gearhead mama

I believe my mother has an undiagnosed mental illness. Well, not undiagnosed by me, of course, but thus far undetected by the mental health community (with which she has plenty of contact). Shrinks are loathe to assign this diagnosis because it’s a “personality disorder”, and pretty much untreatable. And the hallmark of this illness is that the person who has it refuses to believe they have it. So there are a lot of things conspiring against making this diagnosis official. It doesn’t make her craziness any less real, however, and I’ve spent the better part of my adult life trying to undo what my mother – and let’s be fair, my co-dependent father – have done to me.

One of the scary things about being raised by one person who is crazy and another person who is afraid of the crazy person and therefore spends all of his time trying to convince you that you’re the one who is overreacting, and for god’s sake, don’t rock the boat … the scary thing is that you grow up believing that this type of stuff is normal, and therefore shun normal people as nuts, and instead let all sorts of whackos into your life. So part of my recovery has been to recalibrate my antennae, so I can accurately call a whacko a whacko, and bring down the gates with a clang.

One of the downsides to this is that I’ve gotten pretty protective of my personal space, and sometimes unfairly make the whacko diagnosis. And while it’s better to be conservative in this way (once an error has been detected, it’s easier to let someone in than get someone out), I try hard to use reason as a check and balance on my newly recalibrated instinct.

A few months ago I joined a local mom’s group, and while my activity is thus far mostly limited to the infant playgroup, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that these moms either share or are nonjudgmental of my (not necessarily mainstream) parenting philosophies. I’ve really grown to look forward to these weekly get-togethers, as it’s one of few opportunities for adult conversation, and it’s quite lovely to be surrounded by a group of gentle, caring and kind women.

Imagine my dismay, then, when I arrived last week to discover a new member – one who set my antennae quivering, the alarm bells ringing, and the red warning lights frantically flashing. And that was just my first impression. I tried hard to temper my reaction, biding my time to see if reason would confirm my gut feeling. It didn’t take long. This woman said all variety of snide, obnoxious comments, and treated her son with a level of indifference that shocked me. At one point, another boy accidentally smashed her son’s fingers, and he started to cry. A mother quickly ascertained what happened, and noted that his fingers were being crushed. This woman said, “Oh, he’s just being whiney” and snatched him up off the floor.

But the worst part of this whole thing was that her son’s nostrils and upper lip were completely encrusted in boogers, and his breathing sounded like Darth Vader caught in a heavy rainstorm. I was less than pleased with the situation, but because there were only four moms present, my sudden departure would have attracted a lot of notice, and I didn’t want to appear “rude”. I realize now that this was a terrible mistake.

Needless to say, we are all sick and miserable and M is not handling her first cold with any magnanimity. In fact, she’s handling it a lot like I am. Lots of whining and crying and whining. And more crying. Things that normally just annoy her (like suctioning her nose or wiping her face) now send her into inconsolable bouts of screaming. Unfortunately, there is a lot of nose-suctioning and face-wiping going on. And the crying only produces more snot and more suctioning and more wiping and more crying and more snot. And so on.

R is being treated with heavy doses of Thera-Flu. M is being treated with sage tea, which supposedly brings down fever and reduces congestion. I am being treated with nothing. In addition to drying up snot, sage tea also dries up breastmilk, so that’s not an option for me. And I know there are medications that are considered safe for breastfeeding moms, but lots of things have been considered safe for breastfeeding moms, only later to find, oops, not so safe. So I tend to err on the side of caution, and as long as I’m not dying I try to get by without. That doesn’t mean I won’t complain mightily about my condition, though.

Add to this that 90% of the time, M won’t sleep unless she is somehow bodily attached to me, which means R can’t give much help during the night. So I’ve been on duty the last 3 nights, caring for a sick and miserable child when I am also sick and miserable. I am not a happy camper.

Now that I know the consequences, I will never again hesitate to make a hasty exit whenever boogery noses and Darth Vader breathing are in evidence. Regardless of appearances. But it’s too late to undo what I’ve done this time. And despite the fact that it was my choice to stay in the face of this boy’s obvious illness, I cannot help feeling incredibly angry and resentful towards this woman. The fact that I can’t stand her has nothing to do with it. Not one bit. Really.

So I’ve spent the last few days cooking up various revenge scenarios as a way to settle the score. I haven’t decided on one yet, but I’m fairly certain it will involve sharp, pointy objects. And her eyeballs.

You may have noticed that there hasn’t been much poop discussion of late. Or maybe you haven’t noticed. Or maybe you’re just glad things have been less excretory in nature. But you see, that’s what new parents talk about. Poop. And sleep. If you see a group of new moms hanging out on a park bench, you can bet their conversation goes something like this:

Mom #1: “Her poop is still a butterscotch color, but it’s thicker, like pudding, and there aren’t any curds. It used to be thinner with a lot of curds. Do you think I should worry?”

Mom #2: “I don’t know, but mine hasn’t pooped in three days and I’m starting to freak out.”

Mom #3: “Three days?? That’s nothing! Mine went TEN DAYS once, and of course waited until we were out to eat to have his blow out – and you would not believe how much poop comes out after ten days. It got all over us and the booth, and it was so loud and stank so bad that people from three tables away were staring at us thinking one of us had let out the most obnoxious fart on earth. And this was the same day he only napped for 30 minutes, so he screamed through the whole meal …”

You have to understand that new parents are so sleep-deprived that the operating power of their brains is roughly equivalent to five brain cells. If you try to talk about something as sophisticated as politics, or art, or poetry, they just stammer for a while, then trail off with a vacant look in their eyes, and a trickle of drool runs out the corner of their mouth. And this reminds them of the time their child drooled at the same time as he pooped, and they’re off and running again.

So in an effort to maintain my new parent quota of poop discussion, I am pleased to report that M’s bowel habits have regained some sense of normalcy. Meaning that she is averaging a poop every other day – occasionally twice a day, occasionally every 4 days, but mostly every other day.

Not to say that we haven’t had any poop adventures, because we have. Like the time we fed her avocado, and it came out looking the same as it did going in. Or the time an unidentified black object appeared in her diaper, and R bravely fished it out for dissection (cat fur – mmmmm, yummy!).

But there has been no more need for suppositories or karo syrup or any other artificial means of poop extraction. For this, I am infinitely grateful. Not surprisingly, M is too. There has also been a significant reduction is nighttime gassiness (although we’ve had a bit of a relapse the last few nights – making The Experiment all the more difficult). And we owe it all to that wonderful goddess Kelly – wise practitioner of craniosacral therapy. I have many things to say about CST, but will wait until the birth story is complete and posted. Stay tuned …

Note to Self:

The next time you wake at 2 AM, shivering and huddled on the edge of M’s mattress after accidentally falling asleep for two hours. The next time you slowly ease away from her, and deftly roll off the mattress into a Spidey-crouch on the floor. The next time you stealthily creep towards the foot of the bed, rejoicing in your triumph. Don’t ever, ever, EVER take your eyes off your feet to greedily eye your spot on the bed. If you do this, you will kick the corner of M’s mattress. You will freeze and hold your breath. You will curse yourself and your klutzy genes that ensure you are never without at least three fresh bruises. You will beg please, please, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease don’t let her wake up. M will start to stir and root and you will scurry to her side to frantically pat and shush her back to sleep. You will fail and she will start to fuss. “Where is my nipple? WHERE IS MY NIPPLE?!?!?!” The pacifier will not appease her and you will submit to her will and lie down next to her. On the hip you just spent two hours on, the hip that feels like it’s being jack-hammered into a thousand pieces. Silent tears will slide down your face as you wonder for the millionth time how on earth you have come to this point – this point of being at the complete and utter mercy of a being who has been on this earth for only 207 days.

A small sampling of the toys available for M’s playing pleasure:

M’s favorite toy:

M’s second favorite toy:

Long before M was even a glimmer in my eye, I had another baby. Meet Sebastian.

I was at a party almost 14 years ago, and noticed a dog acting strangely … pacing around a car, barking, growling, pawing, snuffling. I investigated and found a tiny, starving, terrified kitten. I chased the dog off and retrieved the kitten, reviving him with chicken from my plate and a small bowl of water. I already had one cat, but this little guy was so darned cute and so obviously in need of a good home that I couldn’t let him go. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.

As far as Sebastian is concerned, the world revolves around me. He is almost dog-like in his slavish devotion. He meets me at the door when I get home, he loves to be held and cuddled, bestowing headbutt after headbutt onto my nose. Back in the days before M arrived, he would crawl into bed with me at night – under the covers – and lay his head on my pillow. He would even get jealous of R, trying to wiggle his way between us when we were lying snuggled together. When the weather turned cold, he would lie on my head – a practice that initially annoyed me, but I quickly learned how warm this kept me and grew to expect and demand it. He has been a best friend to me for most of my adult life, and I love him dearly.

We have two other cats, but it was really Sebastian I was worried about when I got pregnant. How would he react to this new creature we were bringing home? And how would my feelings for him change? I couldn’t conceive loving him any less, but it was hard to believe he would be on equal footing with the baby. Well, I was right on both counts. I don’t love him any less. It’s just that my love for M is so enormous compared to my love for him. I didn’t know love like this was even possible until M came along.

So not surprisingly, the cats took a serious backseat to M. None of them are happy about it. All are feeling neglected and unscratched and unloved. But Sebastian has taken it the hardest by far. After initially fearing to tread in the bedroom, he has returned, but his spot under the covers is occupied by the interloper, so he must content himself with lying on my head – something he is rather bitter about. Instead of walking around with him in my arms, it’s that damn interloper again, and he has to satisfy himself with trying to trip me. He has grown so desperate that on occasion he wedges himself onto my lap while I’m nursing M, knowing that I’ll use my free hand to give him some love.

Sebastian is a very social and gregarious cat. He loves people, and it’s not uncommon for him to be underfoot even in the midst of a large and raucous party. So now that he’s used to M’s presence (not happy, though … I didn’t say he was happy about it), he goes about his everyday life as best he can. When she started really noticing the cats a few months ago, we would coax him into action with his favorite toy just to keep her amused. And she always tries to “pet” the cats whenever they’re close enough. This is often facilitated by us – holding the cat in place with one hand and bringing her within grabbing distance with the other (yes, we are trying to teach her to be gentle, but we might as well try to teach her she can sleep without me. Wait. We are trying to do that. HAHAHAHAHAHA.). Surprisingly, Sebastian tolerates this fairly well, although as she gets older and stronger and more aggressive he has taken to retreating more often than staying. And then M found her voice and started screeching her excitement about the cats, and this really causes them to take flight.

So imagine Sebastian’s delight last night when he discovered that his spot, snuggled under the covers up against me, was VACANT! He showered me with affection, professed his undying love, blissfully slept with his head on my pillow, and didn’t even mind the recurrent interruptions required to tend to M, as long as I returned to him.

When R brought M to nurse at 10:30 this morning, he was still guarding his post. R knew how to make quick work of that, and set M on her knees, both fists firmly imbedded in Sebastian’s fur. He didn’t move a muscle. M screeched her approval, and removed 3000 hairs in one movement. He didn’t flinch. She bobbed her head in excitement, screeched again and pulled out more fistfuls. He stayed put. He had his spot back, and he was DAMNED if he was going to give it up again. It was only when R leaned over and forcefully extracted him that he gave it up. But not without a fight. And a couple of bald spots.

As I mentioned previously, we have a modified family bed. I sleep with the baby, and R sleeps in the guest room. This was certainly not the “plan”. The “plan” was that the baby would sleep in the co-sleeper – where I could lean over and grab her for hassle-free nighttime nursings – and R and I would continue to share our bed. With the cats.

However, desperate times call for desperate measures. In those early days, when our bedtime morphed into something called “The End of the Screaming” time, and typically occurred between 2 and 4 AM, even THINKING about doing something that might potentially wake the baby (like moving her) was punishable by death.

Initially, The End of the Screaming came while I was nursing M in the recliner. So for many weeks, I slept in the recliner with M, while R slept in the bed. With the cats. Since I had spent the latter half of my pregnancy sleeping in the recliner, I was familiar with this arrangement, but after a while I realized I was really missing my bed, and really tired of sleeping with a hot and sweaty baby sprawled on top of me. So I tried sleeping in the bed with M in the co-sleeper, but quickly figured out that my fear of waking her meant she was never returned to the co-sleeper after nursing. So I may have been sleeping in my bed, but I was uncomfortably propped up on a pile of pillows, and that hot and sweaty baby was still sprawled on top of me. I decided it was time to learn how to nurse lying down. Hoping to improve our odds of success, I banned R to the guest room so we would have more room. Once M and I got things down (although I still needed to turn the light on, which I now find hilarious), we tried to reintroduce R to the scene, only to discover that he was dangerously unaware of her presence while sleeping, and also that our queen-size bed was just not big enough (I know some families do it on even smaller beds, but no way was this working out for us). So R was sent back to the guest room.

We missed sleeping together, but figured how long could this last? Well, by the time screaming was no longer a nightly occurrence, our sleeping arrangements were firmly solidified, and no way was M letting me out of her grasp. We really didn’t know what to do, so we just kept doing what we were doing, and while R missed sleeping with me I don’t think he minded getting a full, uninterrupted night’s sleep. Whereas I was wrestling with a gassy milk vampire who kicked me all night and wanted nothing more than to remain firmly attached to my nipples.

Then M’s nap schedule started to take shape, and it was very obvious that no way no how was she going to sleep in that damn crib. She will only sleep on me or lying next to me. So the morning nap happens in the Moby, and the afternoon nap happens in our bed, with my facilitation.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned my bad back yet. I had a lumbar fusion 13 years ago, and have 2 plates and 4 bolts and a big block of bone where two vertebra used to be. Unfortunately, this surgery was a catastrophic mistake – made all the more so because it can’t be undone. So I live with a constant level of pain – some days better than others. My pregnancy was not kind to my back, and I also developed severe hip pain (thus the sleeping in the recliner). This pain improved after the birth, but now that I’m spending 12-14 hours/day lying on my side in bed, unable to move or get comfortable due to the fact that my nipple is firmly planted in the milk vampire’s mouth, it is back with a vengeance – to the point where it feels like someone is attacking my hips with a jack-hammer. The pain was getting so bad that I was having a hard time sleeping, even when I wasn’t being kicked and the milk vampire wasn’t attached to me.

All of this is made even worse by the fact that M is now refusing to fall asleep in the sling. For months our bedtime routine has been massage, boob, sling, and she would sleep in the sling for about 3 hours (on R), giving me a little time to myself and a chance to get some uninterrupted, comfortable sleep. Then that shortened to 2 hours, then 1, then 30 minutes, and no amount of nursing or cajoling could get her back to sleep. And now the only way she’ll fall asleep is in bed with me. I AM NOT GOING TO BED AT 8:30. Not that I don’t need the sleep, but this would increase my time in bed by a few hours/day, and my hip pain is already unbearable. So M has gotten to bed between 10:30 and midnight the last few nights, and this is clearly not a good solution (especially since she hates to nap). We have all been tired and miserable and angry the last few days. It was time for a change.

After some thinking, I decided that the flaw in all of our previous “plans” was that M had to be moved to nurse and moved to be put back in “her” bed. So I came up with a new “plan”. The new “plan” involves leaving M where she is and moving ME instead. So we borrowed a twin mattress, and yesterday we cleaned the bedroom floor, deconstructed our bed, put our mattress on the floor and set the twin mattress next to it. We ran a strap around the two mattresses and cinched them together so there’s no chance M can roll over and get trapped between them. M cried the entire time we were doing this, but I was NOT going through another night of hip-pain hell, so she just had to cry while we got things set up. And last night The Experiment began.

Before I give the results, I want to mention a few things I did to improve the odds of actually completing The Experiment. I’ve realized over these last months that during the light of day I can come up with any number of very reasonable, rational, good-sounding plans. But in the dark of night, when all I care about is sleeping for at least the next 30 minutes, I can never find the courage to implement any of those plans, since they all involve doing things that M doesn’t like (like removing me and my nipples from her immediate grasp). So I was worried that I would take the cowardly route, and once M was asleep I would just stay in the twin bed with her, completely ruining The Experiment. So my cool, calm and calculating daytime self decided to deprive my desperate nighttime self from comfort. The only things on the twin mattress when we went to bed last night were a pillow and a sheet. Let’s just say it was 15 degrees here during the day yesterday, so last night was pretty chilly. I wasn’t worried about M because she was dressed warmly and is a little furnace anyway. But if you’ll recall, I sleep in a modified T-shirt and shorts, so the sheet was woefully inadequate at keeping me warm. And it worked. I hated and cursed my daytime self many times last night, but I did indeed withdraw to the warmth of my own bed when M fell asleep. So here are the results:

10:20 PM Bedtime

10:40 PM M asleep

10:45 PM I move to my own bed. M is so exhausted from many days of sleep-deprivation that she doesn’t even stir when I depart. I lie in my husband’s arms in a state of bliss.

12:30 AM M starts fussing. I place my hand on her and speak quietly to her to try to calm her. I desperately need to pee, so after a minute of this I get up and go to the bathroom. M realizes that not only was I not next to her when she woke up, I am no longer anywhere in her vicinity, and the shit hits the fan. Screaming commences, and R groggily rolls over and tries to comfort her while I cheer my pee on to the finish line.

12:32 AM I lie down next to M and nurse her back to sleep.

12:45 AM Shivering and cursing my daytime self, I withdraw to my bed and put my cold feet on R.

1:30 AM M stirs and starts to cry. I clamber into her bed and nurse her back to sleep.

1:40 AM Shivering and cursing my daytime self, I withdraw to my bed and put my cold feet on R.

2:30 AM M stirs and starts to cry. I clamber into her bed and nurse her back to sleep.

2:40 AM Shivering and cursing my daytime self, I withdraw to my bed and put my cold feet on R.

After this things start to get fuzzy, because I think I actually started to SLEEP. Up until this point I was lying anxiously in bed, straining to hear M, ready to spring into action by inserting the pacifier in her mouth or patting her or doing whatever I could to discourage a state of wakefulness. This is why the best laid plans always cave in the face of my nighttime reality. I GET SO GODDAMN TIRED. But I think I finally started to sleep, and am unsure of exactly what happened between 2:40 AM and 4:15 AM. I have a faint recollection of inserting the pacifier and feeling triumphant that it worked and I didn’t have to crawl over and nurse her. But I can’t remember if it was still working 2 minutes later, or if I ended up having to crawl over anyway. Regardless …

4:15 AM M starts fussing and I decide it’s time to tell my daytime self to go fuck herself. I lean over, grab M and haul her into bed with me. This works fine until I figure out that with R in the bed I no longer have the option of rolling over onto my other side, so I am stuck on my right side for the next 4 hours, suffering unbearable pain and trying to calculate just how much longer I’m willing to sacrifice my body for the sake of my baby’s sleep.

8:15 AM M has been stirring and farting for a while, and I am making half-hearted attempts to keep her asleep because the pain in my hips is so bad I don’t think I can take it for one more minute. When she opens her eyes I elbow R and say “she’s up!” and hand her over. I roll over, get comfortable, and go back to sleep until 10:30.

10:30 AM R brings M in to nurse. She is tired and refusing to nap in the sling. Despite the pain in my hips, I agree to lie on the twin bed and try nursing her to sleep.

11:00 AM M falls asleep

11:15 AM I slowly, ever so slowly roll away from her and turn on the monitor. Success!

11:30 AM M starts blowing raspberries

And that is how I’ve spent my day so far.

So I cannot say The Experiment has been an unqualified success. Last week M actually started sleeping for 4 hours before waking up to nurse for the first time of the night. So getting up every 2 hours to 45 minutes to deal with her is not exactly making me happy. However, I know things cannot go on like they have been – my body just can’t take it anymore. And I know I can’t undo 6 months of sleeping habits in one night. And I also know I don’t want to do cry-it-out. So this is where we’re at, and I will do the best I can to continue with The Experiment (this is the daytime me talking now), and will report back with the results.

I’m a stay-at-home-mom and R has the bittersweet privilege of working full-time. This means that I spend dramatically more time with M than he does. I’ve heard stories of babies who want nothing to do with their fathers, and cry whenever dad holds them. I’m not talking at 2 weeks. I mean at 3 months, 6 months, ONE YEAR!! And supposedly these are involved dads, so you can’t simply blame it on inept fathering.

We don’t have that problem here.

R had some stuff to do after work the other night and got home a bit later than usual. I had been subjected to 2 hours of M’s tired crabbing, which sounds something like a dying cow. I knew she was tired, but it was late enough in the day that if I put her down for a nap (no easy task in itself) it was likely she would be ready to participate in the Olympic games once her bedtime rolled around (she’s happiest when I’m doing 80 on the freeway, so I’m thinking she’d go for the luge). So I listened to her moan, and tried to keep her distracted, while also preparing and eating a meal. Anyone who is considering having children? I invite you to my house to participate in this activity. Not necessarily to discourage you, but you should at least know what you’re getting yourself into.

After wolfing down my meal, I scooped her up and popped the boob in her mouth in the hopes it would stop the infernal moaning. It did. And after a few minutes, she started drifting off to sleep. I felt conflicted, due to the aforementioned fear of luging in lieu of bedtime, but if I had to listen to any more moaning I was afraid one of us would get hurt, so I decided to let her sleep. At about this time, R arrived home. I signaled that she was asleep, so he approached quietly. He stood over us and we talked in low tones. M wiggled and sleepily cracked her eyes. Then she saw her papa. Her eyes flew open and she started yipping and yelping like a dog that had been reunited with its beloved owner after spending a month fending for itself in the gutter. And while it warmed my heart to see how much she loves her papa, I couldn’t help thinking, “What am I? Chopped liver?”

Not that her devotion to R isn’t reciprocated.

When I was pregnant, R and I had several conversations about how differently a husband and wife experience pregnancy and birth (duh). But what interested me, was how this might impact the initial feelings each parent had for their newly arrived offspring. Long before M was born, I felt a deep love for her. I felt her presence intensely from the first day of my pregnancy to the last. We were actively trying to get pregnant, and as ridiculous as it sounds, I knew when it happened. I was lying in bed with my butt up on a pillow (gotta help those little sperm out) and a triumphant smile on my face. I just knew we had done it. Sure enough my basal body temperature went up the next day (indicating I had just ovulated), and a few days later I had a dream that my stomach was getting big because (I kid you not) there was bread rising in it. Talk about a bun in the oven. And about 10 days later a faint line showed on the pregnancy test.

For nine months, the uppermost thought in my mind was that I was carrying another human being inside me. In the early days I had the constant nausea to remind me, as the pregnancy progressed it was my ever-expanding bump and feeling her flutter around, and towards the end we even had our own secret dance (she would kick me in the ribs and I would jump; kick, jump, kick, jump). My days (and nights) were consumed with thoughts of what she would be like as an infant, toddler, even an adult (I tried not to think about the teenage years). And what would I be like as a mother? How would this change me? Everything else in life (including, ahem, my job) became secondary.

As far as I could tell, R’s experience of my pregnancy went something like this: my wife is getting fat, she’s always tired, and my god is she one whiney bitch. Actually, I do him an injustice. R was unfailingly patient and helpful and uncomplaining during my pregnancy. He made me food, and never acted insulted when I pushed it away after 2 bites saying I thought I was going to hurl and could he just give me some ice cream instead? He cleaned the house, did the grocery shopping (after a close call near the fish counter, I kept away from the place), kept up with the laundry, and always let me cry on his shoulder. And there was a fair amount of crying.

However, aside from occasionally feeling her move through my belly in the latter stages, R had nothing of the connection with M that I did. How could he? So I wondered how he would feel about her just after she was born. Would it be love at first sight? Or would she feel like a stranger, someone he had to get to know?

I’m planning on posting my birth story – in installments, because it’s ridiculously long (just like the birth) – so I won’t go into any of that here. But they had to deep suction M after she was born, so I didn’t get to hold her for about an hour (although she never left our room). R spent his time going back and forth between the two of us, resting his hand on M to comfort her, and taking pictures and bringing them back to me so I could see her. Later I asked him how he felt. Without hesitation he stated it was love at first sight. And then added, “It helps that she’s so darn cute.”

And thus began their love affair.

So what about you internet? Was it love at first sight? Or did that babe sneak its way into your heart?

My brother recently gave M a stuffed tiger. The tag clearly reads that it’s recommended for ages 3 and up.

Despite this, I still saw fit to let her play with it – under my supervision of course. She is enamored with the tiger, and I wanted to look at something online, so I figured what harm could come from letting her fondle the tiger while sitting in my lap?

Do you see anything wrong with this picture?

Take a close look. Check out those whiskers. Notice that they’re missing from one side, and really long on the other. That’s my girl. I don’t know how she did it, but she worked on those whiskers and managed to pull them a good ways through that poor tiger’s snout before I caught on to what she was up to. Mental note: anytime M is quietly occupying herself with an activity, assume she is up to no good.

The really bad news came later in the day. One of our cats foolishly came within arm’s reach, and can you guess what that arm was reaching for? That’s right. The whiskers.

We have forward motion.

We use cloth diapers on M, and they clearly impede her mobility, as they’re bulkier than disposables, and have less stretch and flex. As such, I believe it’s even more important to give her “naked baby time” without the constraints of diaper or clothing, in order to facilitate her rolling, crawling, sitting, etc. Although I keep coming back to the question of WHY I’m trying to facilitate these things. Regardless. Despite my convictions, I am ridiculously lax about providing this time for her because even though I have waterproof pads to put her on, I’m still weird about letting her go about diaper-less. Don’t ask why. I don’t understand it myself. Well, R took matters into his own hands tonight and gave her some naked time. Thankfully he also saw fit to set up the video camera.

M has been pushing up on hands and knees for about 3 weeks, and in the last week or so has been scooting and crawling backwards with a fair amount of success. She could also rotate in a circle. Between this and the rolling she was moving in all directions, leaving a trail of mayhem in her wake. But the cats and I thought we had a little more time before she moved on to the big leagues. Just a little.

Tonight, without the diaper, in about a 3 minute span, she crawled forward, went from hands and knees to a sitting position and from a sitting position back to hands and knees. I sat there with my mouth hanging open as the realization sank in that my life had just changed dramatically. For the worse.

I don’t own any “nursing clothes”. I considered buying some while I was pregnant, but really had no idea what breastfeeding was going to be like, or how I would go about accomplishing it while clothed, and after consulting with some friends who had been there and done that, I finally decided to just wait and see how things went.

Soon after M arrived, I discovered that wearing a shirt (or bra, for that matter) was an unnecessary impediment to feeding the milk monster I had birthed. So I just stopped wearing one. It didn’t really matter, since I never left my house anyway. The only drawback to this was that I leaked. A lot. And since M required near constant walking in those days, for a while there was a trail of milk tears that marked the endless circular passage around which I staggered.

But after those dark days passed, and I was finally able to pull myself together enough to be seen in public, it was time to once again clothe my upper body. After some experimentation, I finally settled on a solution that worked for me: a Glamour Mom tank top under a form-fitting, not-too-thick shirt. Too thick or too loose, and there’s just too much material to discreetly slide above the boobage (and not suffocate M). I have 3 or 4 shirts that fit the bill, and as such, people who know me these days think I ONLY own 3 or 4 shirts.

But nighttime was a whole different matter. I quickly learned that trying to wrestle a shirt above boob-level when I’m half asleep, the baby is screaming, and I’m laying ON TOP OF THE SHIRT was just not a good thing. And then she would finish nursing, and I would have to wrestle the shirt back down, only to repeat the process 2 hours later. Usually my shirt ended up around my neck and just stayed there. But this proved to be rather drafty.

So I considered buying a nursing nightgown, but I HATE nightgowns … they just get tangled up around my legs and I feel like a mummy. It’s hard enough to get up in the middle of the night and stumble to the bathroom – I’m enough of a klutz that I don’t need to make it more challenging by rendering my legs useless. For the safety of my face and door frames everywhere, I always sleep in a T-shirt and shorts. So I finally hit upon the brilliant idea of making my own nursing sleepwear. I dug out a ratty old T-shirt and a pair of scissors. Cut two small slits at boob height, and voila! A nighttime nursing T-shirt was born (in this picture I’m also wearing a tank top, to protect the innocent):

Notice how over the last 6 months the holes have enlarged and sagged. A lot like my boobs.

While nursing is a wonderful thing, and I’m grateful we sorted out our issues and have been successful in our endeavors, all of the sucking and biting and pinching have rendered my boobs completely devoid of sensation, and it’s therefore not uncommon for me to wander around the house in the morning, totally oblivious to the fact that my rack is hanging out for all the world to see.

I’ve suffered a lot of indignities since becoming a mother … from the time M blew out the side of her diaper and turned my lap into a lake-o-poop, to the time M blew out the side of her diaper and coated my friend’s floor with a fine mist of poop, to the whole spit up in the eye incident. Now all that has to happen is for the UPS man to come a-knockin’ one fine morning, and my humiliation will be complete.

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* I blatantly stole this term from my good friend Chelsea