FUD: Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt

A clarification. March 31, 2006

I realised today that it may appear that I constantly moan and whinge and carry on about the hardships I suffer at the hands of my children (and husband, but that’s another post). For the sake of clarity I should officially state the following:

I adore my little family. I love moments with the four of us snuggled on the couch, reading Hairy Maclary or The Very Hungry Caterpillar while reminding Amy that books are not for eating and sneakily tickling Ethan’s feet. I love Amy’s laugh, I love Ethan’s exuberance. I get teary-eyed when Amy tucks her head under my chin, stuffs her fingers in her mouth and dozes off, or when Ethan is tired and pulls my arms around him for a quiet hug in the middle of a busy day.

I wouldn’t trade my kids for a trip around the world, I would never in a million years move back to California. I’ve willingly put aside my studies for them, I’ve effectively thrown away my chances of any sort of real career to be with them and while I sometimes dream of things being otherwise, I’m happy that I am where I am at this exact moment. Our every action hinges on what is best for Ethan and Amy and their futures, and while it’s undoubtedly made us into more boring people, we’re happy with ourselves and each other.

Now ask me again tomorrow.

What the bloody poop? March 29, 2006

Seriously. Ethan often wakes up with a poopy Pull-up in the morning, and in fact seems to alternate weeks on-weeks off with the poo. I don’t know how he does this, since he’s so clueless about time that he thinks Spongebob should be on now, not in three hours’ time. In any case, the other morning I stripped him of his Pull-up and went to wipe his butt, and discovered that his backside and the contents of said Pull-up were RED. BLOOD RED. BLOODY AS THE FIERY DIARRHEATIC BOWELS OF HELL RED.

I freaked, just quietly. I didn’t say anything but if Ethan had been paying attention he would have seen me chewing furiously on my bottom lip and sweating profusely while I pondered exactly how long my child had to live.

Then I realised I had to soldier on. So I cautiously started wiping and planning Ethan’s funeral as more red stuff came off on the wipe. White casket? Dandelions? He likes dandelions. Especially when he can blow the seeds all over the lawn. Maybe The Wiggles could write a funeral song.

Then, as I was halfway through the third wipe, I remembered that the night before we had cooked roast beets for the first time.

…

Mike was pleased to finally have a benchmark for rate of digestion.

I’m currently reading Dr. Marc Weissbluth’s Happy Sleep Habits, Happy Child in an attempt to de-fatigue our socialite son. I’ve also bitten the bullet and decided, with some encouragement from the thank-god-I’m-not-alone mothers’ group, that I’m pulling Ethan out of daycare. Hopefully one less major activity during the week will bump up his energy reserves and keep him going a bit longer without the frequent meltdowns and extreme sensitivity.

Amy is teething. And grumpy. And also sick. I took the kids to craft group today and dumped them in the creche, as usual, but today I got to be the Mum whose baby screamed so loudly from the creche that she could be heard during the Thought For The Day at morning tea time. I fed her, rocked her, and tried to dump her again with no luck so I brought her in the stroller out to the main hall, so I could bribe her with a biscuit and continue painting. The Korean art tutor, Kwon, picked her up to say hello and she responded with instant fury: YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER! YOU ARE MALE AND HAVE NO BOOBS AND SMELL LIKE PAINT AND HAVE ARTISTIC TALENT! BRING HER BACK, IMPOSTER! and the grandmothers swooned with horror and paint peeled off the walls. Then another obviously deaf and blind lady picked her up and carried her happily all over the place, introducing her to everyone and talking to her in a fabulous singsong Indian accent and Amy giggled and smiled and dimpled up. After Amy was returned to me, Kwon came over for another try.

Bad move.

A snippet March 22, 2006

Amy ended up in bed with us at 6:10am today. I fed her and immediately after she rolled onto her stomach and lifted herself up on her hands, peeking over me to grin at Mike. Then she’d lay her head down and croon to herself for a couple of seconds: “Ahhhhh. Ahhhhh,” before popping back up to grin at Daddy again. I think it was her version of peekaboo.

In Amyland March 21, 2006

In Amyland, inaminate objects are called “Buh!” while people are “Ah!” Sometimes, when she wants me to feel really special, Amy calls me Mum-mum.

The CD I ordered from amazon.com arrived today. It’s They Might Be Giants’ album for kids, called No! Amy likes Where Do Balloons Come From?: she stared at me for the first couple of songs, but started clapping when that song started. And right now she’s enchanted by the strings and the singer saying “Mop! Mop! Mooooop!” in Violin. I think it was an excellent way to use my voucher.

Today is my day in Amyland. Ethan is at daycare. However, Amy and I are going to visit the daycare this afternoon. Before she was born, I reasoned that I’d need a mental-health day with no kids to worry about for a few hours, so I told Ethan’s daycare that futurebaby would probably be coming in for half-days about…oh, now.

Amy has taken to drinking formula from a bottle like a duck takes to water or an elephant to spraying passersby with its nostrils. At first it was a relief to know that if something happens (like my upcoming surgery this Thursday), she won’t starve and I won’t be stressing over her unwillingness to feed from anything but me. But somehow we went from four or five breastfeeds per day to two bottles and one bedtime nursing session.

Both Amy’s bottle-feeding and her upcoming daycare visits have me feeling a little out of control of my environment. I was trying to explain to Mike last night why I’m not feeling enthusiastic about leaving her there, and I could come up with lots of insignificant reasons but couldn’t work out the big thing behind it all that’s stopping me. As a compromise, I’m going to ask to keep her space casual, so I can drop her there if I have a lot to do, or an appointment to keep, but keep her at home when I want.

I still don’t know why I don’t want her there. I think it’s because I’m fairly sure we’re not having any more kids, and she’s only a baby for so long and she’s not even crawling yet and I am dreading missing some important part of that. And she’s a charming little girl (not that Ethan wasn’t!) that I enjoy spending time with.

Ah well. The good thing about today is that Ethan is excited at the prospect of Amy being there too, even in a different room. And I said I’d come and see him today while we’re there.

I can’t wait for him to hear this CD, seriously, he’s going to freak OUT.

Children rejecting society March 19, 2006

More photos here.

Ethan in training for the Trikeathon today. What we need is a montage! Even Rocky had a montage!

Amy laying the smack down at Chipmunks on Friday. “You better not be all down in my bizness, yo!”

Not The Onion March 16, 2006

No parents attend a public meeting about parental involvement in schools. You can’t make this stuff up, people.

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard March 15, 2006

Ethan drew a picture of me this morning. His usual style: giant round head, two eyes, huge smiley mouth, two legs out the bottom, two arms around where my ears would be. I asked him if he could draw my glasses and he drew a circle around each eye. Impressed, I asked him to draw my tummy. He said, “I can’t draw your tummy until I draw your milks.”

Some lucky girl out there twenty-ish years from now is going to wonder.

Did I say whammo?

Want to earn money blogging about motherhood? You have to be special. You can’t be just an ordinary mother, sometimes struggling to get to the end of the day with all children intact, oh no. You can’t consider your stack of three-day-old unwashed dishes or the pile of unfolded laundry to be blogging material. You have to have readability. You have to be pregnant, so you can project an aura of excitement! and naivete! Or you have to have tweens, because apparently that is a word now. Or maybe you’re starting your own business, or you’re moving across country, or you’re trying a faddish new diet. Then other mothers will flock to you, because you’re doing something that is apparently beyond the norm.

Remember: no one wants to read about boring everyday life as a mother, unless you can inject that special something, that extra whatsit that sets you apart. Because “just a mother” is no longer cool.

Want to know what I did today? I mowed the lawn.

Actually, I stopped mowing briefly to talk to my neighbour, and was mildly surprised when I realised I was defending my statement that “Usually Mike mows the lawns.” I felt like I was playing the mother card as an excuse for laziness: “Oh, you know, I’d love to save the world, but motherhood is just so exhausting that I have to go put my feet up and watch Oprah.” And then I wondered when we started fitting our chores into the good old gender-prescribed roles. Used to be that I mowed the lawn because I thought Mike never did it right (because, you know, right is defined as my way). Then I got stranded on the couch breastfeeding and suddenly WHAMMO! Mike was the Man and I was the Woman and I didn’t touch the lawnmower for eight months. I can’t remember the last time I checked the oil in my car. I don’t know how to set the timer on our DVD recorder. We live the cliche and it’s a little sad.

Tomorrow I’ll finish mowing the lawn, wash my car, and, jeez I don’t know, do some plumbing or something.

Pink? Pink? What’s wrong with pink? March 10, 2006

So I’ll be the first to admit that I’m getting a real kick out of buying pink girly things for Amy and dressing her up. She’s a girl, I want people to be able to tell without having to sidle over and mutter out of the side of their mouths, “Er…boy or girl?” before exclaiming on how cute she is. Not too girly, though — jeans and tees and sneakers for her! But, you know, with pink embroidered flowers on the seams. More a casual statement of “It’s a girl, yo,” than screaming “GIIIIIIRL!!!”

I was reading another mother’s blog just before and saw this in an ad on the sidebar:

And I was stunned. It comes from Pink Taffy Designs and their products are all insanely pink and feminine to the point of bubblegum-scented nausea.

And I want them. In an “I should probably poke out my eyes” sort of way. Save me from the pink, people. Please. For Amy.

Things that mums can do March 8, 2006

Ethan has been fascinated by the human body lately: what happens to his food, what germs look like, that sort of thing. So I got the Human Body Encyclopedia from the library for him and showed him various parts of the book, including a section on how babies grow and what they look like in utero, explaining in very simple terms what happens before a baby is born.

Later I went to have a shower and as I was getting dressed, Ethan came in and we had the following conversation:

Ethan: What food do babies eat?

Me: Amy eats milk.

Ethan: Do you make the milk?

Me: Er…yes.

Ethan: How?

Me: [oh crap] Well, my body makes the milk and Amy drinks it.

Ethan: Do I have milk?

Me: No, it’s something only mummies can do. Only mummies that have babies can make milk.

Ethan: What else can you do?

Me: Well, that’s about it, actually.

Ethan: I know what else you can do!

Me: Yeah?

Ethan: Yeah! You can reach the fruit bars because you’re tall! [thinks] Hey, can I have a fruit bar?