidently held, that I could - merely through the use of my superior knowledge of the predictable patterns of the mind - break anyone down into his base elements made me feel, I am ashamed to say, superior. Superior and safe. Safe in the belief that to know others was to know myself - in a sort of detached, painless way.
My mother has been accused over the years of being critical of others. When confronted with this accusation I remember her saying that what was being called critical was in fact a yearning to deeper understand the human condition. It was, I gleaned, good to talk about others and I thought at the time, I could feel confident that my parent's analysis of their motivations, desires, neurosis, etc was in fact, true.
Fast forward some 30 years to today. I have four children spanning 11 years. I have been living with my now husband for 17 years, 15 of them married. Right away, I trained him up good in my style of post-party analysis. No one was off-limits for my labels. Tom is passive aggressive, Lucy is clearly regressing, Bobby is undoubtedly a latent homosexual, Rose is asexual, Maggie is full of unresolved wounds. Just typing all this is embarrassing. This was all difficult for my husband who wasn't raised that way. But you know how marriage requires a certain amount of abandonment of one's values (even if those values might be really good ones, like not picking apart your brother's and his girlfriend's sex life).
The problem is, these labels are a whole lot harder to make stick when you want to apply them to your own children. Why? Because my children's story involves me. I am the fuel of their angst. I am the inflicter of their wounds. I am the content of their back story. The first thing that started to happen when I began to analyze my children was a release of blame for my parents supposed crimes. The other thing I realized was that it is easy to draw a map of one child's emotional brain but add another (especially two of the same gender) who is radically different in personality and your suppositions no longer click.
How can I possibly be to blame when I have children of all sorts, sizes, shapes, temperment, attitudes, learning styles, abilities and lack there of. One child might have been asked one thousand times to use his napkin, his utensils, to close his mouth when he chews, to not interrupt, all to no avail, while another seems to have attended classes in social graces inutero. How many times have I judged other parents for not disciplining their child the way I did - if only they would, theirs would be as sweet, kind and mature as my little angel. And then I had my second child. Turns out I wasn't doing any disciplining, I was simply lucky. My daughter, my first born, was just an easy going, seemingly wise and naturally kind kid. My second, well, he spit on people, peed in public, refused to eat anything but 5 foods and hit, scratched and bit his way through first, our block, then preschool and all the way through third grade until, miraculously (I once tried to take credit for this but no, I cannot) he "grew out of it" (those are his words). All the consequences, punishments and spankings I dished out seemed to only make his behavior worse - at least they made me feel horribly out of control and generally evil.
I do not claim to be at peace now that I have finally grown into a more modest person, a humbler parent. I still scour my memory of possible causes and canvas others with more experience for an explanation of the mystery that is my youngest and his utterly challenging personality. But it does comfort me to know, that in the words of my second son Edan, he will eventually grown out of it.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Envy
I am green with envy. Emerald green. All fucked up with it. I am really into the author Ayelet Waldman - her book, "Bad Mother" is great. She lives near me, one of her kids knows one of my kids, she has 4 young children, she is funny and irreverent and an "over-sharer" - I totally relate. She is also: Harvard educated. Married to a very successful fellow author. Generally viewable as a success. It appears that she is pulling it off. Four kids, career, marriage. This all came up in a tidal wave as we are driving in Berkeley and my daughter points to a perfect house and says, "Hey, that's where my friend Zeke lives, you know, his mom is that author you like, Ayelet Waldman." Lets just say, it physically hurt. And I realized, not only am I not pulling it off all that well, but I think that I may be flailing.
This trend of having large families (one which I was ignorant of) is not something I relate to. I think having that many kids falls into one of two categories: either you are so poor you don't know about or cannot afford birth control or you are so wealthy that you want lots of offspring to further the wealth or show off or something.
Where I fit, I am not sure. I was just so damn impulsive and newborns are so little and they smell so good. I have 4 kids but I do not: have a nanny or a babysitter or daycare - or a house cleaner (anymore) - or a big house (we live in 1000 sq feet) - or a nice car - or family with much money - or all four years at one college with a degree in hand - or a career - or a fucking plan. During the economic boom my husband (a framing contractor) had a stint with making really great money. I spent it all and he helped. We were totally un-managable, out of control, directionless weirdos. I am actually grateful for the lesson now learned because...well, I had to learn it someday.
And when we had money I went right along with the wave of being a middle-class, high-falutin', liberal do-gooder with pity on the uninsured and under-served in our community o dear! I came from a very comfortable, quite well-educated, middle-class background and I expected that would be the life I too would live. But the money-management gene skipped me over. The entitlement gene landed fair and square though and here I am feeling the weight of my circumstances on my shoulders.
I wonder where I really belong - although I abut the moneyed elite in the Bay Area geographically, politically and culturally, I feel out of place. And at the same time, I recoil in horror when I go inland or north or south. I do not "get" those people either. They vote wrong, dress wrong, eat wrong, spend their money wrong. I am a stifled product of a rigid environment that no longer represents or defines me.
This trend of having large families (one which I was ignorant of) is not something I relate to. I think having that many kids falls into one of two categories: either you are so poor you don't know about or cannot afford birth control or you are so wealthy that you want lots of offspring to further the wealth or show off or something.
Where I fit, I am not sure. I was just so damn impulsive and newborns are so little and they smell so good. I have 4 kids but I do not: have a nanny or a babysitter or daycare - or a house cleaner (anymore) - or a big house (we live in 1000 sq feet) - or a nice car - or family with much money - or all four years at one college with a degree in hand - or a career - or a fucking plan. During the economic boom my husband (a framing contractor) had a stint with making really great money. I spent it all and he helped. We were totally un-managable, out of control, directionless weirdos. I am actually grateful for the lesson now learned because...well, I had to learn it someday.
And when we had money I went right along with the wave of being a middle-class, high-falutin', liberal do-gooder with pity on the uninsured and under-served in our community o dear! I came from a very comfortable, quite well-educated, middle-class background and I expected that would be the life I too would live. But the money-management gene skipped me over. The entitlement gene landed fair and square though and here I am feeling the weight of my circumstances on my shoulders.
I wonder where I really belong - although I abut the moneyed elite in the Bay Area geographically, politically and culturally, I feel out of place. And at the same time, I recoil in horror when I go inland or north or south. I do not "get" those people either. They vote wrong, dress wrong, eat wrong, spend their money wrong. I am a stifled product of a rigid environment that no longer represents or defines me.
What it's really like
I was killing time today in the very chi-chi north oakland/berkeley area on college ave (think organic, local, sustainable, hand-made, indigenous = very expensive and exclusive). Note, I have all 4 kids in tow. First, we go in a "local" jewelery store where the diamonds are all "humanely harvested" just to check out the price for replacing my engagement and wedding ring that I let my 2 year old lose at a park a few months ago. Suffice it to say, we were hated right out of the store. Even my 14 year old daughter was turned off, "I would never spend my money at a place that treated me like that." My boys got barked at, I was frostily helped. I think that when you show up with that many kids in tow it says something about you (something jewelery store owners don't like) - it says: I don't have enough money for 1. a nanny or 2. summer camp. Then I get hit up for money by the ACLU guy. Instead of just accepting my "no" he guilt tripped me. Something along the lines of, "No time to protect the rights of (name your under-served minority)?" I lied and said that my account was overdrawn. Actually my account had a wopping $50.00. But it had been overdrawn about 2 hours previously. After over-sharing with this complete stranger I then couldn't follow through with my promise to take my kids to the EXPENSIVE but admittedly delicious ice cream store, Ici, because the ACLU guy would see me and know I was a liar. We ended up somewhere around the corner that was so much more our our class anyway - the doughnut store...where we over ate repulsive chinese-american food like the gluttonous poor white trash we are.
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