Looking Back

I hate to be one of those bloggers who is always apologizing for not blogging often enough, so I will try to resist the urge.

This blog used to be such a pleasure for me. Now it's starting to feel more like burden. One more thing in my life that I've taken on and then run out of energy for.

I'm weary. I feel like I've been in crisis mode for so long, I don't know how to handle everyday life. Maybe I'm not cut out to be a stay-at-home mom. I need someone telling me what to do, and when to have it done by. Perhaps more importantly, I need someone telling me I did a good job. It's a weakness, I know it. But I thrive on positive feedback.

I'm in the middle of seventeen different housework-related projects right now. They're all interconnected, so I can't just complete one of them. And I can't really complete any of them with Valerie around, because she just gets into everything, and unsorts whatever it is I was just sorting. Ironically, it would be much easier to keep track of Valerie if all of my sorting projects were done, because then she would have less to get into. Catch 22.

When I was in school, I always used to get sick on breaks. I read somewhere that it's a stress thing. Stress keeps the illness at bay during school term, and then, when the stress is gone, the illness gets to take over. I think this is the holiday flu for my soul.

A friend of mine recently did a "decade in review" thing on her blog, and I was considering doing one here, too. I think I might have done one here before, but I'm not sure. At the risk of being boring, here's my decade in point-form:

2000
-graduated from college in May
-actually didn't quite graduate from college in May, took incompletes in three classes, and finished my degree over the summer
-went to Japan with my family
-took a summer job at a lodge in Colorado
-started law school in Toronto, in a city where I knew no one

2001
-got married
-Jeremy didn't quite graduate from college as scheduled, so I took a year off of law school so he could finish his degree
-got a job as a waitress
-got a job as an administrative assistant

2002
-played a small part in "The Comedy of Errors" with the campus Shakespeare troupe I had started as a student
-Jeremy graduated from college
-moved back to Toronto with my husband, and started my second year of law school

2003
-Jeremy couldn't work, because his immigration didn't go through yet
-spent the summer in Philadelphia, working as a waitress
-moved back to Toronto, and started my second year of law school
-Jeremy's immigration finally came through, but he still couldn't find a job
-in December, my dad had a stroke

2004
-Jeremy got a job as a church custodian
-graduated from law school
-started the bar admission courses
-my dad had a second stroke, and died
-I managed to find an articling position in Ottawa, so we could move closer to my family
-Jeremy was unable to find work in Ottawa for a while

2005
-Jeremy found a job in January
-my articling position almost killed me, but I stuck it out
-I was called to the bar of Ontario, and promptly resigned
-in December, we moved in with Jeremy's parents in Philadelphia

2006
-started seminary
-started working at Starbucks
-dropped out of seminary
-after a few months of looking, Jeremy found a job doing computer stuff
-a few months later, Jeremy got mysteriously sick
-still sick, Jeremy lost his job

2007
-Jeremy still sick
-found a job at a law office
-bought a car
-we moved in with a friend on the other side of town
-Jeremy finally got the right treatment, and started getting better
-Jeremy found another job
-went back to Starbucks to be an assistant manager
-we got pregnant, but lost the baby
-we got pregnant again in December

2008
-we finally got our own place - a nice little rental townhouse near Jeremy's parents
-I demoted myself to part-time at Starbucks
-Valerie arrived on August 5 (three weeks early)
-Jeremy lost his job in October
-I went back to Starbucks when my maternity leave ended, instead of quitting as I had planned

2009
-I tried to juggle working with being a wife and mother
-Jeremy got to spend some quality time at home with Valerie
-Jeremy found another job in July
-I quit my job in December in order to stay at home full time

Phew. I thought that might be exhausting. I wonder what it's like to have a year go by without at least one major life-changing event, like moving, graduating, losing a job, death, or new life? I wonder if I'll ever find out?

I'm sorry for the down-ness of this post. I swear, I have cute stories and Christmas memories to share. But this is what is on my mind right now, in the middle of the night, surrounded by Things To Do. Okay, time to sleep. Everything is always brighter in the morning.

You've gone two months without pictures, too?

I'm sure the last ten weeks of Valerie's life merit more than a few words and a handful of snapshots, but alas, this is what you get. (As usual, you can click on any of the pictures to go to our flickr photostream and see more pictures, or to see other sizes.)

Beginning of October: Valerie is becoming very dexterous, and gets into things we might leave unattended, such as enormous slurpees.



Middle of October: First trip on the train to visit cousins Nick and Timothy in Vermont. Surprise visit from Auntie Nan while we were there.







Late October: We all got sick. Pretty sure it was the swine flu, but we didn't get tested. No pictures of that. You're welcome.

Halloween: Valerie was the cutest barista on the block. And she got to have her first ever chocolate bar.





Early November: Played in PopPop's leaves. Devoured her first hotdog at the church hay ride.





Mid-November: Valerie took her first steps and figured out how to climb the play structure and go down the slide all by herself. GA/PC Day on Mama's back.







End of November: Thanksgiving. Visit from Grandma. Put up Valerie's first Christmas tree.



Beginning of December: First time walking on snow!

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Breaking out of the holding pattern

Well, it's been over two months since my last post. Perhaps I should have kept up with the monthly birthday letters - at least it gave me an excuse to post once a month. Sigh.

I really feel like I've been in a holding pattern for the past year and a half. Take Valerie's bedroom, for instance. I was supposed to have two weeks of maternity leave before she came, maybe more, since first babies are always late, right? But she came three weeks early, and I had no buffer time to prepare myself, my life, my house, my world, for her arrival. It's all a terrifying and beautiful blur, those first few weeks, and then, before I really started to get my bearings as a mother, Jeremy lost his job, and I had to go back to work, and the blur resumed. It was only supposed to be temporary, just until he found something. And nine months passed, in that holding pattern. Nine months. That's longer than I spent pregnant.

Then, once he did find a job, I found myself having a hard time trusting that it was really for real. And I couldn't bring myself to quit my job, just on faith. Four more months.

I finally bit the bullet and picked an end date. Cashed in my stock options, and quit my job. Sixteen months after Valerie was born, I finally get to stop saying goodbye to her to go to work. And I'm having a little bit of a hard time believing that I'm really done. (So is she - she's been more clingy these past few days than she has been in months.) I'm not waiting for anything anymore, and it's a little unnerving. Especially since now, I get to deal with all the stuff that kept getting bumped down on the priority list by more immediate demands.

Which brings us back to Valerie's room. No curtains on the windows, no decorations on the walls. Barely a walkable path from the door to the crib. A jumble of things I need to deal with: curtains to hang, outgrown clothes to sort and label, our old TV to set up somewhere, a desk chair to clear a space for in our room. Yeah, don't even get me started on our room. I think it used to have a floor.

I'm trying to be realistic. I know it's going to take a fair amount of time to undo sixteen months of neglect. (Actually, more like two years - I wasn't an overly productive pregnant woman, either.) And, let's be honest here, a good part of the problem is quite simply me. I'm a procrastinator and a clutter collector who is much more likely to wile away a few spare hours watching a dumb movie or reading blogs than being productive. I recognize that. But usually, I can at least keep the chaos to a bearable level. It would be nice to regain a tiny bit of control. But then again, I am the mother of a toddler, so maybe I shouldn't dream such ridiculous dreams.

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Mommy Friends

I have a confession to make. I'm having a really hard time making friends with other moms. It's not for lack of trying. I join playgroups, I join online meetup groups, I make walking dates and playdates. But here I am, over a year into motherhood, and I can count the number of other moms that I would call "friends" on one hand. With several fingers left over.

I guess I imagined that becoming a mom would fling me headfirst into the mommy world, and I would miraculously fit in. But it didn't, and I don't. I get together with other moms, and I find my normally ebullient self shutting down, and slipping into outside observer mode.

It's hard to talk to other moms. We have this one, enormous thing in common. Parenthood. And it's a rather enormous field of subjects, so we can occupy ourselves for hours simply on that one topic. But that may be the only thing we have in common. And "mommy-talk" really gets to me after a while. If we talk about the good things, it comes across as bragging. If we talk about the bad things, we open ourselves up to unsolicited advice, or, worse yet, that also comes across as bragging. Sometimes I feel like parenting becomes a competition, one way or the other. Whose child started walking the earliest? Who got the least sleep last night?

And it's almost impossible to talk about parenting choices with other moms. I've made a fair number of "alternative" parenting choices so far, and I'm sure there will be more to come. Babywearing, cosleeping, gentle discipline, cloth diapering, baby-led weaning, extended breastfeeding, selective vaccinations. And I honestly enjoy discussing these types of issues, and the thought processes that go into making these types of decisions. But it's almost impossible to have those kinds of discussions with moms who have stuck to the more "mainstream" choices. I actually talk about breastfeeding more with my single, male friends than I do with other moms. I suppose because other moms are too close to the issue. It's hard to have a stimulating intellectual discussion about something that you are in the middle of living. When you're too close to something, "I chose not to do X because..." sounds an awful lot like "You are a bad person because you do X." It's a bit easier if you manage to find a mom who agrees with you on something. You state your view, with enormous relief, because you can't say it to anyone else, and she responds, with equal relief, because she's been dying to say the same thing. But it's not a conversation that goes anywhere. You vent, you agree, the end.

I go through phases where I just want to give up entirely on making mom friends. I usually enjoy myself more with my pre-mom friends. Talking about the rest of the broad spectrum of non-parenting-related subject matter. Playing games. Hanging out. But as much as I enjoy myself with my non-mom friends, there is this enormous part of my experience that they don't understand first-hand. Becoming a parent redefined me, redefined my world-view, redefined my priorities. Other moms can understand that, and that's an immensely valuable connection to make. Being friends with other moms is important for precisely the same reason that it's hard: motherhood is so close to our hearts.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that I know how mommy relationships should be, and all those other mommies out there are doing it wrong. It's more the opposite, actually. From my "outside observer" stance, it seems like mommy friendships are genuinely working for other people. I feel like a kindergartner who got bumped up to high school math because she knew how to do polynomial equations. I feel like I don't belong here. I just want to go back to my play-dough.

On the bright side, there are one or two other kindergartners that have been bumped up as well, and we can build play-dough pizzas together while solving those polynomials. And it seems like there are a few high school students who, against all odds, like play-dough too. And even though I know I'm taking the analogy too far, it's not all bad. Confusing as all get out, but not all bad.

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Thirteen Months Old

I had pretty much decided that I was going to stop doing monthly letters after Valerie turned one, but I was still somewhat up in the air until the date of her thirteen month birthday came and went without a birthday photo shoot. That sealed the deal. Monthly letters will now be replaced by annual letters. Or maybe semi-annual or quarter-annual, while she is still little and changing so frequently. I haven't decided for sure.

Since this blog is my lazy parent substitute for a baby book, however, I am still going to bore you with milestones and such. Valerie's 13th month was a big one for language development. She is quite the little chatterbox, and every day, her chattering sounds a little more like real words. She knows that the dog says "oof", the cat says "mao", the tiger says "warr", the trucks go "voom", and the elephant says (I can't type it, but it sounds like a trumpeting elephant, I swear). I'm a little disappointed in myself for caving and teaching her the stereotypical animal noises, but she learned dogs and cats on her own, and our board books have lots of pictures of animals to identify, and very few pictures of classic rock bands to identify. (Note to children's book publishers: Make that book. I will buy it.)

She still points at things and asks "wuhs da?" and I am now confident that I was not giving her too much credit last month when I said I thought she was saying that. She's a smarty, and I shouldn't have doubted her. She now says variants on window, outside, trees, dog, more, book, duck, doll, door, and light, in addition to mama, dada, nana, no, yeah, uhoh, hi, and bye. (I may come back and edit this list later, as I remember words I have forgotten.) She also started using the sign for "eat" this month. Oh, and the other day, as we were getting ready to go out, I said "let's go", and she repeated "let's go", clear as a bell. Which is why I have stopped watching R-rated movies with Valerie on my lap. (Although I am still resisting the whole "made for babies" genre of annoying television/movies. We've just been watching more family-friendly movies, with fewer repeatable words that start with "F".)

And no, she is still not walking yet. (Which someone seems to ask me about every single day.) I am quite okay with that, too, since she seems to be more than making up for it by being ahead of the curve linguistically, and she's hard enough to keep up with crawling and climbing and cruising. I still haven't found the time to baby-proof the house, yet. It guess it's like fixing the leak in the roof - You can't fix it while it's raining, but it doesn't leak when you could easily fix it. Something like that, anyhow.

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Educational Toys for the Modern Child

Valerie has a lot of toys. I don't know how it happened. I think I've bought her a grand total of three toys (two of them second-hand). I'm pretty sure they reproduce while we are sleeping.

Some of her/my favorite toys are her Melissa and Doug toys. They tend to be good quality, and they lean more towards the "children should play with toys, toys shouldn't play for children" philosophy that I hold. (Which, I will admit, is partly motivated by my philosophy that toys shouldn't annoy parents to death.)

That said, Valerie has a couple of Melissa and Doug toys that I wonder if they fully thought through...

1. The Corporate America Shape-Sorter



This birdhouse has four doors, in four different shapes, and four different colors. It also has four birds, in four different shapes, and four different colors. The child is meant to match the round, red bird to the round, red door, the triangular, blue bird to the triangular, blue door, etc. But here's the catch: the birdhouse and birds are both plush. So you don't have to match anything, you can just squish the square bird into the round hole, or whichever hole you feel like making all of the birds use, regardless of their individual attributes. A perfect training tool for future CEOs.

2. The Kidnapper Training Peg Puzzle



It's a puzzle where you can remove one finger at a time from a pair of hands, what more can I say? The fingers are conveniently labeled for ease of reminding children, "No, take the pinky from the left hand first, that's the finger they are least likely to miss." Special bonus feature: Remove all but one finger to teach your child practical hand gestures for use while driving!

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This one is just for the Doctor Who fans

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More Birthday Pics

For my picture-happy followers, here are a few more shots from Valerie's birthday party.

In her birthday dress, which she wore until the eating part of the party:


Rubber ducky cake, by Erin:


Close-up:


Trying to show her how to blow the candle out (she didn't quite get it):


Eating her cake - what a pro!


Happy after finishing the first piece (she eventually finished the whole thing):


Handy tip: I generally post more pictures on Flickr than here, so anytime I post pictures, if you'd like to see more, click on a picture, and it will take you to my Flickr page.

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Twelve Months Old!

Dear Valerie,

You are 12 months old, now! One whole year. Wow. Just wow.

This month has been a very exciting one for us. The first, big, exciting thing that happened was that your dad finally found a job, after many, many months of looking. He started his new job the day before our big, family vacation, so you and I had to leave him behind, and go on our vacation without him. We had a fun vacation, even though we missed Daddy a lot, especially when it was bedtime, and I had to put you down without his help, and you were squirmy and fussy and didn't want to sleep.



We went to Vermont for your cousin Nick's second birthday, and we got to see Grandma, and your very pregnant Aunt Alana and not-very pregnant Uncle Eric. You cried for a large percentage of the long car trip there, though, and neither of us was too eager to get into the car again for the next leg of the journey. We managed it eventually, though, and spent a lovely week camping with mommy's friends from college. You had fun with Reggie, who is only a few months younger than you, and you got very, very dirty crawling around the campsite. It rained a lot, and mommy didn't get to play as many games as she usually does on the camping trip, but it was a fun trip nonetheless.



After camping, we spent a few days with Phil and Rachel visiting some friends in Western Massachusetts, and then came home, exhausted, to start getting ready for a visit from Grandma and your first birthday party. (I'm going to include your birthday party in this letter, even though it technically took place a few days into your thirteenth month, because it seems more relevant here.) Your birthday party was a lot of fun. There were about fifty people there, and lots of rubber duckies. My friend Erin made a really neat rubber ducky cake for you, and you absolutely loved it when we gave you a cupcake with a candle on it. You were mesmerized by the candle, and a little bit disappointed when we blew it out, but you got over your disappointment quickly when you realized that it was food.



Between Daddy going back to work, vacation, party preparations, a visit from Grandma, and Mommy switching her work schedule over to evenings so that you can stay with Daddy while she is working, it's been a pretty crazy month as far as routines are concerned. Not that we were ever really great about routines before, but we were starting to do a little better right about when everything went crazy. You're still not entirely sure what to make of it all, and you have become extra clingy and snuggly this month. I don't blame you, though, I'm feeling pretty out-of-control lately, too. Things should settle down soon, though. I hope.



Developmentally, you didn't have a lot of "firsts" this month, but your physical skills have been progressing quickly. You've become very adept at pulling yourself up on things, and you're proving to be quite the climber. You love climbing the stairs, and climbing over any person who is silly enough to lie down beside you. One day, you climbed up on top of the trunk that we use as a coffee table, and I realized that we were going to have to do a whole lot more baby-proofing to keep this house safe for you! You also love walking if someone holds your hands, and cruising around the pool in your floatie boat, where buoyancy removes your remaining barriers to mobility.



I'm stuck on one milestone for your baby book, though. You love to talk, and you babble all the time, and you repeat sounds we make and words we say. So how do I decide what your "first" word was? How do I decide when it wasn't just repetition, when it wasn't just a sound? You say "Dada", and "Mama", and "Nana", and you attribute them to the correct people. (Sorry PopPop and Grandma, your names just aren't easy enough to say, yet.) You love finding out what things are, and you often point at things in order for me to tell you the word for them, which you will then attempt to repeat. Sometimes you point and say "wuh" or "dat", which I think is your way of asking "what is that?", but I may be giving you too much credit. You don't repeat things perfectly, but you come pretty close, and you have even repeated complex phrases like "fuzzy d20s" with reasonable proximity. That's a pretty geeky first word, and awesome on so many levels.



When we were camping, you started to say "oof" when the dogs went by, and a few times, you even said "daw". You have figured out which of your books have pictures of dogs in them, and you will go searching for the dog pictures, then proclaim, "oof!" when you find them. When we were visiting friends with a cat, you learned to say "mao", although you still prefer to call every four legged creature "oof".



You definitely learned the word "no" this month. I told you several times not to put rocks in your mouth, and then one time, you were holding a rock to put in your mouth, and you told yourself "no". You say "no" a lot, mostly when you are about to do something that you know Mama would say "no" to as well. Sometimes, you say "no", then don't do it, which gets you lots of praise from Mama. Sometimes, though, you tell yourself "no" as you are doing the forbidden act, which just leads to more no's. (And I thought testing boundaries was supposed to be a two-year-old thing...) So maybe "no" was your first word, since it was the first one that you learned to use contextually that wasn't onomatopoetic or truncated. But then again, you started using the sign language word for "milk" contextually when you were nine months old, which is not only a much nicer word than "no", but it's in another language! That's much cooler. (Upon further thought, there are a few other words that you use in context. "Hi" and "yeah" come to mind, but I expect there are others, too.)



With your newfound mobility, you have become quite independent this month. You're always crawling away to get into something that I didn't quite manage to put away high enough. You love to pull all of your toys out of their boxes as soon as you are given the chance, but you frequently will go over to your bookshelf first and pull out half a dozen books, and then sit, with them all surrounding you, open to various pages, and babble to yourself contentedly for ages, moving back and forth between the books in some pattern known only to you. You love books, but you prefer to read them to yourself, and will hardly ever sit through an entire reading of a book if I am reading it to you. I guess the problem with Mommy reading books to you is that I read them only one at a time, from front to back. How frightfully dull of me.



You're starting to associate similar items with one another. You know that I talk into my cell phone, and one day, you handed me my cell phone, said something that sounded like "talk", then giggled happily when I pretended to talk on the phone. Later on, you did the same thing with a vaguely cell-phone-shaped block, then amused yourself for ten minutes by handing me more "phones" to talk on. You have also become fascinated with the idea of a comb. One day, you were holding your comb, and I showed you how to use it, and a light went on in your eyes. Since then, you take any comb-shaped object (small blocks, pieces of chicken, etc.) and rub it across your hair. It's adorable. Except maybe when I am cleaning the chicken out of your hair at bath-time.



You are usually a very happy baby (except when you are fighting sleep). It's easy to make you laugh, and when you laugh, it is with absolute abandon, the way only a baby can laugh. You're quite ticklish, like your mom, which is great fun. You love when I shake my hair in your face, and you will ask me to do this by shaking your head at me with a big smile on your face. You also love it when I pop out from behind doorways, and will shriek with terrified joy when I do. You love kisses, but you don't seem to have quite worked out how to give them yet. When you want to give me a kiss, you will open your mouth as wide as you can, then smash your face into mine. Cute, but perhaps not the best technique.



I love watching you grow, and even though I don't always have as much energy for you as I would like, I love to play with you and watch you learn. I love you very much, Valerie, and I know you love me too, even if you show your love with open-mouthed head-butt kisses. Every day, you teach me a little more about joy, love, patience, and gratitude. I'm a better person today than I was a year ago, thanks to you. More sleep-deprived, but better. I'd say that's a fair trade.



Love,
Mama.

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This is not Valerie's birthday letter

Two weeks ago, Jeremy started his new job. Nine months of unemployment was a long haul, but it is finally over, and he seems to have found a great job that he loves. Unfortunately, he started his new job the same day we were meant to leave on vacation, so Valerie and I took our family vacation without daddy. And can I just say that, for as much as I complain that he doesn't help around the house enough, spending ten days without him was HARD. Valerie is a good baby, but she's active, and it's nice to be able to hand the reins to someone else when you're feeling tired, or want to play a game or have some adult conversation. It also reminds me how blessed Valerie is to have had him home with her for most of the first year of her life.

Somewhere in my mental "to blog" pile is a weekend at my sisters', a fun but very rainy camping trip, and a visit with some friends in Western Massachusetts, Valerie's 12-month birthday letter, and lots of pictures that I can't figure out how to upload until Jeremy gets home tonight.

Frankly, however, I'm not feeling much up to blogging all of those good things right now. I'm feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, between trying to unpack and unwind from an exhausting vacation, and trying to get ready for a big birthday bash this weekend. These past few days have been very emotional for me, too, because I've found myself dwelling on the negative aspects of Valerie's birth. When she was a few weeks old, I remember telling people that all the crap fades into the background once you have your baby home and in your arms. But anniversaries are odd creatures, in that they make you focus on a specific point in your memories, rather than the generalities. "One year ago today, I was just finding out that I had obstetric cholestasis and was going to have to be induced." "One year ago right now, I was puking from the cervadil and feeling like I wouldn't make it through the night." "One year ago right now, they were telling me that they were going to keep my baby in the NICU." "One year ago tonight, I was crying myself to sleep, alone in a hospital room with an empty womb, but no child in my arms."

I suppose it's good on some level to remember those moments, to acknowledge the deep emotions that I felt at the time. But I feel bad to be spending energy on negative feelings in the middle of what should be a joyful time of celebration. I suppose that's the way it works, though, the reason why the Christmas season has the highest rate of depression. It doesn't pay to focus on what you "should" be feeling. Right now, I am feeling tired and sad; that's what is, regardless of "should". So it might take me a few extra days to get around to writing Valerie's birthday letter.

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