Parenting, the Musical

Two weeks ago, Audie turned one. We had such a great day, eating junk food and visiting the zoo. It is weird and wonderful to see her growing, and learning, and giving out ALL THE ATTITUDE. I can't believe she's been with us for a year, or that in that year, she has learned to sit up, crawl, stand and walk. I know people always say it, but man....it just goes so, so fast. It seems like last month, not last year, that I was afraid for her to sleep in her own room. Last week, maybe, when she couldn't sit in a high chair and steal every other bite of our dinners. But no, it's been a year, and now she is becoming her own little tiny person with a huge personality, and we are crazy about her. She has always loved music, so in honor of her birthday, I  want to write about some of my favorite songs, and how I see parenthood reflected in them.

First up: Superstitious, by Stevie Wonder
Full disclosure, this is actually what I think of as Audie's favorite song. When she was still in utero, she kicked like crazy when this song came on while we were watching the Grammys. So I started playing Stevie for her on my belly speakers. When we were home on maternity leave, I played a lot of Stevie on Spotify and Audie always listened intently. Even today, she likes to just have music on while she runs amok, and Stevie is always a go-to for us. So when I hear Stevie's music, I feel myself transported to those early days when we slept and ate when we wanted to, and stayed in our pajamas all day because we were on maternity leave and there was no where to be. It's a soundtrack to the time when we were learning about each other in a way we never will again: as strangers completely unsure of what we were doing or what was right and wrong.

Love They Say, by Tegan and Sara
In the final days of my pregnancy, I was hit, as I think many people are, by an intense fear of what exactly it was I had gotten myself into. I knew very little about babies, or birthing them for that matter, and I felt doubtful of my abilities to parent a newborn. I was driving, and this song came on shuffle on my iPhone. The lyrics "you don't have to worry/this love will make us worthy/there's nothing love can't do" came to my ears in a glorious melody. Suddenly I realized...even if I had no idea what I was doing, in the end I would love this baby with everything I've got. And that love would make me worthy of learning to parent her. Now when I hear this song, I feel reassured that, with love and flexibility, I will be the best parent I can be even when I have no idea what I'm doing.

Zigzagging Towards the Light, by Conor Oberst
While we are on the subject of flexibility, let's talk about this song, which inspired the title of this blog. To me, this is a song about thinking on your feet. About knowing that you'll end up somewhere in the light, even if you don't take the straightest path to it. About understanding that the circumstances are always changing. Conor has a way of saying things that speaks to me:"This world is smoke and steam/and compromise/and meter maids/but you will know it/when it's gone/ zigzagging toward the light/I sing out loud a founder's song"

Bowl of Oranges, by Bright Eyes
Another Conor Oberst song, my favorite of all time. It's about being alone, but then finding someone you can count on, and how relationships sustain us. It's a song about how life is chaotic but beautiful in that chaos. I sing it to Audie when she can't sleep at night. "that's why i'm singing baby don't worry/'cause now I've got your back/and every time you feel like crying/I will try and make you laugh/and if I can't/if it just hurts too bad/then we'll wait for it to pass/ and I will keep you company/through those days so long and black"

Boom, Clap, by Charli XKX
This is just flat out a great pop song. Audie and I like to listen to it and dance around and sing at the top of our lungs. It turns out, parenting isn't all serious songs. I think when we brought her home, and she was so tiny, and she had jaundice and it was serious, I thought maybe parenting was all serious songs. But it's great pop songs too, thank Hera.

Double Life, by Conor Oberst
Yes, another Conor Oberst song. I have no idea what he's actually talking about in this song, but I heard it and I thought "that's exactly how I felt about coming into motherhood!" He sings "I don't remember getting here/but I'm glad I came/just don't look down/just cross the bridge/when you get there/you'll know why you did/there's a better life on the other side/it's your double life on the other side" and it hit me hard. When we talked about having a baby, I was so resistant. But we did, and now that I'm here, I know why I agreed. For me, it's wonderful.

I don't remember getting here, but I'm glad I came.

No more pumping!

I gave up pumping almost a month ago. Just stopped. Cold turkey. I didn't step down, or taper, or slowly drop a session every week. I just stopped. And I'm not sure that I've felt better, physically or mentally, since I went back to work from maternity leave than I do now.

I am thankful for pumping. I am thankful that for seven months, my baby got to drink my milk, even when I wasn't with her. I'm thankful I had the privilege and ability to do that for her, and it was my choice to do so.

But pumping was misery for me. I felt bad about myself after almost every pump session, which I was doing three, sometimes four times per day.  I was whipping myself mentally over my perceived failure to make ALL THE MILK (which I've written about at length before).  At the end, I was pumping three times a day for a total of two to three ounces of milk. I want to scream at myself for that insanity.

Everything about pumping was exhausting.

But now I don't pump anymore. The world didn't stop turning. I haven't, in fact, even noticed that many changes. For one, now that I don't pump anymore, I read a lot more slowly. It takes a lot more time for me to finish a book because pump time used to be reading time.

Sometimes, a client brings a baby into the office, and if it's late afternoon, I feel a little uncomfortable. I think "if I had my pump with me, I would pump right now" but I don't and the feeling goes away.

I don't wash pump parts anymore. I don't lug the pump around any more. I don't have to schedule meetings around the pump anymore. I don't take my clothes off at work anymore.

And it is amazing.

In the end, I know that I put the pressure on myself to work and pump. I could have never pumped, and given her formula all along, and that would obviously have been fine. But I was irrationally attached to the idea of being her sole provider for as long as possible. The messages we get from society, the outsized pressure to breastfeed, the inflammatory studies that people share on Facebook...these feed postpartum anxiety, and depression, and feelings of inadequacy for many women, myself included. In truth, the only wrong way to feed a baby is to neglect to do so.

Parenting is hard. It forces you to make decisions every day that have very meaningful implications for the future. You make the best decision you can at the time, with the information you have. I know that we all have opinions about things like breastfeeding and formula because we want other people to make the same choices we made. It lends validity in an arena where it is lacking.

When I shared my fears about nursing and pumping even before my baby was born, I had so many women give me the "don't worry, your body was made for this, your milk will change based on your child's needs, formula is disgusting" speech. When I struggled, those messages were rattling around in my brain and I think amplified my failures. I wish I had heard "it will be what it will be, and you will do your best, and make the best decisions you can, and I support you without judgement."

So, if you're reading this, that is my message to you about parenting. It will be what it will be, and you will do your best, and make the best decisions you can, and I support you without judgement.

I still nurse in the morning, and at night, and on the weekends as she wants. At school she drinks formula by the bottle-full, and she is just as happy, and bright, and growing as she was before. She didn't sprout horns or give up on bottles; she just went on with her life, and I did too.

Pumping was one of the hardest parts of parenting that I have faced so far. I learned a lot about myself, obsession, irrationality and love through pumping. But I'm so glad it's done.

On: Changes

My desk is pretty empty today. It's hard to believe, but these are my last days at my current position. By Monday, I will have a new office, and a new desk, and a window. That window is very important! For the past 4 years, I have worked in a building where only the Very Important People get windows. The world could have been on fire, and I wouldn't have known until 5PM.

I am making this move for my career, of course. I want to be an LPC and that takes clients. My current position wasn't giving me clients. It's quite simple math really.

But it was a very hard decision for us as a family. We are still learning about ourselves as a team of three. And to add another variable, a new unknown job, to the mix seemed very overwhelming. But this opportunity gave us a chance to communicate in ways that have been pretty challenging since the baby came; good communication requires patience and sleep, which tend to run a little short in those early months.

It took me many trips to both the car and the recycling bin to make it seem like I never sat at this desk. That I didn't spend a good chunk of my life at this desk. That I didn't sit here feeling Audie (who was still Krang at the time) kick after my morning coffee. That I didn't spout way too many cuss words and political diatribes from this chair. Despite our best efforts at boundaries, our home lives and our work lives become intertwined.

That intertwining at my current job has been wonderful and helpful. I have worked with amazing women who love their jobs and their families, and I have learned so much from them. I have appreciated their humor, kindness, gracious spirits, quick wits and intelligence. I know we will be friends moving forward for many reasons, namely because they are bad-ass, but also because we were coworkers who weren't afraid to let our home lives into our work lives.

Audie is almost one. I want her to know me as a working person, a person with a career I feel passionately about. I want her to know that life gives us places to do great work and places that can put fire in our bellies. I'm excited for her to begin to find consciousness around how I share myself with the world with my work. I'm glad I can keep making career decisions that I think she can be proud of later. And I want her to know that change happens and to approach it with flexibility and an open mind.

It's never going to be ok

PLEASE NOTE: Trigger Warning: This post contains information that may be upsetting to readers.

I've written before about how I'm part of a wonderful group of women on Facebook (of all places). There are about 200 of us there, and we are all different; we have varying worldviews, geography, lifestyles. The thing that binds us, our common thread, is motherhood. One of the women phrased it as "the sisterhood of motherhood." We have bonded over our shared appreciation for tights, our distaste of unsolicited advice, our hilariously and pitifully bad postpartum sex lives. A couple of weeks ago, we had a disagreement. In a rare occurrence for a group that lives on the interweb, the disagreement was civil and thoughtful. It brought us closer. We refer back to it as The Big Discussion and talk about how it made us better friends and supporters of one another.

What I'm saying is that this is no ordinary online community. This is a community of women that, though I don't know them in person, I know them as people, and as friends.

We have had women announce pregnancies there. Women share funny stories. We ask for and give advice. We ask for and give love and support. Some of the women have shared stories of loss, of parents or nephews. It is feminism, the sisterhood, at its' best.

And this week, one of our babies died.

And our mom community is reeling with shock and sadness for this mama who lost her sweet baby.

What do you say to a mother who's 10.5 month old daughter dies suddenly? And how do you say it on Facebook? If words feel insufficient in person, they are even more stark in black and white on a screen.

And yet. At first, that's all we had to give. So we gave what we could, in our own words. Iterations of "I'm sorry" and "I'm shocked" and "Oh my God, no." We gave love because, as Cheryl Strayed says, "Compassion isn't about solving problems. It's about loving another person with all you've got." And we've got a lot of love in this group.

Then many of the moms rallied, and organized, and did what women are often so good at: they put our community into action to care for this mother, this e-sister of ours. Flowers were sent, care packages arranged, donations gathered.

And yet. This sweet baby is still gone, and her sweet mama will face the rest of her life without her.

When an elder person dies, it's sad of course, but on some level is understandable. There is a person who had a chance at a full life; a person who lived and loved and learned. But a little baby, barely starting life? How is this understandable?

It will never be okay. It will never be okay that this baby died.

This baby's name was Eva. She was sweet and loving and had joy in living. She also had CHARGE syndrome. Her story can be found here.

You can learn more about CHARGE syndrome and donate to research efforts here.

On: Anxiety

I irrationally believe there to be a man secretly living in the upstairs part of our home. I imagine him living in the attic, coming out while we are not home, rummaging through our belongings and maybe even using my toothbrush. As I walk up the stairs, I am overcome with a dreadful feeling that I will surprise him up there, find him scurrying for his hiding space. We will lock eyes, and I will feel simultaneously vindicated and terrified to find him there. Why are you here? I will ask him. How did you get in? Why do you keep running the dishwasher when it is full of already clean dishes?

I have searched every inch of the upstairs. I have looked in the attic and seen no evidence that a man is residing there. I keep the shower curtain open all the time, so I can see that there's no one there behind it. My no-nonsense dog would never let a man live upstairs undetected. But still every time I venture up, I imagine him. He wears a plaid shirt, and jeans. He looks like the man from the Brawny paper towel wrapper, but shorter and broader in stature. He reads our books and plays Matt's board games. He warily goes back into hiding each time he thinks we may be approaching. Sometimes I imagine him moving with the constraints of a corporeal body; other times he moves like a ghost, unhindered by physics, simply gliding room to room.

I do not imagine him to be malevolent. I'm not afraid of him, per say; I am afraid of finding him. I am afraid that to see him would mean I would have to confront the things I do not know, the things I have no control over. The attic man is the embodiment of the unknown for me, a specter of uncertainty.

As a new mom, I have lots of anxiety. I worry about today, tomorrow, and yesterday. I worry about money. I worry about my relationships. I worry about being a good wife and partner to my husband. I worry about being a good mom and role model for my daughter. I worry about her safety and her health. I worry about Matt's safety and health. I worry about being late to work, about what we will have for dinner, about the stacks of clean laundry that never get put away. Instead of thinking about these things individually, I have combined them into one thing to worry about: the attic man.

I have talked with several people about my attic man. To say these things out loud, or even to write them now, does not diminish his presence in my life. I do not feel any more or less crazy whether I keep him to myself or let others know about him. For me, he is there and I am not sure how long he will stay. I accept him and fear him in equal measure.

As a former/recovering pregnant lady, I have struggled with how unprepared I felt for so many aspects of parenting and how I can support other pregnant/recovering pregnant ladies. Postpartum anxiety has been one of those areas for me. I knew, of course, about postpartum depression. But I had not been warned of or ever even heard about postpartum anxiety. I don't know that it's even an official thing, so to speak. But the more I have read and discussed it online, I have found many, many mothers who have experienced some level of this uncontrolled anxiety in the weeks and months after a new baby is born. Other mothers whose minds created some weird stuff.

How do you explain this to a pregnant lady? That possibly your hormones will be so insane, your sleep schedule so whack, that you could have anxiety about a secret man living in your home? That you could create a complex and nuanced life for this attic man? That you can imagine in great detail what he does all day while you are out working and living your life?

New mom anxiety can be very real and very weird. Maybe it's enough to say that.