Visit me at oneofthosemothers.com
Content will be up January 1st.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
You may call me "Mrs. Mommy"
Half an hour ago I thought that I had finally found time to sit down and write a blog post about motherhood. I logged in, and then the baby woke up. As I typed the first sentence of this post, he woke up again, but Sam went to him and maybe he will fall back asleep for his daddy.
I have visited my blog several times since I last posted, over a year ago. I use it as a quick way to find other blogs, and every time I do, I have a moment of embarrassment when I see the titles of my last two posts. Contentment and Superbowl parties. Within a couple of weeks after I wrote about being content with my life as it was, I got pregnant and changed degree programs from the Ph.D to the masters. The day before the Superbowl, as I was getting ingredients together for margaritas, I got a positive pregnancy test. (Since I wasn't ready to tell the world about the pregnancy, I spent the evening of that party walking around with a margarita glass full of orange juice and crushed ice, so that no one would wonder why I wasn't partaking in the merriment).
There are a thousand things I could say about pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood, which all seem new and exciting to me as I experience them for the first time, but of course most of them have already been said:
"Having a baby is like having your heart walking around outside your body."
"You consider taking a shower a luxury."
"You find that you never knew you were capable of that kind of love."
"Seeing your baby on the ultrasound for the first time is magical."
I read lots of books about pregnancy while I was pregnant. I read about different kinds of childbirth and parenting styles, I took the hospital tour, I spent way too much time reading online parenting and pregnancy forums, I talked to people, and I reminisced about the time when my little brother was born.
And I got a lot of advice, from friends, family, and strangers. Pretty much the bigger my belly got, the more advice I got. I didn't mind. It all made me feel very, very prepared.
I wasn't.
I wasn't prepared for how stressful the five days of pregnancy that came after my due date would be, even though I had told myself to expect to be overdue. (Karma for all of those library books?)
I wasn't prepared for how intimidating doctors and nurses can be, and how vulnerable I would feel in the delivery room.
I wasn't prepared for the night feedings that come every couple of hours to take up a couple of hours. (It was only like this in the beginning.)
I wasn't prepared for the potential for guilt feelings. No matter what parenting decision you make, it turns out, there will be articles written to say that it is wrong. Mothers, like brides, are constantly told to think of themselves, but for mothers, there is always the nagging thought that you ought to be singing/reading to your baby, so that his brain will develop, or something like that.
I wasn't prepared for the complete loss of control. Every second of my every day is now dominated by the most adorable little tyrant.
I wasn't prepared to be separated like an egg. All my patience goes to Paul, all my impatience (I have a lot of it by the end of the day) goes to whomever I meet. (Poor Sam.)
And oh, the nicknames. I knew I would give them to SugarPlumPuddingPop, aka P-Dubya, aka Snuggle Muffin, aka SugarFace, but I did not expect to start giving them to myself. Paul obviously can't talk yet, but sometimes he makes a sort of "ahhmoomoo" sound, which I have taken as addressed to myself, so now sometimes instead of calling myself "mama," I call myself "moomoo." Not sure if this is an allusion to the fact that I am essentially his personal cow for the next few months, or if he means it to be spelled muumuu, and is questioning my fashion sense. I am also "the Milk Lady."
I wasn't prepared, at all, for how much I love this baby. For me it was not a rush of emotion the first moment that I heard his cry and saw his slimy little body in the doctor's hands. I was too exhausted, and all I could think was that I didn't see how he could've have fit - surely my belly wasn't that big - and I remember being a little bit relieved when someone said something about him being a boy, because I had been vaguely worried for the past 20 weeks that maybe the ultrasound technician had got it wrong. But the bond that I have with this baby is overwhelming. Even when he finally, finally, falls alseep, sometimes I miss him, and look at pictures of him on my phone. I have worse separation anxiety than he does. And the protective nature of this special kind of love is so intense that, at the risk (which I usually avoid) of sounding like Sarah Palin, it can only be described as fierce. But that, too, is different from what I was expecting. I thought that being a "mama grizzly" meant that you would have a rush of adrenaline and feel powerful. I think the reality is that you have a sudden realization of how powerless you are, and this leads to an adrenaline rush, but the emotion is one of panic, not invincibility. Even more than the sleep deprivation and difficulty in finding time to shower and anxiety and guilt, the thing that sucks the most about motherhood is having to deal with the fact that you can't protect your sweet helpless baby from the things that are really bad in life, and that along with everything you have to give, you give your sinful nature, and the sinful nature of everyone else.
Thank God for grace, because there aren't enough books, articles, or friendly pieces of advice in the world to prepare a self-centered student for the experience of being a mother.
I have visited my blog several times since I last posted, over a year ago. I use it as a quick way to find other blogs, and every time I do, I have a moment of embarrassment when I see the titles of my last two posts. Contentment and Superbowl parties. Within a couple of weeks after I wrote about being content with my life as it was, I got pregnant and changed degree programs from the Ph.D to the masters. The day before the Superbowl, as I was getting ingredients together for margaritas, I got a positive pregnancy test. (Since I wasn't ready to tell the world about the pregnancy, I spent the evening of that party walking around with a margarita glass full of orange juice and crushed ice, so that no one would wonder why I wasn't partaking in the merriment).
There are a thousand things I could say about pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood, which all seem new and exciting to me as I experience them for the first time, but of course most of them have already been said:
"Having a baby is like having your heart walking around outside your body."
"You consider taking a shower a luxury."
"You find that you never knew you were capable of that kind of love."
"Seeing your baby on the ultrasound for the first time is magical."
I read lots of books about pregnancy while I was pregnant. I read about different kinds of childbirth and parenting styles, I took the hospital tour, I spent way too much time reading online parenting and pregnancy forums, I talked to people, and I reminisced about the time when my little brother was born.
And I got a lot of advice, from friends, family, and strangers. Pretty much the bigger my belly got, the more advice I got. I didn't mind. It all made me feel very, very prepared.
I wasn't.
I wasn't prepared for how stressful the five days of pregnancy that came after my due date would be, even though I had told myself to expect to be overdue. (Karma for all of those library books?)
I wasn't prepared for how intimidating doctors and nurses can be, and how vulnerable I would feel in the delivery room.
I wasn't prepared for the night feedings that come every couple of hours to take up a couple of hours. (It was only like this in the beginning.)
I wasn't prepared for the potential for guilt feelings. No matter what parenting decision you make, it turns out, there will be articles written to say that it is wrong. Mothers, like brides, are constantly told to think of themselves, but for mothers, there is always the nagging thought that you ought to be singing/reading to your baby, so that his brain will develop, or something like that.
I wasn't prepared for the complete loss of control. Every second of my every day is now dominated by the most adorable little tyrant.
I wasn't prepared to be separated like an egg. All my patience goes to Paul, all my impatience (I have a lot of it by the end of the day) goes to whomever I meet. (Poor Sam.)
And oh, the nicknames. I knew I would give them to SugarPlumPuddingPop, aka P-Dubya, aka Snuggle Muffin, aka SugarFace, but I did not expect to start giving them to myself. Paul obviously can't talk yet, but sometimes he makes a sort of "ahhmoomoo" sound, which I have taken as addressed to myself, so now sometimes instead of calling myself "mama," I call myself "moomoo." Not sure if this is an allusion to the fact that I am essentially his personal cow for the next few months, or if he means it to be spelled muumuu, and is questioning my fashion sense. I am also "the Milk Lady."
I wasn't prepared, at all, for how much I love this baby. For me it was not a rush of emotion the first moment that I heard his cry and saw his slimy little body in the doctor's hands. I was too exhausted, and all I could think was that I didn't see how he could've have fit - surely my belly wasn't that big - and I remember being a little bit relieved when someone said something about him being a boy, because I had been vaguely worried for the past 20 weeks that maybe the ultrasound technician had got it wrong. But the bond that I have with this baby is overwhelming. Even when he finally, finally, falls alseep, sometimes I miss him, and look at pictures of him on my phone. I have worse separation anxiety than he does. And the protective nature of this special kind of love is so intense that, at the risk (which I usually avoid) of sounding like Sarah Palin, it can only be described as fierce. But that, too, is different from what I was expecting. I thought that being a "mama grizzly" meant that you would have a rush of adrenaline and feel powerful. I think the reality is that you have a sudden realization of how powerless you are, and this leads to an adrenaline rush, but the emotion is one of panic, not invincibility. Even more than the sleep deprivation and difficulty in finding time to shower and anxiety and guilt, the thing that sucks the most about motherhood is having to deal with the fact that you can't protect your sweet helpless baby from the things that are really bad in life, and that along with everything you have to give, you give your sinful nature, and the sinful nature of everyone else.
Thank God for grace, because there aren't enough books, articles, or friendly pieces of advice in the world to prepare a self-centered student for the experience of being a mother.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
2011 Resolution: Contentment
My first resolution was to spend less money on food and more on clothes. Sam didn't like the second part of that. Actually, upon comparing my clothes budget with his mom's, he made me decrease mine. I've suspected for a while that I spend way too much on groceries, although we rarely eat out and prices are very high in this city.
Last year I think I made some sort of resolution about procrastination. Maybe I will get around to starting that this year. ;-)
When I think about all of the ways in which I could improve, I'm realizing that a lack of contentment may be at the bottom of a lot of things. If I could become content with the place I'm at in life at this moment - a graduate student, with graduate-level work even if I still feel like an undergraduate, living on a graduate stipend, in a small one-bedroom apartment, with a very new set of friends, with a husband who is definitely a boy and not one of my girlfriends, with a social life that doesn't really require half of the dresses in my closet, and in a city that just isn't south of the Mason-Dixon line - maybe I wouldn't need so many of the other resolutions. Maybe I would be content to do my homework and papers early, even if doing them doesn't make me feel like one of the smart kids anymore. Maybe I would start buying only clothes that are actually practical for my lifestyle. Maybe I wouldn't bother Sam with questions about whether he likes my new hat (he didn't, by the way, but I do). Maybe I would quit looking at decorating magazines.
I've definitely found out that the grass-is-greener phenomenon happens to me. Sam and I spent 17 days in Texas for my brother's wedding, Christmas, and New Year's, and I realized that Texas is not the Utopia I pretend it is sometimes when New York gets frustrating. Actually, I even missed New York while I was there, so maybe I've turned some sort of corner. Texas - especially in the southern part - is very humid and warm, even at Christmas, and most of the restaurants are chains. I missed my little flower stands (at which you can get gerbera daisies even in January!) and cheap pizza and good Thai food. Maybe not so much the subway, but I did miss being able to walk to many of the places I needed to go.
In reality I had every reason in the world to be content, even before I got my Christmas loot. ;-) I have the best friends and family ever, and I seem to be lucky in finding more people like them even when I move away. And now, I have the grandfather of all Greek dictionaries, which has been termed by clever Classicists as the "Great Scott." (There are three dictionaries by Liddell and Scott, and the smallest is the Little Liddell, and the medium one is the Middle Liddell, and now I have the Great Scott.) And I have the cutest little red food processor, which looks great next to its mommy, the Kitchenaid mixer, and a date with Sam at the Irish Repertoiry Theater. And lots of new books, including one rather hard-to-find book in which C.S. Lewis writes not just popular stuff but literary criticism.
And I don't have a cat, which would get hair everywhere, or a puppy, which would be smelly and needy, or a baby, who would change everything. And for now, apparently, that is all for the best.
Last year I think I made some sort of resolution about procrastination. Maybe I will get around to starting that this year. ;-)
When I think about all of the ways in which I could improve, I'm realizing that a lack of contentment may be at the bottom of a lot of things. If I could become content with the place I'm at in life at this moment - a graduate student, with graduate-level work even if I still feel like an undergraduate, living on a graduate stipend, in a small one-bedroom apartment, with a very new set of friends, with a husband who is definitely a boy and not one of my girlfriends, with a social life that doesn't really require half of the dresses in my closet, and in a city that just isn't south of the Mason-Dixon line - maybe I wouldn't need so many of the other resolutions. Maybe I would be content to do my homework and papers early, even if doing them doesn't make me feel like one of the smart kids anymore. Maybe I would start buying only clothes that are actually practical for my lifestyle. Maybe I wouldn't bother Sam with questions about whether he likes my new hat (he didn't, by the way, but I do). Maybe I would quit looking at decorating magazines.
I've definitely found out that the grass-is-greener phenomenon happens to me. Sam and I spent 17 days in Texas for my brother's wedding, Christmas, and New Year's, and I realized that Texas is not the Utopia I pretend it is sometimes when New York gets frustrating. Actually, I even missed New York while I was there, so maybe I've turned some sort of corner. Texas - especially in the southern part - is very humid and warm, even at Christmas, and most of the restaurants are chains. I missed my little flower stands (at which you can get gerbera daisies even in January!) and cheap pizza and good Thai food. Maybe not so much the subway, but I did miss being able to walk to many of the places I needed to go.
In reality I had every reason in the world to be content, even before I got my Christmas loot. ;-) I have the best friends and family ever, and I seem to be lucky in finding more people like them even when I move away. And now, I have the grandfather of all Greek dictionaries, which has been termed by clever Classicists as the "Great Scott." (There are three dictionaries by Liddell and Scott, and the smallest is the Little Liddell, and the medium one is the Middle Liddell, and now I have the Great Scott.) And I have the cutest little red food processor, which looks great next to its mommy, the Kitchenaid mixer, and a date with Sam at the Irish Repertoiry Theater. And lots of new books, including one rather hard-to-find book in which C.S. Lewis writes not just popular stuff but literary criticism.
And I don't have a cat, which would get hair everywhere, or a puppy, which would be smelly and needy, or a baby, who would change everything. And for now, apparently, that is all for the best.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
It's that time of the semester, again.
For one of my Greek classes we are doing a huge metrical analysis project that involves frequency charts of dactyl/spondee rhythms and some other things. I think I like rhythm. I like the idea of predictable variation (which, incidentally, is not exactly what you get from Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica).
I almost like that at the end of every semester of grad school and college since I decided what to major in, I've gone through a sudden period of questioning everything about my decisions. Right around the time I start panicking about term papers and finals, I start wondering if academics is really "my thing," if maybe I would do better in a different discipline, if I should have taken time off between college and grad school to get practical work experience, or if I really just need to get started on having babies (you knew that one was coming). My current idea is that maybe I've lived my whole life based on a false dichotomy in which I think of myself as smart but not athletic, when really, it's the other way around, and I should be looking into a field that requires more manual than mental labor. I could be the most un-creepy construction worker ever.
It's good that semesters are rhythmical, because I know that these sort of thoughts are coming, so I can take care to disregard them when they do come.
Marriage is rhythmical. It fluctuates fairly predictably between the "I'm so lucky and ridiculously happy that everything is really funny all the time" part (95%) to the part where God teaches things like patience and unconditional love and shows you some of the parts of yourself it's more comfortable to forget about (5%).
I think the idea of a week is brilliant. Mondays you try to get stuff done, because you are super-motivated. Tuesdays you give up, and do laundry, because it's free soap day at the laundromat. Wednesdays you panic, and actually do a little work. Thursdays you are so busy all day you forget to be productive. On Fridays, it doesn't matter what happens, because it's Friday, which is cleaning day and therefore the best day, and anyway you can live through anything till your husband gets home. Saturdays are the wild card, and on Sundays you reward yourself for all those good intentions and get ready for another round.
And seasons are actually not at all overrated.
I almost like that at the end of every semester of grad school and college since I decided what to major in, I've gone through a sudden period of questioning everything about my decisions. Right around the time I start panicking about term papers and finals, I start wondering if academics is really "my thing," if maybe I would do better in a different discipline, if I should have taken time off between college and grad school to get practical work experience, or if I really just need to get started on having babies (you knew that one was coming). My current idea is that maybe I've lived my whole life based on a false dichotomy in which I think of myself as smart but not athletic, when really, it's the other way around, and I should be looking into a field that requires more manual than mental labor. I could be the most un-creepy construction worker ever.
It's good that semesters are rhythmical, because I know that these sort of thoughts are coming, so I can take care to disregard them when they do come.
Marriage is rhythmical. It fluctuates fairly predictably between the "I'm so lucky and ridiculously happy that everything is really funny all the time" part (95%) to the part where God teaches things like patience and unconditional love and shows you some of the parts of yourself it's more comfortable to forget about (5%).
I think the idea of a week is brilliant. Mondays you try to get stuff done, because you are super-motivated. Tuesdays you give up, and do laundry, because it's free soap day at the laundromat. Wednesdays you panic, and actually do a little work. Thursdays you are so busy all day you forget to be productive. On Fridays, it doesn't matter what happens, because it's Friday, which is cleaning day and therefore the best day, and anyway you can live through anything till your husband gets home. Saturdays are the wild card, and on Sundays you reward yourself for all those good intentions and get ready for another round.
And seasons are actually not at all overrated.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
What I actually learned during finals week,
when I was studying all that Homer, Vergil, and Lucretius.
1) They stopped putting caffiene in Monster engery drinks. I don't know when they did it, because in undergrad, I remember it being there, but Monster energy drinks no longer make me bounce off the wall.
2) Nobody really understands Vergil's Georgics. Nobody.
3) We Classicists make up a lot of things. Like the term, "didactic poetry."
4) When someone asks you a question you don't know how to answer, the best thing to say is, "I think it has something to do with the moon and the tides." This is a surprisingly versatile answer.
5) Starbucks' cinnamon coffee cake is really, really good. Almost makes up for the fact that all I ate that week besides Starbucks coffee cake was pizza, Chinese take-out, and Subway.
6) Washing dishes is fun! Compared to thumping my head against the wall trying to figure out how to write my term paper.
On an unrelated note, here's a little something for all the single ladies out there: a picture of post-marital laundry. Enjoy!
1) They stopped putting caffiene in Monster engery drinks. I don't know when they did it, because in undergrad, I remember it being there, but Monster energy drinks no longer make me bounce off the wall.
2) Nobody really understands Vergil's Georgics. Nobody.
3) We Classicists make up a lot of things. Like the term, "didactic poetry."
4) When someone asks you a question you don't know how to answer, the best thing to say is, "I think it has something to do with the moon and the tides." This is a surprisingly versatile answer.
5) Starbucks' cinnamon coffee cake is really, really good. Almost makes up for the fact that all I ate that week besides Starbucks coffee cake was pizza, Chinese take-out, and Subway.
6) Washing dishes is fun! Compared to thumping my head against the wall trying to figure out how to write my term paper.
On an unrelated note, here's a little something for all the single ladies out there: a picture of post-marital laundry. Enjoy!
Sunday, April 4, 2010
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