Learn to be a good mommy to Anya

Anya is in the monkey-see, monkey-do stage. For instance…

• She cooks. Give her a plate of food and a small cup of milk, and she’ll make soup. (To her credit, she then eats said soup. Not a picky eater, that one.)
• She cleans. If I give us both a Swiffer, she’ll dust anything that’s not nailed down. If she spills her milk, give her a cloth – she’ll clean it up. (Sometimes she spills on purpose so she can clean it up.)
• I have to wear makeup so she can primp with me. (Just Burt’s Bees and a hairbrush for now…I don’t want a baby beauty queen, thank you.)
• She likes playing in the tub, but would much rather shower (!) with me. I still have to help her, but she’s getting better at washing herself.

I could go on. But basically I have a 16-month-old mini-me. Anything Mumma does, Anya wants to do. It’s adorable, but also a lot of responsibility. I’m making the effort to model behavior I’d like to see her pick up.

I’m also trying to treat her with the same respect I’d like her to show others…somewhere between Dada’s sternness and her grandparents’ permissiveness. (It’s a fine line to walk, and isn’t 100% successful.)

Something tells me it just gets harder from here. But I am trying my best. 4 months ago

in the worst damn way. She loves going shopping, because she loves playing with the other children. (The other children are not always so eager to play with her. But then her excited screech is pretty close to a battle cry. She’s frightened 8-year-olds.)

I’m not really in a good place, friend-wise:

1) We just moved here last year. And while I did go to high school here, most of the people I knew back then have moved away. Those that haven’t have kids that are nearly old enough to have children Anya’s age. (Some of them do have kids Anya’s age.) And, well, I’ve kind of moved on; I don’t have much, if anything, in common with those people anymore. Some of us are FB friends, but it’s not like I’ve seen any of them in person since we moved here.

2) I work from home. R’s been unemployed more than he’s been employed. Neither of us are in a position to meet new people that way.

3) We’re also too broke to get out and meet new people. (By “we,” I mean “he.” He’s made friends in the grocery store.)

4) The neighbors with kids are gone a lot. They all work. So they drop their kids off at daycare, work all day, pick the kids up, and roll in around 9 p.m. On weekends, everyone’s too busy to chitchat over the back gate, so to speak. It’s not like it was when I was a kid.

Admittedly, I’m kinda happy with my semisolitary state. It was exhausting, living in the suburbs. All of those people, everywhere, all of the time. I can step out my front door and not have anyone say anything to me. It’s…nice.

But my kid is not me. She takes after her father in the social department. And I don’t want to stifle her socialization just because I’m not social. So I’m trying to find a local playgroup. I haven’t come up with much yet, but I’ve put out a few feelers on local Yahoo groups. Maybe something will come of it. 5 months ago

but I’m researching homeschooling.

As if I didn’t already have an uphill battle with the vegetarian thing and the atheist thing.

No, I haven’t discussed this with R yet. Mostly I’m just thinking out loud here.

It’s just…I did school. A lot. And all of the arguments for school and against homeschooling fall short when I look at my school experience.

Are you an expert in XYZ? How will you teach your child something you’re no good at/not interested in?
History is not, and has never been, my thing. And math and I will never be friends. But I think things might have been different had I had better teachers. You know, those people who are imminently more qualified than me to teach XYZ? You don’t get to pick them, you know. Your kid goes to school ABC and gets the teacher assigned to that subject for that grade. Some of them rock. Some of them suck. At least I’m invested in ensuring that my kid learns the subject. That’s more than I can say about most of the teachers I encountered in my school days.

Besides, I’ve forgotten most of what I learned in math and history, and I haven’t caught on fire yet.

What about socialization?
I attended school for a total of 18 years, and I’m still a spaz in social situations. School does not equal socialization. In fact, I think in many ways it cripples socialization.

What about the dances, the games, the whatevers? I went to the dances (and a handful of games, though I have always hated sports). I went to two proms. Not once did I ever make a memory that, to me, justified the hell that was public school. Besides, just because she’s homeschooled doesn’t mean she can’t go to dances and whatnot. She could date someone who goes to a school that hosts such functions. Why does that never come up?

What does she stand to gain from homeschooling?
How about a love of learning? I always loved to learn…but not at school. School was boring. School was being told what to think and when to think it. School was being told no.

My cousin is currently at a Russian immersion foreign language seminar. Kid taught herself Russian online, then tested into this seminar (at the second of three levels, thank you) and went to polish up her pronunciation. She digs languages, and knows a dozen at least. When I was in school, you got to take two years of French or Spanish in high school. In college, you took another two, unless you were majoring in a foreign language. If this girl had gone to public school, how would she have ever learned that she enjoys learning foreign languages? She wouldn’t have even been exposed to them until she was a teenager.

I have a master’s degree. I have a master’s degree because I couldn’t find a job with my bachelor’s degree. I have a bachelor’s degree because I didn’t get knocked up/married or a fast-food job after high school. Those were the options. While that master’s degree occasionally opens doors for me in terms of interviews, what I do does not require a degree. It’s true. I could have studied this stuff myself and done just as well.

And just think of what I could have done with that tuition money.

I guess the reason I’m considering homeschooling is because I don’t want Anya to be limited in her view of the world. I don’t want her to flounder as I floundered in undergrad, realizing that I love writing and language but unsure of what one would do with a degree in that area other than teach. We are not pegs to be slotted into a peg board. But I suspect that the reason so many of us stray so far from our dreams is because we’re put in boxes from the age of 5. We’re told what we can and can’t do, what is and isn’t practical, and gently bludgeoned into our peg holes. Where we can be neatly confined until we’re too old to be “useful,” at which point we’re shunted off to the side.

Not my kid. 11 months ago

I excelled at the “follows directions” exercises at school. Isn’t that what school is – learning to follow directions? Do this, just the way I told you, and I’ll give you a gold star. I was an A student. At times, an honors student. (Until I figured out that, sadly, many honors programs are exactly the same work you have in regular classes, just twice as much of it. Just because I’m smart doesn’t mean I want to do homework with all of my free time.)

I approached parenthood in much the same manner. I read books, researched online, had my plan. Long before I got pregnant, all through my pregnancy, and after her birth. I didn’t study this hard in grad school. This was the class I’d waited to take my whole life, the one subject I needed to excel at.

This is me throwing the book away.

Breast is best.
Yes, but some of us can’t. I tried. God, did I try. But I just wasn’t able to breastfeed. So I have a healthy, happy, formula-fed baby. I was worried about bonding, about nutrition, about allergies. I suspect the allergies may be an issue (she’s awfully snotty), but the rest? Pfft. I have finally accepted that I agonized over nothing here.

Back to sleep.
I was fanatical about making her sleep on her back. I would even roll her over if her dad put her on her belly or side, even if it woke her. Then she learned to roll over. What am I supposed to do – sit awake all night turning her when she rolls to her side or tummy? The kid’s a side sleeper. When she’s gassy, it feels better when she lays on her tummy. I let her sleep however she wants now.

Co-sleeping is evil.
The baby will die, or at the very least sleep with you until she goes to college. Everyone’s been beating this drum, from the pediatrician down to strangers in stores. So I was furtive in my co-sleeping. I’d lay her in her bed, then bring her into our bed when she woke for her middle-of-the-night feeding. Sometimes she’d make it back to her bed; sometimes not. I just did what I could so we could all sleep a little more.

Now I cut to the chase: When I’m ready for bed, she and I lay down together. I put on a lullaby CD and turn on the ceiling fan, and we snuggle up. We’ve never slept better. And she wakes up smiling, because she’s happy to see me – not crying because she’s alone in a crib and doesn’t know where I am.

I’m her mother. My job is to protect her and make her feel safe. Not to put her through baby boot camp. She’ll move to her own bed when she’s ready.

Food.
At first, I squashed my instincts and followed the instructions on my pediatrician’s website to a T. I waited until she was 4 months old, though she showed all of the readiness signs much sooner. I insisted she eat cereal, though it looked and tasted like slurry. I fed exactly the right things in exactly the right order, with exactly the right amount of time between new foods. I panicked when I read other sites: Feeding X too soon will ruin her kidneys! Never give the baby Y before the age of 2, or she’ll swell up and die!

Then we went in for our checkup (due to scheduling problems, her 4-month checkup was closer to 5 months). And the doctor basically said “whatever you want to feed her is fine.” So aside from spacing new foods for allergy reasons (I have food allergies myself; I still do that), I listen to my gut when feeding her. She love strawberries. Could take or leave peanut butter. And will follow me around the house for a taste of chocolate. (I’m not feeding solids yet, because I’m terrified she’ll choke, but I do put little crumbs of chocolate on her tongue so she can taste them. She loves it.)

In loosening the rules of feeding, I’ve made eating a more relaxed, enjoyable experience for us all. She loves to sit at the table with us and share a meal. She likes going to the grocery store and seeing the food that becomes her dinner. She likes to watch us cook. And she likes trying new foods. If she doesn’t like it, or doesn’t want to eat, she doesn’t have to finish it. Period. But for the most part, she is an avid, adventurous eater.

Food can be such an issue with kids; I’m doing what I can to keep the issues out of eating.

Well, except one. I’m raising her (lacto-ovo) vegetarian, at least for now. Against the grandparents’ wishes, I might add. R says we’ll let her decide when she’s older if she would like to eat meat. I’m cool with that. (Though I do hope she chooses to stay vegetarian.) Part of me is reluctant to fight this battle; I know how hard it is to eat in restaurants when you’re a vegetarian, for instance. But I’m wanting to foster a healthy lifestyle in her, and frequent restaurant meals is not part of that lifestyle anyway. I may have to revisit this when she’s old enough to know McDonald’s, but for now, she’s a vegetarian.

Television BAD!
Look, my kid doesn’t really even watch TV – just the commercials. Just like her mother did at her age. I didn’t grow up ADD, I’m not a TV addict, nor am I an overweight couch potato. I’m an intelligent, productive member of society. Get over it.

You must set a routine.
I’m a routine junkie. I learned how to spell “schedule” in early grade school because I made myself one. But trying to enforce a routine in a life that’s filled with irregularity just causes more stress. So I abandoned the routine. We’re fine.

So my big lesson: Being a mom means learning when to say “Fuck you – this is my kid. I’ll raise her in whatever way works best for us.” 13 months ago

Round 3. (I’ve done a bout with Reglan that I did not document…now I’m doing another.) I have a hospital pump this time, and Blessed Thistle. If this doesn’t work, I will officially give up – I gave it my all. But I just had to try one more time. 15 months ago

Tried pumping tonight…no milk at all. Which explains her mini-meltdown last night.

Poor thing. She wants to nurse now. For the longest time, she wasn’t really interested, probably because it became such an issue for us both. But we watched a video of her nursing during one of her first nights home from the hospital (it’s adorable – she was laughing while she nursed), and now she wants to nurse again. And I can’t now. It makes me so damn sad.

I know nursing is, in the greater scheme of things, a small part of being a good mother. We do have other ways of bonding, and she did at least receive some breast milk during the first three months of her life. But I was so looking forward to nursing, and loved it so much. I hate the thought that this door is closed to me forever now. 16 months ago

And learning to cope with separation anxiety, commuting, chatty coworkers, and the mess created by me being gone for three months. Plus dealing with the quirks of a new house, getting up at 5 a.m. every single day, and running interference between my child, my parents, and R.

It’s a lot to take on all at once. And don’t forget the holidays that are almost upon us…I enjoy the preparations, but it’s just one more drain on my time and energy.

One thing that helps is skin-to-skin cuddles with Anya. In the evenings, I take off my shirt, strip her to her diaper, and wrap us in a blanket so we can snuggle and nurse. We’ve not had much skin-to-skin time since we were in the hospital, and she loves that we’re doing it again. The nursing is still sometimes stressful, but she does like to stroke my skin and cuddle close. It’s so nice for both of us to have one-on-one time. Makes the stress of the day just melt away. 18 months ago

(Thanks for the nudge, HalfLife17…I’ve been meaning to update this goal, but like everything but the most basic of hygiene, 43t has fallen by the wayside lately!)

Still not much on the milk front. At my 6-week checkup, I asked the doctor about it; he says some women just don’t make much milk. I’m averaging about an ounce (from both breasts combined) every couple of hours. No amount of pumping (or any of the other tricks I’ve read) seems to help increase my production. At this point, I’m just happy I’m making something, though I am still a bit frustrated that I can’t nurse exclusively.

However, I’ve decided not to worry about it. The pediatrician says any amount of breast milk is beneficial, so I’m nursing and then topping her off with formula. I’m glad I’m able to nurse her even just a little; it makes her so happy, and I love the bonding time with her. So I have to deal with bottles and formula too. She’s healthy and happy, which is what really matters. And at least I don’t have to deal with engorgement or leaking milk!

I also (finally!) sorted out what was causing her tummy troubles: The fish oil in my prenatal vitamins. (Didn’t do wonders for my tummy, either, but I didn’t figure that out until I worked through the post-delivery constipation.) She still gets an upset tummy from time to time, but nothing like she was experiencing.

Mostly what we’re doing these days is learning each other’s cues. I won’t say we don’t still have bad days (particularly when Mommy leaves for more than just a few minutes), but we’re definitely moving in the right direction.

The hardest lesson for me to learn so far has been that I have to take care of myself first. Every instinct I have screams at me to put her first, but if I don’t look after my own needs, I can’t take care of her properly. So I’ve been making an effort to get adequate rest, food, and mental stimulation. (One can only watch so many episodes of Golden Girls!) Like everything else, I do better some days than others…it’s a work in progress. 20 months ago

and other feeding issues have consumed my life these past two weeks.

My milk still isn’t in. At first, I was only producing a trickle. She nursed 2-4 hours each session, with maybe a half-hour break between. I could pump for an hour and get maybe a tablespoon – from both breasts combined. Now I’m making more, but not enough to satisfy my growing girl. If I wait until I am engorged (which has happened only once, two days ago), I can squeeze just shy of 2 ounces out of one breast. She’s been eating 3 ounces every 3-4 hours. She screams when she doesn’t get it. And punches and scratches and headbutts my chest. Also, I can’t hold her at all when she gets like that, because I smell like food and it upsets her further.

So I call the lactation consultants. The people who assumed that she is my second child because we didn’t require assistance when nursing initially, and who gave me no information whatsoever while I was in the hospital as a result. I got their voicemail. Which offers no opportunity to leave a message…just tells you to call back during office hours.

This was during office hours.

I call my gyno’s office. They tell me to take fenugreek. I do. She develops horrific (think binge beer drunk) gas, and also vomits all over both of us. At 2 a.m. I’m now afraid to nurse her at all, but also nervous about giving her formula in case it’s not the fenugreek but a milk allergy (my pediatrician’s theory).

But if it were a milk allergy, wouldn’t she have had symptoms all along? I eat a lot of dairy. I’d gladly give it up for her, but then my weight will probably tank – most of my high-calorie foods are dairy.

My pediatrician isn’t much help. She doesn’t want me to supplement at all, or limit it to an ounce (a day!) if I do. Look, I’m not starving my baby, okay? If she wants food, I’m going to give it to her. She has no nipple confusion whatsoever, and dammit, she’s hungry.

She’s sleeping now, and I’m letting her because she had such a hard night. In the meantime, I keep staring at my tits wondering why they don’t make milk like they’re supposed to. 21 months ago