Month: April 2015

Car Seat Cry Baby

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I feel ridiculous.  It’s silly to even write about.  But it’s been the big change that’s been haunting me all week.  O has graduated from his infant car seat to his big boy car seat.  The car seat  that will stay with him until he doesn’t need one anymore. (Boy,  THAT day isn’t gonna be pretty for this Mama.)  I feel idiotic for telling you, but I cried the day we switched his car seat.  I literally shed tears.  What the Hell?

Why can’t I be like the Moms who celebrate these milestones with a saucy “thank God!” and move on.  It just seems like it’s all going by in a flash.  Like he is growing with reckless abandon.  And there is nothing I can do to stop it.  So I’m emotional.  That’s not a stretch for me, as  anyone who knows me can attest. But I’m more so now.  How will I navigate all the changes and milestones to come?

I recognize that I am not only sad about this recent event, but I am fighting it every step of the way.  I found myself saying today, “It’s just so hard now.  I hate going out!”  Let me tell you since O was about three weeks old, I have taken him out, one place or another, almost every single day.  It’s rare that we don’t have some adventure to go on each day.  But I have been spoiled. I had a Graco Click and Connect Travel System.  I’d get him set in his car seat in the house..carry it out to the car, click him in and we were off.  When we got to wherever we were going, I’d take the car seat out and click it into the super easy stroller frame.  I had it down to a science.  And O liked it.  We had our rhythm.  Now, I have to carry him out to the car….get him into his seat whilst bent over into the car (not easy)…and when I arrive wherever the hell it is I thought it was a good idea to go to, I have two choices.  I either get the very light, but yet ridiculously cumbersome, umbrella stroller (which is a ludicrous name, because when it rains, it will NOT keep baby,  or you, dry.  In fact, quite the opposite).  Or I get my jogger stroller…which weighs 30 lbs.  So I hoist one of these contraptions out of the car and then hoist my 27lb baby boy out of the car seat, in a hunched over manner, so as not to hit my head or the baby’s head on the car.  I try to remember not to lift with my back.  I try to remember to use my abdominal muscles…yeah, right.  All while O is not, I repeat, NOT loving this new routine.  Then I have to strap him into the stroller, hang the diaper bag on the handles…..and get inside wherever it is I was dumb enough to venture off to in the first place.  If there are multiple stops, I’d like to shoot myself.  If there is rain involved I think I will just stay home.

Everyone says it will get easier when he can get in and out himself.  Well, that’s a long time away, I think. I am blessed with a beautiful boy, but he is a big boy for his age.  He became too long for the infant seat over a month ago. I started to feel like some Good Samaritan Mommy was going to report me for having my son in a seat he was clearly outgrowing.  And because he is young…I miss seeing him when we are strolling along.  And I swear, he doesn’t like it.  He might wonder “Where is Mommy?”  as he faces forward in this strange new world.  Right?  Or is it just me, fighting it every step of the way?  I could have sworn today that he was feeling scared and alone as he faced forward, rolling along….but he actually had a very wet diaper.  A wet diaper that I was out of tune with, because I was so convinced he was unhappy to be facing forward.  Because this Mommy was unhappy her baby was facing forward.  Unhappy that her baby was gaining independence.  That he was, indeed, moving on.  I don’t like it.  I don’t like it one bit.

I’m going to brood about this some more, I fear.  They say that time goes by quicker as you get older.  Have you heard that? I think it’s true.  But I think when you are older you cherish the time more.  I know that when I was younger I took time for granted.  Not the case now.   I am SO aware that this time with O is flying by.  If one more well meaning, but yet unsoliciated, granny tells me, “It goes by so fast,” I’ll scream….”I KNOW!!! STOP REMINDING ME!!”  Like right in her face! And really loud! It also doesn’t help that this all coincides with that time of the month for me.  When it rains it pours! Just don’t use the umbrella stroller that day.

Until next time, keep fighting the good fight…and I’ll try to get a hold of myself.  Remember, behind every great kid is a mom who is certain she is screwing it up.  🙂

 

Motherhood and Mortality

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Not all that long ago, I used to tell my husband, I thought I would die on the young side of old.  The notion never ever bothered me.  I can actually say I was really ok with it.  I have always been a big believer of things happening for a reason.  I guess it was just a silly gut feeling I had and I was at peace with it.  Then something happened….I had my son.

To say I feel differently now is an understatement.  And the reasons are layered and complex.  I am sometimes hit with the fear of “Oh my God! What if something happens to me and O is left alone?” Well, it’s already ridiculous, because he would not be alone. He would have my husband.  His father.  The person on this earth who loves him as fiercely as I do.   But every child needs his Mother, right? Or is it the other way around? Now that I have him…now that I have tasted this kind of love…I don’t think I could live without it.  I need him as completely as he needs me.  Maybe more so.

The completely irrational and borderline crazy mourning of my own inevitable passing I experience at times,  is about MY missing out.  I don’t want to miss a single second of this brilliant journey.  Being an older Mom just emphasizes the fear.  I don’t need to be sidled with an untimely death.  Just dying in the normal course of life will leave me missing a chunk of O’s journey.   If he waits to have children like I did, I’ll be 84  if I am lucky enough to meet my newborn grandchildren.  Certainly too old to watch them grow up.  It’s depressing really.  Geez.  Right now my husband is rolling his eyes.  He wasn’t thrilled with this week’s topic of choice.  He likes it when  I write about rainbows and unicorns.  Lol.

The other night, I started to get worked up over it all. I completely freaked my husband out.  I had just read an article that stated 1 out of 2 women and 1 out  of 3 men  will get cancer.  Most survive, but no one lives forever.  I started to feel consumed by a loss that didn’t even happen yet? A loss that,  most likely, would not happen for a very long time.  And when that time does come, and my number is up, so to speak, I won’t experience the loss, cause I’m the one who will be gone.  But I guess that really depends on your beliefs on the afterlife.  I’m completely certifiable.  See how your thoughts can snowball?  It’s complex, right?

After researching some other articles, I realize that I’m not alone in these thoughts.  In fact, I’m on the sane side of “cray cray.”   I read a post by a women who was encouraging parents to document their lives (video, photos, etc.) for their children to have when they are gone…”before it is too late”….(Geez).   It is called intentional memory making.  There is even an app for it!  I mean, I get it.   When my husband’s father passed away, he had heaps of recordings of his father singing.  It helped him grieve.  And even now, almost four years later, it helps him feel closer to his dad.  But his father was a professional singer/songwriter.  These memories were made by his father simply living his life doing what he loved.  It’s a bit different than intentionally documenting everything.  I take my fair share of photos, I do.  And it is fun to go back and reminisce, but I don’t know.  I don’t want to judge what others want to do.  So..what do I do?

Well, I can’t change the fact that I am, indeed, an older mom.  I can try to keep myself healthy, but even that is no guarantee.  In fact, that’s exactly it…..we have no guarantees of the time we have here.  No telling when our time is up.  So acceptance seems paramount.  Acceptance and gratitude.  Gratitude for all we are experiencing in the NOW.  I can try not to waste days, but I’m sure there will be a few days, at least,  lost to complaining, or stress, or both.  I’m only human.  But I don’t want to spend moments constantly behind a camera lens…hovering on the outside of our experiences for the sake of documenting them.  Nor do I want to feel every moment has the cloud of mourning hanging over it…even if it is hanging somewhere in the back of our mind, it’s still there, stealing from our NOW.  Our perfect NOW.

As with everything, balance is key.  So I’ll mix my neurosis with some healthy belly laughing and get on with this awesome second act of my life.  (Did I mention my life is a play in Three Acts?) I guess when it’s all said and done, I can say I have tasted pure true love.  I have experienced real joy.  I feel like I know what heaven truly is.  And maybe I’ll find an old shoe box and occasionally put some photos in it and write some love letters to the sweetest boy I’ll ever know, my little O.

Until next time, keep on keeping on…and remember, behind every great kid is a mom who is certain she is screwing it up!

When I’m 64

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You know the Beatles’ song…..”Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?”  It’s catchy, right? The melody is relentless in my head.  So I thought, hmm….when I’m sixty-four? When I’m 64!! Shit, that isn’t so far away really.  I started to do the math, as I always do.  My, now 10 month old, little O will be 19 years old.  In college most likely.  A young man, starting his journey to adulthood.  My husband will be a mere 52.  A man in his prime.  And I will be…..a year away from retirement…a fledgling member of the AARP.  Oh God.  There is that pit in my stomach.  The reality of being an older Mom hits me every once in a while.  Hits me hard.  It hits extra hard when your husband is 11 years your junior, let me tell ya.  Bless him, he always says, “I just don’t think about age, babe.”  Well thank God for that.  I guess if he did, we wouldn’t be together.  Ha, I remember an older man I dated (11 years my senior) who actually told me if I was any older, we couldn’t be together.  Lol.  The audacity of the old guy! Bet he’s making some lucky girl very happy! (Insert sarcasm liberally).

It’s not like I think about it everyday.  I truly don’t.  I don’t really have time to.  I guess in a way, having a baby later in life keeps you younger for a bit longer.  It’s just those “every once in a while” times…Randomly catching myself in a mirror and wondering “who is that old lady?”  Or the occasional comment from the thoughtless person.  When I was pregnant, the girl who used to cut my hair when I lived in Florida, made a comment about how her daughter (who was 7) was so happy she had a young mom and not a mom who people thought was a grandmother.  She then added that her daughter had a friend who’s mom was old, “like 50!!”  It was clear she had no idea how old I was.   I then told her I would be 52 when O turns 7…. She felt like an idiot.  I’m kinda glad she did.  Because you really DON’T think of it til some young ditz reminds you.  And then you wonder, does every younger person think this way? When I show up at a PTA meeting, will the other Moms look at me the way teenagers look at their parents? Will their children ask me if I am O’s grandmother? At O’s graduation will people wonder if I am my husband’s mother? Ok, that might be pushing it a little.  But,  if that’s not incentive for Botox, I don’t know what is! Unfortunately, injecting botulism into my face is grounds for divorce according to my beloved.  But when I’m 64 will he have wished I had?

I could make myself crazy over it.  (Crazier than I already am).  But what’s the point? Thankfully I am in a marriage where aesthetics are the mere icing on the cake of things that truly matter.  There is no antidote for aging.  And there is no turning back time.  So there remains only one option for the older Mom like me.  Grace.  I can age with grace.  I can be the wise Mom that other women look to.  I can be an example of how to age, but not necessarily grow old. It’s funny (ironic, not ha ha), but my inside self really has no age.  I suppose I should just keep doing what I’ve always done…just more elegantly…and maybe with a fabulous hat?  Again, I go too far.

Now I didn’t enter into this motherhood thing as gracefully as I would have liked, but this aging thing is a slower process.  I have a little time to get it right, hopefully.  I’d like to raise O not to be an ageist.  I’d like him to value a person based on more than a pretty face and a hot body….I can be the example of how it all eventually goes south…lol.  But seriously, we get so much more out of life when we look beyond obvious beauty.  As I think of it, I don’t think I’d trade this older Mom thing.  Because I know more now. Valuable things I can pass on to my little guy.  Personally speaking, I honestly think it makes me a better mom.  And when I’m 64,  I think it still will.

Until next time, keep up the good fight (and keep moisturizing! Lol.) And remember, behind every great kid, is a mom who is sure she is messing it up.  🙂

 

The Irony of Ignorance

The Irony of Ignorance

There was a post this past week going around the internet.  An offended mother on Facebook re posted it from a “religious” blog.  It was a photo of a women’s abdomen with a C-Section scar…and a caption saying something to the effect of, “if you didn’t give birth naturally you can’t really call yourself a real mother.  Have some respect for the real women who truly gave birth.”  This is, obviously, ridiculous.  It said more insane things, but you get the idea.  The level of ignorance displayed by this “godly” group is astounding….yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I am a woman who had an emergency c-section.  I wear my scar proudly.  It reminds me everyday of the gift I have been given.  I have no shame in having had to give birth that way.  I remember in one of the many classes I took before giving birth, the nurse kept referring to a c-section as an insult to the mother.  I just didn’t see it that way.  Without modern medicine, my delivery would have been fraught with complications, trauma to the baby, or God forbid, worse.  I wanted my beautiful boy.  How he was helped to enter this world, did not matter to me.  Why should it to anyone else? It was our private, intimate moment.  No one else’s.  Why would ANYONE else care?

This leads me to thinking about the troubled times we have ahead in our society.  About the kind of world I have brought my beautiful son into.  The intolerance and fear of ignorant people seems to be spreading.  I can’t even wrap my head around what is going on in Indiana.  It’s like we are stepping backwards in time.  This intolerance, this lack of understanding, this hatred…is all in the name of religion.  I won’t say it’s in the name of God, because God isn’t making these ridiculous, hateful laws.  Men are.  The God I love and pray to would not hate so, nor would he throw me into the furnace of hell for having a c-section. It’s all the same handful of haters chastising women and persecuting the gays. (If only it was just a handful.)   So who are the people supporting this hateful propaganda? What makes these people so fearful?

I can only imagine their hate comes from fear and lack of knowledge.  We are afraid of what we don’t understand.  Is that true? We are afraid of something or someone different.  Maybe when I was 8.  So I think it comes down to education.  Or rather the lack of it.  Education promotes free thinking which, in turn,  creates thoughtful evolved people.  Lack of education leaves room for someone else to come in and tell you how you should think.  And as for the educated suits in Washington…well, in my opinion, power has corrupted their sense of right and wrong.  Oye, this is all so political and that was not my intention when I started writing this post.  But how are these problems solved if not thought through?

I am just one woman.  One scarred, educated, free thinking woman.  Everyday I CAN make a difference.  Everyday I have the ability to mold the next generation.  I may have only one boy, but that’s a start.  I can teach him to respect and embrace the differences in people, to love his neighbor and seek the answers for things he doesn’t understand.   How do I teach this?  By example.  By loving the people in my life…by respecting everyone’s life choices whether they are my choices or not.  This parenting thing is powerful.  More powerful than many may realize.   Yes, the internet is a pretty powerful tool for crazy radicals who want to tear a mother down.  But the antidote to that is just don’t re post the offensive item.  Don’t share it.  Don’t comment on it. It’s truly not worth it..and it only promotes the traffic on their silly site, which is probably why they posted it in the first place.

The irony of all this ignorance is that those involved feel they are justified in their hatred because they feel it is their religious right.  Well, hate is hate is hate…is hate.  No matter how you spin it, you wind up with hate.  It’s sad really.  I do believe in the end,  LOVE will always win.  It is a far more powerful emotion than hate. And easier to pass on.  One day at a time.  One child at a time.

Until next time..keep on keeping on.  And try not to let things others post get you down.  We are all just doing the very best we can….each and every day.  Thanks for reading.