DotMoms

When Nanny goes boom

by andrea

Tragedy struck on Saturday night. I was home alone with the girls. They were already in their pyjamas, teeth brushed, when the unthinkable happened. Our TV died. The three of us gathered silently around the unblinking set. No tears were shed over the sudden departure, but we were pretty shocked at this turn of events.

DH confirmed it later by pressing every button on the control panel about 20 times (as I had done before him) in a vain attempt to resuscitate the victim. But he works in the TV industry, he knows when a picture tube has seen its final days. The verdict was in: this 18-year-old was as dead as a doornail.

I should explain that we aren't very heavy TV watchers at all. During the week, the girls only watch shows of our choosing on commercial-free television (CBC, PBS and the like), but weekends are a different story.

Before we go to bed on Saturday night, DH or I set up the TV with a kid-friendly station. When the girls get up the next morning (I am convinced the youngest posesses elements of rooster DNA) they are allowed to watch TV while we catch up on sleep.

I guess we're still trying to regain what we lost when they were infants. We sleep in until 8:30 or so (this is a big deal!!), make breakfast, and, as per our family tradition, DH gets bagels and newspapers. We read after breakfast. The girls happily trot back to the TV for more "Cyberchase," "Angelina Ballerina" or what have you.

I see it this way. It gives us a few hours to recharge our batteries and it also gives the kids some downtime, time that isn't preplanned and organized like it is on almost every other day of the week.

 

So the TV blew at the worst time -- the day before Sacred Sleep Sunday. DH and I toyed with the idea of dragging our old 36" TV out from basement storage, but decided against it. We went to bed, not quite sure how we would fare in the morning.

But the day unfolded like any other. Rooster girl woke first. I have no idea what time it was, but it was dark and it was raining. What woke me was the quiet little voice: "Can I go downstairs and watch TV?" We sleepily explained the situation to her. There were no complaints. She went to wake her sister.

They played together unexpectedly well. Some of it was at high volume. Some was right outside my bedroom door -- but I still managed to get a few extra winks. Thanks as well to DH who got up and shut the door behind him. And here's the revelation: there was no TV and no one is worse for the wear!

On the flip side, if this had happened last week, when Sarah was sick at home with strep throat, I would have been climbing the walls long ago.

It's still raining as I write this, and it's seasonably dark. They girls are playing with an ear-splitting battery operated train set. But it's good. I'm not minding one bit.

What if HE is a SHE?

By Cooper

My husband and I are not much for organized religion. We attend church for baptisms, funerals and the odd holiday, but other than that we have remained somewhat detached from the general area of "worship."

That is not to say we aren't spiritual. I think I speak for both of us when I say my husband and I find God in a peaceful lake or a blue sky or a baby's cheek.

Still, it came as a bit of a surprise to us when, about a month ago, our 5-year-old daughter FOUND THE LORD.

It started with a lot of questions we were hard pressed to answer like: Who is God? Where is God? Does God get mad at bad guys? Does God hear us talking?

I really thought about buying a book on this, since I'm pretty sure our responses weren't terribly informative. She kept asking the same questions.

And then she started singing -- nonstop -- "We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing."

When I ask her to clean up her toys or hang up her coat she says things like, "No, I can't do that. God is my boss." Or if I tell her I think she is wonderful she responds, "I am glad you said that because you just made God so happy."

The other night, as we were having dinner, God came up again.

"If God is everywhere and can do anything, then He can eat," our daughter said as she placed one grain of white rice in the middle of the table.
 
We stared at the rice for about a minute. God did not eat it.

Try explaining that one.

Editor's Note: Cooper is a new DotMom. You can read her bio here.

Tough questions

By Amy S.

When did becoming a parent mean giving up your privacy? It started while I was pregnant. Some questions are not so bad, like, "Do you know what you're having?" And innocently enough we would tell people "It's a girl!"

But the answer would lead to more questions. The toughest one was "Have you picked a name?" Yes, we did have one in mind, but we also wanted to keep something sacred and private.

By the end of the pregnancy it was such a common question that I told people our choice for her name: Olivia. But we kept the middle name a secret until the night she was born. Just one little secret between a mother and father.

The questions have become harder as she's gotten older. Questions about potty training, discipline and more. But there's one question that's become particularly bothersome.

"When are you going to have another child?"

First of all, when did it become okay to ask such a personal question? Perhaps if it came from a close friend... but most of the time it comes from people we don't know all that well. Second of all, what's the "right" answer?

"We'll get right on that!"

Or maybe, "We'll have another one when you fork over the funding for two children in full-time daycare."

There's no good answer. It must be even harder if you don't want to have another child. It would be heartbreaking if we were trying to have another child and having difficulties. I wonder if people think about that before they ask.

As for us, I believe we'll probably have another child. I also know that if it's up to us, we won't do it for a while. I already have enough working mom guilt with one child. But I get the feeling that's not the answer people want to hear. Usually I just smile and say, "Oh, we're going to wait a while."

And then there are usually more questions.

Editor's Note: Amy S. is a new DotMom. You can read her bio here.

The letdown when the milk lets up

By Jessamyn

Back when I was pregnant, I planned to breastfeed my baby, but I tried not to think in terms of a specific amount of time that I'd continue.

Katie was born on March 7, and within a few weeks, breastfeeding was going so well that I planned to keep breastfeeding her until she was at least six months old. And maybe, just maybe, I would keep doing it for a year. A year seemed like an incredibly long time, especially back then, when any individual nursing session could last for up to an hour, and could be followed by another nursing session not quite two hours later.

At the end of May I went back to work and started using a breast pump to express milk during the week days, and suddenly a year didn't seem so long. I didn't feel tied down the way I had at first -- after all, I spent much of each day, five days a week, away from Katie, and pumping only took a total of 20 or 30 minutes a day. 

Since sometime in June or July, I've been planning to breastfeed Katie for her first year, until next March. I was proud to think that we would never give her any formula. I was happy that I was able to do this for her. And, to tell the truth, I worried a little about whether it would be difficult to wean her. 

Occasionally, I even thought that I might change my mind and decide to breastfeed even longer. 

And then the milk stopped coming. I used to pump two or three times a day and take home two or three bottles of milk, but by August I was pumping two or three times a day and getting only a bottle and a half.

And then in September, instead of pumping for only 20 or 30 minutes, I was pumping for an hour or more each day, and took home only half a bottle total. To make matters worse, Katie started getting teeth, and with the teeth came biting, and with the biting came pain, resulting in no letdown of milk and removal of Katie from the breast. 

This was also when Katie started sleeping through the night, which meant there were no more midnight or 1 a.m. nursing sessions to keep the flow going. After a week or so of half bottles, I discovered that the reason I was pumping so much less milk was because some of the pump parts needed to be replaced, but by then my body had already learned to produce less milk than Katie was drinking. 

I tried to pump more often and nurse her more often on the weekends. I took fenugreek to increase the milk supply. It didn't help.

We started supplementing with formula. That's not such a terrible thing to do to your baby, right?

And yet when I found out Geoff had given Katie her first bottle of formula, I cried. I felt like my body had betrayed me. I felt like I had failed Katie. I felt like maybe I wasn't trying hard enough to pump enough for her. I felt terribly sad. I felt like I was overreacting. I felt like I was giving up too easily, but nothing I tried seemed to work.

It's been about a month now since we started supplementing, and our breastfeeding is gradually coming to an end. If Katie sees a bottle, she will always choose the bottle over nursing. Even if she doesn't see a bottle, the only time she is patient enough to nurse for any length of time is when she is half-asleep. Otherwise, she nurses for a few seconds and then gets distracted, over and over again. And she's back to biting again, which doesn't exactly make me want to encourage her to nurse more frequently, which is what it would take to persuade my body to make more milk. 

These days, she doesn't get a full nursing session even once every day (she usually starts biting or quits nursing before it's been long enough for the milk to let down). 

This is not a big deal, not really, at least that's what I'm telling myself. Katie never had any formula until she was over seven months old, and she is still nursing about once a day now. I am proud of that! Katie has gotten, and continues to get, many health benefits from breastfeeding. And it is almost as nice to hold her while she drinks her bottle as it was to hold her while she nursed. 

She still puts one hand up over her head and grabs at her hair while she drinks. She still pauses occasionally to look me in the eyes, and she still sometimes raises her hand to touch my face.

She still loves me just as much. 

And one good thing: it doesn't hurt at all when she bites down on the rubber nipple. 

I know all that. And yet... I never made a decision to stop nursing, but here we are, winding down. It makes me feel sad, especially since now I realize: a year wouldn't have seemed like a long time at all.

Short-time employee, long-time mom

By Teddi

I've gone and done it. After months of agonizing, soul-searching and sleepless nights, I finally decided to put my illustrious career on hold and devote myself to full-time motherhood.

What a crock. The truth is, I've wanted to get out of this dead-end job for over five years. It took me about 10 minutes to figure out there was no growth potential, no creativity and an overwhelming mountain of red tape to cut through to get even the smallest project done. Oh, and no money to complete said projects in the first place.

Why did I stay? For some really good, really boring reasons: decent pay, a stable job in an extremely unstable employment region, great (union-negotiated!) benefits and a work culture that is understanding of one's personal life and goals.

Once the twins came, reasons to come back to the office seemed few and far between, but the need to make my own money and hiring a great caregiver helped ease the transition. My employer's approval to work Mondays from home and have Fridays off didn't hurt either.

The sad reality is that when you add up the money spent on quality childcare for two, minus my part-time salary, the end result isn't enough to cover parking and a latte, let alone contribute to the drastically rising tide of household expenses. Not to mention having large parts of my childrens' development ("He took his first step! She said her first word!") relayed through a third party. Staying home seemed to make more and more sense, emotionally and financially.

Telling my boss was easy. Of course, everyone understood. They even expressed surprise that I lasted this long. The hard part was not dancing around and singing, "The Hills Are Alive, With the Sound Of Me Quitting."

I don't think I harbor illusions about stay-at-home motherhood, but I have a feeling spending the day singing "The Wheels on the Bus" will be more fulfilling than writing a "safety campaign" to keep people from getting killed by the bus. With two at a time, I feel like there's never enough of me to go around. Now I'll actually be here to find out.

Only for a year, though. I'm already filling out pre-school applications. What, do you think I'm crazy or something?

Photographic memory

By Elizabeth L-B

Several weeks ago, my hard drive crashed. It was something mechanical, and the best efforts of myself, my husband, the technician from Dell, and a generous co-worker couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. 

Dell bought me a new hard drive, but the warranty doesn't pay for data recovery, so I lost all the data I had written since my last backup, a couple of months ago. (Public service announcement: if you don't remember when you last backed up, stop reading this -- go backup -- then come back.) 

It was a hassle, but the only thing that I'm really upset about is the digital photos of the boys that I lost. 

I'm an enthusiastic, if not especially talented, amateur photographer and I take a lot of pictures of the boys. We've never had a professional photograph taken of them; I prefer the photojournalistic approach of capturing them in their native settings. 

I'm embarrassingly far behind on their albums -- even more so now that I've moved to digital, and feel compelled to crop and adjust the lighting on most pictures before sending them to be printed. But I love being able to share photos with my distant family at the press of a button.

Daniel is quite fascinated by the camera, and by the pictures of himself. He sometimes asks if he can use my digital camera and -- with supervision -- I let him. The odd foreshortening produced by taking pictures from waist level is rarely flattering, but a valuable reminder of just how big adults are from his perspective. He also carefully composes pictures of objects that I would never think of photographing -- his feet, a ball laying on the floor, the dark television set.

I don't have a lot of photographs of myself as a small child. I was the youngest child, and my parents felt less compelled to document every step I took than they had been for my older siblings. And most of the pictures that my dad did take were slides, and cataloging and scanning them is more of an undertaking than any of us have energy to do. 

I also don't have many memories before about age 5 -- and my parents tell me that some of the ones I do have didn't happen that way, that my grandfather didn't meet me at the base of the Eiffel Tower. 

I wonder if there's a connection between the two gaps, whether I would remember more with photos to prompt me, or if I'd just make up stories to go with the pictures.

Love, sick

By Kris

For three weeks now, nausea has permeated every cell of my body, all day long. Can one's hair be nauseous? Well, mine is.

This queasiness is a symptom of my new pregnancy, which I've anticipated since miscarrying last March. So in that respect, I am thankful to feel sick.

But it has stopped me in my tracks. Rather than racing from one chore to the next, I have been sitting on the couch. With my feet up.

Normally, my two boys can find me in the kitchen, in the laundry room, or ricocheting about the house picking up, dusting or cleaning toilets. When I do sit, I go to the computer to browse blogs, check e-mail or write.

With all of this sitting on the couch, I have spent more time with my kids. It seems that when I stop, their orbit narrows. As they coast by, they stop for a hug and a kiss, or just to curl up under my arm for some quiet time. During one of these moments, Ben looked up at me and said, "This is great." And I had to ask myself, "Why don't I just sit a little more often?"

Last weekend, the nausea overcame me. My husband took Friday off, and for three days he handled all meals and childcare. In between, he grocery shopped, got the minivan's oil changed, rubbed my feet, and completed a few projects around the house. He even did some laundry, for which I immediately forgave him.

Meanwhile, I slept until 10 a.m., then lay on the couch watching TV and plotting my next attempt at solid food. I ignored the filthy rugs, sticky floors and smelly bathrooms. I also tickled John, perused toy catalogs with Ben, and watched Brian wrangle the kids into their pajamas, solo.

So, besides signaling the possibility of a new baby, my nausea has reminded me to just stop, long enough to get a hug, to recharge, to appreciate my husband. For all of this, I'm thankful.

A little letting go is a good thing

By LauriJon

"Inhale, exhale, inhale, and exhale." Okay, I'll admit it. I'm a bit of a control freak. (You can stop laughing hysterically now Bill [husband] at the use of the words 'a bit.')

I've always been a very self-motivated, self-reliant individual, both out of temperament and out of necessity. Having been raised by my single father from age 11 through 20, we (my sisters, brother and I) had to clean and do laundry twice a week and make dinner most nights. So it's understandable that I've learned to like things done a certain way.

Those same childhood experiences made me form the conclusion that the phrase "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself," is sadly, but often true. (Are you still sensing control freak here?)

So hopefully, you'll find some compassion in your heart when I admit that I've never hired a babysitter, nor let anyone but myself or my husband exclusively watch our 12-month-old daughter, Maricella.

This Thanksgiving, however, mommy's calm gets put to the test. While we'll be staying at my in-laws, Bill and I will put Maricella to bed and go out for the evening. We'll see a movie and maybe have dinner. And now the more I think of it, I have to do a little breathing again. "Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale."

I know a little letting go is a good thing. And it's not as if I were leaving her with a stranger, she'll be with her GrandMum. It's just that she's teething now, and sometimes wakes around midnight, and I really prefer to let her put herself back to sleep and not go in to her, but sometimes, lately I have gone in to her, because her crying was more like screaming, and if she wakes I'll want her GrandMum to NOT go in and get her, but if she's screaming and not crying I will want her to be comforted, but I won't be there to do it and her GrandMum will. (Whew, maybe mommy needs to chill -- and I'm not even on caffeine.)

So, this Thanksgiving, mommy gets to grow up a little by learning to let go a little. I'll only be a cell phone call away, and I'll probably call to check in at least once. The jury is still out on whether I'll be able to focus on the movie. Maybe it's time for that breathing mantra again: "Inhale, exhale, inhale, and exhale."

How did you do it? How did you learn to let go a little?

Splitting time

How do you divide your time among your children equally?

With the holidays approaching, the dreaded parent/children lunches are here. When I only had one child in school, it wasn't a problem. I would go and have lunch with Hannah, Mallory in tow. Now, they both want me to share their holiday meal with them, like the other parents. As if two weren't hard enough, Seth's preschool offers the holiday lunches too.

How do I do it? How do I make them all happy? I ended up not eating with any of them for Thanksgiving because I didn't know how to work it.

I really can't eat three turkey lunches in one day.

Say cheese

By Kelly

Tyler is beginning a two-year orthodontic regimen to widen his upper palate and allow his very crowded teeth to come in straight. It's a process that should have been started a few years ago, and will have to be started very soon or the window of opportunity that is the growth of the upper palate will have closed. Now that we have insurance that doesn't cover orthodontics, I'm seriously regretting not taking advantage of the insurance that did a few years ago.

Clearly, I am in the wrong profession.

Braces are so commonplace now, but when I was growing up only the wealthiest kids got them. The rest of us dealt with our over bites, cross bites, protruding chins, and bucked teeth the way our parents, and their parents did. Grin and bear it.

I didn't need braces but envied all of those shining smiles, ignorant of the pain they caused. In fourth grade I put tin foil on my teeth and went to school. The principal called my mother, who had to leave work early and bring her hysterical daughter home for the day. I also sported a rolled-up tube sock in each cup of the Maidenform bra I had stolen out of my mother's lingerie drawer, worn beneath my red Osh-Kosh corduroy jumper.

Mom asked, "What's the rush?"

Over time, I've developed quite a cross bite and was considering those invisible adult braces until I got the financial information for Tyler's work. Ix-nay on the races-bay. Time to sell myself to science, or sharpen up those pole-dancing skills.

My husband could have used braces, but isn't invested in a perfectly straight smile, and I think his overbite is kind of cute. Tyler's biological father is wary of all dental professionals, convinced that he sports a head full of amalgam for the sole purpose of putting his dentist's six children through college.

Looking around our orthodontist's state-of-the-art office, and parking my Oldsmobile next to his BMW, I'm thinking my ex might be onto something after all.

We've gone around and around about these braces, and whether Tyler needs them or not. We've been told that he will mostly likely grow up with a chin like Jay Leno's, still a possibility even after the extensive work he's about to undergo. The braces could prevent that from happening. Could.

I decided, and convinced the two father figures, that we have to deal with the expense, and Tyler has to deal with the discomfort, when we found out that several of his upper teeth are turning towards the back of his mouth as they try to grow into such a crowded space. We're all on the same page now and looking into our pocketbooks to figure out where such a huge load of money is going to come from.

Maybe Tyler will grow up to be a toothpaste model and will kick a few bucks back to his old parental units, with a smile.