There is nothing quite like breastfeeding to make a new mom feel like a complete failure at the most important job she will ever have. Scratch that. There is something else: a lactation consultant.
Now before anyone objects, let me say I am perfectly aware that nurturing and helpful lactation consultants exist and are likely the norm. I was lucky to have a good one after the birth of my first child. Unfortunately, despite all the help and understanding she provided, I struggled with little success to breastfeed my daughter. After latching problems, unsuccessful pumping sessions, a painful bout of thrush, and many tears, I gave up after a month. And man, did I feel the guilt. Hence my statement, “There is nothing quite like breastfeeding to make a new mom feel like a complete failure at the most important job she will ever have.” But guess what? Continue reading “The Lactation Consultant from the Black Lagoon”→
If you were to ever secretly record me watching television, you’d see a lot of this:
I am a crier. Just a few days ago, I found myself crying at that State Farm commercial where the guy keeps saying he’s never going to do something (get married, have kids, drive a minivan…), then it cuts to a shot of him on the couch with his sleeping wife and two kids saying, “I’m never letting go.” Those four words crawled right out of the television, down my throat, and wrestled themselves into nice fat lump for me to get all choked up on. That’s right, people. I cried at a STATE FARM COMMERCIAL. You can add that to the very long list of culprits which have made me weepy, including standing ovations, wedding toasts, the song “Gracie” by Ben Folds, cute old men doing just about anything, and the graduation episode of Saved By the Bell. (Damn you, Mr. Belding! I always knew you loved Zack best.) Continue reading “Compassion Is In the Details: #1000Speak”→
Perhaps the hardest part of parenting is figuring out how to ensure your children don’t grow up to be a-holes. Finding a hiding place to scarf down a bag of Cheetos before they sniff you out and ask you to share is a close second, but I digress. In our house, we follow the very simple yet effective motto of “don’t be a jackleg,” born from my father’s term for various plagues on society. We like to point out jackleg moves, then tell the kids to do the opposite: See that lady texting and driving? She’s a jackleg. If you ever do that, you’ll be a big fat jackleg. Don’t do that. So far, it has provided them with a pretty solid set of parameters for how not to act. But I worry we focus on the negative a little too much. My discipline repertoire could really use some positive reinforcement and a model my kids can strive to be, not avoid.
I spent most of yesterday in an urgent care facility. I had a little bit of a scare, but long story short, all is well. It’s amazing where your mind can go when the small possibility of something horrible is put in front of you. Thankfully, I only had to go there in my mind and not in real life, but I did learn my lesson about taking it a bit easier on myself…which I have not been doing for a few months now. Ya’ll can break out your tiny violins.
So after getting home, instead of sitting down to my computer to hash out a new and entertaining post for this blog, I climbed into my bed, watched my DVR’ed episode of The Walking Dead, and was asleep by 9:30. It was glorious, on all fronts. I am feeling much better now, which is more than I can say for Grimes & Gang in Zombieville.
Since the beginning of January, I have been touring elementary schools, reading Absolute Mayhem to the students. Guys, if I thought I loved being a children’s author before, these visits have made me 100% certain this is exactly the path I should be traveling. Interacting with the kids, listening to them laugh at all the right places, answering their hilarious and intelligent questions, and hearing what they love about the book is about as delicious as it gets. At one of the visits, a little girl raised her hand and said, “I want to be just like you when I grow up.” I can’t even. I mean, that phrase is usually said to, like, astronauts…and people who save puppies dressed in butterfly costumes from raging fires. She may not have said that if she knew behind my author/illustrator facade is just a mom who never buys the latest trends for her kids and is capable of taking away trick-or-treating on Halloween as a punishment.
Aside from getting a huge ego boost from these kids, I am genuinely moved when they display their approval for Absolute Mayhem. Parents say their children ask to read it over and over again, and some even “play” Lulu and Milo, acting out their adventures (I smell Queen Comma and Count Milo of Fractionville Halloween costumes). Continue reading “The Kids Have Spoken: #ilovemymayhem”→
There are many people in this world I have tried to emulate, but I never thought Dora the Explorer would be one of them. Yet, that is exactly who I am about to channel, at the risk of sending half of my readers running from their computers (because, duh, kids shows are annoying).
So you know how good old Dora is always asking your kids to help her get someplace like Carnival Town to deliver piñata cookies to the Big Red Chicken? And all along the way she wants your kids to count the hills they need to climb. Or yell “Swiper, no swiping!” to keep that sneaky fox from stealing Dora’s talking backpack, filled with random things that would never be useful on any normal voyage, but somehow get her out of the strangest of pickles? Well, according to Dora, she couldn’t complete any of those adventures without your kids. I usually call her bluff on that. Last time I checked, she still made it past that grumpy old troll even when my kids failed to count to five in Spanish. Continue reading “I Have Become Dora the Explorer: Help Me Please”→
Currently, I am doing some part-time substitute teaching in a preschool classroom, which is a fairly new experience for me. Though I was a teacher once upon a time, I worked with high school and middle school students. So we are talking about pretty much the entire opposite end of the spectrum here. I always used to think I didn’t I have the special kind of patience required to be a preschool teacher. Older kids don’t need the same type of refined discipline and meticulously crafted rules as the little guys. I mean, that attention to detail is exhausting.
Yet now that I find myself in a preschool class a few days a week, I will admit I’m kind of loving it. Maybe being a mother has imbibed me with those particular survival skills I didn’t have during my earlier teaching days. Or maybe the fact that I know this is a temporary gig makes it easier for me to be charmed by the preschool life…similar to the way people make the argument that being a grandparent is better than being a parent. You get to eventually give them back to the person who is actually responsible for them: their real preschool teacher. Continue reading “Five Reasons You Should Hug A Preschool Teacher”→
“It’s fine. You have to work…again. Maybe we’ll snuggle tomorrow.”
My daughter said it in a way that let me know it most certainly was not fine. For being only nine years old, she sure has mastered how to lay on the guilt in a flawlessly passive-aggressive way, without knowing what passive-aggressive even means.
In my defense, it was 9:30 on a Sunday night, a half hour past her bedtime, when she wanted me to snuggle with her. But I really needed to get a jump-start on the week. I had two freelance deadlines, an author visit to prepare for, a blog to write, Lulu & Milo coloring pages to illustrate, contacts to touch base with, pieces of prose to submit, letters to compose, a sales tax report to file, networking to do, excel spreadsheets to create, two days of substitute teaching, a basketball practice to plan, Girl Scout cookie-selling to oversee, snack supplies to buy and send to school, a birthday present to find, laundry to catch up on…
You get the idea. My life looks like that of millions of other mothers. But some of this is new to me. After being a stay-at-home mom for the last nine years, I’m back working full-time. The last time I did that, I was responsible for zero children. Just a dog. And the only time she made me feel guilty was when I was eating a spoonful of peanut butter in front of her.
I am not the only one who has felt the adjustments that have come with me financially contributing to the family again. My kids have noticed that, even though I am physically home when I work, I’m not as present as I used to be. I know it is partly because I’m still trying to find this little elusive thing called balance, which is exceptionally slippery when you never actually leave your office. My six-year-old son only seems to be bothered if I ask him to be quiet while I work or if I don’t make his chocolate milk as quickly as he would like. But my daughter is extremely sensitive to it.
And it’s hard.
It’s hard because, despite having a seemingly never-ending schedule, I am finally doing what I love. And…here’s the sweet, syrup-soaked cherry…I’m getting paid for it. While I really did enjoy being an English teacher prior to becoming a parent, it wasn’t my dream job. It was my most favorite attainable job. My if-I’m-really-honest-with-myself-I-want-to-be-a-writer-but-I’m-afraid-of-failure-and-I-think-I-could-make-a-damn-good-teacher job. And I wouldn’t trade being home with my kids these last nine years for anything, not even Sandra Boynton’s career. Because I adored it and all its clichéd glory. But now…now I am a writer. An author even. Guys, sometimes I just can’t even. I can’t.
Now I feel guilt and creeped out all at once.
But then I see my daughter’s mopey face when I tell her maybe I can paint her nails tomorrow. She looks like one of those damn sad babies in Renaissance paintings. And that just makes me feel accosted by every blog post I’ve ever read about making time for your kids. Next thing you know, my kids will start spending all their time at Lucy’s house. And when Lucy’s mom says they should check with me to see if it’s okay to stay for dinner, Grace will get all quiet and sulky and say, “Mom’s not around very much. She won’t even notice we’re not home.” And then Lucy’s mom will mentally adopt my kids right then and there and tell them they can eat as many homemade oatmeal butterscotch cookies they want, since they obviously haven’t had a decent meal in months. And they can come over whenever they want. She even has extra pajamas for them. Oh my, God! Just back off, Lucy’s mom! I’m right here! I only told her I couldn’t snuggle tonight! Ease up on the Angelina Jolie complex.
Um, where was I? Oh yeah…
But I DID make time for them…for nine years. And frankly, I’m still making time for them. I’m still the coach and the Girl Scout leader and the classroom volunteer and the chauffeur and the Full House watching buddy and the snuggler and the problem solver and the laundry do-er. Okay, maybe not that last one. I sucked at laundry before. Now I’m just abysmal.
Yet, those times don’t seem to matter when it’s the one time I am refusing to be there.
Working mothers are lauded for showing our children it’s not just men who can successfully handle a career and family.
Working mothers should be seen as examples of possibility. Then why does my child just see me as neglectful?
I know part of this simply stems from things being different from how they were before. Had I always been a working parent, she wouldn’t feel as if something was being stolen from her. Because she would never have had it in the first place. And this isn’t like when her little brother was born and I explained that my heart would simply expand to hold my love for him. He wasn’t going to take away any that already belonged to her. Me going back to work is going to take away time that once belonged to her. Because try as I might, Time is pretty much that pair of pre-baby jeans that just.won’t.zip, no matter how badly we want it. Something’s gotta give. And it ain’t gonna be the jeans.
What I’m hoping is that this is a case of the sting still being too fresh for her. I’m hoping she will come around. I’m hoping she will be proud of me. I take that back. I know she is proud of me. And she is extremely proud of my book.
But maybe one day she will realize that I wanted to be her mom AND a writer not because being her mom alone wasn’t enough…but because being her mom made me enough, so I could finally become a writer.
I guess I owe her a pretty big snuggle for that.
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I have heard that your level of happiness is directly correlated to how often you show gratitude. Well, I am bound and determined to start off 2015 happy. So much so that this very first post of the year is going to be slathered with gratitude.
I have much to be thankful for in this past year, but I’m guessing you don’t want to read a novella-length post in which I profess my appreciation for everything from Korean-Mexican fusion food to The Monkees finally playing a gig in St. Louis. So I am going to focus on the biggest thing to happen to me in 2014: the release of my first children’s book, Absolute Mayhem. (Sorry, Monkees. You were a big deal, too. Promise.)
I am still giddy over how well-received the book has been, even in its fledgling first month. And while it does feel like a huge payoff for me and all the work I put into it, an incredible and unexpected byproduct of the book’s success became Continue reading “The Gratitude Novella”→
Only hours remain of 2014. I for one, am sad to see it go. By in large, it treated me well. But it treated my blog even better.
Here is a quick look at the top ten posts of 2014 on Are You Finished Yet?…the ones that garnered the most views. A few are actually from earlier years. Some would say this means my writing has “staying power.” I say it mostly has to do with tagging them with keywords that land them in frequent and weird Google searches. Either way, it’s nice to see some of my favorites seem to have a pretty nice shelf life.
First, I want to give honorable mention to two posts that just missed the top ten, but rank pretty high on my personal list:
“Bad Catholic”(January 2014): You won’t see me talking about religion very often, so get it while it’s hot. This post really seemed to resonate with a lot of folks. So many in fact, I’m wondering if we should break off and start our own “Bad Catholic” sect. Just kidding. Please don’t brand me a heretic. Continue reading “Year in Review: Top Ten AYFY Posts of 2014”→
Are You Finished Yet? 