Bonding.

I lied after the boys were born. I remember my mother asking me one day in the NICU, whether I felt the circumstances of their birth were impacting my bond with them. "Of course not." I believed myself. I loved them, and that meant everything. I had my babies. We were all, ultimately, going to be okay.

It is entirely possible to be blind to things sitting right in front of your face. My first impressions of Rhys: I would have known he was my baby in a lineup of a million others. And I felt like he didn't need me. My 5lb, 2oz preemie just seemed so strong. So independent. I kept this thought to myself. And refused to consider what it might mean. My first impression of Quin? Hardly exists. I don't remember the first time I saw him. Or held him. I remember laying alone in recovery, and the NICU doctor coming to explain to me that Quin was experiencing respiratory distress syndrome. In a haze of postpartum hormones and god only knows what drugs from the delivery, I couldn't register the seriousness of the conversation. I wavered between feeling giggly and overly, confidently relaxed. It will be okay. It will alllllll be okay.

I know that I held them for the first time the next day. I don't remember it. I don't know who I held first or what I said or who was there. I don't know how long I was with them. I desperately wanted to try breastfeeding and somehow convinced the nurses to let me try. What I remember from that is trying to hide from all present the fact that I kept passing out, or falling asleep. Slipping away.

My intentions were so good. My desires were so grand. The next year, two years, perhaps, revolved around one thing and one thing only. Survival in the best way we knew how. There was no time to think. To reflect. To mourn.

It wasn't what it was supposed to be. It became its own, as life does. We went with it. We survived.

But somewhere, hidden below the surface, I fell further and further into the rabbit hole. Things don't just fall away. I never had a chance to grieve the lost first moments of motherhood. We were okay. I had no right to be anything but grateful.

I wish I had seen Quin's face. I wish I could write out the emotions of the first time I cradled them in my arms. I wish I could describe to you the lioness inside of me who awakened to fight til the death for my vulnerable newborns. I don't have any of that to share with you. I don't have any of that to savor for myself.

And that is why I broke.

But this is our journey. It is not what I'd dreamed about. Our beginning has fractures. Holes. Heartbreak. And grief. Oh the grief. But it is our shared history. I don't know why. But it is ours. My boys and I. We are strong. Resilient. Enduring in our love. Forgiving. Letting go. Our roots begin with the understanding that we don't get to choose how it will be. Only how we grow from it.

Beyond Attachment

When I was pregnant for the first time, I threw myself into preparing for motherhood. I researched gentle parenting techniques. Kyle and I prepared to rearrange our lives to accommodate and nurture our baby twins in the most loving way possible. I couldn't wait to change their tiny cloth diapers. I couldn't wait to snuggle them close to me in the Moby wrap. I felt peaceful in the idea that attachment parenting would provide us with the right tools to gently nurture our little family.

When the boys were born seven weeks early and whisked off to the NICU, our plans for the early days with our babies changed dramatically. Instead of taking a quiet few weeks together at home to bond, the boys were kept in plastic isolettes amidst the constantly chiming monitors. When I was discharged three days after my Cesarean, I was told to go home and visit the boys during the day, rather than staying with them in their room as I desperately wanted. Weak and overwhelmed, I agreed. I was petrified for my tiny babies alone in their fancy plastic bins. How would this time impact our bond?

Somehow, as time went on, in the blur of postpartum depression and sleep deprivation, I began to think of those first few weeks as my first transgression against attachment parenting. Every AP article I read talked about the shoulds and should nots. I should always respond to my babies' cries. Did they do that at 3 AM in the NICU? I should not allow my baby to spend hours a day laying alone in a plastic bin. Nothing addressed things not going according to plan. In whatever big or small way, I felt I had failed.

Fast forward several months. I persevered with attachment parenting, trying my best to live up to what were beginning to feel, at times, like pretty exacting standards. As time wore on, that early NICU experience started to feel like the first of many stumbling departures from AP. At nine months, there was sleep training - a desperate and heartbreaking solution to my extreme sleep deprivation from getting up to nurse the boys every two hours at night. Skip ahead a few more months. At some point I yelled for the first time. At some point, I swore. At some point, I tried time outs. In my head, all I could hear was "failure!" "Failure!" "Failure!"

Here's the thing. I think attachment parenting offers some wonderful tools. I believe the world would be a better place if more people adopted its principals. However.

I AM AN IMPERFECT HUMAN BEING. I am not always entirely zen. I am emotional, sensitive, and quick to react to my environment. No matter how hard I try, I can never be true to myself AND fit my circular body into a square shaped box. But it goes further than that, too.

I'm concerned about the ominously missing coverage of "what if" situations in AP literature. No parent is perfect all of the time. I'm wary of any parenting advice that quickly and harshly judges those who chose other paths, and I can't help but feel horrified by every AP article I've ever read that warns of the brain damage! and antisocial behaviors! suffered by non AP children.

As a feminist, I'm left feeling icky about the implications of AP on women. AP is child centered, but I'm not sure that it's family balanced. In college, I spent my senior year completing a capstone project on women and self-help culture. My overwhelming conclusion was that our society's plethora of self-help books and television, largely aimed at women, lead to the message that we're somehow not good enough as we are. Forget that we're all supposed to look like super models. We're also not centered enough on the inside. At some point, AP advice has started to feel the same way to me.  I need to be more patient. I need to do a better job of empathizing with my child. I need to be gentle and maintain my child's dignity when disciplining. If I do not do these things, I bear the weight of harming their very sense of self.

I offer these thoughts not to condemn AP or those who practice it. In most ways, I continue to parent in a very AP fashion. What I want is to be honest with myself about how and why I choose to parent. I want to challenge and examine it. AP is becoming increasingly popular. I suspect I'm not the only one who at times feels confused by a parenting style that centers around the gentle treatment of children yet leaves me feeling like my own sense of self has taken a beating. In the end, I pick and choose. More than anything, I strive to parent mindfully, in a way that is gentle for our entire family. As a mother, I know that I am not now and never will be perfect. I'm learning that this little fact isn't a failure on my part. In all reality, it's one of the best parts of this journey.

Honey and water

It has been so, so long since I've written about my kids. Truly written about them. I feel panicked when I realize this. All of these moments, all of this time that just keeps plowing forward...it baffles me and breaks my heart. I am so overwhelmed by the everything-ness of them. Watching them grow is like trying to cup water in my hands - no matter how tightly I press my fingers together, it somehow still slips through and falls away.

I am sometimes guilty of rushing bedtime for the boys. That last leg of the day before becoming an adult again, anxious to savor the indulgent few quiet hours where nobody is pulling on me or asking for juice, where Kyle and I hungrily soak up every luxurious moment of just being. I do love our evenings. But. Toddlers, teetering on the edge of sleep, slow down to the pace of honey rather than water. At bedtime I can't help but give them a hundred kisses, all over their still-round faces, their downy skin and deliciously fat cheeks, their soft jaws and little rubber noses.

The boys are not babies any more. They are tiny people as certain and forceful as the tides. They have gentle souls that pour out into everything they do and touch. They are the best of friends. I am endlessly amazed by the extent to which they are entirely individual in their beings. Rhys is independent, deeply sensitive, and has a remarkable assuredness. He becomes fully immersed in his play and his curiosity of the world, making his way through tasks at a pace he refuses to alter for any agenda other than his own. This is one of my favorite things about him. Getting him dressed or walking up a flight of stairs could easily take ten minutes. He is unapologetically true to himself. He has an incredible imagination and a deep, nurturing love for his toys and the stories he invents for them. Tonight, he is sleeping with a tiny rubber frog nestled into an egg carton. This is very typical. In the mornings, he crawls into bed with me and pushes his face against mine. "I wuv you mama. I wuv you the moon and stars."

Quin is funny, charming, and empathetic. He is boldly inquisitive and is the child who just last week, while in line at the fabric store, turned to me while pointing at the woman behind us to ask, "why she got purple hair?"  He loves music and dancing and piggy backs. His laugh is infectious and wild. He is a dutiful helper, and will often slip out the back door while telling me, "stay there. I be right back. I just getting a log for the fire." He'll then pull on Kyle's size 14 sandals and venture naked into the cold November air to pull a log half his size off  the wood pile. My efforts to stop this are entirely futile, so I've given up. I cannot keep clothes on him for more than twenty minutes at a time. His propensity for empathy and thoughtfulness are moving. Rhys was feeling sad at bedtime tonight. While I rubbed his back, Quin climbed out of bed but quickly returned, carrying a stuffed musical giraffe. He pulled the string. "I play music for Rhys," he explained, "and now he will not be sad."

Anwen's name means beautiful and pure; she is both of those things. She is an easy baby, full of joy and mischief. She loves her brothers and has every intention of keeping up with them. She has a head full of fuzzy wisps and big round eyes with heavy lashes and a beautifully bowed little mouth. Her birth and early infancy helped to bring me back from the trauma and sadness that surrounded the early days with the boys. She has renewed my faith in myself as a mother to a young infant by helping me to feel calm and confident, just as my pregnancy with her renewed my faith in my body's ability to nurture life. She is the answer to questions I hadn't yet acknowledged asking.

These first days since I've left my job have been bliss. The pace of our life has slowed to a crawl. I just feel happy. And peaceful. Incredibly, foolishly lucky. Every day. I feel like I'm looking at my children for the first time in months. I have nowhere to rush off to. No conference call. No email I need to get to. I'm just here. With them. I never expected motherhood to be a forceful lesson in mindfulness. It doesn't have to be. But what a tragedy to not allow it to be.

A postpartum montage of sexiness.

You're out in public, a few weeks after having your third baby in less than three years.  Feeling slightly exhausted, slightly frumpy, and just a teensy, weensy bit hormonal.  But you notice several passers-by checking out your robustly perky breasts, and for just a moment you mentally shout out "HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH!  YOU'VE STILL GOT IT, YOU SEXY BITCH!"

A moment later, you feel a sticky warmth against your belly.  You look down, only to be overtaken by the horrendous realization that while your cleavage might be swell, those passers-by were more likely checking out the massive and rapidly growing milk stains running down the front of your shirt and pooling attractively in your postpartum pooch.

***

Grocery store.  You've brought along your 16 year old mother's helper, because for the love of god, you learned your lesson the last time you tried to navigate the grocery store as the solo adult responsible for ensuring that nobody was left in the cereal aisle and now you're fairly certain that the store management is considering banning you for life.  So now you've brought reinforcements, and the travelling shit-show circus you run with has made it into the produce aisle.  You have two overflowing carts and the kale keeps falling on the floor and suddenly you've got company in the form of a creepishly swanky thirty-something.  He circles, and then circles again, and just as you're about to let loose on him a small tirade to the likes of FOR GOODNESS SAKE HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO WAVE MY WEDDING BAND IN YOUR FACE YOU CREEPY PRICK...you're saved by the realization that the wagon he's circling belongs not to you, but to the sitter.  And then he's asking her out in an eerily "To Catch a Predator" sort of way, and you casually fluff your sensibly short mom-hair and shoot him a look that he TOTALLY will know means, "I FIT THIS ASS INTO SIZE FOUR JEANS THIS MORNING AFTER KNOCKING OUT A BABY SEVEN WEEKS AGO, YOU SICK PEDOPHILE."

***

So you decide that an upcoming wedding will be your chance to get your swagger back.  You order a flirty little number online and buy some killer heels.  You buy spanx.  Gulp.  Cringe.  Spanx.

You try it all on.  You smile.  Hoooooooo yeah.

You slink down the hall to the kitchen to show your husband.  You spin around and ask, totally casually, "do you think this outfit will be okay for the wedding?"

You await and envision his response.  "WOW."  "You're stunning."  "HEY SEXY MAMA!"  "HOOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH!"

He cocks his head to the side.  "Yeah.  That should work."  He turns back around to the sink.  

He will spend the next six weeks wondering why the OB suddenly "called" to advise that things are not healing well from the birth and will probably take at least another month or two.

***

You develop a new mantra, to cover all your bases:

I will embrace my maternal womanhood!  Hoooooo yeah!

I will age gracefully and no matter how tempting, I will not bleach my hair, tuck my tummy, or resort to pink lip gloss!  Hooooooooo yeah!

I will have my ass inappropriately pinched by a stranger at least once more in my life, even if I have to pay somebody to do it!  Hooooooooo yeah!

I will not say "Hoooooooooooooooo yeah!" out loud even though I use it in my writing to emphasize points, because it makes me sound like I'm seventy!  Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo yeah!

30 weeks

I don't want another c-section.

Early in this pregnancy, we decided we'd go for the birth we'd hoped for with Rhys and Quin but weren't able to achieve; first because of the twin pregnancy and then later because of the unexpected placental abruption which led to their early emergency arrival at 33 weeks.  We decided that this time, we'd go for a VBAC in a freestanding (non-hospital affiliated) birthing center.

It felt so right.  I immediately began thinking about whether I'd want to bring patchouli candles to create my birthing ambiance, or whether lavender would win out.

Our ability to move forward with the VBAC as planned was contingent upon my placenta being in the right place during our OB consult and ultrasound after we hit the 20 week mark.  At 23 weeks we went in, nervous and excited to get the go-ahead for moving forward.

First we had the ultrasound.  Learned we are having a girl.  Learned that placenta-wise, all was as it should be.  Placenta far away from my Cesarean scar, far away from the cervix.

Next was the OB consult.  We went in, giddy about our girl, giddy about our green light.  The OB talked to us about the risks of VBAC.  She talked to us about  Rhys and Quin's birth.  She mentioned that although the placental abruption probably would not recur, if it did, being so far from a hospital, our baby could die.  I could die.

Suddenly, I was back at the hospital the night Rhys and Quin were born.  Laying on the bed and bleeding, waiting for the ultrasound, waiting for them to tell me my babies were dead.  I was on the operating table as they pulled my babies from my body and whisked them away.  I was in recovery, confused and cold and shaking, wondering if we'd all survive.

And then  I was back in the OB consult, sitting next to Kyle and nodding at the doctor's blurred words.  I knew I wasn't going to be bringing patchouli candles or lavender candles or anything else with a flame to this baby's birth.  In one startling second, the idea of a birthing center birth went from being exactly what I wanted to something I knew I'd never have.

The next day I transferred my care to a group of midwives who deliver at a local hospital with a decent VBAC rate, and began attempting to stem the flow of fear that suddenly gushed from every molecule of my being.

What if she's born too early?  What if I can't conquer my fears enough to let go in labor and VBAC successfully?  What if IT happens again?  What if IT happens again and I'm at home alone with the boys??????

I'm scared.

And I'm angry.

I'm angry at the doctor who was on call the night Rhys and Quin were born.  That doctor, who for whatever reason, knowing I lived 30+ minutes from the hospital, told me I probably had a kidney stone when I called an hour before my water broke complaining of terrible back pain and cramping.  Suggested I push fluids...at 33 weeks pregnant with twins, after a positive fetal fibronectin test, several hospital visits to stop my pre-term labor, and a steroid shot that morning to develop the babies' little lungs.  A kidney stone.  That same doctor who didn't call me back for over ten minutes when I called the emergency on-call service to say my water had broken and I was gushing blood all over my living room floor.  That same doctor, who responded to my report of blood by saying, "it's normal.  Put on a pad and come to the hospital" and then adding a cheerful, "congratulations, your babies are going to be born tonight!"  

I'm angry that my trauma over the babies' birth is still there.  That I'm scared shitless.  That I didn't need to go through some of the trauma.  That the doctor could have said, "why don't you come on in" when I called the first time, and should have said, "get here NOW" when I called the second.

But it is what it is.

I have ten more weeks to go.  Ten weeks to get to an okay place.

I've made progress since our consult.  We've hired a doula.  I talk a lot to our midwife.  I'm reading and re-reading Birthing From Within.  I'm working and trying and processing.

I've accepted that this is the next leg of my journey.

It will be what it will be.  In the end, I get to determine what it becomes.

Blood Work

Sweet baby.
Today you needed some blood drawn.

First we went to the grocery store
where I bought you a balloon
because you were happy
and I felt ashamed that this world can be too harsh

Get Well Soon!
Scrawled across silver mylar
and I wish that towards the world

where you will be subjected to life
the difficult things we have to choose
needles
and the difficult things we never would
heartbreak

I couldn't bear to go into that tiny lab room with you
so your Papa held you on his lap

your brother and I distracting ourselves in the waiting room
until my guilt made me pass by the window

your tiny scared face
rightfully angry
hot tears and sweat

When Papa carried you out
the world could have split
you on one side
I on the other

and nothing
nothing
would have kept me
from pulling you into my arms
safe.

I'm so sorry that I cannot promise
smooth sailing from here

and even sorrier that I can promise
rocky seas will come

but that is life
and we're building you a strong ship.

Tonight we put you to bed
and at first you were happy

but then the tears swelled
a deep cry
and I couldn't stop imagining you
afraid of that needle

I went and first I held you
swaying
and then I put you back to bed
leaning into your crib
rubbing your back
and then my hand still
feeling your tiny breath

Twice I tried to take my hand away
your wide eyes found me
and back it went
until you made it safely to sleep

The trick, I think
is keeping that hand there
gently on your back

even once I've left the room.

Tubbies

I learned pride tonight
here when I thought I knew it all along

but that on the face of my baby son
blowing bubbles in the bath water

half the time taking accidental gulps

all for my applause -

unabashed wild smile
and a sparkle in his eye

I want him to always be this free
and acutely unaware

my torn open heart again and again

be careful, so careful.

These are beautiful tiny humans and all that that entails.

Picking raspberries at the well.

Had I known
that one year olds can pick their own raspberries
reaching out with fat sticky fingers
joyful and sure

had I known the caution-less bliss
no bug checks
just raspberry to mouth
again and again

and had I known
I mean really known

sweet raspberry pulp
smeared haphazardly on baby fat chins

I wouldn't have chosen writing as my outlet

but photography to catch

that.

But then I realize no still camera could capture
the sun's dance in pixie wisps
the way it really is

and so maybe cinematography
until I realize no lens at all
can appreciate
that the wind is better when it's laced with
belly laughs
and chatter untainted by a good grasp of language.

So I'm back to words
and feel like I can't get enough air

until the right word is found

time is slipping away
this will pass
before I've captured it right
and before I'm ready to let it go

presence
beauty
innocence
mine
real
love

and still nothing feels big enough
right enough
or true enough.

Not disillusioned by art
but humbled by life.

Shhhh. Just don't tell Perez.

Around the time that Rhys and Quin were conceived, Matt Damon and I had a very short-lived but passionate affair.

Kyle knows. He's okay with it.

Matt's one of my celebrity freebies.

What? You don't have a list of celebrity freebies? You're hardly living.

Anyway, I definitely probably would never make something like this up.

I especially wouldn't be so crass as to suggest that one of my children is Matt Damon's illegitimate love child.

.

Okay.  Maybe I definitely am exactly that crass.

(Thanks Kevin and Jill for the photographic evidence.)

I don't post as much these days. I'm busy.

privacy

Using the facilities used to be a private matter in our house.

I liked that privacy.

There was a time in life when I would have assured you that there was nothing, nothing, that would ever cause me to let go of that privacy.

Enter Rhys and Quin.  Both literally and figuratively.  Into the bathroom.  Where I am.

They stagger in teetering like dizzy drunks with big toothy smiles and triumphantly signing, over and over again, POTTY!  POTTY!  POTTY!

I am SO glad we taught them to sign, so that in situations like this when I think that perhaps my dignity is still fully intact because after all, they are so young and still in diapers thus they do not use the POTTY - I can learn that in fact, my dignity is in shreds.  Yes.  Mommy is on the potty.

And I'll be damned if I know what to do while I'm sitting there, otherwise indisposed, and one of them falls and bumps his head on a corner and is now crying to be picked up.  Now mommy is on the potty and Quin is on her lap.

At which time it is only fair that Rhys discovers toilet paper.  And this toddler who is still learning coordination somehow manages to unravel the entire roll onto the floor before I've even figured out how to reach an arm out in a weak attempt to stop him.  Now mommy is on the potty and Quin is on her lap and Rhys is on the floor in a pile of toilet paper that mommy needs and cannot reach.

I've changed my mantra.

It now goes like this.


Privacy is overrated.  Privacy is overrated.  Privacy is overrated.  Privacy is overrated.  Privacy is overrated. I bet Kyle is pooping in peace at work.  Privacy is overrated.  Privacy is overrated.  Would anyone find out if I started stashing a bottle of vodka in here? Privacy is overrated.  Privacy is overrated.  Privacy is overrated.  Privacy is overrated.  Privacy is overrated.

It's nice to meet you!

I've fallen into the unfortunate habit of over-sharing the mundane details of our adventures in erranding, especially trips to the grocery store.

I'm sorry.  

I'm even more sorry that I have no real plans to stop.  

I tell myself, "okay.  Okay.  That's enough for a while," but then we go to the grocery store and while I'm wearing Quin on my front, he discovers the wonderful world of (and do excuse the lack of sophistication in the following term) motorboating.  Not the water sport, friends.  The face-in-cleavage kind.  With loud and exuberant sound effects.  And I'm pushing Rhys in the cart and he and I are shaking hands non-stop while I say emphatically, over and over again, "It's nice to meet you!" because that's our grocery store game and he finds it hilarious and it keeps him from jumping ship and escaping to the banana display.  And then Quin decides that motorboating is significantly more fun if he grabs onto my ears and pulls outward, so now we're really attracting attention as I push our cart with one hand trying to avoid a collision while one child practices manners, the other practices a total lack thereof, and my ears are stretched beyond the realms of normalcy and any pretense of comfort.  And as all this is happening, I'm thinking how I really need to do a post on this because I have no self control and I cannot stop.  

And so I'm sorry.

Growth

That song came on the radio

drumming through my veins
when I was younger I'd hear it and feel sexy
wild
alive

and today you heard it
you grinned with all four teeth
and bounced on chubby legs

I scooped you up
a baby on each hip

we danced in the kitchen
in front of the dirty dishes
I was supposed to be washing

spinning and twirling and bouncing and dipping

you threw your head back and laughed
and held on tight

I try to be more awake
understanding that some day
you will love to hear this story

and then some day you won't

your chore will be to wash the dishes
and you won't want to dance with me instead.

Bananas.

The babies are on a strike.  Actually, one baby is on a strike, the other crosses the picket line daily.

Babies, I have found, are fond of exercising their right to strike, especially when unionized as in the case of any and all sets of multiples.  In the past fifteen months, we've had nap strikes, poop strikes, nighttime-sleep strikes, walking strikes, and independent-play strikes.

As a member of executive management on this parental team, I've become a master at negotiating peaceful resolutions, which might come in handy right about now, since our latest strike is a biggie: food strike.

While Quin eats every last bite of food that crosses his path, Rhys has become quite exacting in his food standards.  Slowly, he has whittled his formerly diverse diet down to one favored food - banana.  All other foods are meticulously cast over the edge of his highchair tray and onto the floor, where at the conclusion of every meal, Quin and Bella hover, sharing delectable discarded morsels.

It's been a steady and slippery slope.  First he (Rhys) cut out egg - one of his favorite foods, second only to the wondrous banana.  Then it was toast.  Then oatmeal.  And so on.  If I am crafty and incredibly casual, sometimes I will have a short-lived bout of success at breaking his strict "bananas only" rule.  He'll nibble my toast, or have a bite of melon.  Before I even get my hopes up, he is puckering his face and dramatically wiping his tongue off with his pudgy hand.  I find myself wondering if humans can live on a diet comprised almost solely of bananas.    I find myself feeling more thankful than ever that he is still nursing.  I find myself wondering how many bananas it will take to push us back into poop-strike territory.

And here's the big deal: I'm not worried.  

Strike negotiations haven't commenced.  He wins.  

Don't get me wrong - I have certainly noticed  this new trend.  I've talked about it with other parents.  And here I am writing about it. 

But I haven't run to the internet, or one of the several options in my vast baby book library, to get advice.  I know it is a phase.  I get it.  I know it will pass.

If I didn't know any better, I might even say I'm relaxed.

Break out the red pens and fill in my report card, please.  The comments section will now read: "is a relaxed and confident mother." 

***

Okay.  So maybe we happen to have our fifteen month well-baby visit this Thursday.  So what if the banana-issue is at the top of my painfully long list of questions for the pediatrician.   I want my damn gold star.  

Ever found yourself screaming, "It's f@#^ing SLEEPY TIME!" at 3am? Well, mama, this post is for you.

There were a few times in college where I remember dramatically labeling myself "sleep deprived."  Doing so was kind of sexy.  Getting up and dragging oneself to class with tousled hair and last night's eye makeup smeared all over the left facial region said "I consider myself quite busy and important...too much so to shower before class.  Aren't I mysterious?"  Or something like that.  Young Hollywood seems to think itself chronically sleep deprived, with their ever-so-posh hospitalizations for "exhaustion."  

I have come to feel a bit territorial over the terms "sleep deprived" and "exhaustion."  Mothers are sleep deprived.  Every one else is just whiny.  (Disclaimer: My three-day sleep total = under twelve hours.  I am not rational, kind, or understanding at this moment.  Prepare to be offended.  Prepare to be horrified.  Just don't say I didn't warn you.)

Because our nation clearly has an issue tossing around the terms "sleep deprivation" and "exhaustion" like candy at a parade, let me attempt to set some new parameters to the concept.  If you cannot relate to the following incidents,  congratulations, you are NOT sleep deprived.  If you can, it's official.  You are sleep deprived.  Welcome to the club, sister.

You are definitely sleep deprived if...

• You are writing/reading this post while eating an entire batch of buttercream frosting with a spoon.  Caffeine is too obvious and reeks of trying to hard.
• Within the last week, you've turned to your husband at 4am and hissed, "I am going into the fucking kitchen to grab a fucking frying pan to fucking smash my fucking face in because I CANNOT fucking take any fucking more of this and I am so. fucking. tired." and he just rolled over and went back to sleep without saying a word because it's the third time you've threatened tonight and so far you seem to be making hollow threats.
• You've zoned out for A TEENSY SECOND in the grocery store and upon zoning back in you find your fifteen month old standing up on the seat of the cart leaning into the back to pop open a beer.
• In a desperate attempt to keep from becoming one of those mothers who yells, you've taken to loudly reciting children's books and songs when you've had it up to here: "I SAID A BOOM-CHICK-A-BOOM!  I SAID A BOOM-CHICK-A-BOOM!  I SAID A BOOM-CHICK-A-ROCKA-CHICK-A-ROCKA-CHICKA-BOOM!  Your children are terrified when you start to sing.
• You've screamed, "it's FUCKING sleepy time!" at 3am and wondered who the crazy screaming woman is and how she got into your bed.
• Yesterday you fell asleep laying in the middle of the living room floor with your fifteen month old twins playing loudly right next to you.  You woke up to find three sticky fingers in your nose, a thumb in your ear, and two smooshed noses pressed against your forehead.  
• You've run out of diapers but because you are too tired to go to the store, you pray that nobody will poop.  Of course somebody poops, at which time you are faced with either fashioning a diaper out of duct tape and paper towels or opening the diaper, removing the poop, and re-applying the diaper like it never happened.  Since this is purely a hypothetical situation, we do not need to get into discussing the choice that was made.

I think you get the gist here.  Of course, do keep in mind that, as stated above, these are all purely hypothetical situations which probably definitely NEVER HAPPENED in my house.  But if they happened to you, I think you should know that you are probably definitely not alone.  Wink wink.  

Okay, so it's not sexy.

When Rhys and Quin first came home from the hospital, I was terrified to take them in the car.  It felt crazy to take those tiny five pound babies and casually buckle them into their car seats...my every purpose in life cruising along, listening to Rusted Root, facing backward and rendering me blind to their well-being in my own necessary forward facing.  I've never had those baby mirrors that let you keep an eye out because I've read that they can become dangerous projectiles in an accident.  Over time, I got accustomed to driving on high alert - the tiniest peep, burp, or cough would raise every hair on my body as I tuned in to decide whether it was a "normal" baby noise or a SOMETHING IS WRONG baby noise.  I was counting down the days until they would reach the necessary twenty pounds and one year old so that I could turn them around to face front.  The idea of us all facing forward just seemed so right - I would look in the rear view mirror and see their smiling faces, munching on crackers or sleeping in a warm haze.

Then I heard about Extended Rear Facing.  I've got to be honest, I think it sounds like something that might happen on a crazy Saturday night after a few tequila shots too many.  But really, it's disappointingly pure, and even more disappointing to my forward looking self, it is S-A-F-E-R in a very well documented statistical sense.  

If you haven't heard of ERF - it is simply keeping your baby/toddler in a rear-facing car seat past the twenty-pound, one year guideline.  The American Academy of Pediatrics thinks it's a good idea, as does the entire country of Sweden, where children stay rear facing until as old as five and where, during the period of 1992-1997, only nine children who were properly restrained in rear facing car seats died in motor vehicle crashes.  When you consider that car accidents are the number one cause of death for US children, that's a pretty remarkable statistic.  In fact, all of the statistics are remarkable, but don't take my word for it:

• American Academy of Pediatrics Guidelines (See Seat Selection Topic #1)
• MSNBC: Toddlers Should Face the Rear Longer
• Rear-Facing Car Seats: What You Need to Know, by Kathleen Weber
• SafetyBeltSafe Technical Information (Scroll down to the section on Rear-facing vs. forward-facing)
• SafetyBeltSafe: Why must babies under one year of age ride facing the back of the car? (PDF)
• CPSafety: Rear-Facing, Unmatched Safety
• Diaper Pin: Is Your Baby Ready to Face Forward in the Car
• An impressive account of ERF in a rear-end collision

My little bubble of longed-for forward facing has been burst.  Rhys and Quin are both over the age of one and are both over 20 pounds.  They ride facing back, and they will continue to do so until they outgrow the guidelines for their car seats, which will be 33 pounds.  When I tell people this who are not familiar with ERF, they automatically ask where their legs go, and I myself asked the same question when I first heard about the concept.  Right now, they're still short enough that their feet barely come to the edge of their car seats.  Their legs are a little bit bent, but I doubt they'd ride with their knees locked and their legs out like dolls if they had the option. As they get older, they'll cross their legs, bend them more, or prop them up on the back seat.  Most kids prefer to bend and flex - do a Google search for images of ERF and you'll see lots of happy toddlers safely facing back and making it work. 

I had hoped to make this post at least slightly sexy or mildly interesting.  Alas, just as Extended Rear Facing turns out not to live up to its kinky-name potential (really...I can't be the only one who sees it!?), this post probably isn't going to make it onto anyone's Facebook status.  That's okay.  Just consider ERF and pass it on.

Skunky.

Friends, I've gone over to the dark side.

The.

Dark.


Side.

I've given up cloth diapers.

(Short moment of silence whilst I hang my head in shame and defeat.  Please feel free to use this time to point, laugh, judge, and scoff.  Better yet, if you know me in "real" life, DO remember that it was I, who only a month ago, was enthusiastically detailing my LOVE for cloth and attempting to make you feel like a miserable failure at life for your unwillingness to save the earth and your precious baby's tiny bum from the known and even worse, unknown evils of disposable diapers.  That was me.  I'm an asshole.  Can we move on now, please?)

The tagline for my blog is "mastering the universe, one cloth diaper at a time."  Dammit.  Somehow, "mastering the universe, one chlorine-laden diaper at a time" just doesn't have the same ring.

(I'm not really sure that I'm going to use chlorine-laden diapers, but the dramatic effect of toying with the idea is one I can't pass up.  Truth is, I spent all of my precious-few research-ready brain cells figuring out the PERFECT cloth diapering system, and since that has failed me, I find myself in Target feeling like Alice in Wonderland and staring hopelessly at piles and piles of shiny plastic packages covered in adorably swaddled baby bums knowing not what to do.)

Going through infertility, I had these symbols of motherhood in my head, things I needed to experience to make this life a full one: baby wearing (check), breastfeeding (check), cloth diapering (check)...

I had not planned to give up cloth until the babies were successfully destroying Cheerios with streams of urine in the big-boy potty.  But then our diapers got skunky.

I tried stripping them.  Spent a week with the babies in disposables running back and forth to the washer every hour to set another hot water rinse.  I tried Dawn.  I tried Bac-Out.  I tried leaving them in the sun for three days.  I tried Borax, bleach, washing soda, new detergent, no detergent, a wet pail, a dry pail, and standing on my head in front of the washing machine chanting ancient diaper-cleansing chants.

And finally, they were clean.

Relief.

I transitioned the babies out of disposables and back into cloth.  We went through our full supply, and I washed them using my new sure-fire method.  The next morning, I brought the babies into our room to nurse. I lay in bed with them, thinking about the day, and smelling...something.  I nudged Kyle.  "Our house was sprayed by a skunk.  Do you smell that?"  He hadn't even opened his eyes before I realized my mistake.  I looked down at my two sweet babies in their adorably massive cloth diapers.  Damn.

I've recently decided to test my limits and sanity by taking on some new projects around the house.  In an insane moment of overestimating the hours in any given day, I gave up buying cereal, cookies, hummus, bread, and yogurt to make my own healthier, cheaper, organic versions.  Add to that, I've been making the babies food from scratch all along, which isn't difficult or incredibly time consuming.  It is, however, something that is not particularly optional.  "Sorry guys.  Mommy didn't make any steel cut oats today.  Would you rather have a beer?"  I've started a garden.   Blah, blah, blah.  I'm busy, and I take on too much.  And I usually balance "too much" just fine, because I don't usually mind teetering on the steep edge of total insanity.

But I'm a smell person.  A laundry person.  I don't like skunky.

So last week, in a crazy and wild moment of letting something go, I gave up on cloth.

Because washing each load of diapers six times in scalding hot water is at best questionable in environmental-friendliness.

Because I don't have time any more.

Because I'm not a martyr, and I'm not perfect, and I'm working on being softer with myself.

Farewell, cloth.

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you a terrifically large and hysterical panic attack.

As a responsible and duly prepared parent, I've been readying myself for toddler-hood.  

In my head it goes something like this: 

As we ease into their second year of life, the babies will have learned to talk - in complete and rational sentences.  They will sleep through the night and thus their parents will as well.  Shortly after their second birthday, they will begin to have tantrums.  Their coolly competent mother will respond to these tantrums with a loving, patient, and gracious chuckle.  She will share knowing looks with kind strangers who will sigh wistfully and say things like, "ahhhh.  The terrible twos."  As those strangers walk away, they know they will sleep better tonight, with the understanding that today's children are being raised by such masters of motherhood.  "She makes it look so easy" they will say.  Playful angelic fairies will fly around farting honey.

And now here's what happened in real life:

Toddler-hood came bursting through our front door without knocking.  Swinging and punching with closed fists.  The asshole punched me in the trachea.  My sweet babies woke up one day with the sole desire to point out my utter incompetence as a mother.  I'm not ready.  I have not formulated my tantrum response yet!  I have not mastered the gracious chuckle!  I have been forced to fly by the seat of my pants and it is threatening to tear wide open and show the entire world my granny-panties, which I have peed in twice today already.  I am master of nothing but inconsistency.  Tantrums send me into a tailspin.  My sweet and innocent babes let loose with demonic shrieks I am certain they are wholly incapable of and I will do anything and everything to just. make. it. stop.  And then I realize that I'm likely encouraging my beautiful children to grow up sounding like Veronica from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, speaking with bizarre British accents and saying, "mother, make me more crepes this instant!"  So the next tantrum I respond by ignoring it completely while a tiny voice in my head whispers "refrigerator mother....refrigerator mother...refrigerator mother."    I mentally kick Leo Kanner square in the testicles and hurry into the kitchen to make some chamomile tea before I lose control and just start drinking mouthwash.

I've looked into what it would take to develop a light drug problem to help ease this time.  Am having a hard time deciding between huffing glue and prescription pills.  I hear glue is easier to obtain.

It goes so far beyond Facebook...

Standing up and demanding that breastfeeding be normalized in our society goes far beyond the issue of whether some people are uncomfortable with the sight of a mother nourishing her child in the best way possible. If this video doesn't give you chills, doesn't outrage you, and doesn't make you question the corporate corruption that too often drives our society, I'm not sure what will.

We need to demand change.

And as a breastfeeding mother who fiercely and adamantly believes that breast is best - I think it is incredibly important, essential even, to point out that this is NOT an attack on mothers who choose not to breastfeed or are not able to. This is an attack on the societal pressures that contribute to an environment where the benefits of breastfeeding are incredibly marginalized and where mothers who choose to breastfeed are often stigmatized, judged, and harassed. Despite the fact that the WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, 2003 CDC data shows that in the US, only 14.2% of mothers were following that recommendation. And did you know that in 2006, the United States had the second worst infant mortality rate in the entire developed world?

Where are our priorities?

A society that surrounds young girls with Barbie and her ridiculous body measurements, where approximately one in four females experiences sexual violence, where breastfeeding mothers are asked to leave public places , and where a major formula company can net profits of over 9 billion dollars a year, I really wonder HOW we expect mothers to choose breastfeeding and stick to it. US hospitals are notorious for giving babies bottles even when asked not to by mothers attempting to establish breastfeeding. I've posted about my own experiences struggling to teach my preemies to breastfeed and the hurdles I ran into with lack of hospital support, and I assure you that I am not alone - not by a long shot - in that experience.

Facebook, I'm afraid, is only the tip of the iceberg. It is simply symbolic of the environment we sit in.

But.

We have to start somewhere. We have to start everywhere.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to be defined by the society I described above. To the core of my being, I believe that we are better than this.

You can learn more. You can help.

• This earlier post lists things we can all do to help...here are some additions to that list, many of them courtesy of your comments...thank you!
• Baby Milk Action - helping to protect babies from unsafe breast milk substitutes and protecting breastfeeding
• Help get Ellen on board - it may sound silly, but we NEED mainstream media support and exposure
• Offer to become a Roots of Empathy family, or become an instructor. Roots of Empathy brings attachment parenting, including breastfeeding, into the classroom.
• Offer to visit your a local classroom or daycare as a pregnant woman, and then do follow up visits with the baby.
• Support the Nursing is Normal initiative: http://www.kathyobrien.org/NINgallery.htm and on Facebook.

This list is a small sampling of how you can help - if you have an idea or know of a resource, please share and I will post.

magnitude

For the first few months after Rhys and Quin were born, I was certain that throughout the world and throughout history, no mother had ever loved her babies as I loved mine. This thought wasn’t a reflection of my opinions about other mothers, it was simply a matter of capacity and an irrational certainty that loving my babies any more than I already did would cause the universe to explode into a hundred billion pieces of sopping, heavy heart. I wasn’t prepared for the magnitude of motherhood; the idea that other mothers felt the way that I felt and were able to pull it together and function was completely incomprehensible to me. I looked out at the world, feeling perplexed and at a total loss in trying to make sense of the suddenly re-written familiar. Images I’ve seen hundreds, thousands of times immediately took on new meaning. Commercials about the starving children in Africa, news stories about a runaway teenage boy, television dramas about kidnappings and murders. Although I’ve always considered myself a compassionate person, it suddenly seemed as though my former self must have been a cold and heartless shell of a human being to be able to stomach these ideas without urgently forming what had recently become my inescapable conclusion: somebody’s baby. That is somebody’s baby.

As time has passed, I’ve become slightly more acclimated to the experience of being a mother. Of creating life and loving beyond the bounds of understanding. I have come to realize that as much as I love my babies, it is not only possible, but in fact quite likely that other mothers love their babies just as much. Initially, that realization stung a bit. Then the stinging turned into an emphatic, “huh.” And now amazement. What a collective power.

I suppose that’s what knocked me off my center in the first place. Human beings. Creating them. Raising them. Loving them. The impact that we make on the world and on one another. Single influential individuals, good and evil. Martin Luther King. Gandhi. Hitler. Joint movements for change. The Emancipation Proclamation. The suffragettes. The daily fabric of our world, individual lives woven together in a delicate yet inescapable chain reaction. It’s not just about mothers. It’s about all of us and all of our actions and all of the beautiful and mundane details of life. But right now I can only speak as a mother. I want to hold on to this moment; here, where I sit and see the magnitude of what I hold in my hands. Two babies, for whom I simply want peace and love and true happiness. Two babies, who make me want to mold the world into a place that welcomes and nurtures and is safe.

I know that in time I may become desensitized. We haven’t hit the terrible twos yet. I have never attempted to parent a teenager. Just as I’ve slowly come to realize that the universe is not in danger of explosion under the pressure of my love, perhaps in time I will feel at ease with the fragility of it all. But for now I am here. Writing to ask myself to remember what it felt like, peering out at the world with my babies wrapped tightly in my arms.