Still Struggling

Thanks to everyone for your kind words of support. It really helped. Since we’ve moved in with the in-laws E. and I are rarely in the house alone for a long stretch of time, so I think that has only made me hold things in more since I don’t really enjoy my in-laws hearing us argue or even just talk things out. Thankfully I can vent and sort things out to you all.

I’m struggling lately with some mama-guilt. Because of our schedules, I’m home with Mr. E. two full days and two mornings a week. I work Saturdays, and Sunday is the only day E. and I both have off together. Sunday is by far my FAVORITE day. The others - I’m not too keen on. I really don’t like being home alone with Mr. E. all day.

Enter Mama guilt. E. wishes she could be home with Mr. E full-time, but can’t. I’ve met so many moms who just love staying home - attending multiple mommy and baby groups, taking classes, going on walks, etc. I really just don’t like it. But I LOVE LOVE LOVE Mr. E, of course - which makes me slightly confused. Why does staying home with him bother me so much?

When E and I are home with him together, it’s a whole different story. We can take turns getting ready - when I’m home I wait for his morning nap to shower and get dressed. Eating is also more stressful - E pumps and leaves me bottles, and right now she is just keeping up with his demand. Sometimes when I drop him off she will want to feed him at around a certain time, so I stress out hoping he can wait and I won’t have to give him a bottle, therefore putting stress on E to then pump, which she would rather not do. I miss taking walks when I want to now that it’s nice out - Mr. E barely tolerates a stroller. I’ve tried going out to baby groups - Mr. E usually hates being in the car so he cries hard the whole time, and it just doesn’t feel worth it to me. Sometimes when I’m home and he’s fed, changed, tried to play, and is still cranky, I just don’t know what to do with him.

I feel so guilty about my feelings that I almost didn’t write this post. I fall more in love with Mr. E every day. I love that he can now smile and laugh and play, but I find myself longing for the days where he’ll have a nap schedule or can just tell me what he wants. I want to be able to drive somewhere without him crying so hard. I feel guilty about wanting to just go to work in the morning and come home to him at night - that feels enough to me - with the weekends to relax. I know in my head that there are other mothers out there who feel the same - I’ve met them - but some part of me just wants to understand why E. wants to badly to do the thing I just don’t like. I guess mothers, and parents, are just different. And they parent, and prefer parenting, in different ways.

I should be grateful that one of us does want to stay home, and hopefully someday that will be financially possible. In the meantime, thanks for listening.

Aptly Named

Since I haven’t posted anything on here since March, and it is now May, it might be obvious that I was thinking of abandoning my dear Fumbling. Indeed, I did abandon it, and you all (all 3 of you who actually read it), until now. What can I say for myself?

I was fumbling.

Fumbling around trying to just hang on with everything going on - finished up my student teaching and began staying at home with Mr. E. I had high hopes that I would post even more often once that change occurred, picturing myself cozily seated on the couch with Skeeter while the little lad slept the day through.

(All you stay-at-home moms can commence hysterical laughter now).

Uh, I was kinda busy. Like, CONSTANTLY busy and when he slept I GOT STUFF DONE because when he was awake he required ALL OF MY BEING. When I had a brake, I sat and gazed at the computer screen or TV.

Uh, I watch A LOT of TV now.

(All you stay-at-home-moms can commence your enthusiastic “uh-huhs” now).

Then, well, I just felt drained with the blog thing. Believe it or not, my life just felt too full to add blogging to it. Well, I guess that’s not quite true, since I’ve become somewhat of a F*ace*book addict, but I digress…

So, then came the BIG MOVE, which JUST HAD to occur right after my mom visited, which JUST HAD to occur right after her first chemo treatment, which she got sick from during her visit. In the midst of all our belongings packed up in boxes throughout the house. I thought she’d be there to help take care of Mr. E while we finished packing. Instead I had to take care of her. A lot. As in, had to drive to Maine to bring her home because she was sick. The DAY BEFORE our move.

We were both in a sh*tload of denial about that one.

So I was leaving a place I love, being a reluctant stay-at-home mom (more on that later I suppose), getting ready to give up having our own place, and dealing with my sick mom, who couldn’t even hold her grandson during her visit. It was all I could do to cope day-to-day and get everything done, and when I’m stressed like that I usually turn inward instead of outward.

I’m learning I need not to do this.

Same thing has been happening the past few days. We moved, and it was completely exhausting and stressful beyond belief, and until I started my summer job I was having a rough time with the lack of structure. Once I started having a place to go that was JUST MINE, even if it meant grilling up steak and cheeses, it was something. But the deli is VERY cliquish, with my co-workers 20 years older than me and native Cape Codders, and think nothing of making gay jokes right in front of me. They’ve never known anything different. They talk openly about going out on Saturdays together dancing at the local bar, without a thought to ask me (I wouldn’t go anyway). But we are of two different species: me, just washed ashore, young, queer, with my M.Ed and this deli gig just a stop on the way. Them: this is their life, period.

I just really, really want to teach.

I know it’s early, and I know it’ll happen for me eventually. But last night the faces of my kids from student teaching flashed before my eyes and I just cried. I miss them. I miss doing what I love. I CAN’T WAIT to do what I love. Sometimes it’s just hard.

Getting used to life in our new community has been both exciting and frustrating. It’s gorgeous here - things are blooming, and I LOVE our church. Even before we moved here I claimed it as my/our place to connect with this community and make our own friends. E. has lots of family, and her family has lots of friends, but as for us having our OWN friends, it comes down to nil. I thought the church community would be a great way to meet people. Last week we officially joined.

So did my mother-in-law.

Ok, I’ve REALLY tried to be open-minded and understanding about this. Obviously anyone can join or attend whatever church they wish. But I started attending this church last fall, and felt at home there. She recently learned we were joining, and wanted to join too. I think she likes it ok, but has attended just a couple of times. Let me explain. She’s the type of person that likes to join ANYTHING. There’s a famous family story that she once saw a huge line somewhere and got in it just to see what all the fuss was about. In short, she’s a JOINER.

Whatever. I can still make my own friends and get involved in my own way. But put all these things together, and I’ve been feeling a bit down lately. I found myself turning inward again, not wanting to deal with anyone, even E. Thankfully, my wife is quite observant and patient, and made me talk about it. I felt so much better. We decided that since we live with her parents, and don’t really have our own social network yet, we really have to make time for just us - either the three of us, or the two of us. I think that will really make a difference. I’m realizing I need to talk things out with her instead of retreating.

I’m also remembering I don’t do well with big transitions.

A similar experience happened when we moved to the Valley. I think I was mildly depressed for months (might have had to do with the fact that we were completely broke as well). But I’m just a stable gal - I like knowing what’s ahead - a loooong way ahead: where we live, where I work, etc. Being with E. has helped me relax a bit in this area in very healthy ways, but to some extent it’s just the way I am.

So perhaps this transition will be hard for me for some time. I think blogging about it might help, too.

Thanks for reading, whoever you 3 readers are.

Touchy-Feely

I’ve been a bit overwhelmed and busy lately.  More than anything, I’ve been feeling a lot of different things, including:

• completely overwhelmed at what I need to accomplish during my student teaching
• exhausted from sleepless nights, coupled with teaching all day
• a deep sadness at the loss of Emmy Lou - more than I ever thought I’d feel
• sheer awe and humility at the intelligence, resilience, cleverness, affection, and persistence shown by 4th graders
• appreciation and excitement that I get this time solely dedicated to learning how to be a teacher
• profound wonderment that I had such a hard time deciding which Democratic candidate to vote for, and still in utter shock of the loss of feeling like I’m voting for the lesser of two evils (or, my favorite twist: the evil of two lessers), and instead feeling completely satisfied if either of the two front-runners get the nomination
• a deepended love and appreication for E., who cares for Mr. E. all day and night, crafts diaper liners and homemade wipes, manages so many household importances, and does it all with such grace and without any complaint
• complete relief and thankful that my mom, who is getting a lump removed from her breast, is ok and without a cancer diagnosis
• completely in love with Mr. E., who stays on my mind all day, and is the first thing I want to see when I wake up, and when I walk in the door after a long day, and whose skin I’ll never tire of kissing

The Babymoon is Over

I’m going back to work (student teaching) tomorrow - I can’t believe it. It’s been so great to be at home with E. and Mr. E. - spending so much uninterrupted time together getting to know him, giving him baths, and taking copious amounts of pictures of him, of course. It’s also been good that we’ve taken him out of the house together - to get the routine down enough so that we can manage it on our own in the future when we need to. I am excited to get back to the students, but I know it will be hard to leave my little guy.

E. asked me the other night if I was going to post about the birth from my point of view. I said I didn’t think I would. I feel like E. gave a very thorough account of what happened, and I was right there with her through every bit of it. The hardest part of it all was watching her in so much pain for so long, and that coupled with no sleep left my nerves shot by the early morning on the day he was born. But I learned, as these kind of experiences often teach us, how amazingly equipped our bodies, minds and spirits are to take on such extreme circumstances, and when my perfect boy was born I forgot about all of it. The other hard part was sleeping in a hospital for 3 nights, and I thought I might just lose it when they started threatening a 4th because of his jaundice. Thank goodness we broke out of there!

The best part was the experience of his birth, seeing him come into this world and then being the one to look at him and pronounce “it’s a boy!” Perhaps the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced.

Almost 2 weeks later, and Mr. E. has seemed to fit seamlessly into our lives. Sometimes he takes up a lot of energy - like when it takes us hours to get out of the house, but sometimes he is just the cartoon baby, plopped right down in front of us, silently sleeping while we carry on with our lives. This is going to be such an interesting journey…

In Awe

It’s hard to describe how it feels the first week you have a new baby - the first week you become a mom. Things so far have been both wonderfully amazing and wonderfully hard. Things that are amazing: his sounds, his eyes, his involuntary half-smiles, times when I catch his eyes and he looks at me for a few seconds like he recognizes me. Things that are hard: dealing with his Jaundice - taking him for bloodwork every morning, becoming swiftly schooled on the difficulties of making medical decisions as a parent, the general worry of parenting a newborn.

I can’t believe he’s been with us a week already. I really don’t know where the time went - first our 3 grueling nights in the hospital, one without him, two with - and then the worry and stress of whether or not we’d be let home because of his Jaundice - it was the best news ever when they said we could go, and we avoided having to put him in the “light box” for who knows how long - and instead they sent us home with a contraption that wraps around his body and has him tethered to the box by a 4-foot hose. It has been hard for us both to see our perfect, sweet boy tied to this machine, and even harder to get the news each day that his count went up, and we can’t take him off yet. A first of many challenges as a parent, I’m sure - but I wasn’t expected it so soon.

ETA: Please, no advice about Jaundice - I’ve talked and read it to death, and at this point just want to focus on talking with our pediatrician on what we need to do. Thanks.

Endings and Beginnings

Friday was my last day of work. Tomorrow I start student teaching, a.k.a. road to completing my degree and jump-starting my new career path. Leaving my job after 3 years was such a strange and surreal thing, and I’m still processing it. Among the many conversations between E. and I about it this weekend, she said, “Well, now it will be SO MUCH EASIER to answer people when they ask what you do!” To which I responded, “well, not really until I get my first teaching job.” E. said, “Well, you are student teaching and a grad student!” Oh ya. People ACTUALLY go to school full-time and that’s just what they do. Not thrown in there in the margins of working full-time. I forgot about that.

Just when I think baby-nesting has commenced in our house, more projects emerge. E. is little-miss-Susie-sewer and is working on creating our own handmade burp cloths (oh, why don’t we just call them puke rags like they really are?) and wipes. I never thought I’d have homemade baby wipes, and if it wasn’t for E.’s patience and determination with a sewing machine I don’t think I would! Co-sleeper is attached to the bed. Bassinett has been brought downstairs to the living room. Today I flipped through the (”alternative families”) baby book and re-arranged and took out unnecessary pages (no need for the “my egg donor” page). The bottom drawer in the kitchen whose handle fell off a long time ago and left hazardous screws sticking out has been fixed. Seriously - this baby NEEDS TO SHOW UP ALREADY so I have some distractions from all this DAMN WORK!!

Anytime, Moon. Anytime…

My Year of No Life/Full Life

2007. What a year. So many milestones, transitions, and multiple count-downs. But damn, I’m glad it’s over.

I started the year calling it my “year of no life,” as I signed up for full-time graduate school, attending 4 classes at a time on nights and weekends. It was a bit much at times, but I soon learned that I found THE BEST GRADUATE DEGREE ON EARTH, because, well, it wasn’t really that much work! (which led me to do some double-checking as to its credibility, which all checked out ok, but this recent scandal doesn’t help its reputation much). So I plowed through the excruciatingly boring and annoying 4-hour classes, and actually learned some things about teaching. All in all, it’s exactly what I wanted (thanks to E. who discovered the program!)

Career-wise, I spent the year knowing I would be leaving at the end, which is a really interesting mindset in which to go to work every day (and perhaps the longest notice I could give an employer!). I took that time to fully appreciate what I liked about this job in my 3 years here, and also solidified why I’m switching gears to go into teaching. Being able to volunteer regularly at an after-school program was such a blessing - to be able to connect with students and form a relationship with local schools.

I had the wonderful milestone of my 10-year high school reunion, and took a solo trip to my hometown to see close friends as well as classmates I hadn’t seen in the full 10 years. It was an amazing experience to re-connect with these people who shared a great 4 years together (we have some intense school pride), and it felt really cool in a growing-up-come-full-circle kinda way.

Then came the news in May that forever changed our lives, that our 2+ years of trying for project baby ACTUALLY WORKED. I think I was in shock for the first few months, and then I let it sink in how extremely happy I was to finally create our family. It also started to sink in how much our lives are about to change, and leaving 2007 means leaving the “just the 2 of us” portion of our lives together (6 years). It’s a big change, but one we are both so ready for, and going into it we know our incredible bond will get us through all the midnight crying, the dirty diapers, and the years of watching in awe as our child grows up into his/her own person.

Perhaps because of all these huge life changes, I also spent some introspective time thinking more about community, connecting and giving to others, and my own spirituality. This is still in process, of course, but one thing I discovered is a deep connection to a church on the Cape where we’ll be moving next June, which seems like it will be a starting point for all three needs.

Moving! Right! 2007 also brought with it the BIG DECISION to move closer to E.’s family, perhaps the first decision in my life which feels completely grounded in this visceral need to be connected to family and to provide that for our child(ren). In other words, I feel SO FREAK’IN GROWN UP. And that is a WHOLE LOT about what 2007 meant for me. BIG transitions, BIG decisions, and BIG growth.

There was a year that E. and I coin the “nothing” year. When we count back to try to remember something and we hit this year (2002), our minds just go blank. We figured out it’s because in that year we didn’t move, switch jobs, or make any BIG decisions. We just were. Day in, day out, just lived. I’m sure that 2007 will be just the opposite, a very BIG year that laid the groundwork for the whopper 2008 promises to be, what with arrival of BABY, the BIG MOVE, and work transitions abound.

Bring it on.

Wishing you new inspiration, hope and promise of a fantastic new year.

Baby Drunk

I don’t usually pull from my personal journaling for inspiration here, but this morning I woke up and wrote this, and thought it made sense to share here:

I feel utterly drunk with longing for our baby to be here.  I wake up early, and even though I’d love to drift back into peaceful sleep, my mind starts to wander into babyland and before I can stop it I’m picturing scenes like movie previews: Moon here, sleeping beside our bed, being breast-fed, changing her, clothing her, spending hours watching him sleep, which is all I feel like doing right now.  When the previews end, the main feature starts, and I plan our the day’s baby progress like I’m about to hop on a plane to Aruba - we’ll install the car seats - hooray!  we’ll tour the birthing center - finally! we’ll wash loads and loads of baby clothes, sheets and blankets - endless joy! How can I sleep when such excitement awaits me?

Drunk is exactly the word to describe this feeling, both because I never want it to end and I’m praying there’s no hangover.  This excitement and anticipation can’t last - surely I’ll stop springing out of bed once midnight feedings, changings and cryings begin.  But I do have this great sense that a very real and permanent excitement and joy is beginning and won’t stop ever - I’m becoming a parent.  I might not spring out of bed, ecstatic to be awake at 3:00am for the 3rd night in a row, but I’ll be getting out of bed to see her. him. our child. my baby.  In just a few short weeks I’ll be a mother - and from that day forward I’ll wake  up a mother - and have my heart walking (or crawling) around outside of me, as they say.  This is the intense joy and quiet wonder I’m surrounded with each morning I wake up, and several times throughout the day.  With it I skip to the car to install the seats, I smile as I fold what seems like the 60th onesie, I stay up later than I should, body hurting, to piece together the crib, the bassinet, or just touch the baby books, the toys, the bottles.  I want to lie down in a pool of all things baby - all of these objects our child will touch - will need - so very soon.

I place my hands on E’s belly and feel the strong and massive movements, kicks, hiccups.  I bend down and talk directly to him with my baby voice - and when I place my lips on her skin to plant a kiss - I feel I’m kissing my child - our child.  I breathe in while I’m there and swear I smell that baby smell - so unmistakably sweet and wonderful.  My baby.  Our baby.  Coming soon.  Coming finally.

Goodbyes

Today was my last day at the after school program I’ve been volunteering at once a week for a year.  I am glad to be moving onto student teaching, but am really sad that I won’t see these kids every week.  It couldn’t have been a better, more well-rounded day.  I helped one of my favorite kids with her homework - ah, rules of phonics, how I love thee.  I played games with a few other kids, realizing Connect Four is much more involved than it appears on the surface.  I even got to apply a band-aid to the finger of perhaps the cutest kindergartener I’ve ever met, who got a paper cut and was trying to decide how much of a big deal it was to her.  I think I prefer teaching the older kids, but I do love the moments where I can play “mom” to the young’ins.  SO. DAMN. CUTE.

A third grade girl who I don’t interact with much made me a card saying goodbye.  When the director of the program told her I would become a mom soon, and I followed up with “my wife is going to have a baby,” I watched as the wheels in her little brain strained to comprehend exactly what that meant.  Hey - at 8 years old I would have a hard time with that riddle!  This has happened several times at the program, and I think I’m getting better at anticipating their confusion and disbelief that this person who just played a round of “Go Fish” with them is married to a woman.   It shakes up their assumptions and possibly everything they thought they knew about the order of things, but I guess that’s what we all do when we really get to know each other.  I’ve found that kids understand it all the best.

Stillness

I love the stillness in the air before a snowstorm.  It happened today, and I happily watched as the first few flakes came floating down.  The college closed at noon, and it’s snowing heavily now.  I’m in my own little stillness before the storm.  E. is napping, and I’m sitting cozily and going through all our baby clothes, removing tags and washing them.  I’m trying to picture our little one, our Moon, inside each one.  I have definitely entered a new phase of grasping how soon our Moon will be with us.

Yae for two other moms who’s little one just arrived.