In one fell swoop, that is to say, in one day, Atticus took his first steps and made the executive decision to be done nursing. He is Mr. Independent. He needs me not.
And I'm quite fine with this. For reals. I'm not one of those mothers who freaks out when their child moves on to the next thing, though I am admittedly a little melancholy about the walking. It signals a giant shift out of babyhood and into toddlerland, but for the time being, he is still a baby.
What this post is more concerned about is boobs and what happens to them when one is done nursing. Contrary to popular opinion, nursing does not make boobs droop or malform them in any way. Pregnancy does that. Quit blaming the nursing.
While there are a billion (to be exact) websites about the benefits of breastfeeding and the good counsel of slow weaning, there is almost nothing on the woman's health in this issue. Those who have nursed understand the discomfort, engorgement, and possible mastitis that is the frequent companion piece to nursing. And it only gets worse when the baby stops doing his part.
Atticus decided to quit nursing all by himself, a self-weaner, which is a fun phrase for all sorts of reasons. He weaned fairly slowly over a period of a couple of weeks and then he was decided about it - so much so that there were actually two mornings wherein he rejectedly crawled away from me in tears because I can only assume he thought I might force him to nurse, which I of course have never ever done.
And so he's done and while I thought I would be emotionally overwrought about it, I am not. Rather than my mind, it's my body that has not caught up with the new world order of independence. I naively thought within a week, all would be normal again - my body would return once again to its pre-baby state of decoration and not utility.
This is not the case. Be warned, future nursers. The body will not stop producing milk until weeks, months, or up to a year have passed by. A year!!! Until then, infrequent, judicious expressing will keep the engorgement and mastitis away.
Blurgh. I am reminded these past many days of Al Pacino in the Godfather II. You know the line: "Just when I think I'm out, they keep pulling me back in."
This is good training for motherhood. It is not a job that ends in any satisfactory way. Before one thing finishes, the next thing starts. While I am not naturally inclined toward this sort of continuous work, it is a job I cannot get out of and a job I would never abandon. Because Young 'Cus, as one of our friends call him, is pretty freaking cool. It's just, seriously, I had no idea how much I signed on for. None. Not really. But here we are 11 months later and all is, if not easy, pretty freaking awesome.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The End of the Line
(New design for my blog. 'Thought I should shake it up a little bit and take advantage of the snazzy new templates. Plus, I like birds. I cannot resist them.)
Every morning I wake to Atticus trilling from his crib. You know trilling? That sound one makes with their tongue or with their lips? Atticus does it with his lips, increasing in pitch and volume the longer it takes me to respond. It's time to get up, his trills say. Come on, there's fun to be had.
And so I roll out of bed and go to him, groggily, but happily. He's waiting in his crib, standing up, holding the bars, and swaying back and forth to the rhythm of his own morning sounds. We nurse and get on with the day and all that fun his trills promise.
And our days are always fun, though lately, they involve less and less nursing all the time.
I am dreading its end.
It is happening far more quickly than I thought possible, though certainly many people would say that nursing for almost eleven months is not exactly quick. But alas, for me, it feels quick. I thought I'd have more time. I thought I'd have to read up on weaning. I thought I'd have some say in the matter.
But I don't. He's done nearly, ready to move on to the rest of his life, slightly more independent.
And I'm happy about it. No, I'm not. Yes, I am. I don't know. One thing I'm sure about, I'm going to cry when it's officially over. Yes, I will definitely cry. And then maybe I'll go out and buy a frilly new bra.
Every morning I wake to Atticus trilling from his crib. You know trilling? That sound one makes with their tongue or with their lips? Atticus does it with his lips, increasing in pitch and volume the longer it takes me to respond. It's time to get up, his trills say. Come on, there's fun to be had.
And so I roll out of bed and go to him, groggily, but happily. He's waiting in his crib, standing up, holding the bars, and swaying back and forth to the rhythm of his own morning sounds. We nurse and get on with the day and all that fun his trills promise.
And our days are always fun, though lately, they involve less and less nursing all the time.
I am dreading its end.
It is happening far more quickly than I thought possible, though certainly many people would say that nursing for almost eleven months is not exactly quick. But alas, for me, it feels quick. I thought I'd have more time. I thought I'd have to read up on weaning. I thought I'd have some say in the matter.
But I don't. He's done nearly, ready to move on to the rest of his life, slightly more independent.
And I'm happy about it. No, I'm not. Yes, I am. I don't know. One thing I'm sure about, I'm going to cry when it's officially over. Yes, I will definitely cry. And then maybe I'll go out and buy a frilly new bra.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Swan Dives into the Ineffable
I had a professor who called poetry a swan dive into the ineffable. That's nice. I like that phrase. It's lovely and it makes the making of poetry sound terribly important, and as the wife of a poet, I do think poetry's important.
But I bring up that phrase for a different reason altogether. It has been a little over 10 months since Atticus was born and I'm still swimming madly against the rapids of the ineffable. He still doesn't make sense to me, his whole existence doesn't. I sit in the backseat next to his carseat everywhere we go and I often, frequently, almost always look at him with a sense of wonderment nearing displacement. How did he get here? Where did he come from? Is this kid really mine?
It is not without love or attachment or a great desire for him that I ask these questions, but I'm trying to figure the ineffable here: once there was no one and now there's a whole Atticus. Any parent who doesn't get horribly confused by that fact is either not thinking very hard or far more wise than me.
And self-identity is still somewhere in that ineffable ocean. I know I'm a mother, but I don't always feel like a wife. Here's an inescapable truth of having a young baby in the house. Wait for it. Are you ready? Not a lot of sex happens in that house. Not that sex defines wifery, but certainly it has something to do with it. Have I disclosed too much? Will my husband cringe at reading this? But it's the truth and one that needn't be shushed or whispered or alluded to in quiet tones between other mothers. It is really damn hard to be anything more than a mother as being a mother is so all consuming. Any other pursuits feel selfish, reckless, and tiring at the end of the day.
I don't want it to be like this. I'd like to go out for an evening and let it be okay that my son is not as comfortable as he would be if I were with him. I'd like to put my husband first sometimes. Hell, I'd like to put myself first sometimes.
But I haven't figured out how to do that yet.
Last week we met up with some old friends in my old town and I became acutely aware of the difference in our lives now. It was a reading at a very hipster bar in Grand Rapids. The readers were great, real artists with presence and content and craft; it was the type of reading that makes you ache a little bit to go home and write and be a creator of things yourself.
That was at the beginning of the evening, but as the evening wore on, my creative impulses were overtaken by my maternal ones. It happened quickly and completely. The "must get home to baby" internal chant gained momentum and volume and I forgot entirely about wanting to write or eventually have my own readings.
Will it be this way forever? Will I ever feel like Atticus would be better served by serving myself first? Am I okay with this?
But I bring up that phrase for a different reason altogether. It has been a little over 10 months since Atticus was born and I'm still swimming madly against the rapids of the ineffable. He still doesn't make sense to me, his whole existence doesn't. I sit in the backseat next to his carseat everywhere we go and I often, frequently, almost always look at him with a sense of wonderment nearing displacement. How did he get here? Where did he come from? Is this kid really mine?
It is not without love or attachment or a great desire for him that I ask these questions, but I'm trying to figure the ineffable here: once there was no one and now there's a whole Atticus. Any parent who doesn't get horribly confused by that fact is either not thinking very hard or far more wise than me.
And self-identity is still somewhere in that ineffable ocean. I know I'm a mother, but I don't always feel like a wife. Here's an inescapable truth of having a young baby in the house. Wait for it. Are you ready? Not a lot of sex happens in that house. Not that sex defines wifery, but certainly it has something to do with it. Have I disclosed too much? Will my husband cringe at reading this? But it's the truth and one that needn't be shushed or whispered or alluded to in quiet tones between other mothers. It is really damn hard to be anything more than a mother as being a mother is so all consuming. Any other pursuits feel selfish, reckless, and tiring at the end of the day.
I don't want it to be like this. I'd like to go out for an evening and let it be okay that my son is not as comfortable as he would be if I were with him. I'd like to put my husband first sometimes. Hell, I'd like to put myself first sometimes.
But I haven't figured out how to do that yet.
Last week we met up with some old friends in my old town and I became acutely aware of the difference in our lives now. It was a reading at a very hipster bar in Grand Rapids. The readers were great, real artists with presence and content and craft; it was the type of reading that makes you ache a little bit to go home and write and be a creator of things yourself.
That was at the beginning of the evening, but as the evening wore on, my creative impulses were overtaken by my maternal ones. It happened quickly and completely. The "must get home to baby" internal chant gained momentum and volume and I forgot entirely about wanting to write or eventually have my own readings.
Will it be this way forever? Will I ever feel like Atticus would be better served by serving myself first? Am I okay with this?
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Babies and Travelling
Travelling with a baby is tough stuff. Funny thing about babies - they like sameness. They like the same faces and smells and places to sleep night after night. Now that I think about it, I'm not really all that different from a baby.
It's good to be home. While there was tremendous fun and excitement to be had up north, there is nothing so tremendously fun as ones own bed.
Our travelling baby was a trooper. Sort of. Mostly. Kind of. Pretty much. But now he is in his own bed and while I have more to say on this matter, the pull of my very own bed is too strong.
More soon on other things related to babies and mothering and the intellect precariously balancing between.
It's good to be home. While there was tremendous fun and excitement to be had up north, there is nothing so tremendously fun as ones own bed.
Our travelling baby was a trooper. Sort of. Mostly. Kind of. Pretty much. But now he is in his own bed and while I have more to say on this matter, the pull of my very own bed is too strong.
More soon on other things related to babies and mothering and the intellect precariously balancing between.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Ruggedly Confused Patriot
"America: The Story of Us" is a series from the History channel that tells, well, derr ..., the story of America. I'm enjoying the show immensely, but at the same time, I am becoming increasingly queasy with the unsavory truths of our history.
This is a tired conversation. We've all become enlightened about the less glorious moments of our short American history, but then there are the those things that remain in the darkened shadow of glorified language, hidden, tucked away under that hearty phrase "rugged individualism."
What does that phrase even mean? Herbert Hoover was the guy to first bring that healing term, that salve of all salves, into our lexicon. To be rugged is to be capable of enduring great adversity, to be hearty, to be manly, to look a bear in the eye and roar right back. And to be an individual is to know your mind and give it free rein over your interests and conversations and life goals. Put those two together and heck, you have license to pretty much kill everything in front of you.
Or so it was with the patriots. And I WANT to call them patriots. I want to give them the respect they questionably deserve. What our American forefathers did was rugged and individualistic and scary as hell and you wouldn't catch me doing it for all the tea in China. If it were up to me, we'd all still be in England saying, "Yes, mum, indeed, mum, here's all my money for the Crown and sure, I'll go to whatever Church you tell me to, mum."
But that's not our patriots. Our patriots left, got on ships, landed in harsh conditions, starved or ate each other, died from smallpox, died from smallpox inoculations, died from milk disease, cut out the Erie Canal with their bare hands working fingers to literal bone, and all for what? Could they imagine the glory their sacrifices would allow? Could they imagine a highway system and sanitation and education for all? Did they know - could they have had any indication of the superpower we would become? George Washington thought it would take a 1000 years to settle America. Not with rugged individualists at the helm. No sir. We are only a couple hundred years into the great experiment and look at us. We rule the whole freaking world.
It's not hard to love the patriots, our forefathers, our bold leaders, our rugged individualists. How ungrateful would I have to be to not love them and respect the hell out of their accomplishments?
And yet.
To wit, a list of the things young America did to earn the term "rugged individualists":
1. Defeated the British who were defending Native American boundary lines
(How, you ask? By killing off the Native American guides in the service of the British and by employing sharp shooters to take out British captains. Stay classy, patriots.)
2. Defeated the Mexicans who had welcomed us into their territory only to have us take it over entirely
(Remember the Alamo? Remember when the Mexicans said, sure, come on in? Then, hey, wait, there's too many of you? Then, hey, what the heck just happened here?)
3. Indentured the free Africans who had fought for America right alongside every other America in the Revolutionary War
(Hey, somebody's got to take care of the cotton on the land we took from the Cherokee.)
4. Crossed 2000 miles to get to the gold rush in California where men died and didn't even receive decent burials
And on and on. But look how tough we are. We keep pushing through. We tame the lands and flourish despite it all.
And there are longers lists of our better deeds. History books are full of them. I am, I must admit, a huge fan of John Adams and his contribution to American history. Also, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. Pretty much in that order. And they are all that term for good or ill.
But it's the ill that has me at the moment. That Machiavellian sensibility that pervades our history and probably the history of every history. We are no different from each other. Perhaps if I had been a part of the Donner party, I would have made the same choices. Perhaps I would have believed in freedom and self preservation at all costs. Perhaps I am just as ruggedly individualistic as the next guy.
Lucky for me, my life is so posh, I don't have to find out. Thanks, patriots. Thanks for my cushy, easy life. Thanks for setting me up in a free society where I can blog about how murderous your sacrifices were. Thanks for this life, this liberty, and this pursuit of judging the heck out of you and all you have done for this great country.
This is a tired conversation. We've all become enlightened about the less glorious moments of our short American history, but then there are the those things that remain in the darkened shadow of glorified language, hidden, tucked away under that hearty phrase "rugged individualism."
What does that phrase even mean? Herbert Hoover was the guy to first bring that healing term, that salve of all salves, into our lexicon. To be rugged is to be capable of enduring great adversity, to be hearty, to be manly, to look a bear in the eye and roar right back. And to be an individual is to know your mind and give it free rein over your interests and conversations and life goals. Put those two together and heck, you have license to pretty much kill everything in front of you.
Or so it was with the patriots. And I WANT to call them patriots. I want to give them the respect they questionably deserve. What our American forefathers did was rugged and individualistic and scary as hell and you wouldn't catch me doing it for all the tea in China. If it were up to me, we'd all still be in England saying, "Yes, mum, indeed, mum, here's all my money for the Crown and sure, I'll go to whatever Church you tell me to, mum."
But that's not our patriots. Our patriots left, got on ships, landed in harsh conditions, starved or ate each other, died from smallpox, died from smallpox inoculations, died from milk disease, cut out the Erie Canal with their bare hands working fingers to literal bone, and all for what? Could they imagine the glory their sacrifices would allow? Could they imagine a highway system and sanitation and education for all? Did they know - could they have had any indication of the superpower we would become? George Washington thought it would take a 1000 years to settle America. Not with rugged individualists at the helm. No sir. We are only a couple hundred years into the great experiment and look at us. We rule the whole freaking world.
It's not hard to love the patriots, our forefathers, our bold leaders, our rugged individualists. How ungrateful would I have to be to not love them and respect the hell out of their accomplishments?
And yet.
To wit, a list of the things young America did to earn the term "rugged individualists":
1. Defeated the British who were defending Native American boundary lines
(How, you ask? By killing off the Native American guides in the service of the British and by employing sharp shooters to take out British captains. Stay classy, patriots.)
2. Defeated the Mexicans who had welcomed us into their territory only to have us take it over entirely
(Remember the Alamo? Remember when the Mexicans said, sure, come on in? Then, hey, wait, there's too many of you? Then, hey, what the heck just happened here?)
3. Indentured the free Africans who had fought for America right alongside every other America in the Revolutionary War
(Hey, somebody's got to take care of the cotton on the land we took from the Cherokee.)
4. Crossed 2000 miles to get to the gold rush in California where men died and didn't even receive decent burials
And on and on. But look how tough we are. We keep pushing through. We tame the lands and flourish despite it all.
And there are longers lists of our better deeds. History books are full of them. I am, I must admit, a huge fan of John Adams and his contribution to American history. Also, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. Pretty much in that order. And they are all that term for good or ill.
But it's the ill that has me at the moment. That Machiavellian sensibility that pervades our history and probably the history of every history. We are no different from each other. Perhaps if I had been a part of the Donner party, I would have made the same choices. Perhaps I would have believed in freedom and self preservation at all costs. Perhaps I am just as ruggedly individualistic as the next guy.
Lucky for me, my life is so posh, I don't have to find out. Thanks, patriots. Thanks for my cushy, easy life. Thanks for setting me up in a free society where I can blog about how murderous your sacrifices were. Thanks for this life, this liberty, and this pursuit of judging the heck out of you and all you have done for this great country.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
How to Feed a Baby the Jamie Oliver Way
Just as my baby is slowly beginning to wean himself and experience the world of culinary delights, Jamie Oliver comes along with his groundbreaking series "Food Revolution." In this series, Jamie Oliver takes on Huntington, West Virginia, one of the least healthy cities in the nation and tries to start a food revolution by overhauling the cafeteria systems of the elementary and high schools.
I love this show, and at any other time in my life, I would have comfortably sat through each episode arrogantly thinking, Oh, yes, of course the children should be eating fresh and proper food. How stupid these people of Huntington are. But now that I'm a mother, the overwhelming task of doing just that, preparing wholesome food with love on a regular basis is, well, overwhelming.
It's one thing to eat healthfully yourself. It's not really hard at all. I eat a lot of same things over and over again, but those same things are varied and are very good for me. In the morning, I eat oatmeal and yogurt with walnuts or flax seed. I have a veggie sandwich on whole grain bread with cheese every day for lunch. For dinner, a little more variety - maybe grilled vegetables and a veggie burger, maybe a salad and french fries, maybe Chinese takeout. The repetition of my eating makes shopping easy as I know what things I'm likely to eat every week. And with the exception of an occasional pigging out on pizza and a blizzard from Dairy Queen, I can feel pretty good about what I put into my body.
But to feed a baby - three times a day! This is an awesome task for someone who rarely gets to sit down to eat herself. But if I want to continue watching "Food Revolution" in comfortable arrogance, I must actually do what Oliver is pushing in the series: make real food for my baby that is well considered and made with love.
I am trying. I really am. It goes like this: Atticus smells something in the kitchen and the lip-smacking begins. I think about what I am preparing and invariably it contains some dairy product unfit for a child before the age of one (as there is a potential for dairy allergies later in life for infants who are given cow's milk before age one).
So I must reconceive things. I have to think ahead. I have to plan. I cannot rely on my pat shopping list of frequently used ingredients. This is a new eater with new needs and I am ultimately responsible for his eating habits and attitude toward food. Oh, the sheer weight of this responsibility ...
And my baby is particular. He will not eat baby food or anything with the consistency of baby food. How gauche, he seems to say as I try once again to give him yogurt. Not for me, his turned head and pursed lips suggest. But there are other things, many other things that I hope will have the Oliver seal of approval.
Atticus is very fond of the following foods in descending order of appreciation:
Sweet Potato
Carrots
Potato
Peas
Chicken Noodle Soup
Orange Slices
Pasta or Rice with Peas and Herbs
Chunky Apple Sauce
Scrambled Eggs
Those are the highlights, but I have intentionally left out Puffs which Atticus eats in such generous volume that I wonder if we will have to sit down and have an intervention with him someday. Puffs rehab. I don't want everyone to know how many Puffs I let my son eat. I recently read that children get 20% of their nutrition from snacks. Atticus might be getting 60% of his nutrition from Puffs. Please don't tell Jamie Oliver. I'm trying to get it right and do it proper, mate. I really am.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
On Kendra and Kimora
Likely, you will think less of me when I tell you I have the show "Kendra" set to record on my DVR, and while I did not have to admit that to you, I want to bring up my defense toward a greater purpose.
The greater purpose is this: there is an extraordinarily limited number of television programs that involve new motherhood, which is strange since new motherhood is pretty much the most common thing in the universe. The fact is if there is no new motherhood, there are no new viewers.
New mothers are left to identify with Kendra and Kimora. "Kendra" is a spin-off of "The Girls Next Door," an absurdly trashy, mindless program highlighting the women who live at the Playboy mansion. One of these girls, Kendra, married Hank Wilkinson of the Indianapolis Colts and she got her own show.
Full disclosure: at one point, I accused Kendra of retardation and I meant it. As an educator, certain red flags are raised with regard to Kendra's special kind of stupid. And don't even get me started on that laugh.
But then something happened. Kendra got pregnant and had a baby. The months leading up to her labor and delivery were documented on her reality show as was her actual labor and delivery (not the bloody reality of it, but the curtained, appropriate for reality television part of it). And then Kendra was a mommy and not the seemingly retarded girl bouncing around the Playboy mansion.
This is not to say that mommyhood made Kendra smart. She just seems less stupid. And more to the point, she's the star of a reality show about a mom with a very new baby who is dealing with all the things every mom with a new baby deals with: she has to come to terms with her considerably bigger body; she has to figure out how to be sexual with her husband again; she has to try to find common ground with her single, childless friends; she has to interview prospective babysitters; and she has to walk red carpets fearful of her boobs leaking. Okay, so most of us are not walking red carpets, but the rest of that stuff is absolutely riveting to someone in my position.
Anyone who knows me has heard me ineptly try to describe the impossible nature of taking care of a newborn. It is so hard, I feel like I am the first woman to ever have attempted it. Imagine the comfort of seeing someone like Kendra Wilkinson struggling, yet succeeding at the nearly impossible task of keeping a baby alive and well.
And here's the thing. Think for a second. Run through your cable stations. How many programs are out there showing what having a newborn in the house is really like? MTV's got that "16 and Pregnant" show, which is doing a great public service, to be sure, but I'm not 16. I have a husband and support and an education and all the trappings of a quality life that suggest I should be a good, well-balanced, and loving mother.
There are two shows: "Kendra" and now "Life in the Fab Lane" with Kimora Lee Simmons. Recently, Kimora could be seen from behind, telling a photographer they would have to wait to do her family photo because she was in the middle of pumping and all the stress surrounding her was affecting her "letdown." The scene did not come close to exposing her in the act of pumping breastmilk, but she referred to it and showed the camera a bottle after she had successfully pumped several ounces.
"Letdown," Kimora explained, is not when someone disappoints you. We're talking milk here.
Mothering a young baby is ridiculously consuming. Shockingly so. Jarringly so. That a whole other world goes on around you while you are: sleepless, investigating the best methods for freezing milk, reading up on healthy sleep patterns, folding laundry one-handed while nursing a baby in your other arm, challenging doctors who are not as supportive of nursing mothers as they should be, passively fighting with your spouse over whose turn it is to hold the baby (while feeling guilty about how badly you want to not be holding the baby), and trying, hoping, and praying you'll get a shower that day - this is one of the unique challenges of motherhood.
And then there's Kendra and Kimora bringing the inexplicable challenge of it to television. And not just to television, but to popular television. This is no poorly produced "A Baby Story." This is glossy, full-production value television of women who, despite their celebrity, at the end of the day, are just trying to be good moms.
Certainly once Kendra's son starts to grow and verbalize and Kendra starts explaining how mama used to pose for Playboy, she and I will part ways. We will no longer share that bond of the mama who is stunned to find herself in the position of motherhood. But until then, I look forward to another episode where Kendra tries to find the time to get to the gym and where she cries to her husband one more time about how she just doesn't feel like herself anymore. Go, Kendra. I can completely identify with you.
The greater purpose is this: there is an extraordinarily limited number of television programs that involve new motherhood, which is strange since new motherhood is pretty much the most common thing in the universe. The fact is if there is no new motherhood, there are no new viewers.
New mothers are left to identify with Kendra and Kimora. "Kendra" is a spin-off of "The Girls Next Door," an absurdly trashy, mindless program highlighting the women who live at the Playboy mansion. One of these girls, Kendra, married Hank Wilkinson of the Indianapolis Colts and she got her own show.
Full disclosure: at one point, I accused Kendra of retardation and I meant it. As an educator, certain red flags are raised with regard to Kendra's special kind of stupid. And don't even get me started on that laugh.
But then something happened. Kendra got pregnant and had a baby. The months leading up to her labor and delivery were documented on her reality show as was her actual labor and delivery (not the bloody reality of it, but the curtained, appropriate for reality television part of it). And then Kendra was a mommy and not the seemingly retarded girl bouncing around the Playboy mansion.
This is not to say that mommyhood made Kendra smart. She just seems less stupid. And more to the point, she's the star of a reality show about a mom with a very new baby who is dealing with all the things every mom with a new baby deals with: she has to come to terms with her considerably bigger body; she has to figure out how to be sexual with her husband again; she has to try to find common ground with her single, childless friends; she has to interview prospective babysitters; and she has to walk red carpets fearful of her boobs leaking. Okay, so most of us are not walking red carpets, but the rest of that stuff is absolutely riveting to someone in my position.
Anyone who knows me has heard me ineptly try to describe the impossible nature of taking care of a newborn. It is so hard, I feel like I am the first woman to ever have attempted it. Imagine the comfort of seeing someone like Kendra Wilkinson struggling, yet succeeding at the nearly impossible task of keeping a baby alive and well.
And here's the thing. Think for a second. Run through your cable stations. How many programs are out there showing what having a newborn in the house is really like? MTV's got that "16 and Pregnant" show, which is doing a great public service, to be sure, but I'm not 16. I have a husband and support and an education and all the trappings of a quality life that suggest I should be a good, well-balanced, and loving mother.
There are two shows: "Kendra" and now "Life in the Fab Lane" with Kimora Lee Simmons. Recently, Kimora could be seen from behind, telling a photographer they would have to wait to do her family photo because she was in the middle of pumping and all the stress surrounding her was affecting her "letdown." The scene did not come close to exposing her in the act of pumping breastmilk, but she referred to it and showed the camera a bottle after she had successfully pumped several ounces.
"Letdown," Kimora explained, is not when someone disappoints you. We're talking milk here.
Mothering a young baby is ridiculously consuming. Shockingly so. Jarringly so. That a whole other world goes on around you while you are: sleepless, investigating the best methods for freezing milk, reading up on healthy sleep patterns, folding laundry one-handed while nursing a baby in your other arm, challenging doctors who are not as supportive of nursing mothers as they should be, passively fighting with your spouse over whose turn it is to hold the baby (while feeling guilty about how badly you want to not be holding the baby), and trying, hoping, and praying you'll get a shower that day - this is one of the unique challenges of motherhood.
And then there's Kendra and Kimora bringing the inexplicable challenge of it to television. And not just to television, but to popular television. This is no poorly produced "A Baby Story." This is glossy, full-production value television of women who, despite their celebrity, at the end of the day, are just trying to be good moms.
Certainly once Kendra's son starts to grow and verbalize and Kendra starts explaining how mama used to pose for Playboy, she and I will part ways. We will no longer share that bond of the mama who is stunned to find herself in the position of motherhood. But until then, I look forward to another episode where Kendra tries to find the time to get to the gym and where she cries to her husband one more time about how she just doesn't feel like herself anymore. Go, Kendra. I can completely identify with you.
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