Category Archives: parenting

Intimacy, Living, motherhood, parenting

Making Whoopee

In the middle of the pain-induced delirium of my first labor, I turned to my husband and said, “How can something that is so much fun lead to so much pain?”  We laughed: at the absurdity of the situation; at the fact that I could still joke in between contractions; at the ultimate truth of the statement.

And little did I know that as we pressed forward into parenthood, that statement would stretch and morph to encompass so much more.

When we returned home with our infant, my husband and I camped out on the couch passing the baby between us.  They fell into dreamland while I fell into the throes of a fever, my milk coming in with a vengeance.  I didn’t know why I had the chills, why I couldn’t lift my arms higher than my shoulders without hurting, why my baby wouldn’t latch on . . . I just watched my husband sleeping peacefully, the baby nestled on his chest, and shook with wracking sobs, realizing that the one I needed most couldn’t comfort me because some other little thing needed him even more than I did.

When we added a second child to the mix, the house was never quiet enough, the baby never had uninterrupted sleep, our nearly-three year-old never caught a break.  The pained look on her face when one of my tirades went a little too long and a little too loud broke my heart – because I was afraid I had broken hers.

Baby Number Three ushered in a matrix of physical and emotional pain unimaginable.  It took me months to figure out what the hell was going on and years to fix it (or work on it – I’ll let you know when I’m done).

Then there’s the toll parenthood takes on the bond between husband and wife, or ‘Mom and Dad,’ as it seems you will now forever be known as.  In the beginning, doing the act that landed you in this predicament in the first place does not seem appealing at all; never mind the doctor’s estimation that you will be back to ‘normal’ in six weeks, ludicrous.

In fact, I used my pregnancies as warnings to others.  When I overheard two of my twelve year-old students discussing sex, I piped up, “I hope you’re not thinking of becoming sexually active,” at which their pretty little jaws hit the floor.  I went on, from my perpetual position behind my desk because I was too tired to stand, “Because you don’t want to end up like me.  I’m married and it’s hard enough.”  At a wedding shower about a month before the due date of my second-born, I told the bride not to break any of the ribbons from her presents.  Circling my belly with a pointed finger, I said, “This is what happens when you break a ribbon.”

But that weird mind-blanking trick that humankind’s desire to procreate does to our memories soon kicks in, allowing you to forget the (seriously) gut-wrenching pain and remember the joy of intimacy again.  That is, when time and circumstance allow.  When you’re alone.  When the kids are sleeping in their own beds.  When you’re not so exhausted you fall asleep before your head hits the pillow.  When you can think like man and woman and not Mom and Dad.

Just last week, as my husband reached for me, brushing my arm in the process, I cried out, “Ow, watch out for my boo-boo!”  Nothing like the mention of a decidedly kid-term to ruin the moment.  Even when they’re not there, they’re there.  But, all parents somehow find a way around such dilemmas.  You lock the door.  You find a way to connect without hurting the various wounds you’re nursing.  And you learn to have fun.

 

When we were invited to a party at our newlywed friends’ place, we decided to bring whoopee pies for dessert.  We thought they fit well with the southern menu of pulled BBQ, cole slaw, and corn bread, but also that they were somehow apropos for newlyweds.  Wink, wink.  Then the girls, who love anything sweet, wanted to help prepare them.  I couldn’t help but see the irony as I watched them.  Here, in living color, devouring what was left of the frosting, were the literal fruits of my labor.

That’s what you get when you make whoopee.  Three gorgeous girls.

It’s been a long road since the first pangs of labor, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.  And I wouldn’t do it with anyone other than my husband.  (Wink, wink).

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anxiety, motherhood, parenting, Recovery

Escape Artist

It being close to St. Patrick’s Day, I’m going to invoke Murphy’s Law: all that will go wrong, shall – especially if you speak to the opposite.

Just last week, I was telling my father that I always thought Angela, two and a half, would behave just as Julia, now four, did when she was that age. And how, surprisingly enough, she wasn’t. That what I thought was ‘terrible two’ behavior was in fact, Julia’s unique disposition.

Julia was by no means a terrible toddler. The second born, she was accustomed to following her big sister around (see previous post on how I dragged her to the library as an infant). Going places and doing things made her more gregarious and more kinesthetic. Plus, she needed an easy-going nature in order to survive toys being perpetually shoved in her face or being startled out of a sound sleep without posttraumatic stress disorder. Unfortunately, easy-going was also her attitude towards rules and directions.

Crossing the street a danger? Nah. I can run at full-tilt with my eyes closed. Wait for Mommy? Nah. The world is a safe place. Stay dressed in the outerwear Mom turned herself inside out to get me into? Optional. I’ll just run fast enough to stay warm.

Julia entered this phase of independence and autonomy just as I entered an unexpected phase of disability. In the latter days and weeks of my pregnancy and during labor, I suffered what is medically referred to as pubic symphysis diastasis. In laymen’s (or women’s) terms, it hurt like hell. The muscles in my pelvis had stretched just enough that I could not sit up in bed or get out of it without excruciating pain. I had to sidestep the stairs one at a time. I had to bend to the floor to slide my pant legs up.

While my pain and limited mobility were very real, to everyone else I was a young woman shuffling like some sort of invalid with no reason at all. I imagined them thinking, “What, does she think she’s the first woman to have ever given birth? Women in some parts of the world go back to working the fields the very same day!” In fact, many of the nurses in the hospital thought this birth was my first when they saw me lolling about the room – until they heard my diagnosis.

Unfortunately, pubic symphysis diastasis is not something that rolls off the tongue, nor something you want to share with the ladies at preschool pick-up; a fact which made one pick-up in particularly very interesting. Bella, the preschooler at the time, was due to return from a field trip. The time stretched and stretched as myself and two other mothers with small children waited, the little ones growing more and more antsy. They edged closer and closer to the corner of the building, then toward the rusted metal bike rack that looked infinitely interesting amidst the sea of concrete, then into the wide open expanse of the school yard on the far side of the building. One of the other mothers engaged her son in a game of tag designed to lure Julia back towards us, he being more compliant than my child. She played along for a few minutes, then made a break for freedom, shooting across the play yard toward the driveway and street beyond. My heart leapt to my throat as I weighed my options. Yell to her? Abandon her baby sister by the door and chase after her? My hesitation gave her a healthy head start, after which I shuffled like a decrepit zombie across the pavement, waiting to watch in slow motion as she was squished like a bug by a passing car. Luckily, the other mothers, despite no prior knowledge of my condition, took pity on me and ran to her aid. We only knew each other in the hellos and goodbyes of the previous weeks, but they rallied to the universal crisis call of motherhood and helped me. Thank God.

We returned to the door to resume our wait, me clutching Julia fiercely and muttering something about, “Wonder what my physical therapist would say about that?” to somehow excuse my absolute ineptitude at chasing after my daughter. Angela lay sleeping in her infant carrier right where I had left her, totally oblivious to the melee.

So, perhaps you’ll understand my concern when another year of preschool drop-offs and pick-ups – this time Julia’s – rolled around. I think I was the one with posttraumatic stress. I dreaded that Angela, now that magic number, would put me through the same paces Julia had. As the year progressed, I started to think that it was still Julia who was the difficult one; the one who channeled Goldilocks when it was time to choose shoes; the one who ripped out her perfectly parted ponytails mere seconds before it was time to go; the one who refused to even step out the door. Angela seemed easy in comparison.

Enter Murphy’s Law. Mere days after my proclamation to my father, Miss Angela entered the dreaded phase. Pulling into the driveway and springing the kids so they could run about in the yard while I unloaded, Angela disappeared. Julia hadn’t left the grass of the front yard, but Angela had wandered off somewhere. I finally found her standing in my neighbor’s backyard, grinning. A few days later in said neighbor’s backyard, while her sisters played with the girls, Angela moved out to their driveway to take their tricycle for a spin. I watched her over the gate. When I turned to say something to my neighbor and then back, she was gone. I heard Julia calling for me, and found her chasing her sister and the trike down the street. And just this morning, as I trucked groceries from the trunk to the kitchen, Angela followed along – until I stopped to yell at a squirrel to stop digging up my fledgling garden. At the end of my tirade, I sensed her absence and hurried to the front yard – to find her strolling down the street, hands in pockets. I called to her as I approached, at which she laughed and broke into a run. I’m still out of shape, but at least this time, I was able to catch my escapee.

So, lessons learned. Never let your kids get a running start – regardless of your level of disability. Never peg one child as the challenging one – another one will step up to prove you wrong. Never accept any platitude about parenting – circumstances will change the very next day.

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anxiety, Literacy, motherhood, parenting

Story Time

It’s a good thing I believe in the power of reading – because if I didn’t, there’s no way I’d take my kids to the library.  Time after time, it proves to be a taxing experience – one I’m not sure is balanced by the benefits of the books we obtain.

The kids, however, love it.  So much, in fact, that they burst through the doors like an invading army, one running this way, one the other.  Unfortunately, the front doors deposit us right into the “quiet” section of the library.  While I try to corral them towards the book drop, they dodge and weave, this last time with Julia lighting upon the stack of rolling bins “just like the ones at the grocery store, Mama” to tote books around in – even though I can’t get her to carry our tote bag.

After numerous shushes on the way to the reserves where Mommy’s book is waiting, it’s time to commandeer the children’s section.  They rush to the stairs with renewed vigor, Angela’s voice reverberating through all the levels as we ascend.

They do comment on a few books on display en route to the play area, Julia picking one on various modes of transportation throughout the ages.  Story time must have just ended because there are many little people and their parents hovering about.  Julia and Angela dive into the crowd, playing with the puppet theatre and puzzles; making friends more easily than I.  Julia sits on a low-slung kid couch near another mother and starts a conversation with the Tyrannosaurus she’s operating.  Angela giggles at the parrot another mother has squawking.  I smile and mill about.  These two must already know each other because a few minutes later, I can’t help but overhear one relay the story of her husband’s possible adultery to other.  One father with a preschooler and an infant looks up in surprise when he sees his baby smiling through a gap in a bookshelf, playing peek-a-boo with me – maybe he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself either.  A grandmother plops in a chair after depositing her toddler into the play area, looking worn out.  I want to tell her I feel her pain.

Today, as with nearly every visit here, I’m having flashbacks to when Julia was an infant.  So exhausted as a new mother, yet determined to keep my active two and a half year-old busy, I would strap Julia to the front of me and take Bella to story-time.  I think I was trying a passive-aggressive attempt at keeping some semblance of pre-baby # 2.  I figured if I couldn’t sleep when she slept and lie around all day in my pajamas, I may as well be out and about to distract myself from my misery.  I’m still not sure which was worse: a mom who could hustle around two of them, her harried mania bubbling just below the surface, or a mom drooling in delirium with a stir-crazy kid.  I was so desperate to latch on to something, I rushed the kids to story time without realizing there is an etiquette to such events.  I was lucky enough to attend the first meeting of a new session, at which there would be arts and crafts and for which advanced registration was required.  The most dour-looking librarian of the staff came over to me with her clipboard, pointing to my daughter, and asked, “And who might this be?”  After introductions, she said, “Ok, I’ll add her to the list for next time as she’s not signed up.”  I stammered some statement/question about pre-registration and she assured me it was fine; she had extra materials for the craft.  She had moved on to the next child, who was on her list, before I could thank her.  We went home with our contraband craft and never returned.

I guess I’m not much of a joiner.  One of the things I love about reading is getting lost in one’s own little world, a world that changes from chapter to chapter, book to book.  The solitary, quiet joy of it.  Although, I do love sharing and discussing the juicy details of a book I’ve just finished with someone else.  It has to be someone I know will enjoy it equally though.  Someone who loves a good story for the pure, unadulterated joy of it; the thrill of figuring out a mystery; the ache of a loss as if it were your own.  Not someone who will rebuff me because I wasn’t playing by a set of rules I didn’t even know existed.

I still take my kids to the library.  Though I’d much rather get my books and run, I let them say hello to the fish in the aquarium; put together puzzles that are missing a few pieces; pluck books from the shelf not by their merit, but because they’re at eye-level.  I let them scan the books at the self-check station even though their squeals as they push each other off the stool they’re sharing make me cringe – never mind the other patrons.  I take them to the library because they need to create their own experiences in the world of reading.  I can’t force them to operate under a set of rules made by someone else; they need to be afforded the same opportunities as those kids whose names are on the list.

Plus, it always makes for a really good story.

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anxiety, Living, motherhood, parenting

Same $*@#, Different Day

There are times when I wake up in the morning and don’t know what day it is.  It takes my mind a minute to focus and remember.  I can blame a lot of this on lack of sleep.  My body feeling like its packed inside a bag of cotton balls, it’s no wonder my head is foggy.  But I think most of it has to do with the repetitive nature of my days.

Don’t get me wrong – I love routines.  I actually get a bit batty without them.  Anxious people like me do not like the unexpected (except surprise gifts on Mother’s Day – much to my husband’s chagrin).  I’m much better at fitting everything in if I have a set list of objectives and time frames within which to do them.

I’m thinking you can wear routines out though.  Without variety, you ain’t got no spice, right?  And life right now is looking pretty bland.  It’s the first week off winter vacation.  The weather’s cold, actually wet and snowy for once this year, the kids (and I) struggling to get back into the groove of wake-ups, waffle-making, lunch-packing, teeth-brushing, coat-wrestling, out-the-door running.

This morning, Thursday, I woke up saying, Thank God I don’t have to go anywhere besides drop-off and pick-up.  Four days into the week, I’m already so beat-down, I could barely crawl into my sweats.

I suppose I could approach this the way Bill Murray did in Groundhog Day, righting all the wrongs the second, third, fourth time around.  I could go to bed earlier tonight so I wake up somewhat refreshed.  I could make Bella’s lunch after dinner so I don’t have to scramble in the morning.  I could plan something new and different for tomorrow to break the monotony.  But in real life, unlike the movies, we don’t always get the moral of the story.

Sometimes we get so worn down in our ruts that we can’t see up over the rim.  And we wake up in the morning to the same day, essentially, because we’re dealing with the same shit.

But I’m thinking maybe this is nature’s way of getting us to embrace change.  We get so sick of ourselves and the monotony that we’re thrown off the track and forced to forge a new one.

It’s times like this that I find the pages in my cookbooks that aren’t yet dog-eared.  I purge all that clothing I’ve been meaning to give to good will.  I seek out friends that I’ve been meaning to make plans with.  I try some long-forgotten yoga pose.  I stretch muscles I’d forgotten I had.

All of life is cyclical.  Like the tides and the lunar cycle, today and its attendant shit are bound to come around again.  But in between, there will be moments of shock and awe and the sublime.  I’ll just have to remember not to get caught out too far when the tide comes back in.

So I’m sure I’ll find something exciting to get me through this low point.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and remember what day it is.  Until then, you’ll have to excuse me, I have another load of laundry to do.

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motherhood, parenting, postpartum depression

My Lifesaver

“I save you.”

My two-year-old daughter said this to me one morning as I dressed her.  She reached up from the changing table and grasped my arm, hugging me to her.

“You save me?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, a smile lighting her sweet little face.

She’s been playing games of chase, tag, and intrigue with her older sisters, which is no doubt where this line came from, as they ran from imagined assailants.  But these three small words held a much deeper meaning for me.

If it weren’t for Angela’s love – and my love for Angela – I might not have survived the three years that have elapsed since the news of her coming.

I read recently that humans have an evolutionary predisposition to always think the worst.  If we did not anticipate danger, we would get eaten by the wooly mammoth hanging around the corner.  If we didn’t worry constantly about starvation, we wouldn’t feel compelled to gather berries for the coming winter.  If it were always sunshine and roses, the species as we know it would not exist.

However, in the modern age, where thankfully we do not have to parry with wooly mammoth, this predisposition makes living a life of gratitude really hard.  Being genetically wired to pay attention to the negative, the positives of our life fade into the background without a concerted effort on our part.

And, sadly, I can say that I let that happen throughout my pregnancy and postpartum with Angela.  Letting the blessing of a child be outweighed by the unexpected timing of it.  Letting myself be buried by the drudgery of day-to-day rather than being uplifted by the wonder in her eyes.  Letting myself founder instead of accepting the help I needed.

There were times when I could pull those positives back into the foreground.  Little arms wrapped tightly around my neck.  Sitting in the living room, surrounded by my husband and the girls.  Watching the three of them splash in the bathtub.  I even started a gratitude journal as a concrete reminder of the blessings all around me on a daily basis, especially helpful on those days when the clouds made it impossible to see them.

It was through the filter of Angela’s unconditional love that I began to see the world differently.

If at the end of the day, chaos ruled, but our kids were safe and happy, all was right with the world.  If things didn’t go according to plan, maybe that was because God had a better one.  And if we weren’t happy, maybe that meant we were supposed to be doing something different anyway.

I decided to do a lot of things differently.  Acutely aware that there were some things in life that would choose me with no regard to my misery, I decided to only choose things that would bring me joy.  I found myself contemplating risks I never would have taken pre-partum.  With newly opened eyes, there were new possibilities.

It was Angela who gave me eyes to see.  She gave me back my life.  If her birth – and the resulting struggles – hadn’t happened, my serious examination of my life and place in this world wouldn’t have happened.  And every time I got lost or distracted by the discouraging things around me, her two little arms around my neck reminded me to come back to center – to the heart of what truly matters.

Angela returned the wonder to my eyes.  Watching her find her way in the world inspired me to find mine.  She is the ultimate gift of love – and isn’t that the greatest blessing of all?

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motherhood, parenting

Shut the Front Door

I now know why my grandmother used to shoo her children outside – and lock the door. Her kids, of course, would object.  According to family lore, my two aunts would hover on the landing of their third-floor apartment waiting for her to let them back in.  My father, the only boy, would wander outside to find his friends.  In any event, it didn’t seem that any amount of begging or pleading would alter my grandmother’s decision or when she deemed it acceptable to return home.

I always appreciated this story and found it quite humorous (my grandmother had that certain amount of pluck that allowed her to get away with it), but now I can fully relate.

Last Tuesday was gorgeous; the last day in January, yet feeling more like a fine day in spring.  When I was able to bring my scraps to the compost bin in my shirtsleeves and not freeze, I went back in for the recyclables and lingered outside for a moment.  Angela abandoned the last of her lunch and joined me.  Encouraged by the weather, we began a joint effort to rid the yard of broken-off branches from winter windstorms.  A few minutes later, Julia, who had heretofore been deeply involved in a serious reenactment of Cars 2 in miniature, wandered out as well.

I tidied twigs.  Julia decided to play school.  Angela followed along.  If I had planned an afternoon outside, it couldn’t have gone any better.  The thing was, I hadn’t planned an afternoon outside.  Angela’s naptime was in ten minutes.  That meant Julia’s quiet time in ten minutes.  And Mommy’s chance for ‘me’ time.

“Ok, a few more minutes and then we’re going in,” I warned.  To which both girls objected, of course.

After wrestling Angela inside and into a new diaper while Julia bopped alongside the changing table telling me her plans for playtime, I realized resistance was futile.  If they were so invested in playing outside, maybe that was my best chance at uninterrupted work time.  This is why assumptions are so dangerous.

With the girls safely ensconced in the fenced backyard, I stationed myself by the window that looked directly onto their play area with my papers.  Maybe five minutes passed before I heard the first plaintive call by the door.  Once that issue was resolved, another five minutes passed before I heard the squeak of the screen door.  Then the stomp of feet.  The desperate plea for some indoor toy that was absolutely essential for their play outside.  Then a cry.  Another squeak.  A snack.

I could feel my blood pressure going up with each interruption.

“In or out,” I bellowed.

For kids who not so long ago were completely invested in playing outside, their actions were certainly not showing it.  Then Big Sister got home from school and a third set of feet beat a path back and forth.

“My God,” I thought.  “Now I know where Grandma got her motivation.”

Any mother knows it’s easier to get things done when there are no children under foot.  Unfortunately, society and culture have changed just enough that it’s no longer acceptable to boot our kids out the door for the day and welcome them home for dinner.  It’s no longer safe for our kids to play unsupervised in the open areas around our homes.  It’s no longer acceptable or expected for them to fill their own time with their own imaginings; we’re supposed to do it for them.

Not only does this culture shift take accountability and creativity away from our children, it makes the job of a mother a hell of a lot harder.

Now, please understand me, I’m not advocating for mothers across the world to lock their children out of the house.  It just seems to me that while the tension and tenderness between mothers and children is the same as in previous generations, the expected goals and duties of mothers have swelled with no subtractions from our job descriptions.

Kind of makes one want to lock the door and hide.  But, like my grandmother, I will always open my door to my children and welcome them in with open arms – even if I let them sit on the landing for a little while first.

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motherhood, parenting

A Weekend Away

This past summer, my husband and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary.  While other couples planned international trips to celebrate theirs, we were thrilled to steal away for two nights to Brattleboro, Vermont.  In fact, I told everyone that we were so excited you’d have thought we were headed to Tahiti.  Might as well have been.  Getaways for parents of three are few and far between – so that even a couple of nights two states away felt exotic.

So did uninterrupted conversations, gourmet meals, and a bottle of champagne.  Wandering in and out of little shops without fear of little hands ripping items off shelves.  Sitting and staring into space because there was no immediate need to which to attend.

Our last morning, as we sat on the bluestone patio overlooking the grounds eating breakfast, we chatted with a couple seated next to us.  Their teenaged daughter was attending a nearby summer camp.  When they found out the young ages of our children, they realized the special nature of our getaway.

“But you must be looking forward to getting home, right?” asked the man.

My husband nodded.  “Yes, it’ll be good to see them.”

When I failed to respond, his gaze landed on me.  “I could do with another day away,” I finally said.

Maybe I was paranoid that I would be judged as a bad mother, but I watched for a grimace on his face.  Instead, I noticed the nod from his wife.  Her face affirmed everything I felt.  Her daughter may have been well past the toddler phase, but she seemed to remember all too well the strain of care giving as a twenty-four hour job.

And later that day, we were back to our twenty-four hour a day job.  And yes, I was glad to see my children.  But a few months later, when we received the save-the-date card for a friend’s wedding – in Vermont – we were excited to once again be able to plan a weekend away.

Certainly, we wouldn’t have been going on another weekend so soon without the valid excuse of celebrating our friends’ plunge into marital bliss.  Nor would we have been going if it weren’t for my in-laws’ gracious offer to take the kids for two nights.  But things seemed to be shaping up in our favor for a fun and ‘adult’ weekend.

We stayed at the inn where all the festivities of the wedding weekend were to be held and where all the other wedding guests were staying.  We caught up with friends we hadn’t seen in months or years.  We ate.  We drank.

We still woke up at 7:45 each morning.

As excited as I was to get away, I still felt guilty when in an icebreaker game of bingo used to introduce guests by their attributes, I identified myself by ‘left kids at home to come to this wedding’.

I felt like a curiosity when single guests at the wedding identified us as the couple the bride and groom were so excited could come since we never get out.

And by no means, was the irony lost on me that as the wedding party moved outside for nightcaps and sledding down the hill behind the inn, my husband and I watched through the window, warm and comfortable on cozy chairs with another couple, discussing our children and home improvements.

A weekend away is difficult for many reasons, I guess.  Finances.  Finding babysitters.  Saying goodbye to the kids.  Forgetting your responsibilities.  Remembering how to relax and reconnect.

Someday, it’ll be easier.  Someday, we may even get to Tahiti (which, by the way, is where the newlyweds went on their honeymoon).

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anxiety, medication, motherhood, parenting, postpartum depression

Happy Pills

Is it bad that I cannot get through a day in my life without drugs?  I’m not talking about some narcotic to give me a buzz or knock me through a loop.  I’m talking about a low dose of what my husband refers to as my ‘happy pills’.

Ironically, I was the girl who, even in high school, had to request liquid antibiotics from her doctor because she couldn’t swallow pills.  I suffered through terrible sinus pressure and congestion because I didn’t want to take decongestants.  Severe morning sickness during my first pregnancy only added insult to injury as I gagged on humungous prenatal vitamins.  And deciding on natural childbirth was all the easier for me as it precluded a giant needle being stabbed in my back for the epidural.  I often joked with my parents that they never had to worry about me being a drug addict because I couldn’t swallow pills and hated needles.

But all this made my decision to start antidepressants during a bout with postpartum depression after the birth of my third child all the more difficult.  I was the woman who rarely took ibuprofen for a headache.  Now I was going to take a daily medication altering my hormonal chemistry?

Really, though, the issue was much more about control than anything else.  I’d had a hard time coming to terms with my diagnosis, thinking that I was a bad mother because I couldn’t handle caring for my three children.  And now the fact that I couldn’t hack it with therapy and lifestyle changes was an even more resounding affirmation of my failure to control things – that I was a failure.

Then a few months of feeling like I’d been dragged through mud and up again changed my mind.  I wasn’t able to do it on my own, but I wanted to change.  I wanted to stop feeling subterranean.  I wanted to rejoin the land of the living.  And enjoy the lives of my children.

However, I did always look to the weaning of my one-year old as the end date of my medicinal therapy.  I figured my hormone levels would regulate themselves and things would go back to ‘normal’.  Nearly three months after that, I was nearing the end of my last refill and decided I wouldn’t request another.  Actually, the procrastinator in me decided since I hadn’t reordered in time.  I lasted a week.  In that one week, which happened to coincide with the week of Christmas and all its resulting chaos, I relived all the instances that had put me on the medication in the first place.  Afterwards, I told my therapist that one week reaffirmed my decision and that I never wanted to be there again.

Fast-forward a year.  Again, my ninety-day supply of meds was dwindling; again, with no refill.  I think my stubborn will to conquer this on my own was still lurking inside somewhere because I watched the pills disappear one by one, the rattle against the side of the bottle getting softer and softer, and yet, doing nothing to secure another script.

“I should be over this by now,” I thought.  “Surely I can handle life as it is without a pill.”

As sick as I’d grown of remembering to pop a pill each night and worrying if I’d taken it too long after supper so that it’d rip my stomach apart, I took the last pill with a gulp of regret.  Would I be able to do this on my own?

The answer came just days later.  Acutely aware of the placebo effect, I wondered how much of it was my own imagining, but I felt myself getting tenser by the day.  I found myself jumping on my kids for the smallest infraction.  I heard my voice taking on the tone of the beast I’d been in the beginning.  I saw my oldest start to tune out my overreactions like I’d seen my former students do when I’d lost it and all they heard was noise, not warnings.

And the crying.

If I can call it that.  The sudden, overwhelming urge to cry.  Usually when things were too much to handle: a particularly hectic pick-up at school, all three of them fighting and hurting each other.  But also at unexpected times: discussing home-heating options with my husband, reading a particularly poignant editorial in the newspaper.  That last one gave me pause, as it reminded me of the tears that sprang up after watching a Haagen-Dazs commercial during one of my pregnancies.  And though the idea of being pregnant again scared me enough to make me wonder for a second, I knew it was just my emotional response to things getting to be too much.

My husband wondered if I just had a good cry, let it all out, would I be able to then feel better and move on?  But the tears wouldn’t exactly come.  Just the feeling of despair and my face squinched in anguish, but no tears.  It’s not like I was holding it in; it was just a pervading feeling lurking below the surface all the time.

Just like the feeling that I had each night as I wallowed on the couch.  I was so exhausted I needed to go to sleep, yet couldn’t get myself up and into my pajamas.

But through it all, I knew God was watching out for me and I knew He had a sense of humor amidst the direst circumstances.

Nearly a week after I’d taken my last pill and wondered daily if I’d made the right decision, I took my two youngest into the basement with me.  With one New Years’ resolution being to finally complete a play area downstairs for the kids, I set about cleaning while they played nearby.  They played well and stayed right by me until I ran upstairs for something.  They followed, but didn’t return downstairs when I did.  I noted this and made a mental note to check on them as soon as I finished the task at hand.  Then I worked a few more minutes, and a few more, a few more – until I realized I’d taken far too long to finish and leave them alone at some unknown activity.  I returned to the main floor and they were nowhere to be found.  I continued on upstairs and heard muted voices behind the closed bedroom door.  Julia, my four year-old, was seated at her play table, about to open multiple cans of Play-doh, but yet to do any damage.  Angela, the two year-old, however, was seated on the counter above the built-in drawers – and above the mounds of toys and books and other things she’d flung onto the floor.  Before I finished my tirade, I noticed a slimy blob on the floor, and then another.  My hand slid across the seat of the hand-painted rocking chair as I leaned on it to get a closer look at the floor.  Angela had uncapped two of her oldest sister’s lip balms and squeezed the sticky substance onto the floors and furniture rather than her mouth.

Part of me raged and another part of me, much less adamant than the first, knew that this was my fault.  While it was easier to finish cleaning downstairs without them, it wasn’t smart to leave the two of them unattended with modeling clay and make-up.  I really was lucky they had only made a mess and not hurt themselves.

I cleaned a little and then stomped downstairs, figuring it was better to do that than remain and scream bloody-murder (see previous paragraphs).  And that’s when I realized God’s impeccable timing and sense of humor.  While all I could see was a supreme annoyance, something my kids did that was about to send me over the edge, it was, in fact, a very teachable moment.  The answer to my quandaries was right in front of me.  Was it better to rain down holy hell on my kids for doing something well within the realm of acceptable for an unsupervised two and four year-old or to take a pill that helps me keep things in perspective?  When relating the story later that day, I joked that God was telling me I’d better take the pills so I wouldn’t kill my kids.

It took me two more days before I called my doctor to request the refill.  Old, stubborn habits die hard, I guess.  I still feel a little weak for not being able to live life as I now know it without one of my happy pills, but life as I know it is not changing anytime soon.  And my attitude certainly does need to change if I’m going to be happy and be the best mother I can.

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anxiety, motherhood, parenting, postpartum depression

Chopping Potatoes

One evening when my third daughter was about four months old, I was in the midst of supper preparations – in the midst of many things, actually.  My two older daughters intermittently terrorizing each other and whining for snacks; the baby fully into the witching hour and all that entailed; my husband walking through the door, home from work and hungry.  All this swirled around me whilst I tried to chop very dense potatoes with a very sharp knife and not cut my fingers off or lose my mind.

And that’s when a very troubling thought came to mind.

“If I just chopped my finger, I’d have to go to the emergency room – and I could leave all this behind.”

At the time, I had already started counseling for post-partum depression.  When I mentioned it to my therapist, she nodded.

“Fight or flight,” she said.  “You were feeling overwhelmed, threatened, and your body’s response was to run.”

That I could understand.  My friend, when I had told her, I think, was afraid I was going to attempt suicide or hurt myself in some other way.  But I’d never harm myself, I argued, or the kids.  I’d heard the freakishly tragic stories of mothers driving their children and themselves into a lake; that thought had never crossed my mind.

But running away?  Sometimes I wished that was a possibility.

In my mind, one scene kept playing over and over on a mental movie screen.  The scene in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood when Ashley Judd’s character drives for hours and lands in a seaside motel and sleeps for innumerable days.  When she finally wakes up, she calls the front desk to ask what day it is.  I knew I’d never act on it, but that became my fantasy.

My midwife asked me, “Do you ever think of running away?”

“Yeah, but I’d come back.  Maybe after a day or so.”

I was in over my head enough to feel this way, but my fingers had a firm enough grip on the edge that I knew it would be crazy to act on it.

It was a strange time in my life.  Like the patient who realizes she has Alzheimer’s but can’t do anything to stop it, I was fully aware of the difference of the irrational thoughts and feelings, but experienced them anyway.  I had a clarity of vision throughout, but could do nothing to stop my reaction to the tenor of my life at the time.

And neither could I do anything to change the tenor of my life.  Life was chaos.  There was no way around it.  I was a stay-at-home mom with an infant who was exclusively breastfeeding and therefore still on no set schedule.  My two year-old was willfully learning her way in the world and quite often bucking any system I tried to set up.  My four year-old had just started preschool, which didn’t mean one less kid at home; it meant dressing up three to hoof them all to school to drop her off, then pick her up two hours and forty-five minutes later.  Then a three-ring circus until I was drooling and twitching by the time my husband arrived home, which was right around the time I was chopping potatoes.

Chopping potatoes has become my metaphor for everything that’s hard about being a mother: the tedium that drives us insane, the seemingly simple that becomes infinitely difficult, trying to focus amidst endless distraction.  And how things get considerably more dicey when one’s wielding a knife.

Even now, nearly two years later, I still have an almost visceral reaction to chopping potatoes, but more often than not, I can counter it with my own version of Dana Carvey’s Saturday Night Live skit.  I may not be “chopping broccoli,” but I’ve found that laughter goes a long way in lowering stress levels.  And that’s really all we can do.  Keep the stress levels manageable enough that we don’t end up in a motel miles from home with no idea what day it is.  Or in the emergency room instead of sitting at the dinner table with our family enjoying a well-rounded meal.

Because chopping potatoes sucks, but enjoying the fruits of our labor doesn’t.

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