Reincarnated as a Mother

A few weeks back, I was at a pig roast with my 3-month old son when a woman asked me what one thing has changed the most since I had a baby? What happened to my brain the second she asked that could only be called mental paralysis. Every synapses misfired and I was left with just a blinding, twirling list of answers that refused to organize themselves into a cognizant response.

Cate Blanchett's answer to a similar question was that having children is close to being reincarnated. Your life is altered so fundamentally, you are very nearly a new human being. I like her answer. I want to steal it.

In the interest of elaboration, I want to explore this further. What has changed the most?

My life is unimportant beyond the needs of my child. There are plenty of magazines and talk shows and books that will tell you how important it is to make time for yourself when you have a young baby, which is supercute advice, but so unrealistic as to be laughable. While this state of self-negation is temporary, it is reality. I am not important beyond the well-being necessary to provide for Atticus. I wake when he wakes, I eat when he lets me, I sit when he allows it, I plan every moment of my life around him. That balance will slowly shift as he continues to grow and gain independence. But for now, I am in his service.

We now eat in shifts. I overheard a friend talking about some crazy, delicious meal meal she and her husband had eaten the other day and the thing that was the most intriguing to me about it was that they had eaten at the same time. I forgot people did that. My husband and I eat in shifts, usually me first because my husband is nice.

All things are scary. The fear for a child's life and well-being is so everpresent, the world becomes a monster full of teeth and snarls and claws. I have horrific dreams at least once a week in which terrible, terrible things happen to my baby. I wake from them sure that I will make some dreadful mistake with consequences I cannot live with.

Heart transplant. I don't have a sentence for that one. All I can say is that when you have a baby, your heart and center live outside of you and it's a terrifying way to live. The number of bad things that can happen to someone suddenly feel quite present and feasible. I know this is similar to my previous paragraph, but it's slightly different. I don't mean just physical danger here, though that falls into this as well. Example: my son was laying on his grandparents' bed and a number of his cousins were scrambling around him, playing, squealing, enjoying their little lives. One of them accidentally kneed my boy in the head mid-scramble. When Atticus started wailing, I wanted to change the infrastructure of the universe to make him stop. I didn't really want to hurt the cousin who did it, but the impulse toward protection was so strong that it scared me a little bit. That heart sits out there too clumsily. I cannot rein it in.

Time as an abstract becomes more abstract. Some weeks back, the time changed, but my son and I have no real concept of that. Sure, it changes the time I leave for the classes I teach on Tuesday and Thursday morning, but those few days are not enough of a marker to really signal for me that the world is altered. Again, I wake up when my son wakes up. I sleep when he sleeps (hopefully). That we have gained or lost an hour means nothing as we hold to his erratic sleeping schedule. There is no more or less daylight hours for us.

The stores I go to, oh, how they've changed. Much of these entries overlap; that cannot be helped. Furthering the idea that my life is unimportant (for now), I now find myself in Gymboree, the Children's Place, and Once Upon a Child far more often than the Gap or Banana Republic. I have become learned in the ways of considering a child's future size and weight and the price I am willing to pay for that swiftly-changing body.

The foreclosure of thinking. I love the line from White Oleander when the mother says of the experience of having a new baby: "I was used to having time to think." Not only did I have time to think, I had time to write, to ruminate, to malappropriate, to create, to wonder, to wallow, to brew, to listen, to fume, to submit, to conjoin, to divide, to conquer, and all other sorts of infinitive verbs. Now I am lucky if I can remember to refill the toilet paper roll in the bathroom.

I am that mother. While I try to retain a sense of self, my blog and my Facebook persona reflect nothing so strongly as my changed status in life as a mother. It is central to who I am now. It is the ever-present subject of my life and I am probably boring people with it. I know my Facebook picture should be of me and not always my son. And I know I should use my blog to remind myself that I more than just a milk-delivery system, but for now, this is who I am. For now, I am that mother.

The strongest arms you've ever done seen. Not only are my forearms and biceps unusually strong now, they are more adept at one-handed or one-armed acts. Formerly two-handed acts like making coffee, emptying the trash, and checking e-mail are now one-handed feats.

There are more, but my husband has been minding our littlest one this morning while I took the time to write this and he would probably like an opportunity to have his temporary independence this morning before we begin another day of sublimating our lives in the interest of our son's development. We do it completely, if not always cooperatively. And it's worth it. My sister-in-law calls motherhood "the best job there is." I'm not sure if I'd go that far, but I will say it's the most challenging and the most interesting even as there are days full of boredom. Would I reincarnate as a mother again? Some days, yes, some days, no. Today? Today, I don't even have time to consider it.

The Curse of the Bridesmaid Dress

I know all brides face it - the curse of the bridesmaid dress - that impossible quest for something that is neither too expensive nor too ugly. They are impossible things, really. On Project Runway, it's the kiss of death to have ones garment referred to as a "bridesmaid gown." And yet there is little out there to save one from it, and believe me, I looked and looked.

It has been fourteen months since the day I was married and I still cannot get over my disappointment in the bridesmaid dresses I chose for my beautiful attendants. You can ask my husband. I have a moment about once every two weeks when the anguish of it hits me. He wants me to get over it. I want to get over it. And yet it persists.

I had a lovely wedding. I really did. The person waiting at the end of the aisle for me was (and is) a lovely, lovely human being who is a tremendous partner and friend to me. My dress - a diamond white, strapless gown - was so gorgeous. I felt beautiful and nervous and loved and all those other overwhelming emotions that drown a wedding day. I wouldn't do any of it over again except one thing.

The bridesmaid dress. I so desperately wanted something my bridesmaids and groomsladies would feel beautiful in. I was not one of those brides who wanted or needed to outshine her attendants. In choosing their dresses, I wanted something that was not too expensive, and if not something they could wear again, then at least something they liked wearing for one day.

But here was my dilemma: I had to fit size 2 (really, less than 2) through size 22 - I think it was 22 - anyway, this was an enormously difficult task. I searched and searched and searched bridal stores, online stores, department stores. I had some of my attendants looking online and shopping with me. I asked for suggestions of websites and color choices.

I had an idea in my head of what I wanted: just a plain a-line dress, perhaps with a halter neckline that tends to flatter almost all shapes. And I wanted color.

I know it's the hip thing to do now to have all attendants in black, but it was an August wedding and I love color and I wanted my wedding to be a colorful affair. I also know it's the hip thing to just give your bridesmaids a color scheme they have to fit into rather than choosing their dresses. But sue me. I wanted a traditional line up. Let's just go ahead and call that my fatal flaw.

Along with one of my bridesmaids, I found a dress online for around $200 which still seemed wildly expensive to me. I know now this is on the low end which is just wrong in so many ways. We all know we're not going to wear that dress again. It should be more disposable financially. Alas.

I chose a sage green with rose trim which looked super lovely online. Was the dress sage green when it arrived? No. No, it was not. Instead, it was a mint color that is difficult for just about every skin tone to pull off. My poor bridesmaids. I tried so hard to do right by you!

Here are pictures from my wedding day with my lovely attendants who, let's face it, are beautiful no matter what you put them in. I don't hate these dresses. The thing I hate is that I don't think the women who wore them felt beautiful in them like I hoped they would. And I'm angry that there was not a better solution out there available to brides. There has to be. There just does, though I defy anyone to find one.




Aren't they pretty people? Hell yes, they are. But that dress, it could have been better. The groomladies are in black to distinguish them from the bridesmaids and they faired better, I think. They may have even gloated a little bit that day. Okay, maybe a lot.

I need absolution. I cannot deal with this any longer. I'm sorry attendants. I'm sorry you spent all that money on something that didn't serve your beauty the way I wanted it to. If I could do it over again, I would, though I don't know how. But damn it, I would find a way. I would. And I wish you better luck in your future bridesmaid stylings. I wish for dresses that are reasonably priced, rewearable, and complementary to all sizes and shapes. And I wish you the peace - fourteen months out from your wedding day - of knowing you did right by the women you love most in the world.

A Slowly Tumping Baby

Video is one of those words that begins to sound funny when you say it several times in a row: video, video, video. By the third or fourth repetition, one cannot help but say it with a Spanish accent, changing the stress to the second syllable: vi-DAY-o, vi-DAY-o, vi-DAY-o. After that, it just becomes a mindless game only your mouth can participate in. 'Probably too much said there.

My in-laws got us a supercool digital camcorder that is the exact same size as my phone. Seriously, it is bad ass. Now I must post videos in celebration of the thing.

So this is a video that will probably be used in Atticus's future therapist's office to prove how mean we are as parents. He is trying very hard not to tump over onto his back here and we are inordinately amused. Notice near the end, I come around and blame Michael, though it is clearly my laugh heard the loudest here. I really must try harder to be a nicer mommy, though I am not as bad as some people who flutter their finger on their son's lips when he is crying to hear what it would sound like if Atticus were crying into a fan. Ahem.

As always, if you are on Facebook and want to view the video, go to www.mollyjorose.blogspot.com. I guess Facebook cannot support videos.

Magical Thinking and Long Distance Babies

I imagine every mother goes through this. There are many hours in my day when I magically believe if I stare at Atticus long enough, I can prevent him from growing any bigger. Of course I don't want a baby whose growth is stunted, but I have a tendency to feel nostalgia in advance and I want this time with him to last forever. At thirteen pounds, he is perfectly portable, perfectly lovely - just perfect in all things. He has come to a point where he sleeps well enough for me to feel like more of a human and he coos and his laugh develops more every day. It won't be long before his little hands won't want me to hold and caress his all the time as I do now. Then what will I do?

Over his crib, I watch his chest rise and fall and I know it's happening. No amount of magical thinking can change the fact that the inches are coming; his limbs lengthen, his torso, too, gets longer. He'll keep putting on weight and keep running through the clothes in his closet until I'll quite suddenly find myself looking at the toddler clothes at Target.

And in that time, he won't have had enough people fawning all over him. This is the greatest curse of living away from family and friends. I hate it so much. I hate it more than Atticus growing so quickly. He's such a beautiful baby, really, the sweetest person I have ever known. And the only people who fawn over him on a regular basis are me and Michael. There are no grandmothers and aunts fighting over whose turn it is to pick him up. There are no little cousins patting his soft little head. There are no little outfits lined up that a gaggle of neighborhood ladies is dying to see him in.

It's not fair. It's not fair to me and it's not fair to Atticus. He may not need to be fawned over, but he certainly deserves it. He's such a good baby, so flirtatious and good and sweet and social. He loves our mail lady and even the nurses who gave him his shots. He's so ready to love everyone and yet every day it's just mom and dad. And he loves us, of course, but I think he'd like a new audience. Sometimes I think I can hear him say, "Come on, people, I got all this charm to show off and you're not bringing in any new people I can try it out on."

We leave for Cleveland in a couple of weeks to see family. It's not soon enough.

Atticus in the Morning

I think there is nothing better than a baby in the morning.



(If you cannot view this on Facebook, go to my blog).

Great Baby Gifts

Because I'm in that place of heightened awareness regarding what is useful as a new mother, I thought I'd make a list of those things that were the coolest and best baby gifts I received. This is my first baby and I was an ignorant sap at my showers, opening presents, thanking people graciously, not knowing when the really truly great gifts were being opened and stacked with the rest. Don't get me wrong. All the gifts I received were wonderful, but certainly some are being used more than others. Here's that list. Feel free to add your own.

1. The Miracle Blanket: Seriously, this swaddling blanket is awesome. My husband calls it a baby straight jacket, but he will admit that our son loves it. For those opposed to it, remember, babies are not like us. As mentioned in a previous post, newborns are not particularly aware of their limbs just yet and they certainly don't mind their limbs being secured close to them. Two things babies like: Security and Closeness. The Miracle Blanket provides both of these. (http://www.miracleblanket.com/index.htm)

2. Baby Sling: I actually bought this for myself, but it still counts. My world is a better place because of this baby sling. I worried my child would be the only child in the history of slings to hate the sling, but this was an unnecessary worry. He loves it and falls asleep when he's in it almost immediately. The few times he's not asleep when he's in it give him an opportunity to look around at the world from my level while I shop for groceries, fold laundry, respond to e-mails -- you know, things that require free hands. Of this my husband says, "30,000 years of women using baby slings can't be wrong." We're Catholic so I don't know where he gets this 30,000 years thing, but you get the point. There are a zillion out there. Here's where I got mine: www.small-wish.com.

3. Newborn-to-Toddler Bathtub: These nifty tubs are fitted with a padded netting for an infant that can be removed as your baby gets bigger. I don't know how I'd wash my baby without it.

4. Diaper Genie: You might think you don't need one, but trust me, you do.

5. Dutalier Nursing Chair and Ottoman: Okay, so this is a really expensive gift and not everyone needs this type of item, but it's worth mentioning, particularly to mothers who are going to nurse. This chair is amazingly comfortable and designed specifically for nursing a baby. It's one of our favorite pieces of furniture.

6. Medela Pump-in-Style Electric Breastpump: Again, a gift for the nursing mother and again, a pricey gift. One of my sisters-in-law actually gave me hers and I bought new tubing for it. While the manufacturer does not support this, I have found this to be a perfectly workable solution. And it saved me $300.

7. Louise Erdrich's The Birth Year: Loved this. It was one of the only things I read during my pregnancy about pregnancy that made any sense.

8. The Baby Book: By Dr. Sears, this book includes just about everything you'll ever need to know about your baby, from what to do when one of his eyes won't open (clogged duct: routinely massage duct over a couple of days) to how to get a toddler to eat more vegetables.

9. Burp Cloths and Diaper Cloths: Invaluable, necessary, washed almost daily. Even if you're using disposable diapers (like me), those old school diaper cloths will come in handy. They catch spit up like nobody's business.

10. Black-and-White Baby Books: This is not a brand. I mean black-and-white purely descriptively. Because my husband and I are what you might call "bookish," it's important to us that our baby learn to love books. Toward this end, I have been reading to him since he was around three or four weeks old. None of his books interest him just yet because 1) he's far too little, and 2) he cannot really see that well. This is true of all of his books except two books a friend gave us (an educated librarian who knows these things) that are in black and white. He actually looks at these pages. Sure, nothing is going to hold his attention for that long, but baby steps ...

11. Things the Daddy Likes: This is a generic posting that is meant to give people who do not know what to buy another avenue of gift considerations. Even in our modern era with modern fathers who are much more involved in childrearing, it's important to make them feel as connected with the baby as possible. I have found it interesting to note how many people innately just get this, telling my husband how much our baby looks like him when really our baby looks like nobody but himself. That drive to keep the father from leaving the tribe runs deep. So any gifts that include him -- say a onesie that says "I love Daddy" or pajamas with little dinosaurs in football gear that resembles Daddy's favorite football team -- are a good idea.

12. Keepsake Box: You'll want a place that is more roomy than an album to keep things like the baby's hospital wristband and the measuring tape they use to measure him when he or she is first born.

13. Baby Wash and Washclothes: You'll get a lot of these. You'll use all of them.

14. Handmade Things: I'm biased as a crafty person, but I love the handcrafted items given to our baby - a quilt, a teddy bear, a soft blanket - the love put into these things is invaluable.

15. A WORD ON CLOTHES: There are more gifts that we have loved that I'm forgetting, but I would be remiss if I did not make one suggestion here and that is this - if you buy someone baby clothes, which everyone loves to do because man, is it ever fun to shop for a baby, always give the mom the receipt. This is not because she hates what you buy and wants to replace everything with her own taste. The reality is that babies must dress seasonally just like the rest of us and that has not always been taken into consideration judging from the closet full of warm clothes my Tennessee baby has available to him during his summer months.

Plus, the rate at which babies grow cannot always be predicted. There are plenty of adorable, sweet items with tags dangling from them that my son will not be able to wear and without receipts, I will just have to give them away to someone else in the hopes that they will work for them. Receipts are just a good idea when it comes to children's clothing. No one knows what a child can fit into but their mother (or father). I have actually returned a cute item for the exact same item in a bigger size, so fear not - your cute choice will be honored!



What am I missing? Any other suggestions, mamas?

Encounters with Stuffed Lions

Two things of note this week: 1) Atticus got huge quite suddenly resulting in me becoming one of those people who cannot help but marvel at the speed of life once a baby enters into it, and 2) Atticus is noticing things around him. Regarding the first item of note, I am terrified of life moving quickly.

I've always blamed this thorough and sickening dread of life's heavy and quick rotation on having read that Thoreau "suck the marrow out of life" thing too young. No matter the reason for it, Atticus leaping from Newborn clothes to 3-month clothes in less than a week is really not helping the situation. I am now a part of the cliched and hackneyed people who have been repeating the following expression ad nauseum over the last many weeks: "They grow up so fast." Not only am I a part of it, I am kneedeep in it, clawing my way back to three weeks ago when my baby was more baby than he is today.

The second thing: Newborns are rather oblivious to the fact that they exist, stunned as they are, I think, to be out of the cocoon they've been secluded in for so many months. And then out into the world of hands and voices and sounds and lights and colors they rush, not quite prepared for all that stimuli. And physically, of course, they are truly not ready for all that stimuli. Their eyes cannot focus much beyond eight to fourteen inches. They cannot see colors. While their hearing is well-developed, the world is still just cacophony beyond the comforting familiarity of the mother's and father's voices.

It's only in the last week or so, at five or six weeks old, that Atticus is starting to track us as we cross a room. He's still not completely aware that his hands are his and that they can affect change, unlike his voice that he somehow intuits the power of.

Today he first noticed a toy - a little yellow and orange lion which lights up and plays "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" when its belly is pressed. Atticus was stunned into silence and stillness when he saw it before him. And I mean, really saw it. Below is Atticus and the Lion's first encounter. (If you can't see this video on Facebook, go to the original posting at http://www.mollyjorose.blogspot.com/).