Christmas Recap

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! 

Jackson's First Christmas was absolutely amazing for me. Between Santa, 2 doting grandparents, 2 smitten great-grandparents, and an adoring great-aunt who owns a toy store, my child ended up with more toys than I've ever seen in my life. Our living room looks like FAO Schwartz. You can't sneeze in my house without setting off some obnoxiously loud car, fire engine, or musical caterpillar. Aside from the resulting stubbed-toes, I love having this many toys for Jackson to play with because a) he's happy and b) he's entertained, which means I have an extra 20 seconds per toy before he gets bored and starts crying for me.

And as planned, we got Jackson's picture taken with Santa. However, we made a few tactical errors. Mainly, we went on Christmas Eve. The line was 2 hours long. But I was determined that my son WOULD have his picture taken with Santa, so we decided to wait. The 6 adults present (2 parents, 2 grandparents, and 2 great-grandparents) took shifts standing in line while the others shopped or ate lunch. Jackson was a champ through the entire ordeal until the second we placed him on Santa's lap...

Then we had a total meltdown.

Despite the psychological trauma my son had to endure in the 30 seconds he was on Santa's lap, it made for a pretty hilarious picture. Did Jackson cry when we put him in his itchy Christmas outfit? No. Did he cry during the 2 hour wait? No. Did he cry because he was starving and exhausted? No. But the second we handed him off to a jolly old fat man, he started wailing.

Of course, there other gifts than just my son's plethora of toys, and other events than The Great Santa Debacle of 2010, but those were the highlights for me. I used to feel sorry for my parents every Christmas when I was little because my brother and I got a billion toys and my parents got a tie or sweater. Now I realize that gifts never mattered to them because they were so happy watching us with our presents.

There was one gift that I received that bears mentioning, however, because it's one of those gifts that keeps on giving. David got me a housekeeper for Christmas. I realize that my laziness has reached new heights because I'm now a SAHM with a maid, but if it means never having to scrub a toilet again, that's a certitude I'm willing to live with. And it just goes to prove my prior assertion that my husband is the nicest man alive.

I also got to see my best friend from my childhood, which was nice. She's doing well, and although our lives are drastically different (she's living in NYC with a fabulous career, and I'm a mommy), it's true that some of the things we have in common (like friendship and good hair) never change.

Christmas takes on a whole new meaning when you become a parent. It's not about you anymore, and amazingly, you don't care. My head could have caught on fire, and nobody would have noticed. We were all so focused on Jackson. All that mattered to me was seeing my son happy, and between witnessing him with his grandparents and great-grandparents, watching him play with his new toys, and seeing his face light up with his first taste of gingerbread cookies, I got my wish.

I used to get a little sad when the Christmas season ended. But not anymore. Jackson's birthday is January 13th, so I'm just parlaying all my "Baby's First Christmas" fervor into "Baby's First Birthday". And so the madness continues...

A Christmas Blog

This will probably be my last post before Christmas.  We're off to Houston to spend the holidays with my family, and I will probably not be overly inclined to waste precious family time in front of my computer.

To say that I'm excited about this Christmas would be like calling World War II "a misunderstanding".  It will be Jackson's First Christmas, and I've been out of my mind with anticipation since somewhere around the 4th of July.  It's my baby's first Christmas, and I'm more excited about this Christmas than any Christmas in my life (including '89, when Santa brought me the entire cast of My Little Pony AND '95 when I got a bicycle).

Despite my fervor, I realize, of course, that Jackson is only 11 months and will have no idea what's going on.  He hasn't figured out the consequences of gravity yet, let alone who Santa Claus is.  But that hasn't stopped me from going completely berserk when it comes to gift-buying.  All logic and temperance go completely out the window when the words "Baby's First Christmas" enter my mind.  I bought my son everything but a live pony (and who knows what will happen NEXT Christmas when he actually knows what's going on...)

If you can't tell from this blog, I'm not the most naturally maternal woman on the planet, but when it comes to Christmas, my uterus completely takes over and my brain goes into hibernation until New Year's.  Jack and I have been listening to carols, baking Christmas cookies, and wrapping presents like crazed holiday elves. 

When we get to Houston, my grandparents, parents, and Jack and I are going to get Jack's picture taken with Santa.  I hope this goes better than his pictures with the Easter Bunny; not because Jackson was uncooperative, but because the Easter Bunny at the mall looked like a cross between the rabbit from Donny Darko and the clown from IT.  If you got an Easter card from us, you know what I'm talking about.  It was terrifying.  I'm praying they do a better job with the mall Santa, because I'd prefer not to immortalize Jack's first Christmas by posing him with someone who looks like Rush Limbaugh (and shares his affinity for Oxycontin).  But I digress.

Of course, Christmas is about more than presents, calorie-laden food, and creepy mall Santas.  What I really want to impress upon my son is the importance of family and friends during this time of year.  I may sound like a Hallmark Made-for-TV-Christmas-Special here, but Christmas is the one time of year where we get to reflect on the amazing people in our lives without sounding like we've been hitting the egg-nog too hard.

For me, it's having family who dropped everything to help me when I needed them, friends who stood by me through both the good and bad times, a husband who supported me no matter what, and a son who is healthy and happy and completely owns my soul.  I love every single one of you immensely, and I'm infinitely blessed to have you in my life.  (Alright, putting away the tissues....)

So whether you're decking the halls, spinning the dreidel, or doing whatever it is people do for Kwanzaa, may this season bring you joy, happiness, peace, and love.

Pregnancy is Awesome.... Or Not

I got my first piece of what can sort of be called "fan mail" the other day.  Out of respect for the author's anonymity, I won't say more than that it was from a pregnant woman, and it was quite possibly one of the sweetest things I've ever read.  That said, thank you for the incredibly kind words: you know who you are and this post goes out to you.  The note, however, did raise an issue that I think a lot of women struggle with: how to feel about being pregnant.

We all know those pregnant women who love being pregnant.  They "glow", share every detail of their pregnancy (even the ones you'd rather not know) and spend every moment of their gestation in sheer bliss.

I was not one of these women. 

I spent the first half of my pregnancy barfing like a supermodel.  I spent the second half on "home rest" thinking if I walked up a flight of stairs my son's placenta would detach.  I cried every time I looked down and saw the giant tree trunks that used to be my thighs.  (Later I would cry because when I looked down, I couldn't see anything at all other than my giant belly.)  I was told that I "glowed" but then, so did Three Mile Island, if you get my drift.  In short, I utterly and completely hated being pregnant.

The hormones didn't help either.  My poor husband had to endure quite a bit of abuse as a result.  I remember one time I asked him to bring me and Arby's roast beef sandwich (which I craved like a madwoman).  He dropped what he was doing and brought me the sandwich, but he forgot the sauce, so I came completely unglued.  Sadly, things like this happened a lot.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the little creature that was growing inside of me.  But I was terrified that the way I felt towards my pregnancy would make me a bad mother.  Rest assured, though, you WILL go on to be as good a mother as the pregnant women who love being pregnant.  In fact, I think you'll go on to be a BETTER mother, because those women are the same women who later go on to announce to anyone who will listen that their 4 year-old is "gifted".  (Until he/she wins the Nobel Prize or cures cancer, your kid is just a kid, lady, and if you keep labeling them, they'll be seeing a child psychologist faster than you can say "Prozac").

If you're completely freaking out about being pregnant, I think you're having a normal and healthy reaction.  Whenever I encounter a gushing pregnant woman, I think she must either a) be a liar b) have the self-control of Ghandi, or c) be vastly out of touch with reality.  You are about to become a parent.  If this does not make you completely freak out, then you have no idea what parenting entails.  If for no other reason than the fact that you can't have sushi for the better part of a year, you should at least be a little edgy.


And while I can't offer much to assuage the sheer terror that comes with pregnancy, I can give you some advice to help keep you comfortable:

Keep food with you at all times.  Hunger strikes pregnant women differently than non-pregnant women.  If I feel hunger pangs now, I just know that I have to eat sometime within the next week and I'll be fine.  Not so when I was pregnant.  I was certain that if I didn't eat IMMEDIATELY that I was going to have to gnaw my own arm off or kill someone (probably my husband).  To combat this issue, I started taking food with me everywhere I went.  Sure, your friends will laugh at you when you bust out a Belly Bar, some Fig Newtons, a bag of Sour Patch Kids, and a banana (true story) but it's better than starving to death, which you will be certain you are going to do if you don't eat NOW.

Bubble baths rock.  Eventually your belly gets HUGE, and submerging yourself in water takes some of the weight off your hips and back.  Around month 8 you will swear your belly physically cannot get any bigger, but then amazingly, it does.  Taking a bath every night was the only way I stayed sane towards the end of my pregnancy for the simple fact that for about 30 minutes, I couldn't feel the weight of my belly.

Tylenol PM is safe to take when you're pregnant.  My doctor assured me of this one.  Eventually you'll get to the point where you won't be able to sleep.  Like, at all.  This is horribly cruel, because the baby will come soon and then you REALLY won't be able to sleep.  So when I started losing sleep towards the end of my pregnancy, I started popping Tylenol PM.  It helps immensely.

Don't sit in a comfy chair/couch unless you have someone around to pull you out.  I got stuck once at one of those luxury car washes because I plopped into a leather recliner while David was out talking to the car wash guys.  When David came in to get me he said, "Come on, let's go!" from across the room.  To which I had to reply (in front of a dozen or so other people) "Ummm, you have to come pull me out because I'm stuck."  I promise, before your pregnancy is over you'll get stuck in something, and I just hope you've heeded my advice and have someone to extract you.


Hope this helps!  To all those pregnant women out there who read this: good luck to you.  You are braver (and let's be totally honest here: crazier) than any man on the planet could ever be.  But you're a member of the Mom Club now, and every women who has ever given birth has your back.  And if you can do this (which you can) you can do anything.

Paradise Lost?

Sometimes life occurs faster than I can blog about it.  The Reader's Digest version goes something like this: I had a setback with my meds (or lack there of) but a combination support from David, talking to my parents, and shoe shopping provided a temporary fix.  I'm now back on my medicine, but at half the dose I was on before, and the new plan is to slowly wean me off this time.  While I'm kind of bummed that I wasn't able to simply quit the medication and move on with my life, David reminded me that recovering from PPD is a process, and despite the occasional set back, I'm still moving forward.

In happier news, I made a friend on my street, which is pretty cool.  She seems to have the whole SAHM routine down, but she issues plenty of humor and sarcasm, so I think we'll get along well.  And she gave me the number of a good babysitter, which, for those of you without children, is a feeling like Christmas morning and fitting into your college jeans all rolled into one.  Now maybe David and I can actually go out for once without having to apologize to the table next to us because our child launched a stuffed octopus at them.

I was having margaritas with a friend on Friday (a fellow mother, but one who has a career) and she very gently but seriously asked, "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you're not meant to be a SAHM?"

The answer to that question is, "Only like 10 million times a day..."  At least 10 times a week I swear I'm going to give up and just go back to work.  And the question that plagues my mind is: why is it so hard for me to stay home, when it's so easy for other women?  Now, don't get me wrong, I know being a SAHM is hard for anyone, but it seems ESPECIALLY hard for me.

When I look at the situation logically, it doesn't make sense that staying home is so hard.  There's nothing intrinsically difficult about being a SAHM.  If the baby and I are still alive and functional by the time David gets home, my job is done.  I don't even have one of those husbands who expects dinner to be waiting or the house to be clean.  And my mom and grandmother were both SAHMs who did just fine, so it's not like I'm genetically predisposed to balking at SAHM-hood.  So why do I struggle so much?

I think the answer lies somewhere in my past.  As I've mentioned before, I used to have a career, but I was also fiercely independent (read: selfish).  Even when I met David, that didn't change much.  For some reason, he found the fact that I was obnoxiously egocentric to be endearing. 

But then SURPRISE!  I was pregnant. 

I call them “surprises”, but let’s be honest here: unless you are carrying the offspring of a deity or have somehow managed to make it this far in life without anyone having ever explained to you where babies come from, pregnancy should not be a true “surprise”.  

Despite logically knowing this, I have never been more surprised in my life than when I looked down and saw two pink lines on my at-home pregnancy test.  I was so surprised that, despite a dozen or so ultrasounds, an endless succession of doctors visits, and eventually a watermelon-sized belly, I would spend the next nine months expecting Ashton Kutcher to jump out of a closet and tell me I’d been punk’d.

But it was real, and 9 months later (well technically 8, because Jack was born a month early), I was a mommy.  Realizing that I could not be both simultaneously a selfish person and a good mother, I put away every vestige of my old life, and even gave up my career.  The only problem with that is, now I have no idea who I am or what I'm supposed to be doing.

So I'm trying to learn.  Unfortunately there's no book out there titled, How to Go from Being the Center of Your Own Universe to a Stay-At-Home-Mom.  So I guess that's why I'm writing this blog.  Because seriously, I have no clue what I'm doing, and it helps to bridge the gap between who I was and who I am.

And I even learned a new lesson, courtesy of my new neighbor-friend: It's okay to let your child play in the dirt.  See, I never let Jackson play in the dirt because he's still crawling.  But she convinced me to let go of him and let him play in a big pile of leaves.  Aside from having to pry an acorn out of my son's mouth, everything went well, and now I'm not afraid to let him crawl around in the dirt.

Maybe if I keep this up, one day I'll know what the heck I'm doing.  But until then, learning lessons about Motherhood, making it up as I go, and not knowing what I'm doing are all part of the process of "recapturing myself".  I may not know who I am, but I know who I once was, and my hope is by going through all this, one day I'll know who I am again and be better for it.

Mom Jeans

For those of you keeping score at home, I'm on Day 6 of my drug-free existence.  So far, the worst part is the withdrawal.  I have a persistent splitting headache, omnipresent dizziness, and a little bit of nausea.  Unfortunately there's no methadone equivalent for Celexa, so I'm on my own here.  And since moms don't get sick days (or vacation days... or hazard pay), I'm forging on. 

I can cope with physical symptoms.  Thus far, David has not come home to find me talking to the toaster or rocking back and forth in a corner, so I'm feeling pretty good about my mental state.  Moving on...

A very dear child-less friend of mine once joked, "For every picture you post of your child on facebook, I will post one of me having a life."  Touche.

It's extremely hard to maintain a modicum of coolness when you're a parent.  Suddenly you're worried about things like how fast people are driving through the neighborhood.  You know every line in the Sesame Street theme song.  And thank God for Netflix, because you haven't seen a movie in the theater since Avatar (true story).

Especially as a SAHM, it's easy to lose yourself in the seemingly endless sea of diapers, rice formula, and Barney DVDs.  But it's imperative that you NOT let this happen, otherwise you'll end up as one of those moms with the "Proud Parent of a DARE Graduate" bumper stickers.  (You know, because not having a heroine-addicted 10-year-old is something to brag about.)

While being a mother is the most important aspect of your life, I've learned that if you let it consume you, you'll go crazy.  Not long ago, I came precipitously close to that point, but thankfully my husband was there to pull me back from the abyss.

He came home from work to find me wearing the dumpiest pair of jeans you've ever seen, which I'd purchased because they were reaaaaaally comfortable.  "Honey," he cautiously began, "what size are those jeans?"  To which I replied, "Oh well they're a size too big, but they're reaaaaally comfortable."  He didn't say anything more.  He didn't have to.  Because in that moment it hit me: I'd bought MOM JEANS.

Mom jeans, along with jorts and holiday-themed apparel, are filed in my mind as "Things I Would Not Be Caught Dead Wearing".  (I'm the type of woman who wears 6-inch spike stilettos everywhere I go.)  But there I was, wearing hideous but comfortable jeans. 

As a SAHM, you often forget yourself.  While this is not inherently a bad thing, (better to be totally uncool than to be a bad mother) if you do it all the time, you'll wake up one day and realize you have no idea who you are.  I spent the first several months of my child's life being so focused on his health and well-being that I totally ignored my own needs.  This is easy to do, because you are madly, hopelessly, and obsessively in love with someone who doesn't even have a fused skull or knee caps yet.

So now I try to do one entirely selfish thing every day. At first I felt incredibly guilty about this.  Maybe I was worried that my son would grow up to be a cast member from "Jersey Shore" if I didn't devote every ounce of my energy to him.  Maybe I was afraid he'd start a meth lab in the garage if I took my eyes off him for 5 seconds.  I don't know specifically why I felt so compelled to sacrifice my sanity for my son, but I do know now that it actually makes you a BETTER mom if you do things for yourself.  Now I'm more able to laugh when he does things like spit peas in my face, and I'm less inclined to burst into tears every time I look down at my stomach (which, despite the fact I gave birth over 10 months ago, still bears a depressing resemblance to a deflated balloon).

I'm hoping to soon add "hanging out with other SAHMs" to my list of frivolous things I do every day.  I've gotten in contact with some women in my neighborhood who seem pretty great.  In the meantime, whether it's blogging, taking a bubble bath, or reading a decorating magazine and pretending I live in a house without Exersaucers everywhere, I make time for myself every day.  And I don't feel bad about it.

What the Baby Books Don't Tell You...

First off, I want to thank everyone who has read my blogs thus far.  I didn't anticipate that anyone other than maybe my husband and mom would actually read this thing, so I'm very grateful for all the kind responses I've received.  Since a large number of responses I've gotten are from soon-to-be-mothers, I thought I'd dedicate this blog to imparting some of the knowledge I've picked up thus far on my journey.

Baby books are great.  Personally, I read every single one of them, because I was determined to become the perfect parent.  And while the various tomes out there were somewhat useful (for example, I know everything there is to know about colic), I learned within about 5 seconds of giving birth that there were major gaps in my education.  So here's a little sampling of what the baby books left out:


No matter how hard you try to prepare, you will be utterly useless as a parent at first, and that is TOTALLY FINE.  No book out there that I read really hammers this home.  You cannot adequately anticipate is how floppy and helpless newborns are.  They only weigh a few pounds, but they can't hold their heads up, so you have to reconfigure everything you know about how to move a small object.  You could have the manual dexterity of a concert pianist, but the first time you go to hold your newborn, you will find that your hands have been transformed into giant, useless slabs of meat. 

Taking care of a newborn is much like driving a car: it's not TECHNICALLY difficult, but no matter how many times you've seen it done, the first few times you try it yourself, you will be completely terrified and quite certain someone is going to get hurt.  When we took Jackson in for his one-week check up at the pediatrician's office, he had an explosive poop the second we got his diaper off.  Despite the fact I'd been changing his diaper for an entire week at this point, it caught me completely off-guard, and all I could do was nod dumbly as the nurse commented, "First-time parents, eh?"  My purpose is not to frighten (especially since babies, much like wild animals, can smell fear), but rather to reassure that no one knows what they're doing, and that's okay. 

Sleep deprivation does funny things to a person.  I'm convinced that the reason they tell you not to take your baby anywhere for the first 6 weeks is not because they're worried about the baby catching an infection, but because someone who hasn't slept in 6 weeks should not be operating a motor vehicle. I had erroneously assumed that because I pulled all-nighters in college I would be able to handle not sleeping with grace and aplomb.  Yeah, not so much.  The problem is this: one sleepless night is okay.  Two sleepless nights, and you're a bit cranky.  Three or more, and you start to bear a resemblance to Mick Jagger both physically and in terms of speech patterns.  My dad once fell asleep on the toilet at work because he was so exhausted. 

David and I combated this by setting up a schedule for night-time feedings.  David took every feeding before 2am, and I took every feeding after 2am.   But most importantly, our pediatrician worked with us to sleep-train Jackson, so that by 2 months, he was sleeping through the night.








Some other observations:

Babies are very smart.  Do not underestimate them.  Literally as I am typing this, my son just figured out how to move the barricade I very carefully built to keep him out of the kitchen while I'm writing.  It's an awesome feeling when your baby out-smarts you, which they will do A LOT.  Which brings me to my next observation:

Silence IS NOT golden.  The second you stop hearing those sweet little coos and shrieks, you better drop whatever you're doing and RUN, because it means your child is either about to drop your cell phone in the toilet or they've got your chihuahua in a choke-hold.  Babies know when they're doing something they're not supposed to be doing, so the second they've managed to wrestle your great-grandmother's vase off your end table, they become stealthier than a ninja.

Infant saliva has the same chemical composition as battery acid.  Granted, I have no medical documentation to support this assertion, but it's the only way I can explain the fact that Jackson has destroyed a cell phone, a remote control, and as of this morning, a cell phone charger simply by placing them in his mouth.


Start keeping everything you own two-feet off the ground.  Once your child starts moving, they will break, damage, eat, or maim anything within their reach.  So alas, your home will be completely devoid of any objects from the waste down.  This includes bookshelves, coffee tables, and houseplants.  Oops, did you take your shoes off and forget to lock them in a closet?  Oh, too bad, because your baby is now chewing on them.

And finally:

Get used to being totally grossed-out.  Whether it's walking around with vomit in your hair or pulling a clump of dog fur out of your child's mouth (true story) you're going to find yourself redefining the word "clean" as "something that probably won't kill my child".  As a germophobe, this was very hard for me, but if you totally freak out every time you catch your child trying to eat a dog toy, you will give yourself an ulcer.  Instead, I learned to quickly remove the disgusting object and repeat the words, "It probably won't kill him" over and over.

Hopefully this helps shed some light on ACTUAL parenting.  Veteran Moms, feel free to chime in where I've left something out. 

Chernobyl

I debated long and hard about doing this blog.  But I've decided that omitting a huge part of my life would totally negate the purpose of even having a blog.  So in the interest of transparency: I had/have Post-Partum Depression (PPD).

Actually it was technically post-partum ANXIETY, but the two terms are pretty much interchangeable and there are only a few differences.  I began experiencing the super-fun odyssey that is PPD almost immediately after I was released from the hospital.  I had been in the hospital for a week with child-bed fever (or puerperal fever for you biology geeks).  So by the time I got home, I had had just enough time for all the pregnancy hormones to leave my system.

Now at this point, the vast majority of women will experience "The Baby Blues", which basically involves a lot of crying and having swooping bouts of feeling like your dog just died.  Make no mistake, it's crappy, but it passes.  Mine didn't pass.  And mine came with paralyzing anxiety attacks.  And the inability to eat without getting sick.  Oh, and feeling like I was totally losing my mind.

The overarching theme was that I was definitely NOT NORMAL.  Unfortunately, I was the only person who knew that.  My ob/gyn took one 20 second look at me and announced that I was just having trouble adjusting to motherhood and -I'm not even making this up- told me to "put your big girl panties on and deal with it".

After that, things got worse. 

I'll spare you the details of my near-brush with complete insanity, but if you're interested in knowing more, I HIGHLY recommend Brooke Shield's book, Down Came The Rain.  I used to think of Brooke Shields the same way I think of all celebrities: as overrated and overpaid models of hubris, but after reading her book on the subject of PPD, I now think of her as a cross between my best friend and Mother Theresa.

Now, given that I'm typing all this and not scratching it into my padded-cell walls, I'm sure you can all surmise that I DID get help.  I finally got to the point where I knew that if I didn't get help, I was going to go completely over the edge.  For all I knew, I was losing my mind, but dammit, I wasn't going down without a fight.

I called my parents and told them I needed them.  To their credit, they dropped everything, and my dad came to stay with me for a week.  I told David that my ob/gyn was wrong, and something was definitely going on with me, and he supported me.  We sought the help of a REAL doctor, who immediately diagnosed me with PPD and put me on the pharmaceutical equivalent of elephant tranquilizers.  It only took two days for the medicine to kick in, and the cloud lifted. 

The medicine took care of the chemical aspect of PPD, but I couldn't have initiated the recovery process without immense support from David, my family, and my friends.  I joined a support group for women suffering from PPD, and from it I learned a valuable lesson: that I'm not alone.  Millions of women suffer from PPD, and it's not something to be ashamed of or to hide.  It doesn't make you crazy, it doesn't mean you're a bad mom, and it doesn't define who you are as a person.

One big bummer for me though, was the fact that I had to stop breast-feeding because of the medication.  I'd had this idea in my head that I'd be Super Mom, turning up my nose at formula, and raising a brilliant, breast-fed child.  But honestly, giving up nursing was a small price to pay in exchange for my mental health.  (And seeing as how my son is the infant version of The Incredible Hulk, I'd say he's doing just fine with the bottle.)

As much as I'd like to end the story there with an "and they all lived happily ever after", recovering from PPD is a long and arduous process.  I still struggle with it today, 10 months out.  I've had many set-backs over the past few months, but I'm gradually getting better. 

 The reason all this is on the forefront of my mind is that I met with my doctor yesterday, and he pulled me off all my medicine, cold-turkey.  While the prospect of being completely un-medicated is absolutely terrifying, I'm kind of excited at the prospect of no longer being a walking chem lab.  Today is my first day without medication. 

Whether I'll thrive without drugs remains to be seen, but I'm hopeful that this is the beginning of the end of PPD for me.

Here We Go....

I decided to start a blog in a frantic effort to save my sanity.  Being a stay-at-home-mom is incredibly difficult for me, and I think having an outlet might help.  See, once upon a time, I had a career.  It was a good job that kept me on my toes and afforded a moderately comfortable living for me and my then-grad-student husband.  But then one day an at-home pregnancy test came back with two lines instead of one, and everything changed.  My husband, David, graduated and accepted a lucrative position in Austin, and we decided that I should quit my job and be a full-time stay-at-home-mom (SAHM).

The logic behind the decision was this: David would be making more than enough to comfortable support our burgeoning family, we were both raised by SAHMs, and we'd probably just buy something stupid with the extra income (a new car, big tv, etc.)  And what could be more important than the raising our child?

Ha.

What they DON'T tell you is that not all women are mentally geared for SAHM-hood.  For some women, staying home is a complete joy.  I am not one of those women.  I've had a job since I was 15, and I think my brain just became programmed for a career.  But I love my son more than anything in the world, so I'm trying to beat my psyche into submission and learn to be a good SAHM.  (And by "good", I mean, "not have a complete psychological break-down".)

So here we go...

A little bit about me: I'm a few weeks shy of my 27th birthday, and I'm married to the nicest man I've ever met.  My son is Jackson (10 months), and he's the most even-tempered child you will ever meet.  He's also giant (he wears 2T clothes) and the pediatrician says if he continues to grow the way he's growing, he'll be about 6'5".

Speaking of which, I think Jack is having yet another growth spurt.  I can always tell one is coming because he starts eating like a fat kid on a cake-bender, and a week later, none of his clothes fit.  But he's growing, which is a good thing, because it means 1) he's healthy and 2) he's becoming more of a human being.

Yeah, yeah, babies are people, too.  I know.  Thanks to his perpetual presence, I get to use the HOV lane.  But let's be honest here: newborns are kind of jerks.  They keep ridiculous hours, scream a lot, and assume you exist for the sole purpose of accommodating them.  It's like having a miniature crack-head for a roommate.  To quote an as-yet non-famous comedian I once met: they look just enough like you to keep you from kicking them.

I think the hardest part of being a SAHM is the loneliness.  If you outsource your childcare, you will have no idea what I'm talking about.  But let me tell you, it's very lonely.  (Think: Tom Hanks alone on his island talking to a volleyball.)  Alas, unless you have the IQ of a small woodland creature, a baby does not provide stimulating company.  None of my friends are SAHMs.  I tried to pick up a hobby, but it turns out I'm neither artsy nor craftsy.  I tried to meet other moms at Starbucks (you know, the really cute ones who hang out there at 10am in their workout clothes) but it turns out I'm not cool. 

What I am, however, is a writer.  Or at least, I used to be.  My hope is that if I write a little bit each day, I'll be more like my former self.  Whether anyone actually reads this or not is totally irrelevant.  I'm just trying to do something for myself.


.