Taking Stock

Mondays are normally days when I have office hours at school, but after a bout with a mystery 3 a.m. stomach bug (mine, not Benjamin's, thankfully), I decided to work from home today. B spends Mondays with my parents. It's amazing how quiet it is without him here.

Between bursts of grading, I've been doing laundry and trying to get my house organized ("trying" is the operative word … and isn't it always?). I've also been trying to get the plan for his first birthday party in control, too (again with that trying), namely figuring out the menu and decorations and what house and yard work I need to complete in the next three weeks.

I've been feeling a little nostalgic with his birthday right around the bend. Yesterday, my family had lunch at my grandmother's house, and we watched with bated breath as he almost walked for real. All he managed was a step and then a prompt butt-plant, but he is so, so close to walking. The "they grow up so fast" line? Yeah, that one's true, too.

When we decide to do this again, I'm wondering what I'll do differently. It's going to be harder with a toddler, for sure. I'm not sure how well that "sleep when the baby sleeps" mantra is going to work when you've got a 2- or 3-year-old who neeeeeeeeeeeds his mommy noooooooooooow.

I will try to breastfeed again, and I really want it to work better than it did with Benjamin. Maybe it won't be so difficult the second time around, particularly since I know just how much time and effort it entails. Last summer, I wasn't prepared to do nothing but sit on the couch and feed the baby all day long. Literally! Maybe now that I know what I'm in for, it will be easier. Likewise, I'm not going to beat myself up about giving Baby #2 a bottle of formula the way I did with Benjamin. I look at him now and see a strong, healthy, smart and awesome kid. It's hard to imagine him being any stronger, healthier, smarter or more awesome than he already is.

I will not fret so much about "the schedule"—at least not right away. Benjamin wasn't on much of a daytime schedule until about a month ago. It's way easier now, sure, but the schedule emerged on his terms, not because I forced it on him. I know it's going to change again anyway, so what's the sense in forcing it?

I'm going to use sign language more consistently with #2. Benjamin only uses the "more" sign with any regularity. My niece says "eat," "drink," "more," along with "all done" and "please," too. She's 2 months older, so I know that's a factor, but I'd like to be better at it because it's super-cool when a non-talking baby can tell you what she wants.

I could write about this forever, but I really should take advantage of the alone time and get more grading done.

I'm interested in hearing from other mamas. What would you/did you do differently with your second (or third or fourth!) child? Did you stress about stuff more or less?

One Is the Loneliest Number

In the last couple of weeks, I have learned that not one, not two, but THREE of my closest girlfriends are pregnant and due at basically the exact same time. Likewise, another dear friend and my sister-in-law are due early this summer. It's safe to say that there's an epidemic of baby fever going around these parts.

All of them are pregnant with their second or third children, which is a concept I seriously cannot get my head around. In theory, I've always wanted more than just one kid. My husband hated growing up as an only child, and we both want Benjamin to have a sister or a brother someday.

Someday.

The fact is, I don't know when that "someday" is going to come. I have barely made it through this first year as a working mom with all of my faculties intact, and I think I have managed to not lose myself entirely in the process. Seeing how quickly my interests could be swallowed up or abandoned simply because I no longer have enough hours in the day to do everything has made me cling to them more tightly than I ever have.

My motherhood mantra has, since Day 1, been, "It's not always going to be like this. Sometimes it will be better, sometimes it will be worse, but it's not always going to be like this."

I am not all Pollyanna about being a mom: Sometimes it's amazing and fulfilling and The Best Thing Ever. And sometimes, it really sucks. Sometimes it can be tedious and thankless and frustrating. Throw a full-time job into the mix, and the battle for your time and energy ensues.

I know I haven't been able to give 100 percent as a teacher and a writer all the time, just like I haven't been able to give 100 percent as a mother or a wife or a friend or a sister or what have you, either. I think I've finally reached a point where I'm OK with that.

My kind of pie chartI was reading the new issue of Real Simple last night. It included an excerpt from a new book by the managing editor, Kristin van Ogtrop. In the essay, she laments letting her friendships take a backseat to parenthood and work. I'm paraphrasing a lot, but she wrote about doing an exercise in which you segment your life into a pie chart to figure out how you spend your time. She realized that her pie had just three big slices: work, kids and sleep. She wasn't happy about her pie. I think it's a good lesson.

I've always admired my mother for many things, but one was her desire to do her own thing, despite having three children. She got together with her good friends as much as she could over coffee or breakfast. She volunteered a lot. When we got older, she took a part-time job as a children's librarian. She and my dad took a trip usually once a year, even for just a weekend. She still reads a book a week. And she made dinner every night, cleaned the house, washed our clothes and came to all of our soccer games, plays, art shows and parent-teacher conferences.

So as my husband and I discuss having another baby, I am trying to figure out what I want and if it makes sense to wait or to just jump in. I've given myself until July to decide. Getting pregnant was a lot of work. First, it involved fertility drugs that gave me raging headaches and did not work. I spent hundreds of dollars in the months before I conceived on ovulation strips, a fertility monitor, herbs, books, you name it. I charted my temperature every morning for months.

I spent an entire spring and summer obsessed with getting pregnant. It was not fun, and I do not want to do that again. I'm scared that it will take that level of effort—maybe more—to get pregnant again. I'm not sure there's enough room in my pie chart—or in my head—right now for this.

But if I wait until I'm 35 instead of 34 to conceive again, will I be setting myself up for a rougher time? What about Scott and what he wants? And then there's my job … tenure around the corner, freelancing, teaching. And what about me? What about my interests? Will I ever be able to write the stories I want to or travel to the places I want to go? (And what about my cupcake truck/mobile coffeehouse/bookmobile I've been dreaming about?!) How much does that stuff really matter to me?

So many questions, but I suppose it's always a leap of faith, no matter what.

Readers, what would your pie chart look like? How do you spend most of your time? And are you happy about that? If you could design your perfect pie chart, what would you include?

Spring Fever

My students are not the only ones who've caught spring fever. The past couple of days have been cold and rainy and dreary, and I've been maniacally checking weather updates to find out when the weather is going to warm up again. (Come on, Wednesday!) There are just three more weeks until the end of the semester, and I am beyond excited for the warm weather and the time at home to putter and write and have adventures with my kid.

It's important to take time to smell the flowers. And then try to put them in your mouth.

As Benjamin's first birthday approaches, I keep playing a little game I like to call "What Was I Doing a Year Ago?" It's not really much of a game because the answer is almost always "in bed" or "on the couch" or "wishing I were in bed or on the couch" or some variant of that. A year ago, I was a month from giving birth. I'm not going to mince words: I was miserable. I waddled, not walked, to and fro. I threatened to call the campus police on a cute, bouncy, presumably not-four-weeks-from-having-a-baby student who parked in the last faculty spot in the parking lot closest to my office. (She gave me the finger but moved her car. You're about to enter a world of pain if you mess with a pregnant woman's parking space.) I couldn't sleep at night because I looked more like Tweedle Dee than an actual human female. The only gardening I did last spring was about a week before I had the baby because someone on Facebook told me it would help me go into labor. I was so O-V-E-R being pregnant.,

Once Benjamin was born, I didn't do much, either, except nurse. And nurse. And nurse. I told my friends that my summer job was running a dairy. (If you've ever used or seen a breast pump in use, then you know this is not that much of an exaggeration.) We didn't join our CSA because we knew we wouldn't have the extra money or time to really cook. I didn't take advantage of our insane mint plant to make mojitos and drink them on the patio with my husband. We didn't go to the beach or have any form of a vacation. I didn't write. I didn't cook. I didn't ride my bike once. I barely saw my friends. By spending all of my time caring for the most basic needs of a human being—feeding, sleeping, comforting, cleaning, clothing—my life also became stripped down to the barest of essentials.

In a strange way, it was sort of cathartic to live like this for a few months—to sleep when you're tired, regardless of the time of day; to eat when you're hungry; to live for someone else instead of yourself. Being a parent is so much about relinquishing control, which, for someone such as myself, is not always so easy. Before I had a child, I used to think that becoming a parent meant to HAVE something new and DO new things. But it's much more than that: You actually BECOME something new. Your old self is still in there, but a new self emerges. Learning how to be a parent is a lot about figuring out how to introduce the two and help them get along.

Certainly much of this summer will be spent taking care of Benjamin, as every day is. But now that he's almost 1 and is really curious and interactive and seems to be VERY close to walking, I'm excited to get out and do stuff again, albeit with a small, wobbly person in tow. He is amazed by everything around him, which is another good lesson. I tell the students in my writing classes that to be good writers, they have to view the world much in the way a child does, with curiosity and wonder at every blade of grass and every crack in the sidewalk. They need to ask "why?" just like a kid does. To paraphrase my favorite writer, Susan Orlean, they need to learn how to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. There's nothing more my son enjoys doing than opening boxes and drawers and cabinets to see what's inside. I think that's awesome (once I'm sure he won't be maimed by what he finds inside, of course).

At the lakeFor our first adventure, Benjamin and I went to feed the ducks at the lake in my hometown on Friday afternoon. It was warm and sunny and perfect. B had never been there before. In fact, it was the first time he ever saw a lake or a duck up close. He was mesmerized by the water and the birds and the way the grass felt on his bare feet. I grew up with this lake. It's a remarkably beautiful place—one that repeatedly cropped up in stories and essays I wrote in grad school without my intentionally meaning for it to. It is so familiar, but to experience it with him was like seeing it for the first time. Even old things will become new again with him.

 We've rejoined our CSA, which I'm so excited about, as I've been contemplating becoming a vegetarian again (but that's another story for another post). My husband has been prepping the yard and the garden, and I've been daydreaming about what to plant in the flower beds. I've been going to the gym pretty regularly, and even though I've still got a lot of work to do in that department, I'm happy to report that I think I do look like a woman again, not a character from "Through the Looking Glass."

We moved the two Adirondack chairs to the side yard under the flowering cherry tree and wrapped white lights around its trunk and through the branches. It's a Husband/Wife space—not a Daddy/Mommy space. And you can be damn sure that mint plant is going to see some action this summer, too.

I took this photograph of our new backyard oasis using the Hipstamatic app for my iPhone. So '70s. Love it.

A Dream for My Son

I spent much of my pregnancy envisioning this baby I had not yet met, wondering what he would look like, what sorts of things he would like and do when he got older, what type of personality he would have, if he'd love books and stories the way I do, if he'd enjoy building things and taking things apart like his dad does.

I'd daydream about places we'd take him and activities we'd do with him --- pumpkin patches and apple pies in the fall, sledding and snow angels in the winter, planting seeds and tending to our garden in spring, swimming and sand castles in the summer. I imagined bike rides and Saturday breakfasts and finger-painting on rainy days. I thought of grass-stained blue jeans and jars with salamanders and lightning bugs and red rubber boots splashing in mud puddles.

Because my son just turned 5 months old yesterday, his childhood hasn't happened yet. As his mom, I imagine one that is filled with adventure and laughter and sweetness. I imagine him having loads of fun and tons of friends and as idyllic an upbringing as one can possible imagine. I don't want to be a nervous, anxious mother, but the thought of him breaking his arm or being bullied or not making the team or getting his heart broken or experiencing even an inkling of pain, sadness or disappointment makes me want to erect a bubble and stick him in it until he's 20.

But these thoughts of Benjamin's potential childhood makes me think of my own, which, for the most part, was quite good, even if I spent the majority of it lost in my own head and feeling inadequate.

I understood (or, at least, believed) at a very young age that there was a certain prescription for being a girl. Being a girl meant you had long hair that was adorned with barrettes and those hair bands with the hard plastic balls on them that twisted around ponytails. Being a girl meant you cartwheeled to and fro. Being a girl meant you had scores of dolls -- Barbie dolls, Cabbage Patch dolls, Troll dolls, and any other kind of doll you could imagine. Being a girl meant cute clothes in shades of pink, purple and yellow. Being a girl meant being thin and pretty totally by accident (or, more like it, genetics) without so much of a thought about it. Being a girl meant watching all the cool TV shows and movies and talking about them at length with your friends --- friends who were just like you.

I fell short, by my own estimation. I had long hair exactly once, in the second grade. Soon after my school picture, my mother hacked it all off and gave me a modified Dorothy Hamill-inspired wedge cut. I say "modified" because only a very pretty adult (who was allowed to wear makeup and had boobs and other feminine features not found on a prepubescent me) could pull off such a hairstyle. Once, when I was shopping at Kmart with my mother, I had to go to the bathroom. As I pushed open the door of the ladies' restroom, I heard a kid say to her mother, "Mommy, why is that boy going into the girls' bathroom?" I was mortified. I was scarred from that moment as dramatically as an awkward 9-year-old can be. Even to this day, that memory makes me cringe.

I never quite got the hang of cartwheels, either. I spent most of my time with boys -- I had a boy cousin two years older than I am, and my best friend was a boy a year younger. There were girls in my life -- a few in my neighborhood, my older cousin, Beth, who was blonde and pretty and feminine and a cheerleader. Next to them, I felt ugly and out of touch. Building forts? Yes. Playing ninja? Check. Cartwheels? Not so much.

I had a vivid imagination, stoked by the books my mother encouraged me to read. (We weren't allowed to watch much TV, naturally.) I had a whole cadre of imaginary friends. Around my family, I was comfortable and funny, but around other kids my own age, I was painfully shy and never seemed to say or do the right things. It took me getting involved in theatre in high school to finally break me of this. When I was onstage, I was free because it wasn't really me up there -- it was a character I was playing. Eventually, I used that to teach myself to be at ease in real life.

One of the reasons I was so attracted to my husband (and still am) is because he is so at ease with other people. He has so many friends and knows so many people. We have a standing joke that we can go anywhere --- anywhere --- and he'll run into someone he knows. It happens all the time. When we vacationed in Montreal a few summers ago, I swear it was the first time his streak had been broken.

Our son already seems to be taking after his dad, not just in looks but in personality, too. He smiles at everyone, all the time. He babbles constantly and intently. It's as if he's really saying something, and we're the idiots for not understanding him. He lets anyone hold him and interact with him. I hope, for his sake, it lasts because being shy is just the worst.

It's hard when you're a parent to not impose yourself on your children. I mean, of course you're supposed to by instilling your values and morals and all in them. Right now, when he's very young, I'm imposing other values of mine on him, too, like the clothes I dress him in and the lullabye versions of Cure and Pixies songs I play for him and the organic baby food I feed him. I want to expose him to as much as I can and teach him as much as I can and protect and love him as ferociously as I can and hope and pray that it's the good stuff that sticks and the icky, unpleasant stuff that just falls away.

Will he like summer camp? (I hated it. Hated it. Gimp and bug juice? Thank you, no.) Will he play sports or be a skater or be a little of both, like his dad? Will he like to write and imagine and pretend like I did/do? It's such a scary and invigorating thing, being a parent, especially to someone so young and so new to the world. It's easy to get obsessed with the questions of right now, the ones about sleeping and eating and pooping, but there are bigger ones afoot.

Here is my dream for my son and for me, as his mother:

I want him to be polite and have good manners. I want him to do well in school and be kind to other children and respectful of his teachers. I want him to find something -- anything -- that he loves and is passionate about. I want him to know and befriend people who are not just like him. I want him to be a good partner and a good friend. I want him to have to work for things, whether it's a sport or a career or his weekly allowance. I want him to value money but realize it's not the most important thing in life. I want him to be curious of and ask questions about the world around him. I want him to be honest and punctual and learn from his mistakes. I want him to learn how to cook and sew a button and balance a checkbook and build a fire. I want him to be a good man who loves his mom and his dad and who knows that he, in turn, is loved by them forever.

Eggs

Today I made a poached egg for the very first time. Two eggs, actually, and they turned out perfectly (if I do say so myself). I didn't have time to do anything fancy to them --- they were prepared DNP (During Nap Time) --- so I ate them over toast with a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Sometimes the most simple things can be the most divine, especially when you make them yourself.

The trick --- and the challenge --- of poached eggs is to slide the raw egg into barely boiling water very carefully, so as not to disperse the white all over the place or disturb the yolk. I cooked the eggs for exactly four minutes, which was enough to cook them but to still have a velvety, runny yolk that oozed over the toasted bread when I cut into it. I was instantly obsessed and wanted to make more --- until I reminded myself that two eggs in one day is just plenty.

So many of my thoughts this weekend have been about dear friends of mine who just found out that they have miscarried. I am so sad for them, for the loss of this baby and the future that they had hoped and expected to have with him or her. I've said many times that when you have a baby, you're suddenly a member of a club that's doors had once been closed to you. There's a language there that you suddenly know how to speak, a code, a conversation that had once been conducted around you but not with you. I'm also sad because my friends must now join another club that had previously been closed to them. It's one that no one should have to be a part of but that too many are.

Pregnancy is an experience that is so fraught with potential problems, so delicate, so rife with worry, especially in the beginning. During the first trimester of my pregnancy, I thought the anxiety would swallow me whole. I was prepared to be tired, to be constantly hungry, to gain weight and have my ankles and feet swell beyond recognition, but I was not prepared to be worried every single minute of every single day for months until my son was born.

I can't speak for every woman, but, in my case, perhaps I should have been better prepared. My brother and sister-in-law miscarried early in their first pregnancy. Their second pregnancy resulted in my first niece, who died when she was a little more than 2 weeks old. Their third pregnancy brought us my second niece, who is a perfectly healthy, happy, fiesty 7-month-old. I have friends who've miscarried. I have another friend whose son died because of a rare heart condition soon after he was born. I have friends who've tried to get pregnant for months or years and can't conceive. I have friends who've tried in vitro fertilization and friends who have adopted. And I have polycystic ovarian syndrome, which led to a few months of nasty drugs and "scheduled coitus" but that ultimately resulted in our son.

I never fully understood the idea of the birth of a baby being referred to as a "miracle" until I was told by a doctor that it might be a long road to conception for us. Thankfully, it wasn't very long, but then once I got pregnant, it felt like an eternity of waiting and wondering if this little person growing inside of me would turn out to be OK --- or turn out at all.

This afternoon, as I gently slid the cold eggs into the hot water, I thought that about the similarities between making a poached egg and making a baby. Sure, the symbolism of the egg is obvious, but when so many things can go wrong, it's almost a surprise when it turns out the way it was supposed to be all along.