Hybernation

There is a chill in the air.

Actually, it’s been here for several days now. We are in the middle of winter — in the middle of autumn, in the middle of October. I threw down-vests and cotton gloves in the wash last night, totally unprepared for the first frost this morning. Yesterday, I tried last year’s warmer coats on confused faces. Memories of the last two Octobers with bright, sunshiny skies and shorts — are in the distant past. In the last few days, I have made hot chocolate garnished with dancing marshmallows, and snuggled into my husband in front of the fireplace. For the second week in a row, I’m cooking a hearty soup in the crock pot. There is farina for breakfast.

What the hell is going on?

My 7-year old wore shorts every day to school last week, even though the mornings started out in the 40s. She is trying her darndest to out-stubborn this premature winter. She feels robbed of her typical extended summer. This morning, it was in the low thirties. The air is so crisp it shocks the skin. We argued about her wearing the thinnest of fleece coats. She would have nothing of it.

I paged through the discounted winter coats in the Lands End catalog last night. I’m wondering whether I need to get the kids real winter coats this year, with gloves thicker than tissue paper.

Also, the girls have hardly been outside for recess at school because of the rains. It has been terrible. They are growing restless and bickering with me and each other. The baby and I get dressed to go outside only to be confronted by a downpour at the front porch. None of the girls have ever owned raincoats or rainboots until this year. Now we play regularly in puddles and soaked hair.

Where on earth is that Georgia weather I once knew and loved?

I’m spirited away, over at skirt!

This Day

Every time the beginning of October comes around, I keep thinking I’m going to write some monumental post about pregnancy loss to commemorate October 15. Aunt Becky always writes something beautiful about stillborn babies whose parents she knows and loves. But when the day actually comes around, I get… I don’t know… nervous. I suppose, too, I feel ashamed. Isn’t that terrible? There is still shame. A part of me still feels like a failure. A part of me feels responsible. And even today, even with this amazing family I have, a part of me still winces when someone tells me that they’re pregnant. I’m thrilled for them, but truthfully, I don’t want to hear about pregnancy until it’s over — when the baby is already born and alive and in their parents’ arms.

But I do want to come clean about my losses. I think telling others is part of the healing process. And one of the things that hurt me so much after my losses, was the fact that I was expected to be so secretive about them. Miscarriage and the grief that follows is very, very personal, but it should not be private. The world should know about our suffering.

Most of you know these numbers already, but for those of you who weren’t on the journey from the beginning, here they are:

October 2003 — Failed triplet pregnancy, resulting in one healthy baby, and two miscarriages at about 6 weeks.

September 2006 — Miscarriage at almost 14 weeks, followed by a D & C.

November 2006 — Miscarriage about 6 weeks, D & C in January.

April 2007 — Chemical pregnancy. Positive pregnancy test, followed cramping and a negative pregnancy test 3 days later.

In case you are not a numbers person, let me summarize: I am a mother to three, healthy, beautiful daughters. I am so grateful for my family. But it took me five heartbreaking losses to get there. Five lost babies, who I would have loved with my whole heart, had they lived on this earth with me.

If you are hurting from a miscarriage, whether it happened two days or twenty years ago, know that I am thinking of you today, and always.

Doggone it

Sunday, I noticed two black dogs wandering down the street. I thought they were visiting a neighbor.

A few hours later, one of the dogs was in my garage. My husband had taken the girls on a bike ride, and found one very large black dog panting really, really hard. He didn’t appear to belong to anyone, and followed my husband to our house.

My kids were ecstatic. Beyond ecstatic. They thought this was fate.

“Willie” was soon joined by another dog, a puppy named “Hailey.” We gave them water, and they laid on the garage floor.

My husband and I called all the numbers on the tags, and left messages. But one voicemail said that the owners would be out of town until the following day.

We tried to figure out what to do, all the while our kids were convincing themselves that WE ARE NOW THE OWNERS OF THESE DOGS.

A little over an hour later, while my husband was on his way to buy dog food, the mother of the owners of the dogs started driving around the neighborhood. My husband stopped her and, sure enough, she was in charge of the dogs. She pulled up in our driveway, popped them out, and left. We didn’t even get a proper thank you. But the dogs did successfully overturn all of our recycling bins while they were in the garage.

No, I will never get a dog.

Unfortunately, the damage was done. My 7-year old burst into tears when the dogs left. “Oh, WILLIE. Oh HAILEY!” she cried. Over and over again. Then, to emphasize her distress at their departure even more, she said, “What’s the point of having a birthday coming up, when I want a dog and YOU WON’T GET ME ONE.”

We were in the dog house with her, for sure.

Our Drama Queen has recovered, but obviously, this not-having-a-pet thing isn’t going to go away anytime soon. To distract her, we’ve agreed to let her have her birthday party at one of the nearby horse farms. (Because if there’s one thing she loves more than dogs, it’s horses.) But there’s no doubt this pet-deprivation issue will resurface again.

A little over a week ago, I met an editor of a very well known regional magazine. I pitched an essay, she was very interested, and I’m now having a hell of a time putting the piece together. I know how it begins, I know how it ends, I know what goes in the middle. But I can’t seem to get it to flow. It’s so frustrating. And it’s so, so important for me to get this done, get it perfect, and send it off, because publication in this magazine would be a big step up for me.

I hope I can get it to gel soon.

Winner Takes All

Yes, I totally copped out on the nap thing. Hear me out, though. I had bad hay fever for two days, my husband left on a business trip to New York, and we had friends visit from out of town. It wasn’t so much listening to her try to fall asleep on her own that was painful, it was that even after she finally napped, she was cranky all afternoon and evening. And then she went to bed later at night (because her nap was so late) and then she’d wake up cranky in the morning, and we were trapped in this endless cycle of a Baby Formerly Known as Happy — suddenly grumpy and clingy, and much harder to deal with. All because I refused to nurse her into a coma for her nap.

Short term (and by short term I mean a few years), certainly, I will look back and regret not standing firm and pushing through. I will regret not taking your very sensible advice. But longer term, when I catch her smoking pot with a boyfriend 5 years older than she is, I won’t think much about how she wouldn’t nap unless nursed to sleep. That’s not to say that I’m now thrilled to nurse her down for a nap — because I’m not. I am anything but “Zen Mother.” (Oh, but she’ll only be this little for so long, and I should just appreciate every single second of every day). Because, as a practical matter, her not taking a nap without nursing means that either I skip the writers workshops/author lectures I love to attend on Saturday afternoons because of The Nap Problem; or I leave a really cranky baby with my (thankfully) very generous husband.

It’s just to say that sometimes taking the harder way out for a longer period of time, is actually easier on the day to day.

Or, put more simply, she wins. And I’ll find a way to cope.

Speaking of winners, I was really surprised in a  “oh no you didn’t” sort of way that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. I may not believe in much, but I totally believe in the concept of jinx. As in, surely he will now fail in all international endeavors because he won an award that he didn’t earn. Surely, we will never get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Surely there will never be calm between Palestine and Israel. And while I find Obama to be an intelligent, meticulous, inspiring (and almost Denzel-hot) leader, I don’t think he’s done anything worthy (yet) of the Nobel Peace Prize. And now he has to live up to an enormous expectation — and anything less will deem him a failure.

I just hope I’m wrong.

Fear Factor

Michelle over at Scribbit recently wrote a great post about letting her kids bike to the mall themselves and hang out. She reminded me that I wanted to write a more full review about Free Range Kids, and suggest that you RUN not walk to your local library/bookstore and pick it up.

As a child raised on the news, I can tell you that I grew up hearing about every single horrible thing that could happen to me. I remember when Adam was kidnapped and his headless body was found. I remember hearing all the stories of children being molested in daycares and schools. I remember houses burning down, kids run over by cars, and poisons in everything that we ate, particularly Halloween candy.

I was a bundle of nerves when my first child was born, mainly because I thought all those terrible things were common occurrences. Moreover, I assumed they were all absolutely true. (According to Free Range Kids, these stories are at best greatly exaggerated, at worst total untruths.)

I believed that every time I turned my head away from my child, I was risking her kidnapping. Or that those anti-flammable PJs were a must, because houses just mysteriously burned down all the time. I thought that kids could never, ever be trusted by themselves outside.

In the last few years, though, I’ve started to let things go. The other day I went grocery shopping but left my reusable bags in the car. I didn’t realize it until I went to pay, and the baby refused to leave the car shopping cart she was strapped into. So, instead of removing what would surely be a tantrumming toddler, I took a deep breath and did what made the most sense — I asked the checker if she would mind keeping an eye on her while I ran to my car (which I could see from where I was standing) to get my bags.

I was back in twenty seconds. The baby was fine.

Since this spring, my 7-year old has been allowed to bike around our neighborhood without my husband or I accompanying her. Usually, she goes off to find other kids to ride with. But if she doesn’t, she comes back home on her own, and rides near our house.

You already know my kids get off the bus by themselves. Free Range Kids made me feel even better about letting them walk to the house without me.

There are other things, though, I’d love for my kids to do, but I can’t because there are hardly any other kids around they can do it with. The other day my oldest asked if she could ride her bike to the local playground. It’s at a park that’s a quarter of a mile away from the house. There are mainly sidewalks to get there, and no streets to cross. The park is off what is essentially a large cul de sac. I said fine, as long as you go with a friend.

Unfortunately, her almost 10-year old friend was not allowed to go to the playground without an adult.  “There are snakes,” her mom told me. “Have you seen them? There are long, black snakes!”

“Yes, I’ve seen them,” I said. “They’re in my front yard. And backyard. And in your front yard, and backyard, and possibly in all of our garages and trash cans. They are garden snakes. Totally harmless, and not known to attack little children at playgrounds.”

I couldn’t convince her, though. So my daughter can’t go to the park. The same is true for walking to and from school. I’d love for her to be able to do this — if she had a buddy her age or older to walk with her. But in our neighborhood, which is adjacent to the elementary school, no one else walks to school. So now she has to just wait until she’s a little older.

If you’re going to read any parenting book, read this one. Not just so you can feel better about giving your children the freedom and independence they need to thrive, but also so my kids have someone to play with.

Now I’ve gone and done it (again)

My second daughter would not take a nap unless she was put into her crib already asleep. When she was a young infant, we did what all the books said, and put her down drowsy. But then she’d startle, and scream, and then she WOULDN’T SLEEP AT ALL. So, after, I don’t know, a thousand attempts, I surrendered. I nursed and rocked her to sleep for every single nap. Most of the time, this took twenty to thirty minutes. Sometimes, an hour.

This didn’t really bug me all that much. Until, that is, she weaned at a little after 2 years old. Because once she weaned, she could no longer nurse to sleep, and once she could not nurse to sleep, she no longer napped.

Bedtime was a totally different story. We’d read her stories, nurse in the rocker, and then I’d lay her down awake in her crib. She always went to sleep on her own with no problem.

But for naps? Never.

I’m having some major de ja vu with her little sister.

My eighteen month old can be put to bed at night without nursing to sleep. But she will not, under any circumstance, take a nap unless she is dead asleep first. I am rocking, I am nursing. I am nursing and I am rocking. If she is really tired, she’s asleep in 15-20 minutes. But it’s sometimes 30 minutes.

I’d like to wean her in the spring, and I don’t want to lose the naps when I do.

This afternoon, she fell asleep in my arms really quickly. But then I tripped a little on my way to the crib, so she woke up and started crying. I picked her up quickly, and nursed her right back to sleep, but then was wobbly on the set-down, and, oops, she’s up again!

I decided to just kiss her, tell her to go to sleep, and walk out of the room. I’m now really sick of this nursing to sleep thing. I don’t mind nursing her before a nap. I just hate having to put her to sleep.

So I left the room. And guess what? Two hours later, she’s still up there playing in her crib. I just heard a thud on the monitor — I think she threw her babydoll out of the crib. I now hear her marching back and forth over the mattress.

Clearly, there’ll be no nap today. And assuming she doesn’t go to sleep at all, I’m in for an incredibly cranky afternoon/evening with her.

My question is this: What should I do? Obviously, she still needs her nap.  Should I just put her down after nursing, leave her alone, listen to her goof off in her crib for a few hours, and then bring her downstairs, delirious from exhaustion? If I do this, eventually, will she learn how to fall asleep on her own for naps? Incidentally, isn’t it strange how she can fall asleep on her own for bedtime, but not for naps? Anyone else deal with this?

Please advise.

Linkalicious

Lots going on in the blogosphere concerning women, family choices, and work…

First off, Penelope Trunk twittered about her relief that she was having a miscarriage, so that she wouldn’t have to get an abortion. (Trunk is in her early forties, and was using birth control that failed.) Her twitter caused an uproar, which she ended up talking about on CNN. Basically, people think miscarriage is too personal to twitter about. Regardless of how you feel about abortion, Trunk makes the point in her CNN interview and here, that miscarriage is common, and often affects women while they are at work, and should be talked about. She also encourages women to talk about miscarriage to their bosses at work, so that they can get the support they need.

Also, yesterday I saw a piece on The Today Show about an adoptive mother who terminated the adoption of her son after 18 months. Ms. Tedaldi’s original story appears here. She says that while she loved her son, she and her family never bonded with him, and that she thought he’d have a better life with another family. Of course this poor woman is taking a beating from everyone.

I’m trying to figure out what people are getting angry about. Is Trunk being attacked because she was planning on getting an abortion but was relieved that she had a miscarriage? Or is to because she was so open about her miscarriage? Do people think that it’s the tweeting that crosses the line? (Though I’ve seen a heck of a lot more personal stuff on Twitter and Facebook.) Isn’t what’s important here that miscarriage, a taboo topic, is a little more out in the open?

And what of Tedaldi? Are we mad at her because she couldn’t bond with her adoptive son, or because she’s talking about it? In the end, isn’t Tedaldi’s story an important one for any prospective adoptive parents to hear? (Granted, hers is an unusual case, but she’s not the first and she won’t be the last.) And isn’t it true that some biological parents don’t bond with their kids? And if so, isn’t this an important conversation to have?

Finally, there’s now concrete consensus data debunking the theory of the Opt-Out Revolution, a trend where upper-class women shed their prestigious careers to stay home with their children, which Lisa Belkin first wrote about six years ago. To summarize, stay at home mothers are more likely to be less educated and poorer than other mothers. They also were younger, and had younger children. You can find the actual data here.

Postcript

Laura at 11D (obviously, I stalk her) had some interesting comments on her initial post about the length of the school year. To sum up, it seems that schools abroad have a much shorter school day than in the US. (One commenter from Germany said her kids get done by 11 am. Ouch.) So it seems that the number of days a child is in school per year doesn’t mean diddly-squat (I’m not going to look up how to spell it, you know what I mean). Perhaps Obama and his team need to compare academic instructional hours for a more meaningful analysis.

I’ve decided to do Na No Me Wri Mo. I’ve even already signed up. My husband is working one weekend in November, but otherwise doesn’t have a horrible work schedule. My oldest turns 8 next month, so there’ll be a party to plan, and of course it’s Thanksgiving, but we won’t be traveling (at least not very far). I don’t have childcare for the baby, so this means most of my writing will be done after 8 pm. I used to be able to write until midnight every night. But I haven’t been able to do it since I had my third baby. I’m hoping I can get back some of that chutzpah.

It’s 50,000 words. I’ve have the first draft of a novel that’s 70,000 words…but it took me 3 years to write it. 50,000 words in one month is mind-boggling to me. I wonder if I can even reach the halfway mark. The point of the contest is volume, though, not quality. This is going to be the hardest thing for me because I edit like a maniac.

Truthfully, this contest couldn’t come at a better time for me. I’ve been so lackluster about writing. I haven’t had that fire in my belly to write since July. Even if every sentence sucks, at least I’ll be writing again…

Educate Me

Laura at 11D asks what we think about Obama’s desire to increase the length of the school day, and shorten summers.

My kids get off the bus at 2:40. They have to be in bed by 7:30-7:45 to wake up well rested for Crack-of-Dawn Elementary. That gives them 5ish hours to do homework (minimal at this point), practice piano (I ask for 5 minutes a day), eat an afterschool snack, play, eat dinner, play some more, get showered, help put away toys, eat yet another snack, and read before bed. Our schedule must sound like a joke to most — generally, we don’t have afternoon or evening commitments. We invite kids over to our house, do somersaults down the hill in our backyard, play hopscotch on the driveway. This afternoon, my older two drew pictures of every animal they could think of. They then rode bikes up and down the street, and played badminton in the backyard.

I don’t want to lose any of this play time. It’s crucial, not just for their cognitive development, but for my relationship to my kids, and their relationships to each other.

It’s during these unstructured moments when crucial bits and pieces of their day float out of their mouths.

I can’t imagine not having this time. I can’t imagine giving up even more free time. A slightly longer school year wouldn’t bother me so much. A slightly longer school day wouldn’t bother me, either, if it meant that they’d never have to bring home homework, or get to participate in some sort of interesting extra-curricular activity that they wouldn’t get otherwise. But anything more would make me sad.

On the other hand, if I ever went back to work full time, I would probably want a longer school day so I’d have readily available (and free) childcare. I’d want longer school years so I wouldn’t have to worry about signing up for so may summer camps. If I lived in a dangerous neighborhood, school might be the safest place for my children while I was at work. If I didn’t have money to buy food for dinner, school might be the better place for them to get all their meals.

I see both sides to this.

What do you think?

Making Lemonade out of Lemons

So my 7-year old and the boy next door are planning to set up a lemonade stand this Saturday. They want to sell freshly squeezed lemonade. They’ve been working on the flyers for weeks, and dropping them off in mailboxes in the neighborhood.

It suddenly occurred to me this morning that this means I have to learn how to make freshly squeezed lemonade.

Shit.

Does anyone have a foolproof recipe? I don’t think many people will come. But if the flyer says freshly squeezed, I suppose I have to do freshly squeezed.